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Five for ’25: What to expect on transportation in the new year

January will bring in a new presidential administration and a new Congress for the run-up to the reauthorization of the country’s transportation law in 2026. Though uncertainty prevails as power and leadership shifts in Washington, there are a few things we’re expecting to see in 2025. Here are five:

  1. The status quo trade groups will start producing their (typical) wish lists for the next five-year reauthorization
  2. The trust fund that pays for transportation will inch closer to bankruptcy
  3. Expect policy moves like ending federal funding for transit, or slowing down transit capital spending
  4. Discretionary grant programs will fund different winners
  5. Existing or pending regulations will be repealed or shelved

1. Trade groups will assemble their (typical) wish lists for the 2026 reauthorization

If you can believe it, we’re already nearing the end of the “infrastructure law” passed by Congress in November 2021. The five-year Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) will expire on September 30, 2026, so the incoming Congress will hold hearings and develop a proposal for the bill to replace it. That means that the big-monied machine of trade groups and interest groups, which count on perpetually increasing federal infrastructure dollars, are already spinning up their efforts.

You can already see some of their letters calling for more funding for the same programs and same results. In the new year, the transportation policy/funding “wish lists” will start to emerge from groups spanning the spectrum from old-guard trade groups like the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which represents the interests of state DOTs, to groups like the American Highway Users Alliance (founded by GM!), which are primarily interested in building more highways in all places. (Your grandkids can worry about the maintenance.)

AASHTO is already halfway through their timeline for the next reauthorization though one can already predict what they’ll be asking for in the next five year authorization, as it’s changed very little:

  1. More money distributed to state DOTs through guaranteed formula programs
  2. More flexibility to states in how those funds are spent
  3. No requirement to produce any particular outcome — no reward for performing well and certainly no punishment for doing poorly

To be fair, our platform is pretty simple too, but instead of focusing on money, ours is focused on common-sense outcomes that have broad and significant support from the people who depend on our transportation network: Stop expanding at the expense of repair, make safety the actual top priority, and prioritize investing in the transportation we’ve neglected for over 50 years.

Unlike a platform of “give state agencies more taxpayer money without any accountability,” our priorities have broad support with the taxpayers who cover the full cost of this program…which brings us to #2.

2. Without further giveaways from taxpayers, the transportation trust fund will inch closer to insolvency

The most important thing to understand about funding for transportation is that the bedrock idea of “the user pays” for the transportation system through fuel or gasoline taxes has been dead for a long, long time. The federal program currently spends ~$20 billion more per year than the gas tax brings in. Because the gas tax has not changed for more than three decades as the fuel efficiency of vehicles has improved and inflation has reduced purchasing power, the highway “trust fund” has stayed solvent only because we have taken more than $280 billion in extra tax dollars from all Americans since 2008—whether they drive or buy gas or not.

This is why the Congressional Budget Office currently projects that in 2028 the federal government will only bring in enough funding for the Highway Trust Fund to cover a fraction of the transportation program authorized in the IIJA. And it’s why the first thing you’ll hear Congress (and most transportation industry groups) talking about in 2025 won’t be policy, or outcomes, or accomplishing anything specific with this $500B program. Instead, the reverberating refrain will be the need to “find more money.” (We’ll have more on the trust fund in a future post but this short explainer by the Peterson Foundation is a great place to understand the history and where things currently stand. But notice that the cities they list as the most congested are some of the best places.)

The two bookend options for addressing this structural imbalance are:

Take billions more from all taxpayers or rack up debt to prop up a federal program that is failing to move the needle on repairing our crumbling infrastructure, reducing congestion, reducing emissions, and improving safety,

OR

Scale the program down to the size of what the gas tax brings. This second option has been suggested before, including a 2014 proposal by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and 28 Senate Republicans to defund the nation’s transportation system—except for a small interstate maintenance fund—and leave it to states to make up for the lost funding.

3. Transit could face significant cuts (only partially because of the looming insolvency)

About 20 percent of the federal highway trust fund goes to transit each year. This 80/20 split was conceived during the Reagan Administration in the 1980s as part of a compromise to raise the gas tax. To get support, a deal was made to devote a portion of the increase to transit and provide stable support. (Imagine a day when members of Congress and advocates would demand bold change in policy and approach before they supported more funding for the existing program.) This funding split has become the historical practice, supported in a bipartisan fashion over the years. But not always.

When the Republicans controlled the House during the Obama administration in 2012, they proposed addressing a funding shortfall for highways by kicking transit out of the trust fund for what eventually became the MAP-21 two-year authorization law in 2012. T4America organized opposition from an enormous spectrum of more than 600 groups, from chambers of commerce to labor, and the proposal was abandoned in the face of bipartisan opposition when it was clear it would fail on the House floor. (However, MAP-21 was only two years long instead of the usual five because there wasn’t enough support for the additional deficit spending needed to cover a longer bill.)

There certainly could be a similar proposal in the next year, though it’s worth noting that this idea did not resurface during the last Trump administration.

Another possible development is a repeat from the first Trump administration: using their authority to call for needless and repetitive studies or analysis to slow down the process of awarding transit funds, costing local communities millions in delays (all while calling for relaxation of federal community protection regulations to speed highway projects). A different Congress could also certainly decide to cut the funding for expanding or building new transit, which is almost entirely discretionary rather than protected like formula programs.

(This was our progress report on awarded transit funding a year and a half into Trump’s first term—less than a third sent to projects in the pipeline.)

4. Changes to competitive grant programs

Every administration puts their own stamp on discretionary programs by choosing who/where to award them within the criteria created by Congress. For example, during the last Trump admin, the RAISE program shifted toward projects that states could fund but had deprioritized (largely rural road projects and fewer multimodal projects) rather than encouraging more innovative and multimodal projects. This will almost certainly be the case once again.

There has also been some chatter about de-funding some competitive programs in the next Congress, many notable ones are likely to survive as T4America Director Beth Osborne notes in this Q&A with David Zipper from November:

Switching toward highways, Project 2025 proposes terminating competitive grant programs like RAISE that allocate billions of dollars to state and local governments for high-priority projects. How realistic is that?

I don’t think Congress will let the Trump administration get rid of competitive programs, because legislators get so much credit for that spending. Federal formula programs just go to the states, and the states do what they want. But for the competitive grant programs, Congress gets a notification about new awards, and they have three days to do whatever event around them that they wish. Basically, Project 2025 was suggesting that Congress never get credit for federal spending in infrastructure again. Maybe that sounded good to the Heritage Foundation, but there’s a lot of Project 2025 that is divorced from the reality of how anything happens in the real world.

Some are also concerned that grants announced but not locked in by a grant agreement or obligated (meaning legally committed) could be revoked. The Trump Administration might try to do that for grants to projects they don’t support. But to do that, they would have to let the Congressional delegation know that a project they likely announced is now being taken away.

Congress could also look to unobligated funds to pay for the next transportation bill or a tax bill, and this has happened in the past with unspent earmarks. But generally this has occurred only after communities have had many, many years to spend their funding and it has become clear that they are unlikely to get their projects into the ground. One risk is that a Republican Congress decides to defund a program, like the passenger rail program, by saying the funding isn’t moving and needs to be put to a different priority that can use that money now.

5. Administrative actions will stop and change

USDOT has a lot of latitude to create and enforce rules and regulations to improve the effectiveness and safety of the transportation system, so it’s reasonable to expect that many good existing or pending rules will be shelved or reversed.

First, NHTSA’s proposal to create new requirements to finally consider the safety impacts of larger vehicles on people outside of the vehicles is almost certainly not going to be finalized. It will either be pulled completely or weakened. Second, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards which require more efficient vehicles will likely be frozen or even rolled back. (There are already a number of loopholes which allow automakers to trend toward larger, fuel-inefficient trucks and SUVs.)

And third, while companies are currently testing autonomous vehicles with almost no oversight in several states, we could see a resuscitation of the AV Start Act (read our archives here), the industry-led move to codify that practice into law nationwide. That would usher in widespread testing of autonomous vehicles across the country with almost no guardrails to ensure their safety, no requirement to collect and report data on their performance, no notifications to the public about when and where those tests are happening, and no oversight other than the voluntary oversight of the manufacturers and testers.

There will certainly be some negative developments over the next two to four years that we will need to organize and fight. And some hoped for actions that will not come to pass. But anyone who thinks that Republicans seizing control of the presidency and Congress means only a destructive reauthorization in 2026 fails to understand that past few reauthorizations—including the IIJA—that caused plenty of damage were fully supported by the majority of Democrats and how programmatic changes were put in place by the Biden administration over the last 4 years (check out Fueling the Crisis; additional analysis that will be out in the next few weeks). As we said during negotiations over the IIJA, Democrats and Republicans regularly join forces “to undermine their own goals for the sake of ‘bipartisanship,’ consistently passing bills that make U.S. transportation inefficient, expensive, unsafe, unsustainable and in poor condition. They both favor flexibility and deference over accountability for good outcomes and guaranteeing the taxpayer a good return for their investment.”

