The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that the application process is now open for communities to apply for $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2022 funding to help them ensure safe streets and roads for all. 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 goals of significantly reducing serious injuries and deaths on highways, roads and streets.
This comes at a time when traffic fatalities are at the highest level they have been at in over a decade.
"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 Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help communities large and small take action to protect all Americans on our roads."
"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 goal of the SS4A grants is to improve roadway safety by supporting communities in developing comprehensive safety action plans. The grants also seek to implement projects that significantly reduce or eliminate transportation-related fatalities and serious injuries involving pedestrians, bicyclists, public transportation, personal conveyance, commercial vehicle operators and motorists.
The funding supports DOT’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.
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 application process to receive funding has been made 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 Safe Streets for All Notice of Funding Opportunity can be found at https://www.transportation.gov/SS4A. Applications are due on or before Sept. 15, 2022.
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Source: USDOT Federal Highway Administration
