Cities, counties and metropolitan planning organizations should apply now for what could be the last-ever round of Safe Streets and Roads for All federal grants, Stantec senior associate Jesse Mintz-Roth said in an interview with Smart Cities Dive.
“This is a lifetime opportunity to apply,” the engineering and design firm’s executive said, adding that applicants “need to act fast” given the U.S. Department of Transportation’s May 26, 2026, application deadline.
The DOT opened applications on March 27 for $1 billion in funding for planning, infrastructure and other initiatives to prevent fatalities and serious injuries for all roadway users. The five-year program is funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and any renewal would likely come from the next multiyear surface transportation legislation. “We don't know whether this funding source will continue to exist,” Mintz-Roth said.
Seventy percent of the program’s funds will go to implementation grants, which are some of the most competitive, Mintz-Roth said. Typical locations are those along a city’s high-injury network and those near schools and areas with high pedestrian activity. High-injury networks are roadways with the highest concentration of traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Applications that seek to remedy safety issues on high-injury networks will be rated higher, according to the DOT’s notice of funding opportunity.
Mintz-Roth cited an example of a light rail station and parking lot in San Jose, California, where pedestrians may need to cross the street near a highway ramp, where drivers typically accelerate or fail to slow to local speed limits. “Making places like that safer, shortening crossing distances, doing different designs in those streets to slow drivers down … is the type of critical work you can do through this grant program,” Mintz-Roth said.
A successful application would include a crash history focused on fatal and serious injuries and propose a design solution that has a high safety impact, including data on those collision sites and community input on what locals see as high-risk areas, Mintz-Roth said.
The transportation department awarded $3.9 billion in federal funding to more than 2,000 communities in the first four fiscal years of the program.
“It's amazing to have this federal program that is available for cities to use to address places that may not have been designed with pedestrians in mind,” Mintz-Roth said.
