On May 17, 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) awarded $400,000 to Burlington County through the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) discretionary grants program. The County received this grant for the “Burlington County Complete Network Plan” as part of this year’s first round of SS4A. The funding will be used to conduct demonstration projects or other supplemental planning activities. A full list of grants awarded nationally in the first round of the fiscal year 2024 (FY24) is available here.
Burlington is one of the four New Jersey counties that are part of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), the metropolitan planning organization covering the Philadelphia metropolitan region. DVRPC covers the City and County of Philadelphia, as well as eight suburban counties across both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 2022, DVRPC received a $1.47 million SS4A grant to produce a region-wide comprehensive safety action plan, which is currently underway.
This new $400,000 in SS4A funding will supplement DVRPC’s regional planning efforts. Burlington County is required to coordinate any new work with DVRPC’s regional approach. They may use the new dedicated funding to do more detailed planning work including, but not limited to:
- Completing a more granular high-injury network analysis
- Finalizing priority project selections
- Producing planning-level concepts and preliminary engineering designs for infrastructure projects
- Conducting supplemental analyses, such as environmental and equity analyses
- Installing and studying temporary demonstration projects
The SS4A program is a federally funded discretionary program that was established to support the USDOT’s National Roadway Safety Strategy and to help regional, county, and municipal agencies fund projects that use a Safe System Approach to achieve the national goal of zero roadway deaths. Congress appropriated $1 billion per year for five years to the SS4A program in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Burlington County is the newest addition to New Jersey’s list of SS4A grant recipients. Since the first round of grants in FY22, New Jersey communities have been awarded $46.9 million, including 34 Planning and Demonstration Grants and two Implementation Grants. All New Jersey SS4A grant awards can be found on the New Jersey Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funding Tracker, which Governor Murphy announced on June 20, 2024.
Historically, Planning and Demonstration Grants have been undersubscribed nationally, meaning that the amount appropriated for these grants exceeds the amount requested by eligible applicants. Meanwhile, the much larger Implementation Grants are significantly oversubscribed, meaning that they are very competitive. The New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Resource Center previously outlined what this means for New Jersey in this blog article.
The final round of SS4A applications for FY24 is open until 5pm on August, 29, 2024. While the solicitation for Implementation Grants closed on May 16, USDOT is still accepting applications for Planning and Demonstration Grants, like the one awarded to Burlington County. More information on the SS4A program and how to apply is available here.
Related:
The Money Trail: A Comprehensive List of Funding Resources for Active Transportation in New Jersey
New Jersey Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funding Tracker (external)