On the surface, President Trump’s FY26 “skinny budget” framework, released on Friday, May 2, 2025, suggests limited implications for the nation’s transportation funding. However, a closer look reveals that the budget, if implemented, stands to have outsized funding impacts on programs tied to Complete Streets, active transportation, transit, transportation electrification, and capacity building.
The FY26 budget season is kicking off in earnest on Capitol Hill, amid the ongoing budget reconciliation process. As part of the process, the Trump administration has a chance to lay out its priorities to Congress on how it should deliver on the federal government’s national role. Congress will debate and adjust that budget framework before it is voted on and ultimately signed into law.
On May 2, 2025, the Office of Management and Budget presented a FY26 “skinny budget” framework to Congress, outlining investment priorities for the next fiscal year. The budget request has drawn headlines as it proposes to cut $163 billion in programs, including those that would slash vital housing and community development programs, with the remaining allocated domestic funding further reorganized to advance the administration’s domestic priorities.
On May 2, 2025, the Office of Management and Budget presented a FY26 “skinny budget” framework to Congress, outlining investment priorities for the next fiscal year. The budget request has drawn headlines as it proposes to cut $163 billion in programs, including those that would slash vital housing and community development programs, with the remaining allocated domestic funding further reorganized to advance the administration’s domestic priorities.
On the surface of the budget framework, transportation spending remained relatively unchanged, allocating nearly $1.2 billion more than the existing IIJA allocation for INFRA, rail safety, and rail infrastructure grants. But digging into the framework and its impact on the transportation system, the administration’s recommendation would entrench car culture and delegate transportation strategies to the states. The framework explicitly calls for over $300 million in cuts to essential air service, which serves rural communities. Whatever the reason for these cuts, without enhancing passenger rail service and infrastructure investments in parallel, these rural communities stand to lose connection to vital access to jobs, services, and health care.
However, our concerns for the transportation program come more from what is not spelled out in the President’s recommendation. Not all programs in IIJA have guaranteed funding from the Highway Trust Fund, meaning they rely on annual federal appropriations. These programs include grants for passenger rail, transit, Complete Streets, and other multimodal transportation initiatives. The lack of reference to these transportation programs in the budget framework seems to strongly suggest that these programs are not priorities for the administration. The administration’s budget framework also would rescind $4.1 billion in IIJA advanced appropriations. The budget framework provided little clarity as to which targeted advanced appropriations would be cut, nor which timeframe (whether just FY26 or clawing back past years’ funding), but fact sheets from the administration indicate much of it could come from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.
The budget framework also goes after capacity building, technical assistance, and infrastructure funding to advance Complete Streets and active communities. The CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion is proposed to be eliminated, as part of $3.6 billion in cuts from the Department of Health and Human Services. The Center provides critical support to lower-capacity communities to advocate for and build Complete Streets, while encouraging thriving active communities. The administration argues that the states and localities should be responsible for their own capacity building and investments for Complete Streets. That isn’t always possible, often due to a lack of local/state resources to recruit and maintain adequate capacity to plan, design, and build Complete Streets. For many communities across the nation, the mayor and a few key staff may be juggling multiple municipal roles to keep essential services running.
Lastly, the budget framework further targets investments and tax credits that support the growth and transition to electric vehicles, cutting more than $15 billion in IIJA funding from the Department of Energy. Within this cut, there is overlapping funding with USDOT that advances EV infrastructure and EV manufacturing capacity in the U.S.
What’s next?
President Trump’s budget proposal is an opening conversation from the administration to Congress, and will likely create debates on national investment priorities. Transportation advocates should keep an eye out for the next step in the process, with the administration anticipated to deliver a detailed FY26 budget proposal to Congress by the end of May. That’s when the details of the budget framework will reveal which programs are recommended to be cut and the associated program policy changes that the administration will work to advance. Given the massive cuts to important programs, Congress will likely face heated debates over what the final FY26 budget will look like—if it doesn’t default to another continuing resolution as we‘ve seen in past budget cycles.
Now is the time to reach out to your elected representative and tell them how these changes would impact you. To make a strong case, advocates should gather and share stories and local data illustrating how the cuts would affect safety, access to jobs, and economic opportunity. As Congress begins shaping the final FY26 budget, local perspectives will be essential to protecting the programs that communities rely on.due
President Trump started his administration talking about improving the state of our nation’s infrastructure and delivering it quickly and streamlined. After 100 days in office, Trump’s actions on transportation can best be summarized as chaotic, evasive, combative, and inefficient.
With the start of any new administration, there is bound to be a resetting of priorities, reshuffling staff, and recalibrating of expectations. Some of the themes for the incoming Trump administration’s transportation priorities were articulated during USDOT Secretary Duffy’s confirmation hearing. Those priorities aligned well with key transportation to-dos that we have identified recently for the Trump administration. However, the administration’s handling of transportation in the last 100 days will only exacerbate and accelerate the federal transportation program’s failures over the past three plus decades.
Chaotic
Within the first few weeks of the administration, Trump signed off on a flurry of executive orders, most notably the Unleashing American Energy order on January 20th. Targeting top priorities of the past administration, the order and subsequent implementation guidance (and repeal and issuance and repeal again) created confusion and resulted in a funding freeze on all federal transportation funding. The confusion only deepened with newly minted USDOT Secretary Duffy issuing various memos that extended the funding freeze to allow for project by project review, inclusive of those projects awarded. It was articulated that obligated projects underway would not be impacted, but communities across the country seeking federal reimbursement report delays and ongoing barriers to accessing grant funds. Even a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the administration must unfreeze funds due to federal overreach. Also within the Duffy memos was a change in scoring criteria for competitive grants that included things like areas with higher marriage and birth rates, areas with no vaccine or mask mandate, utilization of user-pay models. Those criteria are so vague, plus the administration’s messaging is mismatching the memos (i.e. congestion pricing in NYC versus supporting user pay models; bikes are healthy but keep them off our roads).
Evasive
At an April 2nd Senate Environment and Public Works hearing, Secretary Duffy was pressed by the committee on why the funding freeze remains in place—and why key Infrastructure Law programs are being stripped—despite the harm it’s causing to communities across the United States. Duffy defensively replied “I’m actually complying with the will of the Congress,” when he was clearly doing the opposite. Sadly, we’ve seen this type of action in the last Trump administration, where Congressional mandates and funding the administration does not like is slow-walked and moth balled while still saying they are complying with Congress. It is happening now with USDOT going after the National EV Infrastructure program and the Reconnecting Communities program as well as smaller programs like the IIJA authorized Access Pilot Program, which has disappeared. USDOT claimed in its freeze review that it is not opening up obligated projects, yet they are not reimbursing grant recipients and are telling them to amend their projects or face cancellation. Also, key reports and data points have started to be heavily altered or disappear from public access on the USDOT website, especially if it intersected with key terms that would violate Duffy’s Woke Recission memo.
Combative
Safety was the driving point Secretary Duffy articulated repeatedly and passionately during his confirmation hearing. And in his most recent Congressional appearance, he walked away from that commitment while claiming to comply with Congressional mandates. Actions, however, speak louder than words. In early March, Duffy went after transit agencies, specifically targeting New York’s MTA and Washington’s WMATA systems in March. In those letters, Duffy demanded those agencies improve transit safety or lose federal funding, singling out Chicago’s CTA as next on his list. Duffy and other Congressional leaders have sadly continued to conflate safety issues (related to transit operations) with security issues that are within the jurisdiction of local law enforcement and social services. In the midst of targeting transit, In a leaked memo, Duffy also went after biking and electric vehicles, directing USDOT to strip away any funding from projects and project elements focused on biking and EV infrastructure (in addition to equity and climate change). That leaked memo’s impact is starting to be seen in recent funding notices such as BUILD and SS4A and related safety language coming out of USDOT revolving around outdated, not-so-safe ideas (bikes don’t belong on roads, disallowing road diets, etc). On the other hand, SS4A funds are being made available and the notice seems mostly in line with the law.
Inefficient
The Trump administration has boasted through their Department of Government Efficiency that they are yielding savings and cutting away onerous processes to make government more efficient and responsive. Reality couldn’t be further from this assertion. In various rounds since February, the Trump administration has effectuated voluntary and mandatory reductions in force, including at USDOT. Probationary workers were terminated with little notice and seasoned employees were compelled to take a buy-out offer or face limited recourse during Reduction in Force (RIF) announcements. Such staffing actions are having a significant impact on USDOT operations, from research, grant and program administration and oversight, to effectuating rules/guidance/data to guide funding recipients. Just look at NHTSA and its management of its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS):In an early April memo, NHTSA announced its plans to finalize 2023 data in 2026 (while making available a full preliminary 2024 data set). That’s 24+ months after the end of 2023 (compared to a decade ago when data was finalized 9-11 months after the close of the data reporting year). It takes time to review, analyze, process, and publish FARS data (or any dataset for that matter), but reduction in staff will aggressively slow down and stall such processes that only cloud our decision makers from vital trends and patterns of our transportation system.
Another example of chaos meets inefficiency was a DOT directive to require all State/Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Plan amendments be additionally reviewed by DOT headquarters. On any given month across the 52 state DOTs and 450 metropolitan planning organizations, there are well over 3,000 amendments that are historically processed by FHWA division and FTA regional offices. Sending all amendments to DOT HQ would have meant slowing down transportation funding obligations and paralyzing the nation’s transportation program (further and still exacerbated by the reduction in force at division/regional offices and DOT HQ).
What’s next?
Looking ahead in the coming weeks, the impacts of the recent tariffs (and recissions and reapplications of tariffs) will start to be known, exacerbating the trends of the first 100 days of the Trump administration when it comes to transportation. Also, the impacts of the reduction in staffing at USDOT will start to become evident in grant obligations and oversight. These emerging issues will exacerbate a scarcity mindset in transportation under the backdrop of an upcoming surface transportation reauthorization process. These trends and patterns may adversely tint Congressional discussions that only perpetuates a failing transportation program, stifle gains in investing in the rest of our transportation system, harm more people as auto oriented policies and investments are entrenched, and the state of repair of our transportation system will continue to suffer from weakened oversight.
All is not lost, and it will be important to engage your Congressional delegation early and often regarding the misaligned administration actions and reinforce its legislative oversight to correct these worrying trends.
A year after the Key Bridge collapse, the National Transportation Safety Board is urging the owners of 68 bridges across the U.S. to assess their vulnerability to collisions. This moment also presents an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the state of the practice for assessing the health of our nation’s bridges and ensure agencies target taxpayer funds to the bridges that most need repair.
In the days after the Key Bridge collapse, questions were swirling on the state of repair of our bridges and what could be done differently to avoid a bridge collapse. But in the year since, the number of bridges classified as in poor condition has ticked down less than 1 percent according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
This is not the first bridge collapse in recent history: The Silver Bridge collapse, between West Virginia and Ohio in 1967, brought about the development of the National Bridge Inspection Standards. After the 1980 Skyway Bridge collapse, infrastructure design was altered for future projects to create structural redundancy and fortification. But are our leaders motivated to take similarly bold action today
A year after the Key Bridge collapse, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is asking states to revisit collision vulnerability assessments of 68 bridges scattered across 19 states. They are also recommending that FHWA, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provide guidance to bridge owners on how to reduce the risk of vessel collision. Congress should require this, if the guidance is not forthcoming in the near term.
However there is a broader problem: several past bridge collapses were the result of problems undetected by bridge inspections or from DOTs failing to heed the problems identified. In the case of the 2007 I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the NTSB determined that the bridge failed because of design errors, subpar components, and bridge modifications that adversely affected bridge load capacity. These critical flaws were not caught by bridge inspections, and the NTSB recommended changes to the inspection regime.
In the 2013 I-5 Skagit, WA bridge collapse, the NTSB determined that repeated overhead bridge structure damage was due to low clearance truck strikes and no additional warnings or countermeasures to avoid future strikes. Nine of the 10 inspections before the collapse showed high load bridge strikes, but nothing was done in response to these repeated warnings.
In the 2017 I-85 bridge collapse in Atlanta, the NTSB determined flammable materials that had been improperly stored for five years under the bridge led to an excessive heat fire, impacting the structural integrity of the bridge. The presence of these flammable materials was overlooked by bridge inspectors and not included in their inspection.
