The Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program is a competitive funding opportunity that local governments can use for planning, demonstration or implementation projects aimed at improving roadway safety and reducing traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released the most recent round of funding on March 28, 2025.
As with previous cycles, the grant program for the 2025 fiscal year only allows local governments to apply to either the planning and demonstration grant program or the implementation grant program. The grant Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) indicates that DOT plans to give out approximately 10 times as many planning and demonstration grants as implementation grants. Municipalities can use the grants to fund a wide range of projects. The table below shows some of the ways planning, demonstration and implementation grants can be used.
Eligible Planning and Demonstration Grant Activities
- Develop a comprehensive safety action plan
- Develop a new action plan
- Enhance an existing local road safety plan or other planning document to include all the plan components required by SS4A
- Conduct supplemental safety planning in support of a safety action plan
- Action plan updates
- Action plan consolidation
- Complementary safety plan development
- Road safety audits
- Follow-up data collection and safety analysis
- Progress reporting
- Stakeholder engagement and collaboration
- Roadway safety planning
- Carry out demonstration activities in support of a safety action plan
- Feasibility studies using quick-build strategies like barrels, temporary speed bumps and plastic delineator posts
- Engineering studies based on strategies in the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, for example improved signage and high visibility crosswalks
- Pilot programs for behavioral or operational activities like piloting an education campaign or a Safe Routes to School program
- Pilot programs for new technology, such as adaptive signal timing – signals that give emergency vehicles right of way and wrong-way driving alerts
Take a look at the DOT planning and demonstration grant activities webpage for more information.
Eligible Implementation Grant Activities
Note that only municipalities that already have an eligible safety action plan can apply for an implementation grant.
- Applicants must implement projects and strategies in their safety action plan, such as:
- Roadway safety treatments, for example rumble strips, improved signage or turn lanes
- Risk reduction and pedestrian safety improvements, including high-visibility pavement markings at pedestrian crossings, improved lighting, and leading pedestrian signals and other walk signal improvements
- Traffic calming and speed management solutions like reduced speed limits, road design changes and enforcement activities
- Creating safe routes to school and public transit services
- Applicant may also:
- Conduct demonstration or supplemental planning activities to inform an existing action plan (see planning and demonstration list above)
- Use funds for planning, design and development activities for projects and strategies identified in an action plan
Take a look at the DOT implementation grant activities webpage for more information.
Though many aspects of the grant remain the same as previous years, the fiscal year 2025 grant contains some shifts in policy that cities should be aware of as they prepare their applications, which are highlighted below.
1. Strategies that do not reduce lane capacity for vehicles are preferred.
If an application proposes “infrastructure reducing lane capacity for vehicles or reducing access for emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles and vehicles serving the disabled,” that the application will be viewed less favorably. Municipalities can expect more information on what kind of activities are preferred. DOT has noted on its SS4A demonstration and implementation activity websites that they will be providing guidance and additional resources for prospective applicants.
2. Equity language and requirements have changed.
Prior iterations of the grant program required that equity be included in comprehensive safety action plans and incorporated into the grant selection criteria. Both of these sections have been removed in the current grant program. Additionally, the current NOFO contains a revised definition of underserved communities, which is merged with the definition of areas of persistent poverty. To be considered an area of persistent poverty, a community must meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Be a county that has consistently had greater than or equal to 20 percent of the population living in poverty during the 30-year period preceding November 15, 2021, as measured by the 1990 and 2000 decennial census and the most recent annual Small Area Income Poverty Estimates as estimated by the Bureau of the Census.
- Be a census tract with a poverty rate of at least 20 percent as measured by the 2014 – 2018 five-year data series available from the American Community Survey of the Bureau of the Census.
- Be a territory or possession of the United States.
This revision is consistent with definition changes made to the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant program earlier in 2025, and thus is likely to be consistently applied to upcoming grant programs.
3. Award considerations were adjusted to reflect administration priorities.
In the award considerations section of the 2025 grant program, DOT indicated that it intended to use the principles outlined in the agency’s Ensuring Reliance Upon Sound Economic Analysis in DOT’s Policies, Programs and Activities order in its review and award selection process. Some of the key priorities included in the order were:
- Minimizing adverse impacts and maximizing benefits to families and communities.
- Giving preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.
- Prioritizing projects that direct funding to local Opportunity Zones.
- Requiring cooperation with federal immigration enforcement as a contingency to federal funding.
- Eliminating any references to climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, racial equity, gender identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, environmental justice, or the Justice 40 Initiative.
4. Additional specifics were added to risk review to prevent fraud, waste and abuse.
The code of federal regulations requires that prior to entering into a grant agreement, awardees are subject to a risk assessment. The SS4A grant program expands on this requirement by specifying that DOT will consider:
- Financial stability: The applicant’s record of effectively managing financial risks, assets and resources.
- Management systems and standards: The quality of the applicant’s management systems and their ability to meet the management standards as prescribed.
- History of performance: The applicant’s record of managing previous and current federal awards, including compliance with reporting requirements and conformance to the terms and conditions of federal awards.
- Audit reports and findings: Reports and findings from audits.
- Ability to effectively implement requirements: The applicant’s ability to effectively implement statutory, regulatory or other requirements imposed on recipients of federal awards.
5. A new section was added to reporting requirements that requires grantees to report on legal proceedings that are:
- In connection with the award or performance of a grant, cooperative agreement, or procurement contract from the federal government.
- Reached final disposition during the most recent five-year period.
- Fall into one of the following categories:
- A criminal proceeding that resulted in a conviction.
- A civil proceeding that resulted in a finding of fault and liability and payment of a monetary fine, penalty, reimbursement, restitution, or damages of $5,000 or more.
- An administrative proceeding that resulted in a finding of fault and liability and your payment of either a monetary fine or penalty of $5,000 or more, or reimbursement, restitution or damages in excess of $100,000.
- Any other criminal, civil or administrative proceeding if:
- It could have led to an outcome described above
- It had a different disposition arrived at by consent or compromise with an acknowledgment of fault on your part
- The requirement in this award term to disclose information about the proceeding does not conflict with applicable laws and regulations
Additional helpful links:
- Safe Streets for All FY25 NOFO
- Safe Streets for All application guidance website, which includes a worksheet for calculating average annual traffic fatalities and crash data.
- Self-certification worksheet to determine Safe Streets for All eligibility.
- Safe Streets for All budget template.