$993 Million and a May 26 Deadline: The Final Round of Safe Streets for All Is Open

Forty-two thousand people died on American roads in 2024. That number has barely moved in three years despite a $5 billion federal program created specifically to bring it down. Now the last round of that program — Safe Streets and Roads for All — is accepting applications, and it closes May 26, 2026.

USDOT is making $993.5 million available in this final cycle: $687.8 million for implementation grants and $305.7 million for planning and demonstration grants. Over four previous rounds, SS4A has distributed $3.9 billion to more than 2,000 communities across all fifty states. This fifth round is the last under current authorization. Unless Congress passes the Safe Streets for All Reauthorization and Improvement Act — currently stalled in the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit — the program expires September 30, 2026.

For every city, county, metropolitan planning organization, and tribal government that has been developing a safety action plan, the calculus is simple: apply now or lose access to the only federal program dedicated exclusively to roadway safety.

What $993 Million Buys and Who Can Apply

SS4A funds two categories of work, and the distinction matters for applicants deciding which track to pursue.

Planning and Demonstration Grants range from $100,000 to $5 million. They fund the development of comprehensive safety action plans, supplemental safety planning activities, and demonstration projects that test safety interventions before permanent installation. USDOT expects to make 400 to 700 planning awards — the broadest distribution in the program.

Planning grants are the entry point. A community that has never received SS4A funding can apply for a planning grant to develop the data-driven action plan that qualifies it for future implementation funding. Communities that received planning grants in earlier rounds can apply for supplemental planning to update or expand their action plans, or for demonstration grants to pilot interventions like temporary traffic calming installations, pedestrian refuge islands, or speed management technologies.

Implementation Grants range from $5 million to $25 million. They fund construction: protected bike lanes, intersection redesigns, pedestrian safety infrastructure, speed management systems, and transit access improvements. Only applicants with an existing, qualifying safety action plan are eligible for implementation funding. In FY2025, USDOT made 67 implementation awards averaging roughly $10 million each.

Eligible applicants include metropolitan planning organizations, cities, counties, towns, special districts, certain transit agencies, tribal governments, and other political subdivisions. States are not eligible as lead applicants, though state DOTs can participate as partners. A 20 percent non-federal cost share is required, and both cash and in-kind contributions count.

Application length is mercifully brief: two pages for requests under $1 million, three pages for larger requests. Applications are submitted through the Valid Eval platform, not Grants.gov.

How This Round Differs From Previous Years

Four rounds of SS4A have revealed patterns in what USDOT funds — and the FY2026 round introduces notable shifts in evaluation priorities.

Rural communities get explicit preference. In FY2025, 50 percent of awards went to rural communities. USDOT has signaled this emphasis will continue, reflecting administration priorities around rural infrastructure and the political geography of transportation safety — rural roads account for a disproportionate share of traffic fatalities relative to vehicle miles traveled.

Public safety partnerships matter more. Letters of support from law enforcement agencies, fire departments, EMS providers, and first responder unions now carry significant weight in application scoring. This reflects a broader pivot in the program's framing — from "complete streets" design philosophy toward "public safety infrastructure" that emphasizes enforcement, emergency response, and coordination between transportation and public safety agencies.

School zone and child safety projects are advantaged. The FY2026 NOFO specifically highlights child-friendly design elements, school zone safety improvements, and beautification components. Applicants should frame safety interventions around the communities' most sympathetic users — children walking to school, elderly pedestrians, disabled travelers — rather than leading with modal shift or vehicle restriction language.

Vehicle capacity reduction is a risk factor. Projects perceived as reducing vehicle throughput or impeding traffic flow face greater scrutiny. This does not mean road diets are ineligible — it means applicants must frame capacity changes in terms of safety outcomes and system efficiency rather than mode prioritization. A road reconfiguration that reduces crashes by 40 percent and maintains average travel times is fundable. A lane removal justified primarily by cycling mode share targets is not.

These shifts reflect the political context in which SS4A now operates. The program was created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law with broad support. But its implementation under the current administration has reoriented priorities toward enforcement, emergency response, and infrastructure durability rather than the active transportation and Vision Zero frameworks that shaped earlier rounds.