Lastly, in the 2022 Pittsburgh Fern Hollow Bridge collapse, the NTSB determined poor quality inspections led to a failure to identify fracture-critical issues and incorrect load rating calculations. They also found insufficient oversight of the City of Pittsburgh’s bridge inspection program by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
These bridge inspection protocols heavily rely on visual inspection, theoretical calculations, limited training and recertification of inspectors, and “engineering judgment” to determine the bridge’s health. In the earlier examples, that approach undercompensated the bridge’s respective poor health and collapse vulnerability. In other cases, bridges are being weight restricted for fear of structural issues when that is not, in fact, the case. For example, 10 bridges with load restrictions in Nebraska were load tested in 2021 across three counties using load testing sensors to emulate loads and assess the bridge’s response. As a result, six of those bridges had their restrictions removed. The standard visual inspection found conditions to be worse than they really were.
We are identifying bridges in need of immediate repair while not recognizing critical needs elsewhere, meaning we are not targeting funding correctly. This is all happening while agencies are spending funds on new roads and bridges that further stretch our resources.
Using technology like load testing sensors (which are widely available and relatively inexpensive) can more accurately assess and identify structural issues invisible to the naked eye. Pairing visual inspections with frequent data collection via sensors can better identify bridge health issues and result in proactive maintenance This fix it first approach would lead to few-to-no bridges in poor condition and no bridge collapses. Furthermore, there is a need to support robust and frequent bridge inspector training, to keep current with the required skillsets and tools to assess bridge health. Looking ahead to the next surface transportation reauthorization, it’s not just about securing more funding—it’s about getting more from every dollar. The next federal transportation bill must set a new standard, prioritizing modern tools for accurate assessments, diligently trained inspector workforce, and a fix-it-first approach to ensure resources go where they’re needed most.
Last Wednesday (Jan. 15), former Congressman Sean Duffy faced questions from the Senate Commerce Committee, tasked to vet the next Transportation Secretary. Here are three things T4America gleaned from the hearing as opportunities for working with Secretary-designate Duffy.
While it’s difficult with almost any eventual USDOT Secretary to try and anticipate precisely how they’ll choose to run the department, these confirmation hearings (and the nominee’s record to some degree) can help give a rough sense of what they care about before they are confirmed. And the limited amount of time to prepare in this specific case might mean that this hearing is more of a look at Duffy’s priorities and interests rather than revealing what he may be directed to prioritize by the president and the executive branch.
As one example of how these differences are already emerging, Duffy responded to questions about future spending under the infrastructure law (the IIJA) by pledging to follow that law and see those funds spent. Yet, on day one of the Trump presidency, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at suspending all IIJA funding for 90 days. (This could be challenged in the courts, as those spending decisions are determined by Congress and existing law.)
It won’t be clear for quite some time what the Trump administration wants to accomplish in transportation—which appears to be farther down their list of priorities. But with that in mind, here are three areas where some doors could be opened to collaborate or work with USDOT over the next four years.
1) Safety
Mr. Duffy strongly affirmed his desire to leave a legacy at USDOT on safety. We suspected this could be an area where he brings a strong interest due to his personal connection to the issue: His wife Rachel was critically injured in a traffic crash years before they were married, he was on an Amtrak train that crashed in West Virginia that killed a truck driver, and has frequently spoken about safety issues.
Questions from the committee touched on various safety issues, from autonomous vehicles, to passenger and freight rail (including the issue of blocked railroad grade crossings impeding traffic and emergency response), and briefly on active transportation safety. On that note, Duffy said he would be willing to explore and engage in advancing and eventually implementing the Sarah Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act, which would make changes to the federal Highway Safety Improvement Program to help spur states to build and complete protected bike and pedestrian networks. Mr. Duffy even spoke about the need for proactive federal rules on autonomous vehicles that would focus on safety, which is not the direction Congress has tried to go in over the past few years. With roadway fatalities continuing to rise, despite advances in vehicle safety technology and innovation that the committee spent extensive time on, this area could be an opportunity to work with the incoming USDOT Secretary. Automated vehicles should not be tested without greater transparency and safeguards. With a legacy emphasis on safety, Secretary-nominee Duffy also provides an opening to focus on addressing existing standards for the nation’s roadways that are inherently Dangerous by Design and need to be fundamentally reworked.
2) Multimodal transportation investments
Members from both parties of the committee raised issues that touch on a wide spectrum of different modes of travel, including passenger rail, the resilience of public transit operations, and rural community connectivity.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) reminded Mr. Duffy that he is up to “be the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, not just the Department of Cars.” Mr. Duffy expressed support for a multimodal transportation point of view, in addition to supporting a robust and innovative automotive market that is inclusive of electric vehicles. (This is another area where differences with the President are already emerging: the President is trying to reverse incentives and mandates for electric vehicle adoption.)
Senators Baldwin (D-WI) and Duckworth (D-IL) also highlighted the need for Mr. Duffy to not forget and integrate the mobility needs of 70 million Americans with disabilities, who may be mobility, cognitive, vision, or hearing impaired. Light on details, Mr. Duffy did repeat on multiple occasions the need to support a transportation network that facilitates consumer choice. This leaves room for advocates and others to help USDOT understand their charge to promote safe and efficient movement of all Americans, regardless of ability and the community they live in.
3) Transparency and streamlining
This could be one of the areas of common ground for making much-needed reforms to the (arduous) process of how transportation projects get approved and built—especially transit projects—and how much they cost. Nearly every Senator touched upon implementing the 2021 infrastructure law and other related congressional mandates, project delivery, the NEPA process, and how to speed up efficient and cost-effective transportation projects. Over and over we find transportation projects held up over onerous permitting and review processes, which rightfully slow down highway boondoggles, but also hold up solid public transit and zero-emission mobility projects. There’s a dire need to shake up the status quo to streamline beneficial community-led projects and hold back projects that divide by design.
Senator Fischer (R-NE) requested that Duffy tackle the issue of guidance consistency, when USDOT headquarters says and interprets a policy or guideline, then FHWA division offices use unique, creative interpretations of the same policy or guideline. Senators Cruz (R-TX), Capito (R-WV), and Cantwell (D-WA) requested firm commitment for transparent delivery of information to the committee, especially on how USDOT is evaluating projects for discretionary programs and program effectiveness.
A constant concern from transportation stakeholders has been if existing infrastructure laws would be undercut by the incoming administration. Mr. Duffy has indicated he intends to abide by congressional mandates and laws if confirmed as USDOT Secretary. There is an opening to engage Secretary nominee Duffy on the standardized reporting, oversight, and efficient use of federal transportation dollars.
Looking ahead
Mr. Duffy is likely to enjoy a relatively smooth confirmation process. With the next surface transportation reauthorization looming, Duffy’s USDOT will be charged with helping Congress understand what can or should be changed with the overall transportation program to produce better outcomes. While it will take some time for their agenda to emerge, these openings in safety, multimodal transportation investments, and transparency revealed in Mr. Duffy’s confirmation hearing could provide some possible pathways to make a substantial impact on U.S. transportation.
In November 2020, we sent the incoming Biden administration a memo outlining immediate and longer-term actions we urged the new president to initiate. Four years later, while modest progress has been made on some, it’s hard to say that the transportation system or the most important outcomes by which we should evaluate it are significantly better or different than four years ago.
As the Biden administration comes to a close, it’s time to take stock of what President Biden and his team accomplished. (You can read our recaps of the Biden administration’s progress after their first, second, and third years.) There are certainly some tangible wins and progress to point to, like new programs focused on climate change and electrification, USDOT advancing smarter projects with their discretionary programs compared to the previous four years, and some positive administrative changes. There was also a massive infrastructure bill that did have some notable but small wins, though they all came alongside the IIJA’s historic amount of funding. Overall, the status quo on transportation that was in place when the Biden administration arrived is largely unchanged, though it is far better funded.
Before we get into the good and the incomplete, let’s look at the table of specific requests we made in November 2020.
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In truth, our hope was that many of these requests could be tackled in the first hundred days or over the first year. We were hoping to be able to check things off this list and add more ambitious tasks for the intervening years as time went by. But as you can see, four years later, most of the initial list is either undone or incomplete.
Beyond this list, it’s hard to say that the most important measurable outcomes for transportation overall—safety, state of repair, emissions, access to destinations, delay or congestion—are significantly better today than four years ago or are on track to improve significantly in another four or eight years, even after the IIJA’s $643 billion is completely exhausted. The IIJA overall is advancing projects that will increase emissions. Many of the new grant programs could either go dormant, be defunded by Congress, or be used by Trump’s USDOT to fund radically different kinds of projects—like when President Obama turned grant programs like TIGER over to the Trump admin eight years ago.
While Congress writes the laws that determine where most transportation dollars go, USDOT did not take full advantage of the tools at its disposal to make the kind of binding, institutional, structural changes that will move the needle and can’t be easily undone by a future administration.
The good:
Greenhouse gas rule
Resurrected from the Obama administration, a measure to assess the greenhouse gases coming from transportation projects was introduced in 2022 and finalized in 2023 (only to be ultimately overturned after challenges in the courts and Congress). While the administration certainly deserves credit for this attempt, they did slow-walk the development and implementation of the rule primarily due to fear that the opposition would block it versus swiftly developing and implementing the program and navigating opposition along the way.
Small steps for safety
Steps were taken to elevate the conversation on roadway safety as a national crisis and the need to fundamentally change the trajectory of the United States. This included the development of a National Roadway Safety Strategy, an overhaul of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and new vehicle safety rules aimed at addressing the safety of all users of our streets. However, those changes are modest and unlikely to be enough to overcome the entrenched auto-dominated culture.
Important though limited steps on reconnecting communities
One of the biggest highlights of the IIJA was the new Reconnecting Communities program, which funds projects that seek to repair past damage from infrastructure projects, such as divisive highways.1 While USDOT can only choose from the projects that do apply, it’s fair to say that their track record has been mixed at best. As America Walks noted in 2024, more than $1 billion of the 2024 awards is going toward a) accommodating people while preserving damaging roads or b) mitigating some of the damage of actively expanding highways. Trying to mitigate brand new damage to Portland from expanding Interstate 5 is not what this small program focused on repairing past damageshould be for.2 USDOT should prioritize more inspirational, best-in-class examples for other states and cities to see what’s possible, like Syracuse removing I-81 and replacing it with a street grid.
Ample offerings for technical assistance
The administration did create numerous enhanced technical support offerings, such as the Thriving Communities program, which helps local communities and stakeholders access and navigate federal funding programs, and the (long-delayed) Reconnecting Communities Institute, designed to help communities plan and advance Reconnecting Communities projects. These new programs (and others like them) have been a smart way to help communities navigate the sea of new competitive grant programs created in IIJA.
Incomplete at best, bad at worst
The IIJA will increase emissions overall and fail to move the needle on other measurable outcomes. It should not be viewed as a major accomplishment.
The Biden administration will be leaving office continuing to hail the 2021 infrastructure law (IIJA) as “once in a generation,” “climate-friendly” legislation that will transform the status quo on transportation. Unfortunately, both the IIJA as written and the Biden administration’s implementation of it have been a boulevard of broken dreams. It was always unwise for this administration to sell the IIJA’s massive climate, equity, or state of repair benefits when those benefits have to be delivered by states that don’t share the administration’s goals or preferred outcomes.
Equity investment outcomes muddled
Equity was a core component for the Biden administration, which introduced the Justice40 executive order aimed at ensuring 40 percent of federal funds flowed to and benefited historically marginalized communities. However, it has yet to be seen whether this policy initiative truly targeted benefits towards marginalized communities or just directed funding to areas and projects that just happen to also have a notable marginalized population. The future of such initiatives is in doubt due both to the challenges they’ve had in implementing Justice40 during their time and the fact that Justice 40 can be easily undone by future executive orders.
All-in on electrification only
The Biden administration put all their eggs in the single basket of electrification to tackle transportation emissions. The flaws in that strategy are becoming more obvious by the day, with President Trump and Speaker Johnson signaling their intent to claw back money for new charging infrastructure and repeal mandates requiring more electric vehicles in the future. Transportation electrification is important for decarbonizing transportation, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. The administration’s emphasis on climate change was far out of sync with the reality of how IIJA funding was being used: many states using their formula funds to expand highways and spur more vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Even discretionary grants that USDOT had control over were also still contributing to more VMT. Meanwhile, under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, onerous requirements directed funds toward highway-oriented development and away from communities, helping to undercut the economic development benefits and potential rural support for a program almost certainly to be targeted for cuts or elimination by President Trump.
