Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Program

What is this program?

In Fiscal Year 2024, the Village of Pinecrest was awarded a Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Planning and Demonstration Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. This federal program funds local efforts to reduce serious roadway crashes and fatalities through careful planning and targeted safety improvements.

There are two types of SS4A grants:

• Planning and Demonstration Grants (the type Pinecrest received), which fund the creation of a Safety Action Plan and small pilot safety projects
• Implementation Grants, which fund the actual construction of proven safety improvements

Completing the Safety Action Plan is what allows Pinecrest to apply for an Implementation Grant down the road to build out the improvements identified.

What is the Village doing with this grant?

Two main things:

1. Creating a Safety Action Plan

This is a comprehensive roadmap for identifying transportation safety needs across the Village and reducing serious crashes for everyone who uses our roads: pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and transit riders. It will combine technical crash and traffic data with input from residents to guide safety improvements near schools, parks, businesses, and neighborhoods.

The plan follows a national best-practice framework called the Safe System Approach. The core idea is that people will inevitably make mistakes, so streets should be designed, built, and maintained so those mistakes do not turn into deaths or serious injuries. This means an emphasis on safer speeds, safer road design, shared responsibility among everyone involved, and multiple layers of protection so that no single mistake or failure leads to tragedy.

A complete Action Plan addresses seven areas:

• Leadership commitment and goal setting
• A clear planning structure
• Safety analysis of local crash data and conditions
• Community engagement and collaboration
• Policy and process changes
• Selection of specific strategies and projects
• Ongoing progress tracking and transparency

The Village expects to share the draft Safety Action Plan with the public in early 2027, with additional opportunities for residents to review it and weigh in before it's finalized.

2. Testing safety improvements near a local school

Alongside the Action Plan, the Village is carrying out a demonstration project, a smaller, faster effort to test real safety improvements near a public school. This is being coordinated directly with the school system to improve safety for students and the surrounding neighborhood.

The specific school and project design have not been finalized. They will be chosen based on:

• Crash data
• Risk factors
• Input from the community and other stakeholders
• Existing road conditions

Surveys are underway to gather feedback from parents and nearby residents to help guide these decisions.

The improvements themselves will be low-cost and near-term, things like new pavement markings, signage, or traffic calming measures (such as speed humps or curb extensions). Because these are meant to be quick-build and temporary, the Village will monitor how well they work in real conditions and use that information, along with community feedback, to decide whether to make them permanent or adjust the approach.

Why this matters for Pinecrest

This grant reflects a proactive, data-driven approach to keeping Village streets safe as more people walk, bike, and drive through our neighborhoods. By building a solid plan now and testing real improvements near a school, Pinecrest is positioning itself for future federal funding to carry out larger, permanent safety upgrades.