Technical Assistance Center

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) established the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) discretionary grant program with $5 billion in appropriated funds over five years. The SS4A program funds regional, local, and Tribal initiatives through grants to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries. The SS4A program supports the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Roadway Safety Strategy and our goal of zero roadway deaths using a Safe System Approach. For more information about SS4A, visit the USDOT website.

Combining the FY22 and FY23 awards, SS4A has provided $1.7 billion in Federal funding to improve safety in over 1,000 communities in all 50 States and Puerto Rico. SS4A funding awarded to date will improve roadway safety planning for about 70 percent of the nation’s population.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has the responsibility for administering all SS4A grants.

Grant recipients are subject to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other environmental laws. Project sponsors must conduct the applicable environmental studies to identify the project impacts along with any required mitigation. NEPA and environmental resource subject-matter experts should develop materials that identify and evaluate impacts to human and natural resources including the following: Low income/minority communities, Historic properties, Park and recreation lands, Wildlife and waterfowl refuges, Wetlands, and Threatened and endangered species and their habitats. Project sponsors should also assess the need to obtain new rights-of-way and evaluate those impacts. If the project sponsor lacks staff with the specific skills, knowledge, and experience to conduct environmental studies, they are obliged to engage staff expertise at their State Departments of Transportation or fund consultants/contractors. Hiring consultants/contractors to directly support the execution of the grant award and its activities is considered an eligible cost under the grant. For demonstration activities that involve feasibility studies using quick-build strategies, the Department expects most quick-build activities to receive a Categorical Exclusion designation. FHWA’s Overview of NEPA as Applied to Transportation Projects - Environment - Federal-aid Essentials for Local Public Agencies provides training materials and resources that will help applicants better understand the requirements of NEPA and other federal laws and requirements for projects administered by FHWA.

Infrastructure projects and demonstration activities are subject to the Build America, Buy America Act (Pub. L. No 117–58, div. G §§ 70901–70927) as clarified in OMB Memorandum M-22-11.31. Additional information on construction materials requirements can be found at the FHWA Construction Program Guide webpage. The Department does not expect to provide waivers related to domestic preference requirements for demonstration activities focused on piloting technologies.

Welcome! Use the Grant Recipient Roadmap to find key information and resources for each grant step. This Roadmap provides a high-level overview of the four SS4A program steps: Onboarding, grant agreement execution, grant administration and reporting, and project closeout. Specifically, the overview includes the timing, activities, requirements, and outcomes of each step.

You are assigned a FHWA point of contact (POC) throughout the SS4A grant program and can reach out to them at any time. If you don’t know who your POC is, please send an email with your recipient entity name and/or grant title to the SS4A team at SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov. In addition, the SS4A Technical Assistance Center (TAC) offers one-on-one coaching on grants administration or roadway safety topics. If you are interested in being added to the Community of Practice (CoP) mailing list, please contact SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov. Finally, if you don’t know where to start, you can always reach out to SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov, and the SS4A team will help connect you with the right resources.

You can visit the USDOT website for additional information related to pre-award activities, including information about applying for a grant.

You can visit the USDOT website for additional information related to pre-award activities, including information about eligibility.

A local match of no less than 20 percent of the total project cost is required for all SS4A grant funds. Local match may include both cash as well as in-kind contributions. Details on cost-sharing and match can be found in 2 CFR § 200.306. Further guidance, illustrative examples, and guidance about how to calculate match can be found in the SS4A Match and Cost Share Examples Fact Sheet.

Being “in progress” means that your jurisdiction has already started the process of completing the various Action Plan components found in Table 1 of the FY24 NOFO linked below (e.g., gathering and analyzing safety data, performing public outreach, etc.). Action Plan Grant award recipients who intend to establish grant agreements would have plans that qualify as “being in progress,” as well as communities that are developing Action Plans that meet the SS4A components but are being created without SS4A funding. Given that eligible demonstration activities and supplemental planning efforts must ultimately inform an Action Plan, we will consider funding requests for demonstration or supplemental planning activities only from applicants who already have an existing plan or are working to develop a safety Action Plan.

No. Implementation Grant applications can include a funding request to complete necessary analyses for NEPA and other environmental laws, including the National Historic Preservation Act, NHPA, as part of an Implementation Grant under eligible activity (B) project and strategy-specific planning, design, and development activities. The NEPA and NHPA processes must be complete prior to funds being released for construction.

Please send an email with your recipient entity name and/or grant title to the SS4A team at SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov, and the FHWA SS4A team will connect you with the appropriate FHWA POC.

Recipients should reach out to their designated FHWA POC and let them know of any changes.

The FHWA point of contact (POC) assigned to each grant will contact the identified SS4A grant recipient POC to schedule a kickoff meeting.

You will receive more information about this from your FHWA point of contact (POC) during a grant recipient kickoff meeting. Additionally, FHWA hosts an introductory webinar after new recipients are announced. During this webinar, they go over the grant agreement template. You can find the recordings of past webinars on the SS4A Clearinghouse website.

Please contact the FHWA point of contact (POC) assigned to your grant to obtain a copy of the grant agreement template. You can also visit the USDOT website for the grant agreement terms and conditions.

Yes, each grant recipient will develop the grant agreement using the approved grant agreement template, which may be obtained from the FHWA point of contact (POC) assigned to the grant. The POC can help answer any questions you may have.