Failure to modernize street design guidelines
After more than a decade of waiting for a promised update, the release of the most recent edition of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices promised to shake up roadway design standards. But as we noted upon release, the cautious and overall incremental update “falls short of the kind of major paradigm shift required to protect vulnerable users at a time when the United States leads the developed world in roadway fatalities.” Future updates may still happen, but this administration failed to take advantage of the potential of long-term, structural changes like these, perhaps not grasping the long-term impacts.
No changes to traffic models and measures
While Congress sets the policy and states have enormous flexibility for spending transportation dollars, USDOT and FHWA determine what models and measures states can use in conceiving and advancing new roadway projects. On day one, we hoped that USDOT would make moves to require the measurement of “induced demand” and use their bully pulpit to kickstart a long overdue conversation about the inaccuracies of current traffic models, perhaps starting to compare past projections with actual outcomes. USDOT could have delivered guidance on measuring time savings benefits, emissions reductions, and transit access to ensure that projects meant to achieve these goals are set up to succeed. Unfortunately, there was no real movement on the small but powerful changes that would outlast this administration.
Amtrak oversight and staffing
Appointing a full Amtrak board that’s representative of the people the passenger rail system serves would have been a notable, easy win for the administration. But rather puzzlingly, “Amtrak Joe” took a year to nominate anyone to the board. The administration and Congress have only recently finally filled all board slots, but as composed, it still doesn’t fully represent the full network that Amtrak serves. The overall lack of oversight has led to declining service reliability and customer satisfaction, further hurting Amtrak’s reputation with the public and Congress. Further, at a time when there is historic funding for passenger rail, the funding is not being spent due to slow movement in the program and a failure to get sufficient staff in place at the Federal Railroad Administration quickly after the IIJA’s passage to create and implement these new programs.
Closing reflections
The question for an incoming administration hoping to have an impact should not just be “How can we steer the money we control toward good projects?” but instead, “What changes can we institutionalize to disrupt the status quo and produce better results for years to come after we’re gone?” Modest progress has undoubtedly been made during Biden’s time in office, but so much of it is of the first variety—temporary and potentially undone by any future administration. This administration also spent an inordinate amount of time soliciting feedback and research before taking any action on rulemakings that help interpret laws like the IIJA—and, in many cases, never acted on the comments at all. And if the cost of creating valuable but small new climate-focused programs (a la the IIJA) is doubling the size of the blank check programs that are damaging the climate, that’s a bad deal for everyone except concrete and asphalt contractors.
For the incoming Trump administration, we’re working on a to-do list for their first 100 days and the following years to reduce wasting limited resources and ensure that every dollar works towards advancing safety, economic opportunities, and better state of repair.
After many decades of being divided by highways, community members in National City, CA are building capacity to reconnect their community in a project that will also acknowledge their community’s heritage and future.
Community members in National City, CA doing a land acknowledgement ceremony on land they are reclaiming from a highway to a community park. (Mundo Gardens)
The National City Southeast Greenspace Corridor Project is receiving support from the Community Connectors Program, led by Smart Growth America in collaboration with Equitable Cities, the New Urban Mobility Alliance, and America Walks with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Learn more about the Community Connectors Program.
Often romanticized in the media, Southern California has been the home and the template for the modern US highway that we know today. Media portrays these highways as facilitating economic growth and safer and speedier commutes for area residents. However, the underbelly of that media portrayal fails to acknowledge the divisiveness those highways create, separating communities, destroying cultural and economic assets, and exposing many vulnerable road users to deadly conditions.
However, Southern California, especially the greater San Diego region, didn’t have divisive highways when those communities were initially developed. For San Diego and the greater Southern California region, one only has to look to the Robert Moses of the West, Mr. Caltrans, Jacob Dekema. Dekema came to the San Diego region in 1955 as its first Caltrans district director. At the time, the region was home to only 25 miles of highways. When Dekema retired in 1980, he had overseen that network growing into 485 miles of highways and entrenched a culture dependent on the car.
National City, CA before the I-805 Expressway. (Source: John Fry)
National City, CA with the I-805 Expressway and defunct SR-252 spur (future park site). (Google Earth)
The 805, like many highways across the country, came into consciousness around 1956, with its construction in the late 1960s that wrapped up by 1975. Parallel to the highway’s construction, efforts in National City in 1969 revisited zoning to facilitate auto-oriented strip mall development, further setting up a concrete jungle for residents.
The most disruptive and obsolete highway construction for I-805 is Exit 11A. This exit was built to facilitate a highway to future highway transfer (what was to be known as the El Toyon Freeway or SR-252). Through intense community advocacy and opposition, the Toyon Freeway project was canceled in 1980 and removed from consciousness in 1994. However, Exit 11A remained, today serving as the 43rd Street exit, which drops a driver off at the auto-oriented Southcrest Park Plaza.
Seeds of a movement
Since the construction of the Interstate 805 Corridor in 1967, SESD and National City have grappled with the legacy of redlining and infrastructure divisions. (Mundo Gardens)
The multicultural tapestry that connects National City and Southeast San Diego (SESD) today has been left with a disproportionate share of challenges. The community lacks green space, has high levels of diesel particulate matter exposure, faces transportation barriers (due to the intricate web of highways around it), plus more and bigger cars zooming by community streets. These challenges have eroded the community’s quality of life, health outcomes, and well-being, particularly for those living in low-income households.
There is considerable acreage lying fallow under the shadow of the 43rd Street ramp. The land under the freeway occasionally is used by Caltrans as a highway maintenance and operations storage space, but otherwise remains a living scar for the community, overlapping National City and Southeast San Diego and preventing them from being fully connected to their fellow neighbors. With the economic decisions made in the 1960s, economic development opportunities remain poor in the area, with value generated in the area not fully captured and invested back into the community.
Even in the midst of an overbearing highway structure dividing various neighborhoods in northeast National City and Southeast San Diego, members of the community have worked to bridge infrastructure divides through cultural activities and streetscape beautification. One of those efforts, Joe’s Pocket Farm, has served as a catalyst for area advocates to push for a holistic community vision to reconnect the community.
Starting as a vacant land plot by I-805 and Division Street, Mr. Jose Nuñez cultivated a pocket garden near his home for many years before moving away from the area in 2008. This pocket garden fell into disrepair and turned into a dumping ground until community members organized to save the garden and turn it into a community asset. In late 2009, community members engaged the National City City Council to reclaim the vacant and dilapidated garden into what is today the Joe’s Pocket Farm. This advocacy and organizing ultimately led to the creation of a local-area nonprofit, community garden, and social justice organization, what is Mundo Gardens today, which is aimed at empowering youth and community members on cultivating solutions to address social determinants of health.
Not long after Mundo Gardens’ founding, the Urban Collaborative Project (UCP) was formed. Created in 2013 as a nonprofit organization serving redlined communities in National City and Southeast San Diego, UCP leverages a data-driven, community self-healing approach to tackle key issues, including building social infrastructure and capital, transportation and infrastructure equity, health disparity and environmental justice, cultural beautification, and housing and community development.
Developing and executing a community vision
National City / Southeast San Diego community coalition at the RWJF Community Connectors Convening in Atlanta. (Smart Growth America)
Mundo Gardens and UCP are pieces of a larger community-driven movement that has been in the making over the past two decades on reconnecting their community and mitigating social determinants of health. Community conversations have scoped out the Greenspace Corridor Project, which would unify National City and Southeast San Diego through reforestation, cultural art, and community. This project aims to accomplish various tasks, including but not limited to, 1) dismantling the 43rd Street exit ramp from I-805 and the defunct SR-252 built segment, 2) creating a community park on the reclaimed highway land centered on community culture, community health, and the natural environment, 3) stimulate social equity investment in the community, and 4) reconnecting the greater community to its culture and heritage.
The National City / Southeast San Diego community coalition, which is advancing the Greenspace Corridor Project, has made great strides in building its community network, which now includes city staff from National City, Council of Equity Advocacy San Diego, Kumeyaay Community College, Tocayo Engagement, SANDAG staff, Caltrans District 11 staff, among others.
This coalition joins other community coalitions around the country selected in July 2023 to be part of the Community Connectors program. This program has allowed the National City / Southeast San Diego community coalition, alongside their peers, to access technical assistance and capacity building support to advance their community project. In November 2023, the coalition met alongside their peers in Atlanta for a Community Connectors convening. At that convening, the National City / Southeast San Diego community coalition was able to map out project challenges and possible wins, plus flesh out a preliminary implementation plan.
In March 2024, the community coalition received double good news: two major wins in their collective advocacy and outreach efforts to support and fund the Greenspace Corridor Project. On March 12, 2024, Caltrans announced the coalition as one of three grant winners of the state’s Reconnecting Communities: Highways to Boulevards pilot program, totaling around $50 million for planning and implementation efforts that advance the project. The very next day, USDOT announced the coalition also won a $2 million Reconnecting Communities & Neighborhoods Program planning grant.
Looking to the future
National City / Southeast San Diego community coalition at the Caltrans Reconnecting Communities: Highways to Boulevards press conference. (City of San Diego)
The Greenspace Corridor Project holds much promise with a strong and emboldened coalition that now has seed funding to actualize their project. However, the work is only beginning, as the coalition will now begin the figurative and literal cultivation of their community garden. Later in 2024, the National City / Southeast San Diego community coalition will organize and deliver a community convening aimed to advance the conversation held in Atlanta and more fully flesh out a project implementation plan. The coalition also aims to enhance community engagement, storytelling, and outreach to raise awareness on the project and broaden stakeholder support. Lastly, the coalition aims to continue to pursue additional local, state, and federal resources to realize the community park that is centered on community health, culture, and economic opportunity, expanding what started as a small pocket farm from the hands of Mr. Nuñez.
Despite substantial federal funding available to address “crumbling roads and bridges,” our infrastructure’s state of repair is an ongoing issue, and climate change is only adding to the problem.
The I-5 Bridge over the Skagit River collapsed in 2013 after a truck hit its trusses. Wikimedia Commons photo.
For the Philadelphia, Atlanta, and DC cases, the bridges were structurally sound, but failed due to a catastrophic event without safeguards to protect the structures. For the Skagit, Pueblo, Norfolk, and Minneapolis, flawed design paired with a changing climate and mobility patterns (i.e. vehicle weight and size) led to structural failures. And if we look beyond roadways and towards other modes of transportation in the US, top of mind is mechanical failures leading to East Palestine, OH train derailment, the 2007 DC MetroRail crash at Fort Totten (and again on DC MetroRail in 2015 with a train fire at L’Enfant Plaza), the 2017 NYC Subway Summer of Hell, and even a failing seawall that cofunctions as a pedestrian walkway at DC’s famed Tidal Basin (#ripstumpy).
What’s going on with our state of repair?
There are compounding factors that are threatening our nation’s mobility infrastructure. The most notable threat is our climate. With ever-fluctuating temperatures, precipitation (or lack thereof), and major weather events, the structural integrity of our infrastructure is being challenged. When originally built, a lot of our nation’s infrastructure was designed with the assumption of historical climate precedent going forward. Fluctuating temperatures affect building material, while precipitation impacts foundational integrity. When also subjected to increasing extreme weather events that stress the infrastructure, wear and tear accelerates.
Then there is the reality of changing travel patterns on our mobility system. A growing population paired with changing commuting patterns post-COVID pandemic that is stretching system demands for longer periods of time plus using different types of vehicles (that are bigger and heavier, including trains and ships) on our roadways, waterways, and railways is taking a toll on infrastructure designed with a different population and vehicle demand in mind.
There also are factors that are in the hands of transportation operators and decision makers. When the Silver Bridge collapsed between West Virginia and Ohio in 1967, one of the outcomes was the development of the National Bridge Inspection Standards. After the 1980 Skyway Bridge collapse, infrastructure design was altered for future projects to create structural redundancy and fortification. However, as alluded to earlier, changing climate and system demands may render design, maintenance, and inspection standards developed 40-60 years ago “functionally obsolete,” borrowing a term from bridge inspection standards. This also can be seen (or not seen) on the ground via the decreasing frequency and rigor of asset condition inspections.
And this can be attributed to a deteriorating focus on our transportation policy and investments aimed at fixing things first. There are leaders, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who have made it a priority to rethink transportation policy and investments aimed at fixing things first, but unfortunately, that is still a troublesome rarity in light of these challenges to our nation’s mobility infrastructure state of repair. This is also paired with the lack of institutional knowledge at the federal and state legislative levels, deferring often to state DOT for guidance on policy and investments. Unfortunately, those same policies and investments are opaque to decision makers and the public, if not the state DOT itself not understanding their origins and being flexible enough to rethink strategies that haven’t worked for decades to yield different results.
