Example Funded Supplemental Planning and Demonstration Activities from SS4A FY23

The Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program provides funding for supplemental planning and demonstration activities to inform the development and improvement of Comprehensive Safety Action Plans (referred to as “Action Plans”). Applicants may—and are encouraged to—include supplemental planning activities and/or demonstration activities to support an Action Plan within either SS4A grant type: Planning and Demonstration Grants or Implementation Grants.

Eligible supplemental planning and demonstration activities must measure potential benefits through data collection and evaluation and inform an Action Plan’s list of projects and strategies (or, another area of an Action Plan).

The following are examples of supplemental planning and demonstration activities that USDOT funded in the SS4A fiscal year (FY) 2023 grant round.  

Supplemental Planning

• Vision Zero data dashboard to provide real-time safety data and analysis, measure progress towards safety goals, and ensure transparency with residents and other relevant stakeholders.
• Complete Streets design guide that reflects best practices in SS4A design, context-sensitive design, active transportation facility design, and placemaking principles.
• Lighting plan to identify locations with unsafe roadway lighting conditions on a high-injury network.
• Corridor study to evaluate existing conditions of heavily traveled and high-frequency crash corridors and identify roadway user safety measures.
• Road safety audits at a priority list of intersections and roadway segments based on collision rate, severity, and equity, to identify specific issues and determine appropriate countermeasures.
• Rural roadway safety plan for large jurisdictions that contain mixed-land uses, to perform safety data analysis, conduct community engagement, and identify evidence-based strategies that are specific to rural areas.
• Wheelchair assessment plan to identify intersection locations that have existing, missing, or non-ADA-compliant wheelchair ramps to help prioritize locations for future improvements.
• Equity analysis of speed and red-light safety cameras to analyze city-wide intersections, traffic signals, and socioeconomic data and evaluate potential locations for automated cameras.

Demonstration Activities

Infrastructure

• Quick-build strategies using temporary materials such as plastic or water-filled barriers, jersey barriers, plastic delineators, traffic cones, planters, and paint in targeted high-crash and/or high-risk locations, such as near schools, parks, senior centers, transit stops, and business districts. Examples include:
  • Crosswalk visibility enhancements
  • Temporary speed humps
  • Neighborhood traffic-calming circles
  • Curb extensions
  • Protected or buffered bike lanes
  • Solar-powered pedestrian beacons
  • Pedestrian refuge islands
  • Shared lane markings
  • Wayfinding signage
• Daylighting intersections by removing parking spots closest to the intersection to increase visibility for pedestrians and drivers in a business district and using on-site QR codes to collect survey responses from surrounding business owners regarding their acceptance or rejection of the countermeasure.
• Temporary street closure to vehicle traffic once per month to pilot an expansion of the Ciclovia program to promote safe bicycling in a new neighborhood.
• Temporary road diet using pavement markings and striping to reduce a four-lane road to a three-lane road and using tubular markers to create a divided median and center turn lane and a buffered bicycle lane.
• MUTCD engineering studies to evaluate warrants for safety impact strategies, such as:
  • Edge lines
  • Rectangular rapid-flashing beacons (RRFBs)
  • High intensity activated crosswalk (HAWK) beacon signals
  • Pedestrian hybrid beacons (PHBs)
  • Protected/permissive left turn signal phasing

Behavioral

• Pilot safe speeds educational campaign to explore the effectiveness of different types of safety and slow speed signage on key roadways and intersections prioritized using injury and crash data.
• Pilot training for City bus operators to ensure safe operations around people walking and biking.
• Pilot school drop off/pick up zones including painted curbs, signage, and messaging to help inform the selection of projects/strategies in a Safe Routes to School Plan.
• Pilot traffic safety education activities for school-aged children in partnership with community educators.  

Technology

• Signal timing upgrades and optimization, including:
  • Bicycle signal phases
  • Leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs)
  • Priority pedestrian phases by detection at high-crash intersections
  • Traffic signal preemption for emergency response vehicles
• Data analytics using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and visualize safety issues at intersections, such as near misses and wrong-way driving.
• Digital alerts of emergency response vehicles to notify motorists of approaching or upcoming emergency response vehicles. Digital alerts are delivered via apps, navigation systems, or mobile devices to motorists up to 30 seconds in advance to enhance traditional sirens and lights.
• Red-light and speed safety cameras at priority locations in or near school zones.
• Sensors at selected intersections and mid-block locations on key corridors to obtain multimodal trip data for people walking and bicycling.
• Deploy camera technology solution to create a 3D safety map of a City’s high-injury corridors and pilot dashboard cameras on City transit buses to provide insight on transportation-related safety hazards.

Data Monitoring and Evaluation

Demonstration activities must measure potential benefits through data collection and evaluation and inform an Action Plan’s list of selected projects and strategies and their future implementation.

Below is a list of data measurement and evaluation techniques proposed by FY23 SS4A Planning and Demonstration Grant award recipients:

• Evaluation of quick-build safety improvements on an arterial corridor – These improvements will be evaluated via bicycle and pedestrian usage data, comparison of collision and near-miss data against historical trends, and bilingual community engagement via pop-ups and intercept surveys along the pilot project.
• Evaluation of signal retiming and signage strategies on targeted high-injury network corridors – A before/after analysis will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of countermeasures and the potential for replicability for other communities. Data analysis will look at reductions in near-misses, severe injuries and fatalities, and unsafe behaviors and speeds.
• Evaluation of feasibility studies such as temporary street closures, traffic circles, chokers, bump outs, and speed cushions – These improvements will be evaluated using field data collectors and community feedback/surveys. Data collectors will collect vehicle speed and volume, turn movements, vehicle classifications, and pedestrian counts. Community feedback will be solicited to supplement data collectors.
• Evaluation of GPS-preemption system to reduce response time for emergency vehicles – These systems will be tested on two corridor segments adjacent to a fire station, with 10 signalized intersections to determine whether they improve performance and decrease response time for emergency vehicles.