DUBUQUE, Iowa — November 7, 2026 — Dubuque County will receive $3,443,040 in federal funding for the Dubuque SMART Safe Corridors Initiative, a project that will use real-time traffic technology to cut congestion, speed emergency response, and make local roads safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

The money comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All program, part of a statewide package of more than $76.2 million for Iowa road safety projects announced this week.

The Dubuque project will fund a traffic management system built around several technologies aimed at problems Dubuque drivers know well: rail crossing monitoring and predictive blockage analytics, so drivers and dispatchers know when a train is likely to tie up a crossing; emergency vehicle routing and signal preemption, so ambulances and fire trucks get green lights on their way to a call; expanded detection of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists; and traveler information alerts to keep motorists informed. The project also includes an evaluation component to inform future regional deployment of the system.

The initiative builds on work already underway in Dubuque. The City of Dubuque, the East Central Intergovernmental Association, and the Dubuque Metropolitan Area Transportation Study have been developing the Smart Traffic Routing with Efficient and Effective Traffic Signals (STREETS) project — a smart, next-generation traffic management system designed to route traffic dynamically across the metro area’s major corridors. In 2024, the city and ECIA received a $2 million federal SMART Program grant to develop an open cellular vehicle-to-everything interface as the next phase of that work.

“Iowa families and manufacturers depend on the safety and reliability of our roads for everyday work and travel,” U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in welcoming the statewide funding. “I voted for the bipartisan infrastructure law with Iowans’ future in mind, and now 76 million more dollars are flowing to our state as a result. This federal funding will better connect our communities and keep Iowans safe.“

The Safe Streets and Roads for All program was established in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law Grassley supported.

The Dubuque award is one of nine projects in the statewide package. The largest is $19.9 million for safety improvements along 11.6 miles of the Old Lincoln Highway in Pottawattamie County, a corridor that saw 121 crashes between 2019 and 2023, including four fatal crashes. Other awards include $14.8 million for nine roadway safety projects in the Des Moines area, $11.6 million for rural road safety work in Cedar, Jones, Muscatine, and Washington counties, and $7.3 million for the Van Buren County rural roads safety project.

No start date for the Dubuque SMART Safe Corridors work has been announced. The county’s share, about $3.4 million, is a grant award; the funding announcement does not state a local match requirement or a construction timeline. This article will be updated if the county or the U.S. Department of Transportation releases additional details.

Sources

• Office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, “Grassley Welcomes Over $76.2 Million in Federal Funding to Support Safety and Repair of Iowa Roads” — https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-welcomes-over-762-million-in-federal-funding-to-support-safety-and-repair-of-iowa-roads
• City of Dubuque, “Dubuque Project Awarded $2 Million Grant to Develop Real-Time Transportation Information System,” March 14, 2024 — https://www.cityofdubuque.org/CivicSend/ViewMessage/message/225701

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