Oregon DOT bridge inspection along Eagle Creek Viaduct on I-84 MP 40 after a fire. Flickr photo by ODOT.
What’s our path forward?
President Biden made commitments to rebuild the fallen Key Bridge within hours of the event, supported by key Congressional appropriators. There is a need for that same urgency across the entirety of the transportation system’s state of repair, which has breached $1 trillion in deferred maintenance, before disasters occur. There also is a need to rethink investment strategies and policies that encourage a reduction in vehicle miles traveled, which is corollary to reducing transportation’s GHG emissions, and in turn, slowing down climate change’s impact on our transportation system.
While decision makers hash out policies and investment strategies, the transportation industry needs to double down how they assess the state of repair in light of changing conditions. That means reassessing our nation’s assets and the climate and mobility demand assumptions that play into an asset’s condition. Digging into this further, that means understanding implications on existing and future building materials and asset designs, plus looking at how and what frequency an asset is assessed and future-proofed from catastrophic failure (whether by deterioration or an extreme event (whether induced by nature or not).
US passenger rail was the envy of the world at the turn of the 20th century. As global temperatures rise, and with the growing need to enhance intercity mobility options to get to economic and civic opportunities, it’s high time to look to and emulate our international peers in developing passenger rail: iterate, innovate, and don’t fall for the immediacy trap.
Frequent, reliable, and attractive high speed intercity rail service in Madrid, ES. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
What do you imagine when you think of passenger rail service in the United States? Slow service, long delays, and flash frozen high-sodium food? Amtrak passengers nationwide will recognize these hallmarks of the company’s poorly-regarded passenger rail service. Repair and operational issues, such as equipment failure, staff shortages, and the conditions of rail infrastructure, contribute to delays. The result is a frustrated traveling public more likely to get in their car than take even the most convenient of train rides, leading to more driving and more emissions.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. High speed rail operations in Asia (think Japan, China) or in Europe (think the TGV in France, AVE in Spain, and many other passenger rail operators), though imperfect, have made great strides where Amtrak still lags behind. Common across these systems is an enhanced state of repair, dedicated passenger rail lines, quality user experience on the trains, and traveling speeds that rival air travel and dwarf vehicle travel. These features are the result of constant iterative processes.
Approaching the rail service platform at Atocha station in Madrid, ES. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
With strong government support, these systems are constantly improving and reinventing themselves to focus on the customer and move them in a safe and efficient manner. They are constantly exploring service expansions to new communities to enhance mobility choice beyond the car and plane, all while exploring technological advances and infrastructure improvements to continually speed up and improve their service.
This was my experience traveling in Spain several weeks ago, taking the train from Madrid to Málaga, an otherwise 6- to 7-hour car ride covered by AVE just north of 2 hours. When you factor in time waiting at the airport, this was even less time than a flight. Along the way, I had the opportunity to dine on board, getting a freshly made sandwich, while customers were able to explore other fresh food options available.
Why has Spain successfully developed high speed rail, while Amtrak’s quality of service continues to lag behind? Looking back on the Spanish history of their rail system, starting back in the 19th century, they reached their apex in the 1950s, with 19,000 km of rail lines serving passengers. The Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s did a number to the state of repair of the rail system, forcing the government to nationalize the system by 1941. But like the US, auto ownership started to take a toll on the Spanish rail system (RENFE) in the 1950s, leading to 8,000 km of rail line to be dismantled in the coming decades.
But unlike the U.S., which took the rise in car ownership as granted and let its rail system deteriorate, Spain empowered RENFE to explore heavy investments in higher speed and capacity passenger rail starting in the 1970s. That led to a systemwide increase of rail speed to 160 kmph (100 mph, compared to Amtrak’s typical 79 mph benchmark) by 1986, and the first high speed rail line opening in 1992, followed by many more lines that have come online and are still growing across the country.
Fresh Jamón Serrano sandwich aboard an AVE train. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
Coming back stateside, I thought: why are we not emulating such a proactive iterative approach with our passenger rail system? At the dawn of railroad technology in the 1800s, the US was a world leader in passenger rail service, with frequent service along 31,000 miles of rail. But after World War II, rail companies abandoned huge segments of the rail system as the private sector turned its attention toward vehicles and aviation. Recognizing that passenger rail is a vital mobility option for many communities in the United States, Congress intervened in 1971 with the creation of Amtrak, intent on maintaining passenger rail service as an option in the United States.
Far from reversing the deterioration of national passenger rail service, the creation of Amtrak resulted in further funding cuts, which created a vicious cycle at Amtrak of poor policy and operational decisions focused solely on the bottom line versus customer experiences. As the federal government invested further into high-speed roadways for vehicles, support for passenger rail funds deteriorated, so much so that today, some members of Congress consider the mere existence of Amtrak as government waste. Detractors of passenger rail contend that millions of taxpayer dollars are pouring into passenger rail, yet are not achieving the same results as what we see with our peers abroad. Without needed funds, we see a deterioration of state of repair and safety, user experience, and eventually a loss of ridership that would help bring in needed funding.
Though the 2021 infrastructure law’s historic passenger rail funding and policy reorientation to the customer experience has the potential to interrupt that cycle, many members of Congress are intent on gutting it before those effects can take hold. The most extreme example is the House of Representatives’ 2024 Transportation Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill, which recommended nearly 70 percent in funding cuts to Amtrak.
As threats to essential air service and rural mobility options abound, America can’t afford to also lose passenger rail service, which is a valuable transportation option for the 1 million rural residents that do not have access to a vehicle. And as transportation continues to contribute to U.S. climate emissions, every American needs better options for long-distance travel than hopping into a vehicle or onto a plane.
There needs to be a fundamental reset in our mindset when it comes to passenger rail. There is a culture of immediacy with results; an expectation that existing resources should be working harder, otherwise take more resources away. If we expect American passenger rail to be world class, like it was in the late 19th century, we need to be investing in a world class way, through constant and iterative funding and innovation, not throwing the towel and staying complacent with the status quo.
Policy Director Benito Pérez aboard an AVE passenger car.
Deemed a project of major economic significance for several decades by the Puerto Rico’s Department of Transportation (DTOP), the agency rammed through community opposition, environmental review processes, and legal battles to construct PR-66, a limited access tollway that is benefitting few and scarring communities and their environs.
As its historically rural population rapidly urbanizes, Puerto Rico has been iterating ways to stimulate and diversify its economy and facilitate speedy travel. Because of its status as a US territory, Puerto Rico’s transportation policy and investment strategy has been molded by an auto-centric lens pushed by both Washington and private sector investors filling transportation funding gaps for decades. However, federal transportation investment in Puerto Rico has been scant. (For example, in fiscal year 2022, Puerto Rico received $173 million in federal funding from the 2021 infrastructure law. Compare that to Utah, with the same population receiving $460 million or Connecticut, with slightly larger land area receiving $665 million.) Because of limited transportation funding, Puerto Rico has had to rely on private sector investment, which prioritizes roads with tolls over transit.
In the 1960s, inspired by the Eisenhower Interstate Plan, Puerto Rico created its Highway Development Plan with the goal of creating high speed roadway connectivity of the various island communities to San Juan. From this plan, all but one of those highways were built by the 1990s. The highway yet to be built would prove to be the most hotly contested.
PR-66, as envisioned by the Puerto Rico Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP by its Spanish acronym), connects PR-1 (the historic route between San Juan and Ponce) and PR-52 (an expressway parallel to PR-1) to PR-3 (the historic route that connects the eastern island communities to San Juan) and the PR-53 northeastern terminus.
Approximation of the originally proposed PR-66 Corridor route
A hard-won battle over federal regulations
Development of this 31-mile 4-lane tollway corridor started in 1992, when the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process began. This process required the DTOP to assess environmental considerations, such as noise, water, air pollution, stormwater runoff and erosion, impact to historical resources as well as community displacement.
DTOP justified the route by arguing it would reduce congestion (reducing travel time from Fajardo to San Juan by 30-40 minutes each way), increase travel time reliability for vehicles, and stimulate economic growth and job creation in the corridor.
Communities along the proposed corridor were caught off guard as the NEPA process got underway. A sole public meeting on project impacts was held two days before New Years Eve 1992, providing little to no information to the community, soliciting minimal feedback, and yielding a questionable Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). In May 1993, the Environmental Quality Board (JCA in its Spanish acronym) provided preliminary feedback on the EIS, stating that the EIS was only analyzing economic impacts and failing to assess other critical aspects of the NEPA process which include displacement, environmental degradation (like runoff, erosion, and noise), and never exploring alternative solutions to achieve the project’s purpose and need. Additionally, the JCA questioned DTOP’s vague analysis, as well as its statements on where and what it intended to build in the corridor. Despite some procedural setbacks, DTOP proceeded to develop the project and move to finalize the EIS. By the mid 1990s, DTOP began to seize homes and businesses via eminent domain to clear the way for road’s construction.
A local resident, Wanda Colón Cortés, was outraged with how DTOP was skirting the NEPA process, and she created a group of community members called the Communities Opposed to Route 66 to oppose the project. The demands from Communities Opposed to Route 66 were crystal clear: stop any construction and thoroughly evaluate the corridor for a broad array of alternatives and their impacts as required by NEPA. They reasoned with DTOP and JCA that they agree with the purpose and need of the project, but want to ensure a fair, thorough, transparent process.
Rather than address the community’s comments, DTOP amended the EIS in February 1996 to shorten the corridor, and JCA declared this EIS adequate in May 1997. In 1997, arguing that the EIS determination was premature, Communities Opposed to Route 66 took both DTOP and JCA to court. The case would be interfered with by the Puerto Rico legislature, and go all the way to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court by 1999. The community group declared victory in April 2000, when the Puerto Rico Supreme Court issued its ruling, determining that:
The legislature’s involvement violated separations of powers and deemed their actions unconstitutional,
JCA could not be edited out of the environmental review process as DTOP and the legislature attempted, and
The NEPA process needs to be thoroughly followed for the full proposed corridor, not just its segments.
A highway slowed but never stopped
After DTOP was defeated in court, it went back to the drawing board and prepared a new EIS draft in late 2001, focused exclusively on a 13-mile segment of the original corridor (now Canovanas to Carolina). When presented with this proposal, the community again expressed discomfort over environmental impact and community displacement. So DTOP tried again, and in 2002, they prepared an EIS that placed the corridor further away from the existing community—encroaching into the El Yunque National Rainforest instead. Because this proposal impacted fewer community members, community opposition dwindled. DTOP was then able to finalize the EIS in late 2002, with construction of the corridor starting by summer 2003.
The PR-66 toll corridor would fully open in October 2012 under a 50-year public-private partnership agreement, but it was not without other issues along the way. On multiple occasions, the project required additional funding to continue and complete construction, with $160 million for seizing other properties along the corridor. In late 2006, the Northeast Ecological Corridor Coalition blasted DTOP in an op-ed for El Nuevo Dia (the island’s main newspaper) for not doing enough to mitigate environmental harm and failing to follow through on its promises in the EIS.
That coalition also emphasized that the JCA needs to fulfill its role in reviewing and providing oversight on DTOP’s environmental mitigation, especially on stormwater runoff, erosion, noise and air pollution, water quality, and deforestation. This sentiment was shared by Fanny Peña Roque, a community advocate, who called out DTOP for not mitigating community access to jobs and services for their cut off mountainside community to facilitate speeding up construction. Her community remained cut off for months, even after the highway project was completed.
The coalition also tried to raise the alarm on the impact PR-66 has and will continue to have on incentivizing new suburban sprawl and the incongruent development across communities within the corridor (with even some new developments caught in the crosshairs of the corridor for seizure after recently being approved and/or built). But these calls never gained momentum.
Ten years have passed since the full opening of the PR-66 corridor. Traversing it today traffic volumes are very low (no more than 30k average annual daily traffic volume), roadway fatalities high, erosion and flooding impacts a regular occurrence, and toll rates are very high (at 30 cents per mile, it is the second most expensive roadway in the United States) with deliberations in the past year to increase toll rates to help with the project’s debt service.
Understand the regulatory tools at your disposal—and don’t be afraid to use them. As other communities look to challenge divisive transportation infrastructure, it will be important for advocates to be informed about the NEPA process and related regulatory requirements, and hold firm on accountability of those requirements. However, NEPA alone won’t be enough.
