Applications are about to open for one of America's signature safety programs — just days after Trump administration officials signaled their opposition to funding life-saving infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians.
According to a document obtained by Streetsblog, the U.S. Department of Transportation will, by the end of March, begin the application process for the Safe Streets and Roads for All discretionary program. Communities will be granted just 90 days to submit their applications, an unusually short time frame, especially for small communities with fewer resources to navigate complex federal applications.
Colloquially known as SS4A, transportation officials across the country have competed for grants from the $5 billion program created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Since then, it has funded hundreds of complete streets projects, road diets, and safety action plans across the country.
Under the law which created it, SS4A is required to fund initiatives that are "likely to significantly reduce or eliminate transportation-related fatalities and serious injuries involving various road users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, public transportation users, motorists, and commercial operators" — a list which, notably, puts the most vulnerable road users first.
Whether they'll come first under Secretary Sean Duffy fell into doubt last week, when U.S. DOT issued a disturbing memo directing agency officials to flag any previous grant related to "equity analysis, green infrastructure, bicycle infrastructure [and] EV and/or EV-charging infrastructure ... for potential removal," provided those funds weren't yet full obligated.
That could mean that major sustainable transportation projects offered awards under the last cycle of SS4A could soon get clawed back, leaving the courts to decide whether such a clawback is legal. And it's also left some advocates wondering exactly what kind of "safety" projects Duffy will fund when it's his turn to make his picks — and whether the tight application timeline is part of a larger play to dissolve the program altogether when the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law expires in 2026.
"Ninety days may be about the minimum they can get away with," said Chris Forinash, Cities and Streets Sector co-lead at the design Nelson\Nygaard, which works with many SS4A grantees. "I don't know; are they smart enough, prepared enough, do they care enough to actually be out beating the bushes for the places who they want to apply for this money? Or are they hoping that by only having it open 90 days, it'll be undersubscribed, and then they can use that as an argument to use the funds for some less-productive reason? I don't know, but I can be suspicious."
Shifting criteria, uncertain futures
Even if DOT's goal isn't to sabotage SS4A, advocates are concerned about how Secretary Duffy might adjust the program's evaluation criteria this year to achieve the safety outcomes he insists are his top priority — and how on Earth he'll do that without basic proven safety countermeasures like bike lanes, especially when vulnerable road user deaths are the ones most on the rise.
Some clues could be found in another disturbing memo the former Fox News host issued during his first days in office, directing agency officials to prioritize projects located in "communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average," as well one that comply with federal immigration orders and refuse to impose "vaccine or mask mandates."
What that would mean in a transportation context, though, is anyone's guess.
"This administration has been focusing on the bogeymen that they're scared of, and not really talking about what their positive priorities are," said Forinash. "That half-thought-out Duffy memo about birth rates and marriage rates — and that's being generous — [was supposed to be] internal policy guidance. But it would not surprise me if they're trying to figure out how to translate that into some sort of evaluation criteria."
Even more confusingly, that same memo directed DOT grant makers to deny funding to projects "that are purely local in nature and unrelated to a proper Federal interest" — a vague phrase that transportation advocate Jeff Wood recently interpreted as code for "no active transportation funding, bike lanes, bus lanes, complete streets, [or] pedestrian safety."
An unusually fast application window would also make it more challenging for communities to mount proposals to build ambitious infrastructure projects like large-scale road diets, which require a raft of preparations for environmental review, community engagement, permitting, civil rights compliance, and more. And considering that previous rounds of SS4A focused heavily on funding community-wide safety planning efforts, a lot of small-city applicants should be ready to ask for implementation dollars soon — but might fall slightly short if the application window shrinks.
Put all that together, some advocates fear that the program could become yet another handout to state DOTs to install minor safety fixes on highways — and shut out the countless local projects that could save lives outside of cars.
"Is this going to privilege places that are generally higher capacity and more experienced with applying for federal grants? Absolutely," added Forinash. "Places that are lower capacity are going to be at a significant disadvantage with a shorter time frame, and probably with less technical assistance available than the past administration."
How to fight back
As the future of virtually all discretionary transportation grants remains murky, Forinash and other experts say the first step is to push U.S. DOT to follow the law and give already-awarded transportation grantees the money they were promised — and advocates can play a critical role by calling their reps at every level of government.
"If a grant award [in your community] is under review, you should be calling your representatives regularly to let them know that what's going — or that you don't know what's going on," he added. "Certainly the back channel from feds is that one of the things that's motivating attention within the department is getting hassled by the Hill. And that goes from city council all the way up to senators."
Next, communities seeking future discretionary funds should start gathering their materials now in preparation for an unusually tight application window, and fine-tune it around Duffy's evaluation criteria when it arrives. For smaller communities who are daunted by that process, foundation-supported technical assistance programs like the Local Infrastructure Hub are still available, even if government-supported ones like the Reconnecting Communities Institute remain under a stop-work order, Forinash says.
At the end of the day, though, he says advocates need to keep their eye on the big picture, and stay vigilant of an administration likely operating off of a Project 2025 playbook that flatly argued that "DOT’s discretionary grant-making processes should be abolished, and funding should be focused on formulaic distributions to the states" — and a Congress that's flatly demanding that Duffy move funds from "environmental justice and Green New Deal mandates and all of these other things" and into "laying asphalt, pouring concrete, building bridges and building roads," as House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Sam Graves (R - Mo.) recently said.
If that means less discretionary money for great safety projects now, that doesn't bode well for a more holistic approach to safety in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill — unless advocates stand up and demand it.
"They certainly want to kill all the discretionary grant programs," added Forinash. "State DOTs feel entitled to get every dollar from U.S. DOT, period, with no strings; it's quite a welfare program."
