Gorge Safety Action Plan

Project Background

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) established the five-year, $5 billion discretionary Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program. The purpose of SS4A is to improve roadway safety by significantly reducing or eliminating roadway fatalities and serious injuries through safety action plan development and implementation focused on all people, including people walking, biking, using transit, drivers, and micromobility users.

In FY23, USDOT announced 385 SS4A grant awards, totaling $813 million, to local communities. These awards include 48 Implementation Grants focused on safety projects and strategies and 337 grants for planning and demonstration activities. Among them, RTC was awarded a $300,000 grant, for a total project amount of $375,000 with the required match. Project partners included incorporated and unincorporated areas of Klickitat and Skamania counties.

SS4A Action Plan Elements

The SS4A program provides funding for two types of grants: Action Plan Grants and Implementation Grants. Action planning grants are used to develop, complete, or supplement a comprehensive safety action plan. Implementation grants are available to implement strategies or projects that are consistent with an existing action plan.

The goal of an action plan is to develop a holistic, well-defined strategy to prevent roadway fatalities and serious injuries. Engaging multiple jurisdictions in the same region for the action plan in order to ensure collaboration across multiple jurisdictions and leverage expertise within agencies is strongly encouraged. Action plans are required to include the following elements:

	Leadership Commitment and Goal Setting Clear commitment from leadership preferably through adoption of a resolution, policy, etc., that includes a time frame for reducing fatal and serious injuries. The commitment must be a target date for achieving zero roadway fatalities and serious injuries OR an ambitious percentage reduction of roadway fatalities and serious injuries by a specific date, with an eventual goal of eliminating roadway fatalities and serious injuries.
	Planning Structure Establishment of a specific committee or task force that will lead the implementation of the action plan that needs to have good representation from all of the E’s (equity, engineering, engagement, enforcement, etc.)
	Safety Analysis Completion of a robust baseline collision analysis, including information by mode, time of day, contributing factor, etc., for existing conditions and historical trends. To the extent practicable, the analysis should include all roadways within the jurisdiction, without regard for who manages the roadways. Based on the analysis performed, a geospatial identification of higher risk locations should be developed (a High-Injury Network or equivalent).
	Engagement and Collaboration Ensure a robust, equitable engagement process with the public and relevant stakeholders that allows for both community representation and feedback. Information received from engagement and collaboration must be analyzed and incorporated into the action plan.
	Equity Considerations Include equity throughout the data and needs analysis process and the relationships of race, ethnicity, and unhoused to collisions. The analysis should include both population characteristics and initial equity impact assessments of the proposed projects and strategies.
	Policy and Process Changes Review existing policies and show how these policies can be changed/improved/updated to meet the targets for reducing fatalities and serious injuries and show how they will adapt and change over time. The action plan needs to address implementation through the adoption of revised or new policies, guidelines, and/or standards, as appropriate.
	Strategy and Project Selections Prioritized list of projects/strategies with associated timelines for implementation (for example, short-, mid-, and long-term time frames) that will likely support significant reduction or elimination of roadway fatalities and serious injuries and that ensure equitable investment in underserved communities. The list should include specific projects and strategies or descriptions of programs of projects and strategies and should explain prioritization criteria used. The list should contain interventions focused on infrastructure, behavioral, and/or operational safety.
	Progress and Transparency Ensure public transparency in the process and show how data will be shared over time and what the evaluation criteria will be. Must include, at a minimum, annual public and accessible reporting on progress toward reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries and public posting of the action plan online

Next Steps

In July 2024 RTC and HFWA executed the agreement for the SS4A grant funds to initiate this work. RTC will be utilizing consultant services for the development of the regional safety action plan. The USDOT has provided agencies a clear structure as to what has to be included in a safety action plan, which was utilized to develop a scope of work for a project RFQ. An RFQ is expected to be released in late August, with proposals being due mid-September. Work is anticipated to begin in October 2024.

Staff Contact

Adam Fiss, RTC

P. 564-397-5232

E. adam.fiss@rtc.wa.gov