Federal Way committee authorizes applying for federal SS4A safety grant to pilot signal, crossing and preemption projects

The Federal Way Land Use and Transportation Committee voted to forward a staff request to apply for federal Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) demonstration and supplemental planning funding, a program that supports demonstration safety projects and robust before‑and‑after evaluation.

Rick (staff lead) and Jason Kennedy described a two‑part application: demonstration activities and supplemental planning (additional road safety audits). Candidate demonstration categories include signal timing and leading pedestrian intervals (estimated demo budget ~$500,000), modernization of emergency vehicle preemption (~$400,000), advanced signal warning systems (~$300,000), curve warning LED chevrons (~$350,000), and school crossing treatments (~$350,000). Supplemental planning (RSAs) was estimated at about $100,000. Staff estimated a total program cost near $2 million and noted the SS4A application requires a 20% local match (about $400,000), which staff said could be budgeted as roughly $80,000 per year over five years and largely fulfilled with staff time and restricted traffic‑operations accounts.

Jason emphasized the grant’s demonstration nature: each candidate treatment requires data collection before and after implementation, and the grant requires removal of any treatment that shows a neutral or negative safety benefit. "If there actually is a neutral or even negative benefit then it actually has to be removed," he said.

Council members asked detailed operational questions: whether solar‑powered advanced warning systems would function in Western Washington (staff said vendors now design for lower‑sun environments), whether the city tracks pedestrian and cyclist counts (staff said counts are done at select intersections and on trails but pedestrian data collection is more resource‑intensive than vehicle counts), how emergency‑vehicle preemption upgrades would be funded across police and fire fleets (staff said upgrades are typically phased in with vehicle replacements), and which schools were candidate locations (staff named several elementary schools and said locations were partially identified in the draft safety plan).

The committee voted unanimously to forward the proposed grant application to the May 19 consent agenda for approval of application submission. Staff emphasized that the list presented were candidate projects and that final scope and awards will be negotiated if the city wins the grant.