There will almost certainly be some negative developments ahead but on the whole, expect the same status quo to prevail. Which is not good news either.

From policy to action: Six things USDOT should do yesterday to maximize the potential of the infrastructure deal

entrance to the USDOT headquarters

Because of the shortcomings in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)’s actual policy, an enormous amount of pressure now rests on USDOT and Secretary Buttigieg to deliver on the administration’s promises. But the good news is that there are scores of actions that USDOT can take to deliver positive outcomes for equity, climate, safety, state of repair, and enhancing community connections.

entrance to the USDOT headquarters
Image by U.S. Department of Transportation
promo graphic for a guide to the IIJA

This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.

After 200+ weeks of #InfrastructureWeek, Congress was sorely overdue to take action on surface transportation reauthorization since the FAST Act was fast expiring in 2021. The House took up the challenge by crafting and passing the bold five-year INVEST Act in July, which would have moved the needle in major ways. But the Senate failed to produce the same kind of transformative bill, instead playing the politics of “compromise” and “bipartisanship” in what would become the infrastructure deal as we know it (the IIJA). 

With the conclusion of #InfrastructureWeek on Capitol Hill and Congress pivoting to other issues of national interest, the media spotlight on the US transportation program will quickly dim.  

This is unfortunate, because in many ways, the real work on infrastructure is just beginning—especially for USDOT and the administration. Advocates and the media are failing to grasp that the first year of transportation funding from the IIJA is already flowing out to states and metro areas, supercharging project lists that were decided upon years ago in some cases. And states have made it clear that they plan to maximize the use of the flexibility that they have won from Congress to spend this money how they deem it in their interest.

Using this historic infusion of infrastructure funding to make meaningful progress towards equity, climate change, and fostering community economic opportunities is going to be an uphill battle, but that is what the Biden administration has promised. They certainly have the talent and the expertise to make it happen, but Secretary Buttigieg will need to exercise his authority and the flexibility of US transportation policy to realize these outcomes. 

Over the next few weeks, we will unpack the details on a range of actions that could be taken administratively to further our three principles and national priorities of economic development, equity, and climate change mitigation. For now, here are six immediate and important actions that would make a big difference:

1. A new commitment to passenger rail needs equally committed leaders.

As the country begins a heavy investment in intercity passenger rail and Amtrak, its Board of Directors is made up of members whose terms have expired (other than Transportation Secretary Buttigieg and Amtrak CEO Flynn). It is time for the President to nominate a new and current Board to lead Amtrak through this unprecedented opportunity to create a world class passenger rail system and push Amtrak to deliver on a new customer driven service delivery mission.

2. Find other ways to prioritize safety.

In late October, Secretary Buttigieg cited the country’s unacceptable traffic death “crisis”:

We cannot and should not accept these fatalities as simply a part of everyday life in America. No one will accomplish this alone. It will take all levels of government, industries, advocates, engineers and communities across the country working together toward the day when family members no longer have to say good-bye to loved ones because of a traffic crash.

—Secretary Buttigieg

With a call to action on safety, the USDOT should bring more attention to the impact of roadway design on safety, including the removal of references to the disproven 40-year old study that claimed 94 percent of crashes are caused by human error and discouraging grantees and the press from using the term ‘accident’ as opposed to ‘crash.’ Furthermore, the USDOT can look to prioritize safety investments across all funding streams (more on that next).

3. Bake important priorities into the many competitive grant programs.

Use competitive grant programs to reward project sponsors that have made a dedicated commitment to safety, state of repair, climate, and equity and to focus the sponsors that have not on addressing those issues. For example, those states who set regressive safety targets could be restricted from getting funding for safety-oriented projects.

4. Require clearer data for the public on transportation emissions.

Track climate emissions per capita from transportation by state and publish results and trends online.

5. Consider the poor track record of transportation models.

Require major NEPA (environmental review) documents to include a report on the past accuracy of any transportation demand modeling used, as well as documenting the expected induced demand from projects.

6. Streamline the arduous process of applying for competitive grants.

The IIJA also establishes several new competitive grant programs. To ensure they are accessible to communities of all sizes and capacity, USDOT should create an easier, more automated process for receiving applications and benefit-cost analyses for all competitive grant programs.

How this historic bill gets implemented and how the hundreds of billions in new transportation spending is spent will determine how far we are able to move the needle on key goals. We will continue to unpack more ways that the administration, states, metros, and advocates can engage in the implementation of the IIJA to produce a transportation system that is safer, cleaner, and more effective at connecting people to jobs and opportunity.

The infrastructure bill is finished—what you need to know

Infrastructure will be built, but what kind?

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is notable both for including Congress’ most significant effort to address climate change, and its general failure to make fundamental changes to a transportation program that’s responsible for massive increases in transportation emissions, worsening state of repair, unequal access to jobs, and increasing numbers of people killed on our roadways.

promo graphic for a guide to the IIJA

This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.

First, you can read our short statement about the deal’s passage (signed by President Biden on Monday, November 15!) In a sea of media coverage and complicated explainers, we wanted to drill into just a few basic things you should know and remember about this new bill:

1) Transportation policy and funding is now wrapped up until 2026

Did you catch this one?

The way this deal was repeatedly referred to in the media as a standalone infrastructure bill created a lot of confusion, so it’s worth being clear on this count: Congress just wrapped up the every-five-years process of transportation reauthorization because the Senate’s five-year transportation policy proposals passed earlier this summer were the foundation of this larger infrastructure deal. There’s a lot of additional money that will go into various forms of infrastructure, but of the $645 billion total for transportation, about $300 billion is for a new five-year reauthorization to replace the expiring FAST Act. The additional ~$345 billion consists of annual appropriations of various kinds which are not guaranteed or sourced from gas taxes via the highway trust fund (see #4 below for more on that.)

So other than the annual appropriations process where Congress decides funding levels for some discretionary programs like the transit capital construction program or BUILD grants, funding and policy decisions are now finished for five years, and the focus now moves to implementation, i.e., how this money gets spent and where. 

2) So what was in the five-year reauthorization included in the deal?

We took a long look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when the deal passed the full Senate back in August, and almost nothing has changed since:

[It] includes a lot of new spending, but that spending isn’t directed toward outcomes, much less the priorities that the President articulated in The American Jobs Plan. Though this bill mentions safety, climate, and equity often, as it stands, it will fail to produce meaningful shifts. “The White House will soon discover that they’ve dealt themselves a challenging hand in their long-term effort to address climate change and persistent inequities, while kicking the can down a crumbling road that’s likely to stay that way,” T4America director Beth Osborne said in our full statement after Tuesday’s final vote.

There is some good news, though. When it comes to the next five years of policy and spending, passenger rail was the biggest winner, making the expansion of reliable, frequent rail service to more Americans a cornerstone of the deal’s approach. The rail portion ​​will “1) expand, increase, and improve service, 2) focus on the entire national network (rather than just the northeast corridor), 3) encourage more local, ground-up coalitions of local-state partnerships for improving or adding new service, and 4) make it easier to finance projects and expand that authority to transit-oriented development projects.” We explained these provisions in-depth in this post.

3) More money for transit but with policy crafted in 2015 (and before!)

The transit portion of reauthorization was never produced by the Senate Banking Committee, which means that this deal basically carried forward the status quo approach to transit policy from the now-replaced FAST Act, but with a historic amount of transit funding (along with a historic amount of highway funding.) The House’s discarded five-year INVEST Act proposal contained some vital improvements to transit policy, but it was ignored by the Senate when assembling the larger infrastructure deal.

We’ll have much more about the modest changes to the transit program in a later post—including what’s next.

4) What else was included in the non-reauthorization portions of the bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag?

This great chart from the National Association of Counties shows where the additional transportation money— outside of the ~$300 billion, five-year authorization—is going:

For more on the non-transportation inclusions in the bill, you can read this post from Smart Growth America with a broader look at the package and what was included on climate resilience, broadband, and other areas. 

5) Time to hold the administration and Congress accountable for accomplishing their ambitious promises

The Biden administration has made significant promises to taxpayers about what they are going to accomplish with this historic investment when it comes to repair, climate change, safety, equity, and an equitable economic recovery from the past year and a half. They’ve assembled a tremendous team of superstar smart people at USDOT to make it happen. They’ve shown their willingness to use their administrative authority to at least temporarily halt damaging highway projects. They’ve created a litany of helpful new competitive grant programs they now need to write the rules for awarding. 

But watching the president sign the bill isn’t just a celebration, it’s a cue for them to get to work with some major urgency: the first year of this money is flowing out the door already, so states are already pouring this money into projects already underway. 

