Seminole County seeks $10 million for intersection safety upgrades

Seminole County commissioners have opened the door to a federal push for up to $10 million in intersection safety upgrades, with county staff now authorized to apply for U.S. Department of Transportation funding aimed at cutting crashes and serious injuries.

The proposal centers on the county’s most dangerous junctions, which its Vision Zero Action Plan says were identified in a crash analysis as high-crash intersections. The plan also points to near-miss camera technology as a tool that can be deployed at those locations and at nearby intersections with similar signal timing and traffic conditions.

If the county wins the money, residents could see a package of technology-heavy fixes rather than a single road project. A local summary of the agenda said the request could support connected-vehicle roadside units, Intersection Movement Count cameras, CCTV cameras and uninterruptible power supplies at intersections across Seminole County. Those tools would give traffic engineers more data on turning movements, red-light behavior and backup power during outages, while also giving the county more direct oversight of problem spots.

The federal program behind the bid, Safe Streets and Roads for All, is a $5 billion grant effort over five years that funds local and Tribal efforts to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries. The FY 2026 competition is open now, and applications are due Tuesday, May 26, 2026, at 5 p.m. Eastern time. The program can cover planning, construction, equipment, operations and maintenance, and technology demonstrations and deployment.

Seminole County’s effort fits squarely into its broader Vision Zero strategy. The county’s goal is to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on its roads by 2050, and MetroPlan Orlando is steering the regional Vision Zero Central Florida effort for Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties toward the same 2050 target. County materials say Central Florida crashes kill 5 people and seriously injure 35 more each week, a toll that helps explain why intersection upgrades are being pushed as a public-safety issue as much as a transportation one.

The timing also matters for county government. The Seminole County Board of County Commissioners meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at the Seminole County Services Building in Sanford, giving staff a regular path to advance the application and any follow-up spending decisions tied to it. If the county is awarded the grant, the next phase would be federal funding and deployment. If it is not, the safety work would have to compete for local dollars and move through Seminole County Public Works and the county’s capital-improvement process.