The Holland City Council on June 18 adopted a resolution supporting the Makatawa Area Coordinating Council (MAC) Safety Action Plan and authorized the city to submit an implementation grant application under the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program.

The resolution clears the way for the city manager to sign grant materials and for the city to seek what presenters described as a significant implementation award under SS4A, a program established in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to fund safety improvements on local roadways.

Brian White, who presented the plan to council, said the city is pursuing a regional approach through the MAC to make applications more competitive. He said the proposed Holland project covers about 4.85 miles of primarily reconstruction work on major streets including portions of Seventeenth Street, 20th Street, Washington Avenue, Michigan Avenue and a portion near the river. White said the application would be built from the MAC safety action plan's data-driven high-injury network and that the city's application would tie nonmotorized corridors and U.S. Bike Route 35 into the package.

“The program's currently funded through FY26, and we are looking to beat the deadline here and submit an FY25 application this year,” White said. He described typical SS4A implementation awards as ranging from $2 million to $20 million and said the project being developed for Holland is preliminarily estimated at about $25,000,000 with an 80/20 federal-local split.

Council members asked how rigid the plan strategies are, whether roundabouts were being considered, and how a regional approach would be allocated among MAC partners. White said the safety action plan lists numerous federally approved countermeasures (he quoted about 28 strategies in the plan) and that the city would retain flexibility to refine specific design elements when engineering begins. He also said the city would submit its own application for FY25 rather than waiting for a MAC regional implementation application, and that Ottawa County and the Ottawa County Road Commission were pursuing complementary projects.

The council approved the motion by voice and roll call. Councilmember Byrd moved to adopt the resolution, Raymond supported; the clerk recorded unanimous yes votes and the motion carried. The motion also directed approval of the grant submission and authorized the city manager to sign application materials.

The SS4A grants include engineering and right-of-way costs in addition to construction, White said, and winners receive a five-year implementation window that allows the city to phase construction across multiple seasons. White and staff stressed the competitive, nationwide nature of the program and that local match amounts for the identified street segments were already programmed in the city's 10-year capital plan.

Next steps are formal submission of the application and, if funded, engineering and phased construction to improve safety on the identified corridors.