It will require a herculean effort from them to make sure this bill accomplishes what they believe it will. As we said when the deal was first approved by Congress on November 5, “The administration is confident they can make substantial progress on all of these goals despite those deficiencies. Most states are promising to use the flexibility they fought for to make marked improvements across these priorities. To make that happen, both the administration and the states will need to make major changes to how they approach transportation, but we know they can do it.” 

Because they missed the chance to codify a wholly different approach to transportation into law, they only have the option of making changes that are administrative or imposed by the executive branch—changes which can all be undone by a future administration.

Now is the time for us, the media, advocates and local leaders of all stripes to hold them accountable for what they have promised to accomplish with this historically massive infrastructure bill. 

Want to save the climate? Start by funding transit operations

The current trend of more driving will make it harder for us to reach our emissions goals. Making public transit a more convenient and reliable option so people can access the things they need while taking shorter or fewer car trips is one way to reverse the trend of more driving.

MARTA buses in Atlanta. Flickr photo by James Williamor.

This post was written by Rayla Bellis, Director of Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America, and Abi Grimminger, T4America Communications Associate. It’s the first of a series of posts on this topic—find the full set here.

Transportation accounts for the largest share of emissions in the US, and cars and trucks are responsible for nearly all of it. To fully decarbonize transportation by 2050, we need to transition to electric vehicles (EVs). But that transition is still decades away, and in the meantime the cumulative impacts of more driving and more emissions will make it harder for us to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. We cannot afford to wait until the 2040s to start bending the curve on transportation emissions: we need to take real action now. And we won’t get there if we continue to do what we’ve been doing: driving more and more (measured as vehicle miles traveled or VMT).

We need to give people better options for getting around without needing a car. That means public transit, and a lot more of it. Public transit isn’t a reliable option for most Americans. While about 80 percent of people in the US live within areas classified as “urban” (which includes the suburbs of urban centers), less than 10 percent of Americans live within walking distance of reliable, high quality transit that comes every 15 minutes. And 45 percent of Americans have no access to transit at all. 

Image from TransitCenter’s excellent video, The Case for Federal Transit Operations Support

Yet the federal government gives transit just 20 percent of surface transportation funding, and the rest goes to highways (which often funds highway expansions that make public transit even harder to use). Transit agencies can use this funding to repair and maintain their systems and to build out new services—but they can’t use it to help cover the cost of operating their systems, which accounts for two-thirds of a transit agency’s total expenses. This has put an enormous strain on agencies’ budgets, particularly as they continue to suffer from reduced fare revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

We can afford to do better

In partnership with Third Way, Transportation for America recently analyzed 288 of the largest urbanized areas in the U.S. to help us understand just how much we would need to increase transit operating funding in those regions to enable residents to drive less. 60 percent of all driving happens in these 288 urbanized areas. While the scale of CO2 reduction we need isn’t something transit—or EVs, or any other single strategy—can fulfill alone, it turns out we can make real headway with an achievable increase in transit spending. 

While more than two-thirds of the urbanized areas analyzed currently spend less than $100 per person on transit operations, there’s a correlation between more transit operations funding and lower amounts of driving in these metro areas. Our analysis found less driving per capita in the areas that spend more on transit operations per person (keep an eye out for a full report soon with more detail on our methodology and analysis results). That means that if we increase operating spending per person across those urbanized areas and continue to scale that spending up over time, we can expect to see meaningful reductions in driving. 

We estimate that if we doubled transit spending in all of those urbanized areas by 2050, VMT in those regions will be 6.1 percent below its current growth trajectory. If we triple our investment in transit operations, VMT would be 10.7 percent lower. That’s less time spent commuting, less time in traffic, and less emissions warming our planet.

In fact, doubling or tripling transit spending would be roughly equivalent to taking every single gas-powered car off the road for about an entire day every two months for the next 30 years. If we fail to reach our goals of 100% electric vehicles by 2050, it would be closer to a day every single month with no emissions whatsoever from gas-powered vehicles.

VMT reduction impacts of increased transit spending

The 288 urbanized areas we analyzed spent $48 billion on transit operations in 2019.

By 2050, if we ↧ ↧By 2050, we would increase annual transit spending to...And see VMT reduction across those urbanized areas in 2050 of...
...double transit operating spending in each urbanized area$94 billion-6.1%
(143 billion fewer miles per year than projected)
...triple transit operating spending in each urbanized area$120 billion-10.7%
(250 billion fewer miles per year than projected)

Estimated using 2019 transit operating spending from the National Transit Database and 2019 per capita VMT from the Federal Highway Administration. Scenarios doubling or tripling transit spending were capped at a maximum of $800 per person in each urbanized area.

While we won’t be able to double or triple transit operating spending overnight, these are investments we can—and need to—start making now. Unfortunately, the federal government is continuing to turn a blind eye to the need for better transit funding if we ever want to reach our climate goals. Though the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act increased federal spending on transit, this legislation provides an historic amount of money for highways and prioritizes car travel. That will encourage driving-oriented road projects and development decisions that make our investments in transit less effective and the service we do have more difficult to access. A transit stop that’s dangerous or difficult to reach is a transit stop that will be underutilized, only being used by those people willing to endure the difficulty or risk. A broad coalition of stakeholders is urging $10 billion more for transit in the budget reconciliation package, which can be used to cover operating costs. Though transit will ultimately need much more than this to enable us to meet our climate goals, $10 billion is an important step in the right direction. 

There’s more to this story

It’s not just about pumping more money into transit—how we provide transit service matters. In order to reduce the amount we drive, we’ll need to ensure that transit effectively connects people to the places they need to go. We’ll be doing a series of blog posts analyzing what it would take to build a national transit system that helps get us to our climate goals. 

Federal transportation funding opportunities 101

There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. These five in-depth, detailed guides explain the available federal programs for funding public transportation, passenger rail, Complete Streets and active transportation, and EV infrastructure.

Image by Picture of Money via Flickr

We boiled down the funding opportunities within the federal transportation program, with a focus on how much flexibility there is for transit, intercity rail, Complete Streets and EV infrastructure. These more sophisticated guides are especially helpful for very engaged advocates or agencies who are looking for in-depth specifics about funding and program eligibilities.

There are currently five funding guides:

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the IIJA, or 2021 infrastructure bill) is the law of the land, guiding all federal transportation policy and funding decisions through at least late 2026. On top of the infrastructure law’s $102 billion in competitive or discretionary grant programs, the established formula funding programs also have considerable but typically untapped flexibility for funding projects across the transportation infrastructure spectrum, such as the main source of highway funding going instead to certain transit projects.

View our guide to understanding the IIJA

More background:

In addition to the approved IIJA, the (stalled) 2021 budget reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), would bring additional major investment in sustainable and equitable transportation. While that bill is on hold for now, record investment is still on the way through the IIJA. 1

While the bulk of the new IIJA funding will just advance the status quo, these bills, taken together, do better acknowledge the importance of climate change, equity, safety, and connecting communities.

Less than 30 days to speak out on transit funding

graphic element

Last weekend, Congress gave themselves until October 31st to pass the infrastructure deal (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA) and the budget reconciliation (the Build Back Better Act). With cuts on the way for the Build Back Better Act, it’s more important than ever to raise our voices in support of transit funding.

In the Build Back Better Act, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee allocated funds to key programs that are critical for our nation to create and sustain good-paying jobs, strengthen our global economic competitiveness, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution. At the same time, these provisions will make real progress toward racial, economic, and environmental justice. 

Passing the IIJA without these provisions in the reconciliation bill will leave the nation in a worse state than before—facing rising greenhouse gas emissions and worsened access to jobs and services, especially for communities that need this access most. Even so, Congress is negotiating major cuts to the reconciliation bill that could threaten these programs in the name of an arbitrary bottomline.

The programs we can’t lose

Investing in marginalized communities

  • A $10 billion transit program that includes operations funding and is specifically designed to connect residents of disadvantaged or persistent poverty communities to jobs and essential services 
  • A $4 billion program to mitigate negative impacts of transportation on underserved communities

Investing in local communities

  • A $6 billion program that would advance local surface transportation projects

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions 

  • $4 billion in incentive grants for states that show progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not only benefitting the environment but the local economy and public health 

Increased funding for rail 

  • $10 billion for the planning and development of public high-speed rail projects and $150 million for credit risk premium assistance, supporting jobs and providing for travel options

The Build Back Better Act increases transit funding by $10 billion, bringing transit spending up to $49 billion. If that number sounds familiar, it’s the amount transit was originally promised by a bipartisan group of Senators—before the Senate stripped out $10 billion without any explanation. 