The timeline depends on the specific circumstances of each grant. Individual timelines may vary but grant recipients should target to execute their grant agreements within the first 12 months of award notification. Typically, Planning grant agreements will take less time than Demonstration project or Implementation grant agreements.

The expected period of performance for Planning and Demonstration Grant agreements is between 12 months and five years, depending on the scope and extent of grant activities. The period of performance for Implementation Grant agreements may not exceed 5 years.

You will work with your assigned FHWA point of contact (POC) to execute your grant agreement. Your POC will provide initial guidance during a kickoff meeting, share the grant agreement template, and answer any questions you may have. You should also review the grant agreement general terms and conditions posted on the USDOT website.

SS4A grant agreements are directly between the applicant and USDOT. SS4A grant agreements are not with State DOTs, and eligible applicants cannot serve as a pass through for a State DOT to take full responsibility over the grant agreement. However, an applicant may choose to work with a State DOT and provide SS4A grant funding to State DOTs to assist in the execution of the grant activities separately from the grant agreement. But the SS4A recipient retains responsibility for ensuring completion of the grant activities and for compliance with the terms of the grant award and Federal requirements.

Yes. A recipient may establish an arrangement with a State DOT or another State or local governmental entity to administer an SS4A grant so long as that arrangement complies with State and local law. Under 2 CFR § 200.331, the recipient must determine whether such arrangement is contractual, such as an interagency agreement, or a subgrant. As provided at 2 CFR § 200.300(b), the recipient is responsible for compliance with all Federal requirements applicable to the award. States will not have direct funding relationships with USDOT.

Yes. Under 2 CFR § 200, Subpart E, these costs may be reimbursed either as indirect costs if such costs are included in the recipient’s approved indirect cost rate, or as a direct cost if the cost is incurred specifically for the award and not otherwise accounted for the approved indirect cost rate. If a recipient intends to enter into such an arrangement and seek reimbursement of direct costs through the grant, those estimated costs should be included in the grant application. During administration, the recipient is responsible for ensuring direct costs incurred are eligible and allocable to the grant administration. States will not have direct funding relationships with USDOT.

The five-year clock starts on the date the grant agreement is fully executed, which means it has been signed by both the grant recipient and the FHWA Agreement Officer.

USDOT expects to obligate SS4A funding via a signed grant agreement between the Department and the recipient within 12 months after awards have been announced. Individual recipient timelines may vary depending on the complexity of project, status of project readiness, and other factors. Funding is expected to be provided on a reimbursement basis once a grant agreement is established, with corresponding invoices.

The goal of an Action Plan is to develop a holistic, well-defined strategy to prevent roadway fatalities and serious injuries in a locality, Tribal area, or region. A successful Action Plan includes the following eight key components, which are described in more detail in the Action Plan Components PDF. Aside from the key components, impactful Action Plans are developed in coordination with broad coalitions – such as political leaders, your State Department of Transportation, law enforcement, and the public – to facilitate early buy-in and Action Plan sustainability.

Action Plans can contain a variety of strategies to help with this. A good start is to look at your data as it relates to distracted driving-related crashes. Review your community’s crash data to see when, where, and how these crashes are happening.

There’s a resource on roundabouts and emergency services available on the USDOT website. Our general advice to agencies pursuing their first roundabout is to go above and beyond the norm for coordinating with Fire and Emergency Medical Services, including them in the preliminary planning and design, all the way through construction and opening. It sometimes helps to hold a “test drive” where the basic geometry is laid out using cones and sandbags in a parking lot or field, having the Department drive through and observe the results, and then use that information to tweak the design. There are also design details that can make a huge difference, such as truck aprons and sloped curbing.

Infrastructure safety projects that receive Federal funds must abide by any applicable Federal design standard requirements, including but not limited to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as well as any applicable guidance. A funding recipient may also be required to follow any applicable State design standards, which will depend on whether the activities are occurring on a State-owned road and the extent to which State design standards apply to roadways owned by non-State entities such as in the instance of county-owned roads or local roads maintained and owned by a city. Applicants should indicate in their application if they will be seeking permission to use roadway design standards that are different from those generally applied by the State in which the project is located.

Grant recipients can get involved by joining quarterly CoP and peer exchange meetings, and access multiple resources available on the SS4A website. If there is a topic you are interested in discussing in a future meeting or if you’d like to share a success story or best practice, email us at SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov and we will follow up.

If you are working on a SS4A grant in any way and are interested in contributing to a goal of reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries, then we want you to be a part of the SS4A CoP! Please join us. Let’s all work together to share our challenges and solutions.

We are excited to hear that you’re interested in engaging with other grant recipients. To the extent possible, we encourage CoP members to collaborate with one another. In the coming months, we’re going to ask CoP participants about their preferences on sharing contact information. Please stay tuned for more information.

The SS4A team will continue to provide CoP updates on this website. The SS4A team also emails CoP event information to all SS4A grant recipients and interested stakeholders. If you are interested in being added to the CoP mailing list, please contact SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov.

Yes, the SS4A TAC is part of the broader grant program and provides information and educational resources, including one-on-one coaching, for SS4A grant recipients. Contact SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov to request one-on-one coaching from the SS4A TAC.

As we continue to build the SS4A TAC and create new resources, FHWA will rely on you for input and recommendations. If there is a topic you are interested in or you would like to provide feedback, please email us at SS4A.FHWA@dot.gov.

The SS4A Technical Assistance Center offers resources and one-on-one coaching.