The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has awarded an historic $800 million in grant awards for 510 projects through the new Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant Program, a record amount of funding to improve roads and address traffic fatalities. The competitive grant program, established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides $5 billion over five years for regional, local and tribal initiatives — from redesigned roads to better sidewalks and crosswalks — to prevent deaths and serious injuries on the nation’s roadways. USDOT also launched a data visualization tool that shows crash hotspots that can help target needed resources.
The SS4A awards fund improved safety planning for more than half the nation’s population and will fundamentally change how roadway safety is addressed in communities through local and regional efforts that are comprehensive and data-driven. This investment comes at an important junction as traffic fatalities reached a 16-year high in 2021 and preliminary data indicates will remain near those levels in 2022 while getting worse for people walking, biking or rolling, as well as incidents involving trucks.
“Every year, crashes cost tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to our economy. We face a national emergency on our roadways, and it demands urgent action,” said USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “We are proud that these grants will directly support hundreds of communities, as they prepare steps that are proven to make roadways safer and save lives.”
The SS4A grants support the USDOT’s vision of zero roadway deaths and its National Roadway Safety Strategy: A comprehensive approach launched in January 2022 to make the nation’s roadways safer for everyone, including drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and emergency and construction workers by stressing responsible driving, safer roadway designs, appropriate speed-limit setting and improved post-crash care, among other strategies.
As part of SS4A, the department is awarding grants for both planning and implementation projects. Action plan grants assist communities that do not currently have a roadway safety plan in place to reduce roadway fatalities, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive set of actions. Implementation grants provide funding for communities to implement strategies and projects that will reduce or eliminate transportation-related fatalities and serious injuries.
USDOT is awarding 473 action plan grants and 37 grants for implementation projects in this first round of the program.
A snapshot of the types of communities being funded through these awards
- $12.9 million for Modoc County and Fort Bidwell Tribal Reservation, Calif., to improve safety along two corridors in rural, disadvantaged communities and tribal areas by implementing community requests for bicycle lanes, pedestrian crosswalks, speed control and mobility-assisted support infrastructure.
- $19.7 million for Hillsborough County, Fla., to implement low-cost and proven safety measures, including sidewalks, bicycle lanes and speed management to improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and drivers at approximately 22 locations in the county.
- $24.8 million for the city of Detroit, Mich., to redesign existing transportation infrastructure in high crash areas and places with inadequate pedestrian infrastructure to focus on pedestrian and bicycle safety and safer speeds for vehicle traffic.
- $4.4 million for the city of Charlotte, N.C., to help implement the city’s Vision Zero strategies to reduce risky roadway behavior through infrastructure improvements, with a focus on safer intersections and pedestrian-involved crashes.
The full list of awards is available here. The next funding opportunity of $1.1 billion is expected to be released in April 2023.