The funding provided by the Build Back Better Act promotes more local control and is flexible enough to include operating funds—a glaring omission in the IIJA. Adequate funding for transit, transit operations in particular,  is crucial for mobility freedom and access to jobs, education, and community for all users, especially youth, elderly, people with disabilities, and all those unable to access a vehicle.

The Build Back Better Act makes meaningful investments in rebuilding communities harmed by transportation decisions, another area where the IIJA comes up short. Highway construction and suburban sprawl have repeatedly caused the uprooting and marginalizing of communities, particularly BIPOC communities. It is crucial for the  government to facilitate rebuilding and reconnecting our communities. 

The Build Back Better Act is far more serious than the IIJA about taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve infrastructure for all Americans. These are necessary programs that shouldn’t be cut to meet a last-minute spending goal. We encourage you to call your Congressperson and voice your support for these programs in the Build Back Better Act before time runs out.

A way to improve the infrastructure deal

The transportation programs for the budget reconciliation package would help fill the gaps left by the bipartisan infrastructure deal. 

Close-up of Capitol building
Photo by S Chia on Flickr

Update 9/21: This post was updated to include progress made in the House since its original post date.

Congress’ final infrastructure deal (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) didn’t live up to the original bipartisan package announced with pride by the White House and Senate on June 24, cutting transit funding by $10 billion while almost all other areas matched the original proposal. The House’s budget reconciliation package takes steps to restore this funding, while also going further to provide equitable access to goods and services, improve climate outcomes, and reduce the negative impacts of the transportation system on disadvantaged communities.

The House’s reconciliation package includes a new $10 billion transit program, helping to rectify the $10 billion taken from transit in the final bipartisan infrastructure bill. This funding includes flexibility for operations support, which will be key for transit agencies hit hard by the pandemic. It’s also specifically designed to connect residents of disadvantaged or persistent poverty communities to jobs and essential services. 

Another win for equity: the budget also provides $4 billion for communities negatively impacted by transportation. These funds can be used to improve walkability, reduce the public health impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and improve road safety.

There’s an additional $4 billion for incentive grants for states that reduce GHG emissions significantly or adopt targets to reach zero emissions by 2050. Funding is also included for USDOT to institute a GHG emissions performance measure to help prioritize projects that reduce travel time and emissions. Former President Trump repealed this measure and reinstating it is one of our key tasks for the Biden administration.

To help address needs at a local level, the House added $6 billion to advance local surface transportation projects.

The House also added $10 billion for the planning and development of public high-speed rail projects and $150 million for credit risk premium assistance, making it easier for smaller railroads to access and benefit from these funds. This funding will help improve passenger rail service, making it a more convenient and reliable form of transportation.

We enthusiastically support these programs and encourage you to tell your senator to include them in the final budget reconciliation package.

It’s time for infrastructure that works for rural America

Erwin's downtown with multiple historic buildings and American flags

Rural Americans need and deserve reliable and convenient transportation options, but current policies are failing them. Today we’re releasing six recommendations to help the administration make things right, combined with stories of success from rural America showing a better approach.

Erwin's downtown with multiple historic buildings and American flags
Downtown Erwin, TN. Source: Andrew.Tobin via Flickr

Time and time again, federal policymakers have operated under the assumption that living in a rural area inevitably means spending a lot of time driving long distances to accomplish daily needs—and that rural residents have great enthusiasm for this. But this belief is out of touch with the reality of rural life, where more than 1 million households don’t have access to a car, and for the most part, life is still arranged around small downtowns or town centers. 

In addition, the folks who do drive are driving farther than they ever have before to accomplish the same things as yesterday—amounting to a great deal of cost, time, and inconvenience. New research from Transportation for America and Third Way released today finds that households in both rural and urban areas are driving significantly farther per trip as of 2017 than they were in 2001 to accomplish their commutes and daily tasks.

Yet households in lower-density suburban areas actually travel farther on average than households located near rural town centers. Our seven short stories in the back of this report show that many small towns are offering their residents the resources they need to achieve a high quality of life and travel conveniently and safely to jobs, school, stores, and more. Unfortunately, these towns’ efforts are undercut by federal policy that treats rural places as “drive-through” country, hollows out the most economically productive places in rural America, moves destinations farther apart, and consistently fails to prioritize rural needs.

A better approach: Six recommendations

Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure bill preserves many of these obstacles, but there are still plenty of opportunities ahead in how we implement that bill to make it easier for rural communities to revitalize their downtowns (bringing necessities together at one stop) and provide better transportation options. After this bill is finalized, federal decision-makers shouldn’t tune out for five years until the next big transportation bill, like they usually do—they should put in the work now to make this transportation policy work for rural communities.

1. Invest heavily in transit in rural America

Like every other part of the country, rural America includes residents who for a variety of reasons can’t drive, even if they have the financial means to access a reliable vehicle. Rural areas in particular have a higher share of their population aged 65 and over, who take fewer trips on average than their urban counterparts. Investing in transit can combat isolation and ensure that all people are able to access the resources they need. Rural transit is different too, and we need an approach tailored to their specific needs, rather than just a smaller “urban” transit program for rural areas.

2. Prioritize projects that improve access and reduce trip length

Good infrastructure should get people where they need to go, but our current approach focuses too heavily on speed as a proxy for success. Instead of incentivizing new projects that improve speed by default, it’s time to prioritize access—connecting more people to work, goods, and services in areas closer to where they live. You can be sure that some of the noted growth in trip length in rural areas is due to the consolidation or closure of destinations like hospitals, major employers, or the like.

3. Prioritize safety for everyone in developed areas like town centers

For rural areas, where town main streets often also function as state highways, current federal standards aren’t cutting it. Roadway design emphasizes speed and directly contributes to dangerous conditions for people walking or traveling without a car. As demonstrated by our case study of Hillsboro, VA, prioritizing safety over speed can make all the difference between a thriving economic hub and an abandoned downtown.

4. Prioritize maintaining rural highways over expanding them

Current policy incentivizes new highway investments that draw development away from small town centers, instead of prioritizing the repair of road and bridge connections that small town residents need. If a bridge in a rural county is closed due to lack of repairs, the detours can be incredibly inconvenient.

5. Connect rural areas by making a sizeable investment in better broadband access

We’re focused on transportation, but bad broadband access comes with significant transportation impacts, requiring long trips in some cases to accomplish work and activities that could otherwise be done online. While 97 percent of Americans in urban areas have access to high-speed fixed service, that number falls to 65 percent in rural areas, and barely 60 percent have access on Tribal lands, limiting economic opportunity and mobility.

6. Recalibrate federal agency policies and grant programs to better support rural town centers

Many rural communities depend heavily on grant programs from the US Department of Agriculture and other agencies to support their economic development, but a recent New York Times article highlighted how these grant programs can ultimately work to the detriment of small towns. These programs should be structured to encourage and incentivize investment in the historic town centers where their impacts are amplified.

In addition to these simple but powerful recommendations, we also profile a handful of communities that are attempting to do things differently, including stories from Paris, TX, Burlington, NC, Oxford, MS, Erwin, TN, and more.

Read the full report.

Senate makes historic investment in yesterday’s transportation priorities

press release

Deal worsens long-term prospects for addressing climate and equity woes

“The Senate’s final infrastructure deal is certainly big, but it’s anything but bold,” said T4America Director Beth Osborne after the Senate’s 69-30 approval of the package on Tuesday.

“There are certainly welcome new additions, including a major recalibration of the nation’s approach to investing in and running passenger rail and a small program to tear down divisive old highways. But with this deal, the Senate is largely doubling down on a dinosaur of a federal transportation program that’s produced a massive repair backlog we are no closer to addressing, roads that are killing a historic number of vulnerable travelers each year, little opportunity to reach work or essential services if a family doesn’t have multiple cars, and the continued inability for local governments to have a say over what projects are built in their communities.

“The White House will soon discover that they’ve dealt themselves a challenging hand in their long-term effort to address climate change and persistent inequities, while kicking the can down a crumbling road that’s likely to stay that way. And they’ve done so while sidelining the House’s visionary INVEST Act, which would have started to finally bring a long overdue 21st century paradigm to transportation. 

“While we are excited to see a historic amount of funding for transit, the Senate also supercharged the highway program with a historic amount while failing to provide any new accountability for making progress on repair, safety, equity, climate, or jobs access outcomes. And in fact, when comparing this deal to the original bipartisan infrastructure framework announced in June 2021, transit is one of the few things cut at all (by $10 billion). Coming just a day after a dire new IPCC climate report calling for transformational change, the Senate is providing hundreds of billions for status quo programs that will be used to build new roads and produce ever-increasing emissions for decades to come.

