The Complete Streets Act of 2025 directs every State to establish a complete streets program that offers technical assistance and competitive grants to local and regional entities for designing and building streets that safely serve pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, mobility-device users, motorists, and freight. The Secretary of Transportation must publish benchmarks, guidance, and design standards; the Departments of Transportation and Justice must update accessibility rules to adopt the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board’s pedestrian right-of-way guidelines and expand them to cover vision, hearing, cognitive, and language access.
Why it matters: the bill federalizes a ‘complete streets’ model by tying program certification, grant eligibility, and enforceable design rules to federal highway funding and to metropolitan planning processes. That combination creates a nationally consistent baseline for multimodal design, reallocates planning priorities at State DOTs and MPOs, and imposes new compliance and reporting duties on jurisdictions and agencies that manage public rights-of-way.
At a Glance
What It Does
Requires each State to create a competitive complete streets program that provides (1) technical assistance to develop prioritization plans and (2) grants for design and construction. The Secretary must issue benchmarks and guidance, set minimum standards for eligible local policies, and promulgate complete-streets design standards. States must reserve a portion of certain federal highway apportionments to run the program.
Who It Affects
State Departments of Transportation, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), local governments, transit agencies, Tribal governments, and nonprofit partners that seek federal-backed grants; engineering/design firms and contractors that implement multimodal projects; and communities—especially low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, rural and Tribal areas—that are prioritized for investments.
Why It Matters
It converts a voluntary planning approach into an administrable federal program with money, minimum policy requirements, and enforceable design and accessibility rules. Compliance affects how projects are scoped, which projects get funded, and how design manuals and procurement decisions evolve at the State and local level.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill starts by defining what a ‘complete street’ and related terms mean, then sets firm deadlines and program mechanics for States. Each State must stand up a competitive complete streets program within a specified window after enactment and, after an additional year, begin issuing grants.
The Secretary of Transportation has a central role: within one year the Secretary must publish benchmarks and guidance to shape State programs and eligible-entity policies; within 180 days the Secretary must establish mandatory complete-streets design standards. The Departments of Transportation and Justice must adopt the pedestrian right-of-way accessibility guidelines and broaden them to address vision, hearing, cognitive, and language needs.
Local and regional entities must adopt an approved complete streets policy to qualify for technical assistance or grants. States or MPOs certify those policies against Secretary-established minimum standards.
Policies have to cover the full lifecycle of street projects—planning, design, construction, reconstruction, maintenance, and operations—specify measurable performance standards, list how to implement projects, and state any narrow exceptions and the approval process for them. If a State or MPO refuses to certify a policy, the local entity cannot receive the federal-backed grants but may still use the policy locally.Eligible entities also must produce a complete streets prioritization plan to get construction grants.
Those plans are expected to be strategic lists of specific projects with costs, timelines, and alignment with local infrastructure plans; the bill lists a set of criteria (safety, pedestrian/bicycle/transit/micromobility access, freight, air quality, and equity metrics) that projects should be prioritized against. The State awards grants competitively, limiting awards per project and requiring that selection give preference to intersections and corridors where nonmotorized users face the highest documented risk.The bill contains detailed mechanics for certification, reporting, and compliance.
States must report to the Secretary on program implementation and, on a recurring basis, publish an inventory showing which highway segments have ongoing or completed projects that meet the new design standards. The Secretary will produce a cost chart for common complete-streets elements.
There is an appeals path for MPOs if a State blocks a project intended to comply with the new design standards. Lastly, the statute names both technical limits (for example, exemptions such as limited-access highways or facilities with no demonstrated need) and funding rules that channel a dedicated share of highway apportionments into complete-streets programs.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Each State must create a competitive complete streets program and begin providing construction grants by the October 1 that starts the third full fiscal year after enactment.
States must obligate a minimum share of federal highway apportionments to their complete streets programs (statutory direction points to funds apportioned under 23 U.S.C. 104(b) or, for territories, section 165).
Technical assistance grants are capped at $100,000 per eligible entity per year; construction grants to an eligible entity are limited to the lesser of $20,000,000 or 20 percent of the State’s complete streets program funds in a fiscal year.
The Secretary must issue benchmarks and guidance within one year and establish mandatory complete-streets design standards within 180 days; projects on Federal-aid highways within metro areas with transit must meet those standards beginning two years after enactment, with broader statewide compliance phased in within five years (or by the first STIP after the initial deadline).
The Departments of Transportation and Justice must adopt the pedestrian right-of-way accessibility guidelines (PROWAG) as accessibility standards and expand them to include vision, hearing, cognitive, and language-access provisions.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Core terms and eligible participants
This section sets the working vocabulary: 'complete street', 'complete streets policy', 'complete streets prioritization plan', 'eligible entity' (broadly defined to include local governments, MPOs, transit agencies, Tribal governments, nonprofits, and other local/regional bodies), and the Secretary. The definition of 'complete street' explicitly includes freight and mobility devices, which matters because it forces designers to treat multiple modes as part of the scope rather than as an afterthought.
State programs, competitive grants, and program goals
Each State must establish, by a fixed deadline, a competitive program that provides technical assistance and grants linked to approved local policies and prioritization plans. The statute enumerates program goals—adoption of policies, strategic prioritization, filling active pedestrian/bicycle/transit gaps, rewarding entities that meet benchmarks, and serving underserved and disadvantaged communities—making equity an explicit program objective that should shape scoring and award criteria.