Find your message and hold your vision, even as circumstances change. Community advocates fighting the PR-66 project needed to have a vision beyond protecting homes and buildings. Yes the project impacted homes and businesses, but advocates were unable to translate the messaging and sustained attention more broadly when DTOP revised the corridor footprint and continued developing and building the project.
Recognize project alternatives. Advocates should also try to articulate a clear alternative approach to address the project’s purpose. Then Governor Luis Fortuño in a 2011 conference keynote (and under the backdrop of community protests) blasted opponents of the project, stating “Puerto Rico can’t permit the well being and progress of our community to be held hostage by people who think all progress is bad.” To address this issue, community connectors should work with other stakeholders to inclusively formulate an alternative vision/strategy to tackle the aspirations of present and/or proposed divisive transportation infrastructure.
Community Connectors: tools for advocates
You may be fighting against a freeway expansion. You may be trying to advance a Reconnecting Communities project to remove an old highway. You might be just trying to make wide, dangerous arterial roads a little safer for people to cross. This Community Connectors portal explains common terms, decodes the processes, clarifies the important actors, and inspires with helpful real-world stories.
Streets have always been a community gathering place since the beginning of civilizations. But why do we continue to elevate the car over people? Bogotá’s weekly Ciclovía is a regular reminder of how people can take back their streets to improve safety and access.
Community members of all ages and abilities biking, walking, running at the weekly Ciclovía event in Bogotá, CO. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
The common experience we have traveling in our communities here in the United States is to hop in the car and drive at high speeds to our destination, park, and walk in. However, for many in urban, suburban, and rural areas, hopping in a car can mean troublesome delays, let alone health and environmental impacts.
This doesn’t even begin to account for many people in communities big and small who rely on bikes, transit, and walking to get to and from their destinations (with urban and rural areas seeing up to a third not having access to a private vehicle). Pedestrians and cyclists are often subject to unsafe roadway conditions, because they are deemed an afterthought to the movement of the transportation system, further reinforced by auto dominance in roadway design, operations, and perception.
Having traveled recently to Bogotá, Colombia in mid February 2023, I was exposed to a different culture of transportation. Though not perfect, Bogotá hosts a weekly community event, Ciclovía, that serves as not only a community amenity, but a powerful reminder that the streets of the city were and still are for moving people safely and effectively to their destinations.
What is Ciclovía?
Turning back the clock, Ciclovía in Bogotá started as a protest. The brainchild of Jaime Ortiz Mariño, the event started in 1974 to recognize the role and importance of affordable, safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation in the midst of a city and society rapidly urbanizing. Mariño had just studied architecture in the US and was worried that rapid urbanization in his home country would entrench costly auto dominance, thus his revolutionary push for cycling and engaging the community to take to the streets on a regular basis on foot, pedals, or other non-auto means. The city’s administration formally sanctioned the event starting in 1976, providing support for the weekly event currently held every Sunday (and holidays) from 7 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Today, the weekly event has multiple routes, totaling up to 80 miles (128 km), that cross every corner of the city via neighborhood streets, major avenues, even expressways. City transportation department staff are deployed early on event mornings to set up temporary barricades (via cones and some water-filled barricades), support services and community programming, implement bicycle traffic calming at key locations where speed can be a factor, and (with police support) start detouring vehicular traffic away from Ciclovía routes. As the event kicks off, the community comes out in force, engaging in family walks, an easier and safer bike commute, community commerce (street fairs and food carts), and entertainment like concerts and group fitness classes.
Ciclovía staff setting up and supporting the event in Bogotá, CO. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
The success of Ciclovía in its nearly half century existence has elicited the event being replicated not only in other cities throughout Colombia (like Medellín and Calí), but the world. Looking at home here in the US, similar events inspired by Ciclovía have popped up in the last two decades, initially on an annual basis and at a much smaller scale (only a few miles or within a large community park). However, more events are becoming frequent and expansive, only drawing more attention to the need for safe, reliable, and accessible transportation alternatives and open streets for people as a result of the COVID pandemic.
Ciclovía in action. Video by Benito Pérez.
Community event or regular practice?
Having experienced my first Ciclovía in Bogotá, there was a lot to take in. But beyond the novelty to me of this community event are key takeaways we should look to replicate as regular practice. Designing and opening streets for people opened up a wealth of opportunities.
Children were able to learn to use bikes, scooters, and walk the real world streetscape, which lended opportunities on navigating their community safely and expanded awareness of mobility choice and community amenities. People of all ages, including seniors, were engaging with each other throughout the event, lending itself to awareness of and yielding to each other through the rest of the week, if they happen to get behind the wheel of a car. There was also increased economic vibrancy along the routes, with people engaging commerce on bikes and on foot (people want to see more walkable communities, as our Foot Traffic Ahead report states).
Smart Growth America’s Foot Traffic Ahead report shows that there is a growing demand for walkable communities. Read more here.
Where do we walk or bike next?
Policy Director Benito Pérez enjoying Ciclovía.
Ciclovía was a wonderful event to have participated in while in Bogotá. It reminded me of the lengths we still have to navigate here in the US to make such a community event, already happening in dozens of US cities, transition from novelty to regular practice.
For starters, I would point to bureaucracy and the car-centric status quo, a major roadblock that needs to be overcome to retake our streets for people. That means things like federal transportation design standards like the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices or AASHTO’s Highway and Street Design Manual need fundamental rewrites, not conservative and inconsequential changes, to reprioritize our street design to emphasize safe and accessible movement of people.
Additionally on the bureaucracy front, there needs to be a revolution of transportation culture. This revolution needs to shake up our decision makers and our transportation professionals operating state and local transportation departments to fundamentally orient and humanize their mission towards moving people safely and efficiently with mobility choices to jobs and services, not jargon priorities like level of service (LOS), speed, traffic volume, or crash density. Only then can our own communities, here in the US, come out to the street, and recognize the vitality and importance of streets as a tool and asset for all people.
Transit serves as the sustainable mobility lifeline for people in many communities around the world. Transit also serves as the great equalizer, transporting white collar workers, essential workers, tourists, as well as youth and seniors.Yet in the US, transit is still deemed over-resourced and undeserving. Traveling on Bogotá’s TransMilenio highlighted what matters most in transit service delivery: a willingness to think creatively in order to improve service.
Various bi-articulated bus routes traversing a major Transmilenio trunk line in Bogotá, CO. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
Serving billions around the rapidly urbanizing world, transit is a mobility lifeline lifting people out of poverty and connecting them to jobs and services in their community. In many transit conversations, major cities like London and Tokyo are held in high regard for having stellar transit operations and infrastructure. What many decision makers in the United States take from comparing such examples is robust, permanently fixed, expensive infrastructure in transit to attract ridership, calling for the investment in the shiny new rail or streetcar line in their community.
Folks in the United States often assume that the transit systems are so good in other major cities because those cities are wealthy and come from the developed world. We would do well to consider how well cities in developing countries, like Colombia, are doing in providing high quality transit before letting ourselves off the hook. If we peel back the layers of any highly regarded transit system, we’ll see that they are seeded in decades of trial and error, flexibility, and low cost solutions improving frequency and reliability, before doubling down on capital intensive investments that many US decision makers look to replicate.
If leaders in the US want to have a serious conversation on how to evolve public transportation into the world class mobility option that is needed and deserved by all, then they should take a field trip down to Bogotá, Colombia. Within a week, I had a chance to be immersed with TransMilenio, a living lab of public transit innovation and evolution for world class transit that stands miles above and beyond many US transit systems.
What is TransMilenio?
A bi-articulated bus traversing a major Transmilenio trunk line in Bogotá, CO being directed by transit police. T4A photo by Benito Pérez.
Prior to 2000, Bogotá was a city of major congestion and very unreliable and incongruent transit mobility options. Transit that was available in the metropolitan area of 7 million people consisted of private on-demand shuttles and buses (informally creating fixed routes where there was regular demand for service). Those uncoordinated shuttles were subject to irregular schedules due to being stuck in traffic with all other vehicles. Planning in the city in the 1980s and 1990s called for the creation of wider boulevards, elevated highways to increase vehicle throughput, and construction of a heavy rail line.
However, in the 1990s, Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa changed the conversation on transportation in the Colombian capital, proposing and building an integrated transit system modeled after Curitiba, Brasil, which relied on bus rapid transit (BRT), a trinary road system (system of one-way circulating streets surrounding a smaller footprint two-way street that has exclusive bus lanes), and transit-oriented development. The TransMilenio project was to be larger in scale to Curitiba’s system, expansive in reach in the metropolitan area. It would enhance mobility reliability for all users to get to jobs and community services, but also accomplish this goal at a fraction of the cost of past proposals of highways and heavy rail.
Since the first TransMilenio trunk line went live in 2002, the system has looked at ways to optimize service delivery to ensure people can reliably use the system and expect buses to arrive at stops every 3-5 minutes. Changes have included BRT serving all stops along the route and creating a local versus express route system, which ultimately evolved into a local paired with a tiered express route system (with different express routes serving different stops along the route). Every time a new trunk segment was introduced to the system, TransMilenio would reoptimize the system to integrate the new trunk route, while still preserving frequency and reliability. As of 2022, TransMilenio as originally planned is nearly built out, with final trunk lines finishing design and starting construction.
Today, the TransMilenio system covers 12 major trunk routes served by nearly 1800 buses (each can carry 300 people) and 152 stations. It includes 71+ miles with 3-5 minute headways, and it’s the foundation of the metro area’s tiered bus network. The TransMilenio system, carrying between 2.5-3 million daily riders, exemplifies the best of bus rapid transit, to include but not limited to dedicated lanes, off-board fare collection, a common fare structure ($2950 COP = $0.60 USD as of this writing), and accessible stations.
Redefining world class transit through iteration
To exemplify a stellar transit system, decision makers have to engage in a conversation and take steps in implementing seamless, integrated, and simplified mobility that elevates moving people. As Bogotá’s system enters its second decade of service, it is iterating on its trials and errors to better serve its customers and pursue its mission.
TransMilenio has heralded several successes as well as shortcomings through its operations and evolution. The system today is moving people through the region 32 percent faster than other modes and has reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the city by 40 percent. Safety in and along TransMilenio has also improved, with significant reductions (80-90 percent) in road injuries and fatalities attributed to the system. However, TransMilenio leadership have expressed regret in not integrating transit signal priority in earlier routes to improve reliability. Additionally, accessibility remains a hurdle for the tiered transit system that feeds into TransMilenio, particularly for customers with mobility impairments boarding buses and getting to and from bus stops. This accessibility challenge is compounded by the initial lack of dedicated bus lanes for feeder buses—this system has only started to leverage painted transit priority lanes during peak periods to access TransMilenio stations more reliably.
As TransMilenio enters its third decade of operations, the agency will need to confront these challenges to maintain reliable service, before continuing to embark on future expansion plans, which includes the initial construction of the Bogotá metrorail system.
The bottom line: If at first you don’t succeed, try try again!
Decision makers at transit agencies, local governments, state DOTs, as well as legislators both at state houses and Congress, need to take a hard look at the transit paradigm in the US. There has been quite a prevailing and concerning mindset that public transit is a costly endeavor that yields minimal benefits. As such, the paradigm for public transit has been to provide the bare minimum for essential community service, if at all. Transit service has been considered as secondary to auto-centric transportation policy, investment, and operations in the US. The challenge here is changing the decision maker mindset that transit investments are a quick agent solution, akin to a weight loss miracle that happens overnight, and deemed an immediate failure when immediate results for transit don’t emerge.
To move the needle forward for transit in the US, decision makers should look to the TransMilenio example, where Mayor Peñalosa laid out a long-term vision and strategy to achieve a sustainable and reliable transit system that can connect people to everywhere they need to go (and not just the peak job commute as is currently the US transit system modus operandi). Transit evolution in the US needs to start with a bold rethink of what transit is for and how it can benefit communities. Only then should we lay out the initial investments (only reaching for capital intensive investments after proven sustainable transit growth), and start iterating towards our achievable goals.
The sunsetting 117th Congress passed historic investments in infrastructure, via the 2021 infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act. In parallel, the Biden Administration has rolled up its sleeves to implement those infrastructure investments with an eye towards safety, repair, and equity. Now with the incoming and divided 118th Congress, the Biden team is running out of time to make inroads on advancing its goals.
Since our last check-in, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, FHWA finally has a confirmed administrator, and USDOT proposed a greenhouse gas emission rule which garnered thousands of comments in support. Meanwhile, USDOT continues to send out billions of dollars in formula and competitive dollars from the infrastructure law.