“There were hundreds of amendments proposed to address these core shortcomings, but not only did the Senate fail to include any of them, the majority were not considered at all. This includes vital proposals requiring states to make progress on repairing their infrastructure before building expensive new things (in fact, this provision was applied to transit only), requiring measurable improvements in the number of people killed on our roads, measuring greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation system, and providing more money for removing or bridging over highways that were rammed through Black and Brown neighborhoods.

“We now turn to the House to see if they can bring more of a results-oriented approach to the transportation program. And we stand ready to work with the administration to change their internal procedures to get the best out of a very flawed piece of legislation.”

###

On infrastructure, the White House is about to trade away their stated goals on transportation in the name of bipartisanship

press release

“In its current state, this deal fails to accomplish the administration’s goal of reducing emissions, preserving both the status quo of easy money to build new highways (while neglecting basic repair needs) and the existing, complex hurdles to build transit,” said T4America Director Beth Osborne. 

Though this bill contains the largest federal investments in both public transit and electric vehicle recharging, these noble efforts to drive down emissions will be undermined by equally historic levels of highway spending that will produce higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as it always has. This funding package will provide a small amount of funding for reconnecting communities divided by highways and other infrastructure while providing hundreds of times more funding to build and expand highways creating new divisions. 

“You cannot fill a hole with a teaspoon that’s still being dug with an excavator.

“The good news is there  are a handful of exciting amendments the Senate is expected to consider that would improve this deal before final passage. 

“Senator Warnock is proposing to increase funding for reconnecting communities divided and damaged by highways and other infrastructure from $1 billion to $5 billion. While that’s a far cry from the White House’s $20 billion proposal, it’s a welcome start. Senator Klobuchar is proposing to halt the practice of allowing states to set targets for more people to die on our roadways without any penalty or requirement to improve safety—a long overdue improvement to better measure how we spend our money and hold states accountable to the taxpayer. Senator Cardin is proposing to require states to measure greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and set targets to reduce those emissions through their investments. Finally, Senator Kaine is proposing a strong ‘fix-it-first’ amendment that requires states to make progress on addressing their maintenance backlog before building new or expanding highways and have a plan to maintain that new asset. It also requires a demonstration that the highway project is more cost-beneficial than an operations, freight or transit improvement and that it furthers the state’s ability to reach other performance targets. 

“One important achievement in this deal is its ambitious proposal for passenger rail which was previously approved by the Senate Commerce Committee. As we wrote when it passed, ‘this represents a fundamentally new approach that will expand, increase, and improve service; focus on the entire national network; encourage more local, ground-up coalitions of local-state partnerships for improving or adding new service; and make it easier to finance projects and expand that authority to transit-oriented development projects.’ 

“These positive inclusions aside, this deal pours the majority of new transportation money into the same old broken cistern. If this deal passes without significant changes the White House will have an uphill battle over the next five years to implement this deal in a way that addresses their priorities and tackles our maintenance backlog, addresses climate emissions, and removes safety and structural barriers to economic opportunity.

“There’s still time to improve the deal, and the Senate and White House need to go far beyond just more money for the status quo.”

Senate takes aim at essential transit relief dollars to cover the cost of their infrastructure bill

woman in MTA subway carriage cleaning the ceiling
Image Source: Flickr/ MTA NYC

With the bipartisan infrastructure framework legislative text nearing a vote, unused transit COVID relief dollars have become a target for scrounging together enough money to pay for that deal’s cost. Our communities still need these funds—here’s why:

Most of the United States shut down last March 2020, as stay at home orders were enacted and many people were placed in remote work and school arrangements. However, our essential workers, including transit operators, continued to work on the frontlines. The CARES Act, Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act, and the American Rescue Plan provided vital funding to keep transit agencies and their communities moving. While overall ridership numbers drastically decreased, transit agencies continued to transport the essential workers who never stopped serving their communities every day through the pandemic. As our nation moves towards recovery, even amid growing concerns around the COVID-19 Delta variant, transit agencies will continue to need these funds to fully recover.

It will take a few years before transit ridership returns to pre-COVID levels. That is exactly why Congress allowed the American Rescue Plan’s transit relief funds to be available until 2024. While some agencies have fully exhausted all their relief funding, others have made plans to draw down those funds over time to avoid financial disaster. Taking this money away from transit agencies now, with so many political and public health unknowns, will put many of those agencies right back on the fiscal cliff Congress sought to avoid at the beginning of the year.

Here is what some transit agencies have spent their COVID money on:

Some transit agencies had the ability or need to fully utilize all of their COVID relief dollars while others have used different strategies to recover from stay at home orders. Why is that? Every transit agency’s financial flexibility is different. Many agencies pay for much of their operating costs through a combination of state and local taxes and fares. Many transit agencies moved to a fare free system in order to make drivers and operators safer by reducing interaction with riders. This decision to protect the public health of operators and riders had a strong impact on revenue. In addition, some parts of the country were hit harder than others by the economic downturn, greatly impacting the amount of taxes collected. Smaller agencies and larger agencies typically don’t depend on fare revenues to the same degree. 

The labor market for transit agencies has also been severely impacted by the pandemic. The ability to train and hire new operators while implementing social distancing guidance has become a challenge while traditional retirements and attrition rates continue. If Congress were to pull these funds, it would put an even greater strain on transit agencies’ ability to recruit and retain operators and staff—right at the time when ridership is going to start picking up once again.

Investment in transit is investment in people, our communities, and our economy. COVID relief dollars have been and continue to be a lifeline to transit agencies that serve our communities and will drive economic growth through recovery. Yanking those relief dollars at this juncture would be pulling the rug out from under these agencies, driving their operations to ruin, deteriorating and cutting mobility for millions of Americans, and stymying the recovery of many communities reliant on public transit.

Bipartisan infrastructure deal update: What we need to see

With Capitol Hill abuzz about transportation infrastructure, Transportation for America wants to remind Congress of key policies that must be incorporated into a bipartisan infrastructure bill (as well as a final transportation reauthorization bill.)

(UPDATE 7/15: Senate info added and call script below, post clarified to focus on bipartisan deal.)

Transportation has been the main topic on Capitol Hill in recent weeks with the recently passed House INVEST Act, a deal struck between a bipartisan group of senators and the President, and momentum building for transit operating support legislation in the House and Senate. Over in the Senate, there’s a mediocre highway title and a pretty good passenger rail and safety title. (While the transit title is still missing, we’re hoping for something soon.)

Also in the mix is the standalone bipartisan infrastructure framework. The Senate plans to consider the legislative language of that bipartisan compromise deal next week (the week of July 19th), to pair policies with those basic, top-line funding numbers released a few weeks ago. That framework is coming into focus with the understanding that its funding amounts are new, additional money that adds additional dollars to the current FAST Act authorized amounts.

Process-wise, this deal is unlikely to go through the traditional conferencing process where the House and Senate negotiate the bill through committee conferences. This means Senate and House leaders are likely to produce a bill by negotiating bill text before a bill is introduced and passed in either chamber and then simply bring that final bill to the Senate floor for a vote and then the House floor for a vote.

A “compromise” can’t mean settling for the broken status quo

Senators from just 22 states have an outsize role in producing the final product. If you live in one of these states listed below, call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Senator’s office? It’s surprisingly easy and will take just five minutes. Ask to speak to anyone working on the infrastructure deal. Here’s a short script you can use when you get to leave your message:

“I live in [STATE] and I’m calling about the infrastructure deal. I’m glad that we’re investing in infrastructure, but we have to do it right, and this potential deal must do four key things.

First, states are still spending money on new roads we can’t afford to maintain. This deal must prioritize repair with our tax dollars first. Second, we need to invest in transit like we did with highways in the 1950s and 60s to give more people more options for getting around. Third, we need to address the deep inequities in our communities. The House transportation proposal included significant money to tear down highways that destroyed neighborhoods and focus on healing divided communities. That’s the kind of thinking we need in this deal. Lastly, the deal has to prioritize safety for all people on our streets. The ways we currently design and build streets prioritize vehicle speed over the safety of people, and that’s one reason we’re seeing record levels of people being killed on our streets.

That’s all. Thank you for your time.”

Key Senators

ALASKA
Murkowski

ARIZONA
Sinema
Kelly

COLORADO
Hickenlooper

DELAWARE
Carper
Coons

INDIANA
Young

KANSAS
Moran

LOUISIANA
Cassidy

MAINE
Collins
King

MISSISSIPPI
Wicker

MONTANA
Tester

NORTH CAROLINA
Tillis
Burr

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Hassan
Shaheen

NEVADA
Rosen

NEW YORK
Schumer

OHIO
Brown
Portman

PENNSYLVANIA
Toomey

SOUTH CAROLINA
Graham

SOUTH DAKOTA
Rounds

UTAH
Romney

VIRGINIA
Warner

WASHINGTON
Cantwell

WEST VIRGINIA
Capito
Manchin

Here are more details on the key policy priorities that MUST be incorporated into any bill that invests in transportation infrastructure:

Accountability to fix our roads and bridges, not just rhetoric

The administration has claimed that the money for highways in the bipartisan proposal is all about maintenance and repair. We need to see more than rhetoric. 

