§4.Healthy Streets program
This section revises the Healthy Streets program—providing grants for street tree planting and other heat mitigation strategies (i.e., cool pavements, shade structures, and green infrastructure) in public rights-of-way to reduce urban heat island effects, prioritizing disadvantaged communities—as follows: (1) expands eligible entities to include state and local transit agencies, state departments of transportation, local educational agencies, and tree/greenspace stewardship organizations, environmental asset management groups, or infrastructure resilience partners experienced in green infrastructure; (2) adds definitions for "cool corridor" (a transportation route enhanced with tree canopy, shade, and nature-based solutions for temperature reduction and climate resilience) and "heat mitigation strategies" (activities such as tree planting, vegetative infrastructure, cool surfaces, shade structures, and maintenance of existing green assets); (3) specifies grants for demonstration projects in diverse urban/rural regions with low tree canopy or high heat vulnerability and broadens authorized activities to include tree canopy/green infrastructure along transportation corridors (including rights-of-way, bus stops, transit hubs, and school zones), smart sensors for heat monitoring, community engagement/workforce development, and cooling infrastructure in multimodal/school/neighborhood corridors to create cool corridors; (4) requires project plans to seek state/local approval to avoid interfering with developments; and (5) expands grant evaluation priorities to emphasize disadvantaged communities impacted by high heat/low tree canopy, transit/school/job access improvements, maintenance/sustainability plans, funding leverage, existing green infrastructure preservation, low-maintenance vegetation, and workforce/urban forestry training. The section further requires the Secretary of Transportation to coordinate with specified federal agencies (e.g., EPA, Energy, HUD, Agriculture/Forest Service); provide technical assistance/guidance on project delivery, tree selection, and stewardship; impose safety/maintenance specifications for tree planting; and mandate annual grantee reports on temperature reduction, resilience, health/equity outcomes, cost-benefit analyses, and engagement. Finally, this section directs the Secretary to submit to Congress, not later than five years after enactment, a report evaluating program outcomes.