However, with two years left in Biden’s term, time is running out for the administration to take decisive action on its transportation priorities. Progress made has been uneven and timid at best, concerned about political acceptance at the state and federal level instead of achieving the goals they’ve outlined. With one year down and four more to go for the IIJA, Biden’s USDOT will have to get creative to influence state DOT implementation of the law while also facing stiff headwinds from an incoming GOP-led House, bent on obstructing transportation spending that is counter to a car-centric status quo.
The good: Taking steps to advance equity and climate in transportation
Recognizing local capacity constraints, USDOT invests in Thriving Communities
Thanks to Congressional appropriations in FY22, USDOT has created the Thriving Communities program to bridge the gap for marginalized communities to pursue and manage federal grant opportunities by building local capacity and providing technical assistance. This program is a $25 million down payment on an equitable and accessible discretionary grant framework for all communities, regardless of capacity and resources.
Long overdue proposed rule aims to advance climate accountability
In July 2022, the Biden administration proposed reinstating a rule that would require states to track their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Save from a few minor adjustments, this 2022 version parallels the previously enacted Obama administration GHG emissions rule. FHWA is in a solid position to officially implement the proposed rule, especially because 24 states and the District of Columbia (not to mention local and regional instances) have already implemented it on their own. The rule is imperfect and limited in scope, but is nonetheless a crucial step towards intergovernmental climate accountability.
Money and action on Reconnecting Communities
The IIJA also included the Reconnecting Communities program, an effort to repair the harm done by divisive transportation infrastructure that destroyed community wealth and vibrant cultural centers for black and brown communities. The USDOT started rolling it out with a NOFO in late June. Congress doubled down on this effort by passing the Neighborhood Access and Equity Program (23 USC 177) in the Inflation Reduction Act. Furthermore, USDOT took a notable step within its RAISE program to demonstrate its commitment to Reconnecting Communities by investing in a project in Detroit and another project in NYC that aims to remove divisive highway infrastructure and restore community connectivity and vibrancy. In lieu of just making money available, USDOT is showing up in its leadership to steer the transportation program towards meaningful actions towards Reconnecting Communities.
The incomplete
Perfection is the enemy of the good
The above actions are commendable, but will do little to change state DOT investment strategies. Much of this past year, USDOT has rolled out new and updated guidance for various formula and discretionary grant programs stemming from the 2021 infrastructure law. At the same time, USDOT has been sending out a deluge of requests for information, with little followup action stemming from such requests. The search for the perfect approach to implement the infrastructure law has sapped up considerable precious time and stirred up opposition to administrative actions, in lieu of taking bold steps.
In the same vein, the much-anticipated MUTCD update is still pending. Rather than spend months overhauling the entire manual, USDOT should push ahead and release updates to the manual that advance a safe systems approach, put vulnerable road users first, and continue to make progress.
Non-representative Amtrak Board appointments
The 2021 infrastructure law reoriented Amtrak to focus on customer service and connecting communities across the country, both rural and urban. This reorientation included new standards for the composition of the Amtrak Board, which now must include representatives from not only the Northeast Corridor (NEC), but also the National Network (both long distance and state supported routes), as well as representation from the disability community. Unfortunately, the administration’s nominees, with the exception of one nominee from Illinois, hail exclusively from states served by the NEC. It will be up to the remaining nominees coming from Republicans to rebalance the Amtrak Board to steward its customer oriented, community connecting mission.
Lots of focus on moving goods, but what about moving people?
Supply chain has been the transportation buzz term of 2022, with logistical and labor hurdles in goods movement from the nation’s ports, to the freight railroads, to last mile delivery in communities across the US. The administration and Congress dove in and spent considerable time and money to improve resiliency of the nation’s supply chain. But at the same time, there has been an acute and worsening crisis in transit operations.
Transit is a lifeline in many communities, ferrying essential workers to work and carrying lower-income members of the community to essential community services. Akin to the administration’s leadership on addressing challenges in the nation’s supply chain, the Biden administration needs to take leadership to address the nation’s transit operations across the country.
The opportunity: Actions the administration can take right now
Our list of specific actions are in the table below, tracking the progress the Biden administration has made since taking office. Since our last update, not much has changed (and there’s a notable lack of progress on value of time guidance and ensuring models account for induced demand, both of which we highlighted in our six-month update).
Issue area
Department
Status
Detail
Action
Access to federal funds
USDOT
Simplify 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 change
USDOT
In progress
Started rulemaking process
We 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 change
USDOT
Done
Repeal 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 change
USDOT
Allow rural transit systems to receive funding from the Low and No Emission bus program.
Equity
USDOT
Identify 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 rail
White House, USDOT
The board is functionally empty, with all members serving on expired terms and no-showing for meetings.
Appoint new members to 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.
Safety
USDOT
Limited progress
Called out in Roadway Strategy release, but they did not include or mention consideration of the visibility issues.
Revise 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).
Safety
USDOT
Limited progress
Comments reopened and then closed in May 2021. Limited revisions underway
Admin not rewriting or reframing the guide, per their Roadway Strategy release.
Reopen 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 guidance
White House, HUD, USDOT, GSA
Re-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.
Re-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.
Ensure more accurate traffic and emissions modeling
USDOT
Require 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.
Replace value of time guidance with more equitable, multimodal approach
USDOT
Help states and metro areas accurately calculate the benefit of their projects by updating the value of time guidance and its focus on vehicle speed with consideration of actual projected time savings for all people, whether they travel by car or use other modes of travel.
Looking ahead into 2023, the administration will be put on defense with what could be a hostile GOP-led House, bent on overzealous oversight aimed to claw back any progress on administration goals and implementation of the 2021 infrastructure law. Instead of being timid on their actions and allowing oversight to overwhelm USDOT’s agenda, USDOT will need to lean in and flex as much of their authority as they can in advancing their goals; forcing Congress to confront challenges to the administration’s flexed authority in the next session in a bipartisan manner and cultivate a reckoning within the federal transportation program that will sorely need to be revisited in the next transportation reauthorization.
The infrastructure law sets aside funding for university transportation centers (UTCs) to research and provide actionable recommendations on emerging transportation issues. However, in the face of mounting climate resiliency, equity, safety, mobility access, and state of repair concerns, are UTCs poised to meet the moment?
Map of university transportation centers under the prior infrastructure law, the FAST ACT (2017-2021). Image from USDOT.
Tucked away in the IIJA funding is about $500 million, a drop in the bucket compared to the cash stream for infrastructure. This money funds UTCs, which are made up of universities and other institutions of higher learning that collaborate to propose research on a specific emerging transportation issue and find actionable solutions.
States often follow Congress’s lead and devote the majority of their time and resources to more of the same.
The research that UTCs produce is critically important to the transportation industry. Considering that states have received an unprecedented federal investment, they can either make transformational changes to improve safety, state of repair, and access to opportunities…or they can keep up the status quo strategies that propel economic, social, and health disparities.
State DOTs are under pressure to deliver on core services, leaving little room for thinking about innovation. Private sector consultants are under similar constraints because they have to focus on client deliverables and deadlines. With little time and resources to develop new ideas, these entities are best equipped to deliver more of the same—which is exactly what they tend to do.
UTCs don’t have the same pressure to deliver a core service to the public. In fact, the resource a UTC provides is innovation: they’re the implementation think tank that tests out applications, operations, materials, and approaches that can be readily used by transportation professionals. In addition, UTCs serve as a proving ground for future transportation professionals, educators, and businesses, allowing the ideas UTCs form to flow into the transportation industry through the people and businesses that helped develop them.
Here’s the challenge
Congress has identified key national priorities for the transportation system. Those goals are further translated into research priorities, which UTCs must choose from to compete for federal funding. In other words, UTCs obtain funding by focusing on one of these goals:
Improving mobility of people and goods
Reducing congestion
Promoting safety
Improving the durability and extending the life of transportation infrastructure
Preserving the environment
Preserving the existing transportation system
Reducing transportation cybersecurity risks
These are all valuable goals, but they also intersect. For example, the prevailing solution to congestion is highway widening projects, even though these projects often fail to improve mobility, increase the risk of traffic fatalities, add to the ever-growing number of lanes that require maintenance, and lead to more emissions. If an innovative UTC is looking for a new solution for congestion, they would benefit from the perspectives of UTCs focused on promoting safety, preserving the existing transportation system, improving the mobility of people and goods, and preserving the environment. This collaboration would allow them to find better solutions that don’t run the risk of repeating past mistakes.
Unfortunately, UTCs don’t work together in this way. Under the current approach, we could have a UTC in the Northwest focusing efforts on climate resiliency while a UTC in the South focuses on freight management. Then when it’s time to share their trailblazing research, state DOT politics come into play, meaning the findings might not penetrate equitably across the United States.
This approach creates inequities in perspectives and divides urgent transportation priorities that should overlap. It’s a great approach to help focus efforts for a project, but considering the role a UTC has in churning out future transportation professionals and the latest business venture, plus the inconsistent distribution of UTC research findings, this approach ultimately hinders innovation and leaves us entrenched in the broken status quo.
So how do we make a difference with UTCs?
The federal rules guiding UTCs can’t change at this point—the Notice of Funding Opportunity has already been released and the application process has started. However, as it does with all competitive grants, the USDOT has discretion in its review process. It will be crucial for the USDOT to nudge and encourage applicants to think holistically about their target goal by also considering other intersecting national priorities. This will make it easier for state DOTs to share research, and it will enable emerging transportation professionals across the country to gain more exposure to transportation issues and research development. The latter will be particularly important as the emerging professionals working for UTCs could one day join state DOTs and shape policy-making, operations, and implementation. The more they understand about today’s urgent transportation issues, the better.
Juxtaposed by a well-supported bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, there are many people in rural communities, particularly agricultural workers, along the route that are in critical need of vital, reliable, affordable transportation options, and suffer dire health and economic consequences as a result.
Agricultural workers harvesting lettuce in Salinas, CA. Photo from Flickr/yaxchibonam.
The 2022 AIDS/Lifecycle bike ride (June 5-11, 2022), a seven-day, 545-mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles raising awareness, advocacy, and financial support for community services for those afflicted with HIV, passes through many rural agricultural communities. Through Marina, Salinas, Gonzalez, King City, Bradley, Paso Robles, Santa Maria, or Lompoc, community members bike or walk along the side of the road in dangerous conditions like non-existent shoulders and roadways in need of maintenance or repair. I recently had the honor, privilege, and ability to participate in this bike ride, and along the way, I observed what is so often observed on U.S. streets: when our transportation system prioritizes vehicle speed over all else, other road users fall through the cracks.
T4America Policy Director Benito Pérez, stopped by agricultural fields near Salinas, CA.
It is quite the experience and privilege to ride through the beautiful California countryside, supported by medical and bike tech teams. If I got tired or felt sick from riding, I could stop and get a ride to the next rest stop or hop on a chartered bus to the next overnight camp stop. This unfortunately is not an option for residents and workers alike in these rural communities. Along our route, biking infrastructure was scarce, and other convenient modes of transportation like public transit are often hard to come by. Those of us participating in the bike ride could easily spot rural residents and workers biking for long distances on unprotected paths.
Add the additional pain of high gas prices and scarce and infrequent public transportation options, and many people are left with little option but to walk or bike on hazardous roads with high speed or very large freight vehicles and tractors. For undocumented workers or people living paycheck-to-paycheck who have to show up in-person for work, high gas prices become even more of a barrier and can force people to other modes of travel, even when safe infrastructure is lacking. I observed one woman biking with a shopping cart tied to her bike to carry her goods home.
Dangerous rural roadways aren’t specific to California. Over 1 million rural households across the nation have limited mobility options. Leaders in many rural communities are standing up and looking to make changes to improve transportation choices and safety. In California, the city of Salinas has an active Vision Zero program, enacted in 2020, looking to stem the tide on roadway fatalities. Communities like Lompoc are actively looking at policy and funding opportunities to expand their complete streets program. However, as the bulk of their busiest and most dangerous roads are state-owned, these places will have to rely on the state to make sure rural communities receive the investments they need. That will involve emphasizing a better state of repair on roadways, investing in rural transit solutions (including microtransit), not to mention supporting transportation investments, policies, standards, and strategies advancing safety and mobility choice for all roadway users.
Despite the support that cyclists on the AIDS/Lifecycle ride received and the increased safety that often comes while biking in larger numbers, a person was still killed on the final day. Roadway fatalities for pedestrians and cyclists continue to rise, and without making an effort to address the dangerous conditions on our roadways (mainly, the lack of safe infrastructure for road users outside of vehicles), this trend can only be expected to continue. (The 2022 edition of Dangerous by Design, produced by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, addresses how our streets are designed for vehicles at the expense of all other road users.)