There is a huge maintenance backlog on our roads, bridges, and transit infrastructure, and we only have so much money we can invest. The priority must be on first addressing the maintenance backlog. Additionally, for any new proposed transportation capacity, a maintenance plan needs to be part of the equation before adding more infrastructure into the mix with no plan for how to maintain it.

The House transportation committee supported this concept unanimously in 2020 and it was incorporated into the INVEST Act a few weeks ago as well. The Senate’s highway proposal failed completely on this count and as of now, there is no hard and fast requirement in the bipartisan deal to prioritize repair. Failing to include such a provision would be a colossal mistake.

Highway-style commitment to transit

For every dollar of transportation investment, only twenty cents goes towards transit (and the rest towards highways). This is a huge imbalance between a mode of transportation focused on vehicle movement and speed and another focused on moving people, providing equitable access to mobility, and connecting communities to opportunities. It’s time to focus transportation investment on people and the environment first.

The transportation reauthorization bill should increase transit funding to the level of highways and fund transit operations. Providing operating support for transit agencies would allow them to increase frequency and expand service to efficiently move more riders, which will also have immediate and lasting impacts on climate change. In fact, providing people more options to get around without a car (in addition to electrifying the fleet) is an essential component of ratcheting down greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a strategy that will give everyone improved access to jobs and services and better health outcomes—especially for low-income households and communities of color. The Stronger Communities through Better Transit Act in the House works to help bridge the transit parity gap with highways.

Address inequities in our communities

Transportation is a public good that provides people and goods with mobility and accessibility between and within communities. However, transportation public works projects—especially our national highway system—have historically torn through established communities, specifically targeting marginalized communities. It’s high time to redress those wrongs in the federal transportation program by providing funding to remove highway infrastructure that divides communities while mitigating the displacement of marginalized communities, providing people with equitable access to jobs and services, and, giving local communities control to guide the process (versus being dictated by their state department of transportation).

The Southeast/Southwest freeway in Washington, DC under construction in 1968, which plowed through homes and cut off southwestern and southeastern DC neighborhoods from downtown and the Mall. Photo by DDOT on Flickr.

Specifically, the final transportation reauthorization bill needs to include a competitive grant program, akin to the INVEST Act’s $3 Billion Reconnecting Neighborhoods program, aimed at not only capital and planning costs for eligible communities to redesign or deconstruct divisive infrastructure, but enabling the creation of land trusts to avoid community displacement, empowering local decision making and implementation, and updating the transportation planning process to be cognizant of holistic multimodal transportation impacts for all users. 

Design and invest in safety for all users

You would think reduced driving trends in 2020 due to COVID-19 would have caused a drop in traffic fatalities. Unfortunately the opposite was true—fatalities were up everywhere, reaching historic highs.

From NHTSA’s Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2020 report, available here

Traffic deaths increased overall, with a disproportionate number of fatalities impacting pedestrians, cyclists, and marginalized populations. The trend is not new, and is only intensifying over time, and it is evidence of how our existing methods of designing and building streets are inherently unsafe and prioritize a need for vehicle speed over all other users. The final transportation reauthorization bill needs to fundamentally change our design standards to emphasize people movement across all modes.

It furthermore needs to require states and metropolitan areas to target their investments and document performance on reducing fatalities on their roadways instead of continued lip service and wasted tax dollars only perpetuating more fatalities.

Drafters of the final bill should look to the various examples from the INVEST Act that tackle safety and design of the transportation network, from the regulatory framework in reimagining the MUTCD, accountability measures that ensure transportation investments do indeed reduce traffic fatalities for all users, and competitive grant programs for local communities to plan, design and implement Complete Streets and Vision Zero plans. 

The bipartisan infrastructure deal: What we know and don’t know

The infrastructure deal could end up spending money just like our current transportation program does — it’s unclear. Graphic from Repair Priorities

In the midst of debates over a new long-term federal transportation law, there’s been nonstop coverage of a potential bipartisan deal on new infrastructure investment that has the White House’s backing, but much of the reporting raises more questions than it answers. What do we know about the potential deal, and what questions does T4America have? 

Capitol Hill has been abuzz in recent weeks about transportation reauthorization, whether the Senate’s dud of a highway title, the House’s much better all-in-one comprehensive proposal (The INVEST Act), or the Senate Commerce Committee’s very good rail and transportation safety title—though we’re still waiting to see the Senate’s transit proposal from the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. 

With those competing proposals to replace the FAST Act (expiring in September) in the background, a bipartisan group of 21 senators have been hammering out a standalone infrastructure package that can get the President’s endorsement and potentially pass both chambers of Congress. Just last Thursday (6/24), the bipartisan group of senators met with and secured President Biden’s endorsement of their broad deal on infrastructure. The deal’s details are still emerging and making political waves on both sides of the aisle, but here is what we know (not much), don’t know (quite a bit), and really want to know.

What we know

The infrastructure deal is a $1.2 trillion framework that would make historic investments in clean transportation, power, and water infrastructure; universal broadband infrastructure; and climate resiliency. The framework highlights proposed funding amounts and how to pay for such a transformational framework—the latter of which has received ample coverage from the Hill media at the expense of more substantial reporting on the actual real-world impacts of the deal, much to our consternation: 

One important note is that not all of this deal’s funding is new—the $1.2 trillion number also presupposes the passage of the Senate’s $303+ billion, five-year transportation bill, which we believe is largely a lackluster continuation of the badly out-of-date status quo. 

What we don’t know 

There’s a lot more that we don’t know about what’s in this deal, than what we do know.

The framework is very light on specific details as to precisely how these funds would be spent and what measurable goals they intend to achieve. Is this funding framework intended to put money into existing programs and existing transportation policy? Something proposed by the Senate and/or House?  Or something else entirely? After T4America was asked numerous times by the media last week if this bill has “enough” funding in it, there’s frankly just not enough information on “how” the money will be spent in order to make that call. 

Or as T4America Director Beth Osborne said in this New York Times’ piece about the deal:

“You can spend a trillion dollars in highways and not spend a dime on repair. So seeing something titled ‘Highways’ with a number by it doesn’t tell me what will be repaired so I can’t answer whether this is enough,” 

The bottom line here is, what are we paying for? Transportation for America believes strongly that if we are buying something, we want to know WHAT we’re buying before we decide how much *whatever it is* will cost.

What we want to know 

Will this bipartisan infrastructure framework move the needle on key issues that both sides of the aisle believe strongly about, or are they both giving up their core priorities just to get a “bipartisan” deal done? Will this framework shift the focus and paradigm in the nation’s transportation program towards addressing climate change plus equity and inclusion? Will this framework finally prioritize maintaining our existing infrastructure before expanding it, or will it just encourage yet further expansions to a dangerously growing maintenance backlog? Does the framework refocus the transportation program to serve people over vehicles, with special attention to improving our transportation safety and connecting people to jobs and communities?

Stay tuned to forthcoming developments on this potential nfrastructure deal as news becomes more clear.

How has President Biden done on transportation in his first 100 days?

President Biden has gotten a lot of attention for his (good) infrastructure plan and overall approach to transportation. But after 100 days in office, the administration has ignored a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to executive and administrative actions they can take to support public transportation, emissions reduction, and other critical goals. 

Then Vice President Biden. Photo by the U.S. Embassy Jerusalem

In November 2020, along with Smart Growth America, we sent the incoming Biden administration a memo outlining executive actions and long-term legislation we urged the new president to initiate, which included a list of executive and administrative actions on transportation:

Issue areaDepartmentStatusAction
Access to federal fundsUSDOTSimplify applications for discretionary grant programs (like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program) by creating an online application and benefit-cost analysis (BCA) process so that small, rural and limited-capacity agencies can more easily access federal funds.
Climate changeUSDOTStarted rulemakingWe only measure what we treasure. Re-establish the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for transportation abandoned by the last administration, follow this up with annual state GHG rankings, and provide guidance for projecting GHG emissions at the project level.
Climate changeUSDOTDoneRepeal the June 29, 2018, Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Dear Colleague to public transit agencies regarding the Capital Investment Grant program, specifically the treatment of federal loans as not part of the local match, inclusion of a geographic diversity factor in grant awards, and encouraging a low federal cost share.
Climate changeUSDOTAllow rural transit systems to receive funding from the Low and No Emission bus program.
EquityUSDOTIdentify infrastructure that creates barriers to mobility (such as highways or rail beds that divide a community). Then prioritize resources to address those barriers and the disparities they create (e.g., by removing infrastructure barriers or creating new connectivity).
Passenger railWhite House, USDOTReview the Amtrak Board of Directors and assess the balance of the board with respect to support for and experience with vital long distance, state-supported, and Northeast Corridor routes, as well as civic and elected leaders from local communities actually served by the existing network.
SafetyUSDOTRevise the New Car Assessment Program to consider and prioritize the risk that increasingly larger automobile designs pose to pedestrians and cyclists and the driver’s ability to see pedestrians (particularly children and people using wheelchairs and other assistive devices.)
SafetyUSDOTComment period extendedReopen the comment period on the handbook of street engineering standards (the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or MUTCD) used by transportation agencies to design streets, and reframe and rewrite it to remove standards and guidance that lead to streets that are hostile to or dangerous for those outside of a vehicle.
Technical guidanceWhite House, HUD, USDOT, GSARe-activate the Location Affordability Portal created by DOT and HUD and establish a location efficiency and equitable development scoring criteria to be applied to decisions involving location of new federal facilities, particularly those that serve the public.
Update modeling to achieve desired outcomesUSDOTImprove traffic projections used to justify projects by issuing guidance requiring the measurement of induced demand and a review of the accuracy of current travel demand models by comparing past projections with actual outcomes, reporting their findings, and updating the models when there are discrepancies.
Update modeling to achieve desired outcomesUSDOTPush states and metro areas to stop assuming that time savings automatically accrue due to faster vehicle speeds by updating the guidance on the value of time and instead start considering actual projected time savings for a whole trip.

Unfortunately, while the Biden administration has been saying many of the right things, the administration hasn’t made much progress on transportation in real terms, only addressing two of the actions in this list. 

The good: A rule change

Repealed Trump changes to transit construction grants: Under President Trump, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) made an unprecedented change to the program for building transit to count federal loans that get repaid in full by local governments as part of the federal share of a project’s cost, rather than the local share. This unfairly penalized local communities that use low-cost federal loans, essentially requiring more local funds for projects where the feds are only covering 50 percent or less of the cost. As per our recommendation, the Biden administration rescinded this rule in February. 

The incomplete: More comments for street design manual

Comment period extended for the broken street design manual: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is a street design document used by planners across the country. To date, this manual’s overemphasis on designing for motor vehicle speed and failure to fully consider all modes of travel in the places where people live and work has contributed to the rising tide of people struck and killed while walking on streets that are dangerous by design—by creating and governing the design of streets that contribute to this crisis in the first place. 

The Trump administration proposed tepid changes to the MUTCD that failed to reform the vehicle-centric standards that prioritize the cars racing through neighborhoods and rules which limit, for example, how communities can install crosswalks, bike and bus lanes, or traffic calming.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg brought up reforming the MUTCD in March as a technical fix the new administration could focus on, and the Biden administration took the important step of extending the period for submitting comments on the MUTCD. 

The comment period ends on Friday, May 14th. USDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have not yet committed to a rewrite or a fundamentally new approach that would prioritize safety and people. This is the moment for us to push for it. You can submit a comment directly on our website—it only takes one minute. 

Take action

The bad: No other executive actions taken

There is so much more that the Biden administration can do immediately to make a major positive difference in transportation policy, from requiring the measurement of induced demand in traffic projections used to justify highway expansions, to reinstating the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure repealed by the Trump administration. The latter measure was supported by 47 members of Congress in a letter led by Senator Ben Cardin (MD) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR-3), and over 75 organizations and local elected officials in a letter we wrote and organized. 

The Biden administration is making some major promises on transportation and infrastructure—most notably with the American Jobs Plan, the largest investment in infrastructure ever proposed by a president. But only the broad strokes of this plan were released. As we wrote last month, getting the policy right is critical to making sure that this investment delivers the sustainable, equitable, safe and efficient transportation system we need. 

We’ve learned the hard way through years of big spending with no policy changes: Policy matters. Rulemaking matters. If the Biden administration truly wants to transform U.S. transportation, they need to do more than talk about it. They need to seize the opportunities to make changes that don’t require Congress to weigh in.

Did you know that it’s Infrastructure Week once again?

After two solid years of everyone in Washington, DC talking nonstop about a standalone infrastructure bill to pump trillions into America’s infrastructure, we’d understand if you weren’t aware that the last Infrastructure Week ever ended.

If you haven’t seen the evidence in your inbox already, the incessant drumbeat for more money is already underway today. All this week, you’ll hear the usual interest groups starting this conversation by talking about nothing but money:

Why are they telling us the price before they’ve told us what we’re buying?

We think that this is backwards, and our Repair Priorities 2019 report, launching tomorrow, will help show why. Even as we gave states more than $300 billion to spend almost however they wanted to—in addition to billions more in the 2009 stimulus—the condition of our nation’s roads actually got worse from 2009-2017. Thirty-seven states saw an increase of roads in “poor” condition.

Our roads got worse not because we lacked money, but because too many states spent that money on building or expanding new roads rather than being good stewards by prioritizing repair. We built enough new lane-miles during that period to criss-cross the country 83 times, roads that will cost us $5 billion more per year just to maintain in good condition.

This is more than a money problem—it’s a priorities problem.

Congress has to stop asking taxpayers for more funding to fix crumbling roads and bridges without providing concrete, measurable assurances that any new money will actually improve things.

The public deserves to know first what more money is going to buy us—not just how much money they “need.” Congress’ decisions over the last two decades has just led to a lack of transportation options, more inequality, and more and bigger roads filled with more traffic and more pollution.

If you think we need to fix our spending priorities before we even think about pouring more money into this broken system, then bypass the Infrastructure Week rhetoric and share our social media message for Monday instead:

Today is the 1st day of #InfrastructureWeek. Why in the world would we give more money to the same people who have been neglecting basic maintenance in order to build more things we can’t afford to maintain? #BuildWHATForTomorrow?”

Repair Priorities 2019 is being released tomorrow. Sign up for Wednesday’s 3:00 p.m. EDT webinar examining the findings now.

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The TIGER program is no more….in name


A rendering of the Multimodal Corridor Enhancement Project (MCORE) in Urbana and Champagne, Illinois is a complex street safety enhancement project that involved two city governments, the local transit agency, the University of Illinois, and the state. It wouldn’t have been possible without a TIGER grant.

Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) released the FY 2018 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the program formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER). The NOFO declares that USDOT has rebranded TIGER as the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development or “BUILD” program. The criteria for funding under BUILD and TIGER are essentially the same—with one big caveat. Under BUILD, USDOT is putting a new emphasis on securing and committing new, non-federal revenue for projects requesting funding.

USDOT defines new revenue as “revenue that is not included in current and projected funding levels and results from specific actions taken to increase transportation infrastructure investment.” And any local or state revenue authorized before January 1, 2015 is not considered new revenue and cannot be applied as matching funding for BUILD projects.

Examples of “new revenue” according to USDOT are asset recycling, tolling, tax-increment financing, or sales or gas tax increases. Under this definition, bonds do not qualify as a new revenue source.

If this sounds familiar that is because it is! The criteria for funding consideration under BUILD is a lot like the requirement that the Trump administration included in their proposed infrastructure package earlier this year. As T4America’s analysis of the infrastructure package revealed, this criteria penalizes states and localities who have already raised more local revenue for transportation projects. Why are we penalizing states and cities who acted first?

Since 2012, 31 states have raised new transportation revenues and 12 of those states raised revenue before 2015—mostly by raising or otherwise modifying their gas taxes. Beyond states, many localities like Clayton County, GA and Alameda County, CA raised local funding before 2015 through ballot measures. Even if the taxes or other funding tools are producing new revenue today, if it happened before 2015, the Trump administration doesn’t care. Many of those cities (and the 12 states) would have to raise even more new funding to meet this criteria.

Asking localities to simply kick in more money would do little to guarantee better projects—it’ll just occupy more of the local funding that states or cities could invest elsewhere or spend on long-term maintenance. And the feds shouldn’t be pointing fingers about raising more money. Unlike these states and cities, the federal government hasn’t raised the gas tax (the largest source of federal transportation dollars) since 1993.

Rural communities get shortchanged by BUILD

This is especially problematic for rural communities who already have a difficult time raising new revenue. Many of the sources of new revenue suggested by U.S. DOT—asset recycling, tolling, tax-increment financing—are not feasible in rural areas because there is little to no private demand to finance infrastructure in rural areas because it’s not profitable.

The administration has talked a big game about the need to improve infrastructure in rural areas and this NOFO is on message, saying that’s a priority for this year’s BUILD program. But this new criteria actively makes it harder for rural areas to be competitive for funding because they will struggle to raise new revenue.

With this big change, the BUILD program has already built something: another obstacle to rural communities getting the transportation funding they need.

