Total of $1 billion in federal funding made available for local communities to ensure safe streets and roads for all

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has opened the application process for communities of all sizes to apply for $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2022 funding to help them ensure safe streets and roads for all and address the national roadway safety crisis.  

“We face a national crisis of fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways, and these tragedies are preventable – so as a nation, we must work urgently and collaboratively to save lives,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The funds we are making available today from President [Joe] Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help communities large and small take action to protect all Americans on our roads.” 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s new Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) discretionary grant program provides dedicated funding to support regional, local and Tribal plans, projects and strategies that will prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries. The SS4A program supports the department’s comprehensive approach, laid out in the National Roadway Safety Strategy, to significantly reduce serious injuries and deaths on our Nation’s highways, roads and streets and is part of the work toward an ambitious long-term goal of reaching zero roadway fatalities. This comes at a time when traffic fatalities are at the highest level they have been at in over a decade, according to USDOT. 

“The rise in deaths and serious injuries on our public roads affects people of every age, race and income level, in rural communities and big cities alike,” said Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack. “This program will provide leaders in communities across the country with the resources they need to make roads safer for everyone.” 

The primary goal of the SS4A grant is to improve roadway safety by supporting communities in developing comprehensive safety action plans based on a Safe System Approach, and implementing projects and strategies that significantly reduce or eliminate transportation-related fatalities and serious injuries involving pedestrians, bicyclists, public transportation, personal conveyance and micromobility users, commercial vehicle operators, and motorists.  

Funding can also be used to support robust stakeholder engagement to ensure that all community members have a voice in developing plans, projects and strategies. 

The funding supports USDOT’s National Roadway Safety Strategy and collaborative efforts to advance the Safe System Approach and address safety by implementing redundant measures that lead to multiple types and layers of protection.   

The SS4A Grant Program was created by Congress under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which directed the department to support local initiatives to prevent death and serious injury on roads and streets. The law also directed the department, when selecting projects under the program, to consider other factors in addition to safety, including equitable investment in the safety needs of underserved communities. The program also supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals of promoting equity and fighting climate change.  

Applications may come from individual communities or groups of communities and may include Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), counties, cities, towns other special districts that are subdivisions of a state, certain transit agencies, federally recognized Tribal governments and multi-jurisdictional groups. 

The department has made the application process to receive funding to develop a comprehensive safety action plan as easy as possible to reduce administrative burden and encourage broad participation in this new funding program, especially for smaller communities, Tribal governments and new federal funding recipients. 

The department will convene a series of stakeholder webinars in June to help potential applicants learn about the SS4A Grant Program and what they need to know to prepare an application.