On March 30, the U.S. Department of Transportation posted a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) competitive grant program. Funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), $1.18 billion is available now for eligible entities – restricted to only local governments, metropolitan planning organizations and Tribes – to develop safety action plans or to implement existing approved plans at an 80 percent federal match. Counties are directly eligible to apply for this program through USDOT until 5:00 PM ET on July 10, 2023.

In FY 2023, USDOT added an additional $177.2 million in FY 2022 carryover funds to the SS4A program, which is authorized at $1 billion annually through FY 2026 by the BIL. SS4A grants are intended to support the “planning, infrastructure, behavioral, and operational initiatives to prevent death and serious injury on roads and streets involving all roadway users, including pedestrians; bicyclists; public transportation, personal conveyance, and micromobility users; motorists; and commercial vehicle operators.”

For the purposes of the NOFO, rural communities are defined as “jurisdictions outside an Urban Area (UA) or located within Urban Areas with populations fewer than 200,000 will be considered rural.” In FY 2023, rural communities and other underserved areas are increasingly prioritized for SS4A funding.

The FY 2023 NOFO has several changes reflecting lessons learned from the program’s inaugural year, including:

• Applying through using Valid Eval rather than grants.gov
• Newly defining “underserved community” as “any Tribal land; any territory or possession of the United States; or U.S. Census tracts” identified using one of the following:
  • Interim USDOT Equitable Transportation Community Explorer (ETCE)
  • Any subsequent iterations of the ETCE released during the NOFO period; or
  • Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool to identify disadvantaged communities
• Replacing “Action Plan” grants with “Planning and Demonstration” grants and making several changes, including:  
  • Decreasing award minimum from $200,000 to $100,000 and increasing award maximum from $5 million to $10 million
  • Allowing applicants developing an action plan to request additional funding for planning and demonstration activities (USDOT anticipates awarding at least $250 million)
  • Under certain circumstances, extending periods of performance
• Amending the criteria for Implementation Grants, including by:
  • Decreasing award minimum from $3 million (rural / Tribal) to $2.5 million and award maximum from $50 million to $25 million
  • Allowing projects addressing different safety concerns to be bundled

The SS4A program makes considerably more awards than other USDOT programs, and counties across the country successfully competed for SS4A awards in FY 2022, including 103 Action Plan grants and 8 Implementation Grants. In total, SS4A awarded $127 million in county-led, SS4A-funded transportation safety projects in FY 2022. USDOT attributed county success in the first round of funding to several factors, including aligning closely with the goals of the program and providing benefits for all users of the roads, including pedestrians and cyclists.

Safety is paramount for county officials, who are responsible for safeguarding our residents and other users of the vast amount of county-owned infrastructure. As owners and operators of 44 percent of public roads and 38 percent of bridges, counties applaud our federal partners for increasing federal resources for transportation safety and targeting these investments to the local level where counties are working to create a safer national transportation system.