Background on TIGER

The FY 18 omnibus package enacted into law last month tripled the size of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program from $500 million to $1.5 billion. The omnibus rejected the president’s proposal to eliminate the TIGER program. This NOFO makes available the $1.5 billion from the omnibus and requires applications to be submitted to USDOT by July 19, 2018.

The TIGER program was one of the only ways that local communities could apply for and directly receive federal dollars for their most needed transportation projects. TIGER enabled the development of complete streets and walkable communities, expanded intermodal access to our nation’s ports, improved our public transit network, made our highway and railway systems more efficient, and helped to strengthen our passenger ferry network. TIGER routinely had requests for three to four times more in funding than was available—making it a very competitive program—and raised $3.6 in additional funding for every dollar appropriated through TIGER. In short, TIGER has been a widely successful and popular program.

T4America members recently got the inside scoop on this next round of TIGER/BUILD via an exclusive webinar with USDOT.

Not yet a member? T4America regularly offers members more in-depth summaries of USDOT actions like this NOFO. In the days ahead, we will be helping members to make their applications more competitive.

Learn more about T4America membership here.

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of February 23rd

Stories You May Have Missed

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

  • The math in Trump’s infrastructure plan is off by 98 percent according to a recent study from economists at the University of Pennsylvania. (Washington Post)
  • “Experts Doubt Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Will Boost Economy.” (NY Times)
  • “America’s three infrastructure problems.” (Vox)
  • “The White House is touting a pilot vehicle mileage tax program in Oregon as a reasonable means to fund infrastructure investment.” (The Hill)
  • Lawmakers are concerned at the lack of progress in installing positive train control (PTC) on the nation’s major freight and passenger rail. (The Hill)
  • “Lawmakers Commence Fiscal 2018 Funding Bill Negotiations.” (Transport Topics)

The infrastructure plan that cuts infrastructure funding

After the release of the Trump administration’s long awaited infrastructure plan yesterday (along with their FY19 budget request), Beth Osborne, vice president of technical assistance at T4America, joined CBC News to talk about some of the issues with the plan in particular.

We have numerous concerns about the infrastructure plan, including the complete lack of any new money, the dismantling of existing, popular programs that fund transit infrastructure or pressing local needs (TIGER and transit capital funding), and the complete lack of any mechanism or requirements to ensure that any money spent will go toward fixing our existing infrastructure first.

“One of the reasons there’s a break in trust between the taxpayer and the federal government is that there are only so many times you can come before the taxpayers and say, ‘our nation’s roads and bridges are crumbling, please give us more money to fix it,’ and then not dedicate [the money] to fixing it.”

Watch the full interview with Beth:

Eight questions to ask about infrastructure during tonight’s State of the Union

President Trump has been telling us that infrastructure is a top priority since his campaign. Tonight, in his State of the Union address, all signs point toward the president providing a preview of his infrastructure plan followed shortly by a public release. If enacted, this plan could reshape our communities. As we listen tonight, how should we evaluate what we hear from the president on infrastructure?

Update: Few details were shared during the president’s State of the Union speech (here’s the full text on infrastructure.) But until we hear answers, these eight key questions are just as relevant and remain in the front of our minds as we await a more detailed version of the president’s infrastructure plan. -Ed.

As we watch the president’s speech tonight, here are eight key questions, derived in part from our own set of four simple guiding principles for infrastructure investment, to help analyze what we hear tonight when it comes to transportation funding and policy.

1) Does this plan actually propose real funding? Or will they gut transit and Amtrak to pay for it? 11 minutes after promising the U.S. Conference of Mayors last week that the president’s plan would not cut existing funding to pay the tab for their proposal, White House advisor DJ Gribbin reversed himself and said the administration is in fact planning to eliminate funding for Amtrak, new transit construction, and passenger rail to pay for part of it. To be clear, neither cutting funding that cities and states rely on nor simply shifting existing money around within federal transportation programs represent real new funding.

2) Other than slashing its funding, did you hear anything else about transit? In a dramatic shift, young people, empty nesters, and major corporations are voting with their feet and choosing to live and work in locations with access to transit. Is this administration serious about supporting the cities of all sizes that are investing their own dollars in transit to move people and connect them to opportunity? Amazon’s clear preference for a robust transit network in any potential host city for their second headquarters was a wake-up call for cities small and large, and like these state lawmakers in Indiana once opposed to transit, others have awoken to the reality that it’s a vital part of any metro area with a strong economy that’s competitive for talent. Whatever the president proposes for transit tonight, remember that this administration’s 2018 budget already proposed eliminating all funding to build or expand transit.

3) Will this plan shift the cost burden to states and localities? The federal government hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1994, so states and localities have been taking the hard votes to make up at least some of that difference between mounting needs and a stagnating federal gas tax.  Whether the 31 states that have raised new transportation revenues since 2012 or the $2 billion in new local revenues for transportation raised in November 2016 alone at the ballot box, locals are already bearing the burden. Will this infrastructure plan meet them in the middle as a partner, or just further undermine local efforts to reinvest? And while some cities can go to the ballot or easily raise new revenues, many cities and smaller areas may not have the capacity to raise their own new transportation revenues to fill the gap.

 

4) Did you hear any recognition of the difference between financing and funding? We don’t lack financing for infrastructure projects, we lack the cold hard cash required to pay for them. Our highways and transit systems were built with real money, not financing gimmicks. Public-private partnerships and other financing tools can help, but they don’t replace real funding.  The White House has consistently talked about unleashing private financing in infrastructure, but private financiers don’t invest in infrastructure as a charity, they expect to make money. If they’re financing a project with money up front, it’s because they expect to make more of it in the long-term through repayments of some kind, such as regular bond payments or a dedicated funding stream like toll revenues. We don’t lack for financing opportunities, we lack the money to pay that financing back. Incentivizing more private financing won’t fix that.

5) Where do rural areas, towns, and cities fit into this plan? The status quo prioritizes state DOTs over local governments. While larger metro areas receive some funds directly, cities themselves have no direct control of those federal transportation dollars. And though metropolitan areas drive our economy, will this plan recognize that fact by giving them greater access to federal transportation dollars? There are rumors that the plan could require 25 percent of the proposed funding be set aside for rural areas, which includes a lot of smaller cities. But even with such a requirement, that money would be directly controlled by the governor or their state DOT—not local communities. Will money for rural communities be spent on them, or by them? There’s a big difference between money being spent in their area according to someone else’s priorities, and controlling that money themselves.

6) Did you hear any focus on boring ol’ repair and maintenance? Any proposal that doesn’t prioritize repairing our existing infrastructure is not a proposal worth taking seriously. It makes little sense to build costly new infrastructure (which is equally expensive to maintain) without any accountability for maintaining what we’ve got. If the rhetoric is accurate and our infrastructure truly is “crumbling,” then simply building something new and shiny doesn’t solve the underlying problem. If your house has a leaky roof, are you going to take out a loan for an expensive new addition, or are you going to fix your roof first? 

7) Will the plan prioritize building the smartest new projects, or just more of the same? If this plan produces any new money to invest in infrastructure, it should be awarded by the merits on a competitive basis to only the best projects. We know both that competition helps the best projects rise to the top, and that spending new money through outdated formulas will just lead to the same old projects. Will the president model his plan on successful competitive programs like TIGER, or will he just pour more money into the status quo and go ahead with his budgetary plan to eliminate TIGER?

8) Did you hear a call for accountability and measuring what we get for our billions in spending? Or just the same tired infrastructure rhetoric. Why spend more money on infrastructure if we don’t know that we’re going to be better off afterward? Why spend more if we don’t know that we’re going to create lasting prosperity or build a resilient framework for creating and capturing value? Spending more money on infrastructure without measuring success and considering the value of our investments is not only short-sighted, but wasteful and irresponsible. We need a transparent system of measuring performance and holding states and metro areas accountable for hitting those targets.

Our four principles place a new emphasis on measuring progress and success, rather than just focusing on how much it all costs. We want real funding for infrastructure, not just ways to borrow money or sell off public assets as a means to pay for projects. We want a real commitment to prioritize fixing our aging infrastructure before building expensive new liabilities. We want new projects to be selected competitively with more local control, spurred by innovation and creativity. And yes, we want to ensure greater accountability so taxpayers understand the benefits they are actually receiving for their billions of dollars.

So as you listen tonight (and when a specific plan is released), keep these eight simple questions in mind and ask yourself: did you hear the answers to these questions?

One thing is certain: this has definitely been the longest “infrastructure week” of all time. And it’s apparently not over yet.

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of January 26th

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

  • “Should Transit Agencies Panic? Many predict that new technology will doom public transportation. They’re wrong.” (CityLab)
  • “3 Transportation Predictions for 2018.” (U.S. News)
  • “White House plan would reduce environmental requirements for infrastructure projects.” (The Washington Post)
  • “Uber lays out infrastructure principles.” (The Hill)