This ride was an experience for the impact it has to its mission, but it also was an experience to “ride in the shoes” of the many residents in these rural communities in Central California, only a sliver of many rural communities in America clamoring for safe, reliable transportation choices for their socioeconomic and health well-being. Often, political leaders assume that all rural residents drive, or only drive, and any investments in other modes of transportation are somehow out of touch with rural needs. But the fight for safer streets and more convenient methods of transportation can’t stop at city limits. That mindset leaves far too many behind.
If we’re going to ensure that the historic amount of transit funding in the infrastructure law actually results in good, usable, high quality transit that improves access to jobs and services, Congress is going to need to do a better job of oversight and thinking through the very real and difficult issues at hand for transit, not just arguing about whether or not transit is a vital part of transportation and mobility in communities small and large.
Vital topics like how to use the IIJA to institute more practical improvements to transit like Richmond’s were not on the docket during this week’s Senate Banking Committee hearing. GRTC bus rapid transit photo by BeyondDC on Flickr
Nearly two weeks ago, Secretary Buttigieg testified before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. On paper, the purpose was to discuss implementation of the infrastructure bill. However they instead wasted much of the hearing arguing about a harmless Federal Highways Administration memo calling for investment in repair and safety projects, improving equity, and reducing emissions. One side didn’t like the existence of these priorities on a piece of paper while the other side tried to point out that these priorities are all clearly laid out in the bill (even if the bill does little to further them). There was no real conversation about implementation ideas or needs, and the very real challenges of spending this money in a way that improves the state of our country’s infrastructure and helps connect people to opportunity.
Unfortunately, that trend continued this week during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing about public transit and the infrastructure law.
While the majority showed a willingness to ignore bad faith arguments from the minority and certain invited guests about whether or not transit should even exist, they will need to do far more in the future to address very real concerns about ensuring that transit money get appropriated in a timely way, that USDOT advance new capital projects smoothly, how to handle very real workforce challenges in the transit industry, aligning transit investments with equitable transit-oriented development, and positioning transit to be a reliable and competitive mode for people to use within their community. In fact, the Federal Transit Administration is currently seeking input on their rules surrounding the Capital Investment Grants, like New Starts—a topic that would have been good to discuss.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) described the vital service that public transit provides in our communities, highlighting the example of a worker spending a day’s wage on Uber or Lyft to get to/from work on a Sunday to keep their job, because there isn’t any transit service. The Senator painted a clear picture why transit needs more investment to improve the experience of existing transit riders and make the service viable for millions of new riders, connecting this need to the current pain of high gas prices, saying “if people had reliable public transportation then they don’t need to decide between gas and rent.”
Senator Brown during the hearing
Unfortunately, ranking member Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) seems to have no real interest in ensuring that transit serves Americans well. He derided past investments in public transit, including the COVID relief funds that continued to connect essential workers to work during the pandemic, as wasteful spending and for not “paying its fair share. The senator incorrectly noted how vehicles pay gas tax to pay their fair share of the transportation system, seemingly unaware that the gas tax hasn’t come close to paying its share in 15 years or more. (Tens of billions in general tax dollars have been transferred into the highway trust fund after the gas tax declined in value and failed to cover what Congress was still sending out to states.)
Senator Toomey
Rather than getting into the specifics of what all of the speakers said, it is frustrating that we have now finished the second Senate hearing about implementation of the infrastructure bill with little-to-no substantive conversation about implementation. How is this money going to be spent? What kinds of transit projects are going to be funded? How is USDOT going to speed up the dreadfully slow pipeline of transit capital projects (especially compared with relative ease for highway projects)? What’s wrong with the measures that the Federal Transit Administration uses to score projects for funding, and how could those measures be improved to prioritize access? These kinds of questions were completely absent from the day.
Congress has a vital role in oversight and accountability, and prodding the administration to update old vehicle-centric rules and standards and empower transportation agencies to reduce the impact of the system on the environment and communities and better connect people to jobs and necessities. (Many of our recommendations are listed here.)
While the rest of the speakers were a stark display of contrasts, the committee never really probed the implementation steps that USDOT or Federal Transit Administration could take to fill any holes in the legislation or better support the goals of the witnesses and needs of transit systems and riders. They didn’t even acknowledge that they exist.
Going forward, we need Congressional committees to lead oversight efforts that focus on specific implementation steps needed, any problems in implementation, and especially the results. To do that, the members will have to be an active participant and bring a probing skepticism to ensure we are doing all we can to get the most out of the law. And unfortunately, there will need to be a discussion about how to sideline histrionics about unenforceable memos as well as members or witnesses who are totally out of step with the mainstream and seemingly have no interest in delivering a strong transportation system for drivers and non-drivers alike.
Senator Capito uses visual aids to criticize the FHWA memo. Still from the hearing.
A Senate committee called Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to testify about implementing the new infrastructure law, but much of the day was spent criticizing or defending FHWA’s nonbinding memo encouraging states to prioritize state of good repair, safety, and climate mitigation—displaying a deep confusion in some members of Congress about the limits of USDOT’s authority.
On the heels of the president’s State of the Union address the night before, the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) convened a hearing on March 2, 2022 to talk about the infrastructure law.
Senator Carper (D-DE) opened with a discussion of the pivotal work the Committee took in formulating and passing the infrastructure law last year, and continued to underscore the need to take action on climate change (with Senator Carper noting 28 percent of emissions coming from transportation) as well as safety (after an alarming increase in fatalities, especially for vulnerable road users).
Over the course of the hearing, various senators chimed in to check on the implementation status of various programs or projects, whether the electrification of the transportation system versus alternative fuel options, truck parking, reconnecting communities, Carbon Reduction and PROTECT formula programs, transportation accessibility, Buy America, or port infrastructure. But a considerable amount of discussion from a number of senators—most notably by ranking member Senator Capito (R-WV)—focused on the nonbinding FHWA memo released on December 16 (which T4America supported as a strong statement about how states should absolutely choose to spend this historic influx of cash).
In her opening remarks, Senator Capito deemed the FHWA memo a threat to the policy framework of the infrastructure law that the committee worked so hard to put together, advancing a partisan Biden administration agenda and creating a system of winners and losers depending on the project. Using large visual aids, Senator Capito accused FHWA of plagiarizing language in the memo about fix-it-first over capacity expansion from the House’s INVEST Act. The crux of Capito’s opposition to the memo is the suggestion of a (non-existent) mandate (and a one-size-fits-all context) in the fix-it-first language over capacity expansion. In later commentary, Senator Cramer (R-ND) went further by noting that the memo was threatening the concept of federalism and the powers that states have.
As Jeff Davis at Eno noted on Twitter, this is completely false:
The ability of @USDOT to establish criterion for project approval beyond what is written in law is arguably limited by section 145 of title 23, the wording of which has not been amended since it was enacted in 1973: pic.twitter.com/VGXdPHPcUl
As Secretary Buttigieg pointed out during the hearing, the memo serves as a values document (not a mandate or part of the infrastructure law), incorporating what USDOT is hearing from states and previous transportation reauthorizations. He also noted it would be a disservice to not remind the states of their flexibility to pursue goals like repair, safety, climate change, and equity.
Secretary Buttigieg at the EPW hearing
Senator Carper jumped into the conversation at this point to provide a core history lesson regarding state of good repair from (1) Congressional values in the federal transportation program that are codified into law and (2) values shared by a previous Republican administration, underscoring how the FHWA memo is entirely consistent with pre-established values. Senator Cardin (D-MD) also added that these values expressed in the FHWA memo are key priorities that are also reflected in the infrastructure law and shouldn’t be surprising.
Senator Cardin at the EPW hearing
Overall, the day was full of much fury, signifying very little.
Republicans on the committee fiercely claimed that this unenforceable, nonbinding memo was in fact enforceable. They claimed that encouraging states to improve the state of repair, improve safety, and reduce the negative impacts of the transportation system goes against Congressional intent, that it will block projects like highway expansions, and that it lays out how competitive grant applications will be reviewed.
Let us be clear: an unenforceable memo cannot stop anything or make any state choose to spend their money more responsibly. We agree that the language of the law failed to move the needle enough on topics like safety, repair, climate, etc. But we’re frankly shocked to hear the memo’s critics admit their preference for the broken status quo so boldly. This administration will and should evaluate projects for competitive, discretionary funding that they control using their priorities, which is how competitive grant programs have always been implemented by all administrations.
Those who spent the day vociferously criticizing this memo are either ignorant to the law and how the program works, or they are just boldly stating their lack of interest in the outcomes they promised the American people when they passed the IIJA. Both are really bad news. It’s disconcerting that the bulk of this hearing was spent fighting about a priority statement—an utter waste of time. The lesson we hope USDOT gets from this is to be bold and not waste time with little plans. This modest action they took got all the blow back of a truly controversial move while in fact accomplishing nothing. As we move forward on the implementation of the IIJA, we hope USDOT and the EPW Committee reflects on the words of the architect and planner Daniel Burnham:
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency.
While the bulk of the $643 billion for surface transportation in the infrastructure bill goes out to state DOTs, more than $200 billion stays with USDOT to be awarded via competitive grants to states, metro areas, and tribal governments—through dozens of newly created, updated, and existing competitive grant programs.
In this post, we want to provide a brief high-level overview of how much competitive funding there is, why it matters that USDOT has some control over which projects get funding, and a few notable programs to pay attention to for various reasons—good and bad alike.
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, what are competitive grant programs, and why does it matter that USDOT has some control over them?
Unlike the much larger formula programs that dole out a fixed amount of money to states or metro areas based on factors like population and miles driven, projects are selected for funding by USDOT in competitive grant programs based on how they will perform in priority areas, and USDOT often has wide discretion for establishing those criteria. As one example, President Trump’s USDOT dramatically shifted the BUILD (formerly TIGER) program from more innovative, multimodal projects to one focused mostly on building and expanding roads. (This program still exists and is now called RAISE.)
For the Biden administration to fulfill their ambitious pledges to improve state of repair and safety, eliminate inequities, and reduce emissions from transportation that are fueling climate change, they will have to use every bit of discretion at their disposal within these competitive programs to ensure the projects they fund contribute to those priority goals.
A high level look at overall funding for the deal’s competitive grant programs
The infrastructure law contains funding for multiple competitive grant programs. Some are new to this bill, addressing emerging and poignant issues in transportation. Within these USDOT-administered programs, just north of $103 billion is set aside for the Federal Highway Administration, $30 billion is for the Federal Transit Administration, $59 billion is for the Federal Railroad Administration, and $6 billion is for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. This funding breakdown is notable because each modal administration operates within parallel but often different policy frameworks, which influences how the grant programs get administered.
To help you best utilize them, T4America has organized a high-level list of the various competitive grant programs by topic area. Two caveats: These many programs overlap in purpose, and many are created to move the needle in multiple areas. I.e., TIGER was a multimodal program, a freight program, a safety program, a bike/ped program—all squished into one. Also, this list is not exhaustive by any stretch, though we are producing a complete list like that for our T4America members to equip them to take advantage of the funding that best meets the challenges and context of their communities.
The lion’s share goes to multimodal grant programs
Approximately $116 billion of the $200 billion allocated to competitive grant programs is aimed towards planning for, advancing, building, and implementing multimodal connections in our communities. This broad category is typically highly competitive, considering that it typically funds notable but neglected local or regional priorities that elected officials love to cut the ribbons on. More specifically, this category includes:
$31.25 billion towards larger national, state, and local project assistance programs
RAISE grants: $30 billion over five years for a competitive grant process towards roads, rail, transit, and port projects that help achieve national, state, and/or regional objectives. (For comparison’s sake the old TIGER/BUILD program it replaced invested only $4 billion since 2009.) As with the program it replaces, the criteria USDOT writes and how they administer the selection process will have an enormous impact on whether or not these projects advance the administration’s goals.
TIFIA: $1.25 billion over five years to help finance large transportation projects with direct loans, loan guarantees, and credit risk assistance. It’s first-come, first-serve, though some make a compelling case we’d get far better projects if it was discretionary.
$27.5 billion in transit grants
Capital Investment Grants: $23 billion over five years for expanding or building new transit,
Bus and bus facilities grants: $2 billion over five years to procure, repair, and/or enhance buses as well as construct, enhance, and/or bring to a state of repair bus-related facilities, and
Ferry grants: $2.5 billion over five years, of which $0.5 billion is for the procurement, repair, and/or enhancement of ferries to low to no emissions, and $2 billion is for rural essential ferry services.