Secretary-issued benchmarks, guidance, and public review
The Secretary must develop benchmarks and guidance within one year, emphasizing methods to integrate modes in project scoping, design, and construction; expected operational and safety outcomes; and context-sensitive design options. The guidance must include procedures for identifying user needs, barriers, cost estimation, and strategies to maximize local cooperation. The draft guidance is subject to public review and comment before finalization.
Local policy requirements, approval, and certification
To be eligible for assistance, an entity must adopt a complete streets policy approved by the State or an MPO (subject to an MPO–State agreement). Policies must cover how infrastructure will be developed and maintained, apply across project phases, include measurable performance standards, use current design criteria (including access for individuals with disabilities), and allow narrowly drawn exemptions with defined procedures. The Secretary sets minimum standards and a certification method; States and MPOs are responsible for certifying policies, and the Secretary will evaluate State program compliance from submitted reports.
Prioritization plans, selection criteria, and grant mechanics
Eligible entities must produce a prioritization plan (a list of projects with costs, timelines, and alignment with local plans) that prioritizes projects using a statutory list of factors—safety, pedestrian/bike/transit access, micromobility, freight, air quality, and equity among them. States may provide up to $100,000 per entity for plan development. Construction grants are discretionary and capped per recipient; states must prioritize intersections and corridors where nonmotorized users face the greatest documented risk.
Adoption of PROWAG, expanded accessibility, and enforceable design rules
The statute requires DOT and DOJ to adopt the Accessibility Guidelines for Pedestrian Facilities in the Public Right-of-Way (PROWAG) and to add provisions addressing vision, hearing, cognitive, and language access. Separately, Section 109 of Title 23 is amended to require the Secretary to issue complete-streets design standards within 180 days and to phase compliance for applicable projects: a two-year trigger for certain metro projects with transit and a later statewide phase-in. The law also creates narrow project exemptions (e.g., limited-access highways, heavy industrial adjacent arterials without transit) and an appeals path for MPOs if a State blocks a compliance project.
Funding allocation and reporting obligations
The bill directs States to allocate a defined percentage of specific FHWA apportionments to run the complete streets program and requires regular reporting: States must submit program implementation reports to the Secretary and maintain a publicly accessible inventory showing which highway segments have ongoing or completed projects that meet the new design standards; the Secretary must publish a cost chart for common design elements.
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Explore Transportation in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Pedestrians and people with disabilities — The bill mandates adoption of PROWAG and expanded accessibility provisions, and prioritizes engineering that improves crossings, sidewalks, and accessible signals, which directly improves mobility and safety.
- Low-income communities and communities of color — Equity is a statutory program goal and prioritization criterion, increasing the chance that investments target neighborhoods that historically lacked multimodal infrastructure.
- Transit riders and micromobility users — Projects must consider transit operations and micromobility access, improving first/last-mile connections and station-area access.
- Local governments and nonprofits with approved policies — These entities gain access to technical assistance and competitive construction grants for projects that might otherwise be unfundable at scale.
- Bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure contractors and design firms — The new mandatory design standards and increased funding create new market demand for multimodal design and construction services.
Who Bears the Cost
- State Departments of Transportation — States must reallocate a portion of FHWA apportionments to complete streets programs and set up certification, grant administration, and reporting machinery.
- Local governments and MPOs — To be grant-eligible they must prepare policies and prioritization plans, meet certification standards, and potentially provide matching funds or cover maintenance obligations.
- Federal Highway Administration and the Secretary’s office — The FHWA must develop guidance and design standards, run reviews and appeals, and publish inventories and cost data, increasing federal administrative workload.
- Freight and some roadway-focused interests — New design requirements and stricter project scoping could constrain vehicle-centric projects or require redesigns that change freight routing or curb access.
- Small jurisdictions with limited planning capacity — Even with technical assistance, resource-poor towns may struggle to produce certified policies and prioritization plans quickly enough to compete for grants.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill’s central dilemma is between national consistency and local context: it establishes uniform benchmarks, mandatory design standards, and a dedicated funding stream to accelerate multimodal, accessible streets, but that federalization limits State and local flexibility and forces reallocation of limited highway dollars—creating winners and losers depending on local needs, capacity, and planning priorities.
The bill packs multiple levers—funding direction, minimum policy standards, technical assistance, certification, enforceable design standards, and accessibility rulemaking—into a single package. That is efficient but raises a set of implementation headaches.
First, the statutory funding direction creates a predictable pot for complete-streets work, but it is carved from existing FHWA apportionments. States will face trade-offs reallocating those dollars across competing priorities (pavement preservation, bridge work, safety programs), and the statute does not provide additional federal appropriations to offset the new allocation.
Second, the design standards are mandatory for many projects after tight deadlines. While the law allows context-sensitive flexibility and lists exemptions, the combination of prescriptive standards and federal triggers risks friction between MPOs and State DOTs over timelines, eligibility, and what counts as an adequate exemption.
Third, the certification regime places practical burdens on local entities and on State/MPO reviewers. The Secretary sets minimum standards, but States and MPOs make the final certification call; disputes could slow grant awards and invite litigation or administrative appeals.
Small towns, Tribal governments, and rural areas may lack capacity to create the required prioritization plans and measurable performance systems without sustained technical support and possibly additional matching funds. Finally, adopting PROWAG and adding new accessibility categories is substantively important, but it requires updating engineering manuals, procurement specs, and workforce training; agencies will need guidance on measurable compliance and on reconciling PROWAG interpretations with existing ADA obligations.
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