The Reauthorization Question

Congress authorized SS4A for five years, FY2022 through FY2026, with $1 billion per year. This round distributes the final year's allocation. Without reauthorization, the program ends.

Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced the Safe Streets for All Reauthorization and Improvement Act in September 2025. The bill would authorize $5 billion for FY2027 through FY2031, reduce the planning grant minimum set-aside from 30 to 20 percent, and shift more funding toward implementation. It currently sits in the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit with no scheduled markup.

The more likely path for SS4A's future is inclusion in the next surface transportation reauthorization — the successor to the IIJA/BIL, which Congress will need to address before FY2027. But surface transportation bills are massive, multi-year legislative efforts that rarely move quickly. The program could face a gap year or more between the current authorization's expiration and any reauthorization.

This makes the FY2026 round genuinely consequential. Communities that secure implementation funding now will have multi-year projects that proceed regardless of the program's legislative future. Communities that win planning grants will have completed action plans that position them for whatever successor program emerges. Communities that skip this round may find themselves without dedicated federal roadway safety funding for an indefinite period.

What Previous Rounds Tell Us About Winning

Across four funding rounds, SS4A has made over 2,000 awards. The data from those rounds reveals clear patterns in what USDOT rewards.

Data-driven applications win. Successful applications identify specific high-injury networks using crash data, not anecdotal safety concerns. The strongest applications map fatality and serious injury locations, identify contributing factors (speed, intersection design, lighting, pedestrian infrastructure gaps), and propose interventions targeted to those specific factors at those specific locations.

Systemic approaches outperform spot fixes. While SS4A funds both location-specific and systemic interventions, the largest implementation grants have gone to corridor-level and network-level projects. A $15 million application to redesign twelve intersections along a high-injury corridor is more competitive than a $15 million application to rebuild a single intersection, even if the per-location cost is the same.

Equity analysis is expected, not optional. USDOT evaluates whether proposed investments serve underserved communities and address disparities in traffic fatality rates. Low-income communities, communities of color, and areas with limited transportation options experience disproportionate traffic violence. Applications that document these disparities and demonstrate how proposed interventions address them score higher. Note: frame this as safety equity and community impact, not through DEI-specific language that has been de-emphasized in federal grant criteria.

Demonstration projects offer the strongest ROI for first-time applicants. A $500,000 demonstration grant that installs temporary traffic calming on a high-injury corridor generates crash data, community support documentation, and before-and-after evidence that transforms a subsequent implementation application. Several FY2025 implementation winners explicitly cited demonstration project results from earlier SS4A rounds.

Building a Competitive Application Before May 26

Three weeks remain before the deadline. For communities considering an application, here is what to prioritize:

Start with your crash data. Pull five years of fatal and serious injury crash reports from your state DOT or local police records. Map them. Identify the high-injury network — the subset of roads that accounts for a disproportionate share of severe crashes. Every competitive SS4A application is built on this foundation.

Secure public safety letters of support immediately. Contact your local police chief, fire chief, and EMS director. Explain the application and request letters of support that speak to response times, crash frequency, and the operational burden that traffic crashes place on first responders. These letters carry weight in the current evaluation framework.

Quantify your local match. The 20 percent cost share can include staff time, previously planned capital improvements, donated materials, and other in-kind contributions. Many communities underestimate the value of in-kind resources they can count toward the match. A $200,000 planning grant requires only a $50,000 local match — well within reach for most municipalities through staff time allocation alone.

Frame your narrative around safety, not ideology. SS4A applications are evaluated on their potential to reduce fatalities and serious injuries. Lead with crash reduction projections, not urban design philosophy. If your project includes a road diet, frame it as a "safety reconfiguration that reduces conflict points and improves sight distances" — not as a vehicle throughput reduction.

For implementation applicants: ensure your safety action plan is current and that proposed projects align directly with the plan's identified priorities. USDOT has rejected implementation applications where the proposed projects did not clearly trace back to the applicant's action plan.

The SS4A program has distributed more federal money for roadway safety than any program in DOT's history. This final round is the last guaranteed opportunity to access that funding. Whether the program survives in some form through surface transportation reauthorization remains uncertain. What is certain is that the May 26 deadline is real, the $993 million is available, and the application is three pages long. Tools like Granted can help you identify SS4A and other transportation safety funding opportunities that match your community's needs.