$54 billion for rail-focused programs
Consolidated Railroad Infrastructure Safety Improvement (CRISI) ($10 billion over 5 years), which focuses to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of intercity passenger and freight rail,
The new Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail ($43.5 billion) which allows the expansion of or construction on new intercity passenger rail routes in addition to capital projects that address state-of-good repair, and
Railroad Improvement Financing (RRIF) program ($600 million) which helps to finance railroad projects with direct loans, loan guarantees, and credit risk assistance.
However, there are a few programs in this broad category that are new but unfunded and therefore subject to annual appropriations. That includes the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, authorizing $1 billion towards active transportation networks in communities, as well as the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation grant program, authorizing $1 billion towards piloting innovative technologies that improves safety and system operation efficiency.
Repair
Approximately $50 billion worth of competitive programs are aimed towards prioritizing the state of repair in our communities. The bulk of that (~$43 billion) is directed towards the new Bridge Investment Program, which is a program to repair, rehabilitate, replace or protect bridges that are in disrepair. (Not to be confused with funding for bridge repair flowing through a new formula program announced just this week.) There is also just shy of $2.5 billion directed towards transit state of good repair grants that targets heavy rail transit and a station retrofits program for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Additionally, $250 million is directed towards rail Restoration and Enhancement grants for passenger rail infrastructure repair.
While it’s laudable for the infrastructure law to have discretionary grant programs dedicated to various aspects of the state of transportation repair, the fact that repair priorities are not central to the much larger, massive state-controlled formula programs (other than a strong encouragement memo from FHWA) leaves much to be desired.
Safety
Approximately $12 billion of the competitive grant programs are predominantly aimed towards prioritizing safety. Of that money, $6 billion is focused on the new Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program. That notable new program focuses on improving street safety and reorienting it towards people focus and is exclusively intended for non-state government entities (think counties, cities, towns, tribal communities, regional organizations like MPOs). Additionally, $5 billion in grant funding is focused on eliminating rail crossings.
However, there’s also a clear, stated emphasis on improving safety woven through the majority of many competitive grant programs—including big ticket programs like RAISE—so the administration has a real opportunity to make safety a tangible priority in how they stand up the projects and run the selection processes.
Climate and environmental mitigation
Approximately $15 billion of the competitive grant programs are aimed towards making an impact on climate change and the environment, thought the biggest single pot under this umbrella is for electrifying the transportation system (i.e, electric cars and trucks), which is a high priority for Biden’s USDOT, which is already seeking implementation guidance. Within this category, there is:
$7.5 billion aimed towards electrification of our transportation system (focused extensively but not exclusively on cars and roads).
Complementary to a related $7.3 billion formula grant program, the new $1.4 billion PROTECT competitive grant program has tiered layers of funding opportunities focused on planning, capacity building, and targeted climate mitigation and/or resiliency infrastructure funding.
$5 billion is set aside for culvert restoration, removal, or replacement, so as to reduce the impact on wetland environments and fishery.
$400 million in grants are aimed to curb freight emissions at ports.
$500 million authorized (but unfunded) for Healthy Streets, which looks at streetscape treatments to reduce the urban heat island effect in communities.
Equity
One of the most exciting additions in the infrastructure bill is the $1 billion for the new Reconnecting Communities program focused on tearing down or bridging transportation infrastructure that divides communities and promoting community connections that are people- versus vehicle-focused. The program is notable in working to redress the socioeconomic damage to marginalized communities, though the funding in the infrastructure law is only seed money towards a significant need in the US. Additionally, the Healthy Streets program, noted above, would bring numerous environmental benefits, and could be deployed to target the urban heat island effects that disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
Rural needs
While there is $3.25 billion set aside for rural surface transportation grants, T4America is disappointed that $1.5 billion of that is aimed at just building more highways in Appalachia, as if highways were the sole cure to all rural transportation needs. Rural America desperately deserves a more complete vision for transportation. (We have some ideas.)
Positioning for competitive grant application success
With about five dozen competitive, surface transportation grant programs to administer, USDOT faces a heavy lift to get these programs off the ground, on top of administering the legacy programs that already existed. However, that doesn’t mean communities can’t start to position themselves for success. There’s opportunity to think about not only what projects to pursue, but also contemplate identifying and leveraging supplemental funding sources.
Although state DOTs have always been free to prioritize repair, safety, or improving access for everyone across the entire system, most have traditionally chosen to use that flexibility to build new highways instead. With state DOT coffers soon to be loaded with billions from the new infrastructure bill, USDOT is urging states via a new memo to focus on their repair needs, take an expansive view of what they can invest in, and invest in reducing emissions and improving safety.
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.
Last week USDOT finally released the long awaited state formula funding apportionment tables, which document how the first year of the infrastructure law’s formula funding will be divided up to the states. When it comes to the FHWA and FTA’s role in the oversight and messaging on formula funding to the states, the experience has not been consistent, which this memo looks to tackle.
FHWA sends a clear and consistent guiding message
With the funding amounts published, the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) followed up the next day with a notable and perhaps unprecedented memo of administrative guidance from Deputy Administrator Stephanie Pollock directed to FHWA headquarters administrators, division administrators, and their teams. This memo sent a clear message on where USDOT wants to emphasize its technical assistance and oversight of federal transportation program funds.
Here are four points the Deputy Administrator made that we want to highlight:
1) Prioritizing repair and rehabilitation first
Since Congress chose not to prioritize repair by discarding the House’s INVEST Act which would have instituted hard and fast requirements, USDOT and the Biden administration want to emphasize the critical need for improving the state of repair of the transportation infrastructure. The guidance reminds the role states must play in maintaining a state of repair of their existing infrastructure (23 USC 116) if they plan to participate in the federal transportation program. Lastly, in advancing maintenance, FHWA encourages incorporation of safety and multimodal accessibility into the repair scope of the infrastructure project.
2) Prioritizing investment on all federal-aid transportation infrastructure
The memorandum makes note that the formula funding being directed to states is not for exclusive use of state DOT-owned and managed infrastructure and that they should consider all the needs in their state—not just the big ticket state-owned highways where many typically focus their funds. The memo notes that the 50,000 miles of state DOT-owned roads and bridges are in much better condition than the one million miles of other roads not owned by the state but eligible for that funding, 85 percent of all miles driven takes place on these other roads/bridges, and formula programs also have money dedicated to these “off-system” roads and bridges.
3) Simplifying project review
The memorandum guides FHWA to help fast track and simplify the review of projects that prioritize repair, improve safety, or invest in multimodal improvements. Streetsblog summed up this provision well last week:
Among the most potentially transformative new guidelines is a federal advisory that multimodal projects, like bike lanes, sidewalks and BRT lanes, should no longer be subjected to onerous environmental review — and that highway expansions and other high-polluting projects for which the National Environmental Protection Act was created should be scrutinized much more heavily than they are now. Opponents of sustainable transportation across the country have long abused the environmental review process to stall carbon-cutting projects, while letting autocentric efforts sail through.
4) Emphasizing operational efficiency over expansion
The memo says that FHWA will do what they can with their technical assistance and oversight to emphasize operational efficiencies to move more people and goods within existing infrastructure over capacity expansion (i.e, new highways). The memorandum acknowledges that FHWA is in no position to prohibit states from expanding system capacity, but that FHWA will explore all policy mechanisms at their disposal to not only strongly encourage and influence, but require an emphasis on repair and alternative enhancements to roadway capacity expansion. Of special note as well, FHWA underscored the flexibility that state DOTs have and should exercise in supporting public transportation projects.
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Though this policy memorandum does not have any enforceable mechanisms in what state DOTs can and will do with their formula highway funding, it makes a major statement about where the administration’s priorities lie, gives ammunition to the advocates trying to hold them accountable, and can help nudge and encourage states that are in the midst of attempting to change how they prioritize their spending.
The DOT’s gentle, “have you thought about this?” approach to climate-friendly and safe road infrastructure may feel toothless. But states that have experimented with similar approaches say it’s helpful. In Colorado, Governor Jared Polis has urged the state DOT to emphasize people-friendly—rather than builder-friendly—infrastructure projects. More than half of the state’s transportation money goes toward “state of good repair” projects, like filling potholes, fixing bridges and viaducts, and adding shoulders to rural roads for safety, says Shoshana Lew, executive director of Colorado’s DOT. Prioritizing safety and climate effects “forces the conversation to be more rounded,” says Lew. “It makes you think really hard about whether the project is worth it, and what the implications will be.” As a result of Colorado’s approach, she says, an expansion project on Interstate 70 will include a new van shuttle system that could grow bigger with demand.
This memo empowers USDOT representatives to the state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to be more vocal and consistent in advancing department priorities. This also gives local, regional, and state community advocates something to point to as they try to build momentum towards decision-making change in the implementation of the federal transportation program in their backyards.
A month has passed since the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal was signed into law and set the direction for the federal transportation program for the next five years. With this mammoth infusion of unexpected cash (which is already flowing out the door), there is much to unpack as to exactly how much money there is for the surface transportation program and how it can be used.
To big fanfare, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law on November 15, 2021 by President Biden. The President and the press have touted how this law will invest $550 billions in supplemental appropriations into transportation and other infrastructure needs of the United States. But rather than just how much more the pie was supersized, most states, regions, and local governments want to know more details about the size of all the bill’s various pie pieces. T4America has you covered, dissecting the infrastructure law and following the money for the surface transportation program.
FHWA also released their full apportionment tables on Dec. 15, which show the full official breakdown of where the money is going and what sources it’s coming from. Find those tables here.
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.
1) Where this money is going—the big picture
As the following chart shows, 54 percent ($643 billion) of the infrastructure law’s funding goes toward reauthorizing the surface transportation program through 2026. The rest of the bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag goes toward other various non surface-transportation infrastructure. This $643 billion part of the deal has been reported as reauthorization plus additional above-and-beyond funds for various programs (even by us!), but the easiest way to understand this is that this is a massive five-year authorization that’s nearly twice the size of the FAST Act that it replaces. (The next biggest question is how much of the $643 billion comes from the gas-tax-funded trust fund, and how much comes from general tax dollars, which we get into in #2 below.)
Of this $643 billion, two-thirds of the money ($432 billion) is flowing to conventional highway programs.
Just to put this scale of spending in perspective, if the FAST Act (the just-ended five-year transportation law) had just been extended instead, that would have only been about $299 billion for these three basic areas of funding over five years. So compared to the previous five-year law, the new infrastructure bill brings a:
90 percent increase in highway program funding (from $226 up to $432 billion);
79 percent increase in public transportation funding (from $61 billion up to $109 billion); and
750 percent increase in railroad infrastructure funding (from $12 billion up to $102 billion)
While the bill has added some new programs (some of which we cover here), the primary way to understand the amount of money is that it will go down as roughly double what we spent over the previous five years.
2) Where is this money coming from?
Taking a closer look at that nearly $432 billion for highways, $110+ billion in supplemental funding (for predominantly highway competitive grant programs) is sourced from general funds from the US Treasury, i.e, paid for with tax dollars from every American and not just gas taxes In a notable change from historic practice, these supplemental funds will be appropriated in advance of other priorities in the annual budget process. (Typically, funding for programs that are not funded with gas tax dollars are fought over year after year in appropriations, though the starting point may be the “authorized” amount in the current five-year authorization.) This is different from a couple of discretionary programs, such as the Healthy Streets program, which authorizes expenditures, but did not identify funding for the program. These types of programs will face potential cuts before competitive highway programs ever do, for example.
This supplemental funding from all taxpayers is layered on about $312 billion sourced from the gas-tax-funded Highway Trust Fund (HTF). 87 percent (about $271 billion) of those trust fund dollars is directed to formula programs and will be spent at the discretion of states and metro areas (within the contours of the policy Congress wrote.) The administration has almost no ability to shape how those dollars get spent with future administrative actions or rulemakings. In fact, this money is already flowing directly into the coffers of state departments of transportation. The rest of the $312B in trust fund dollars (~$39B) are being directed to discretionary programs, such as competitive grants and research administered by USDOT.
When it comes to the federal transit program, the infrastructure law sets aside $109 billion, of which nearly $70 billion is from the also gas-tax-funded Mass Transit Account within the HTF, and an additional $39 billion in general tax funds over the next five years (which will also be appropriated each year in advance of other budget needs.)
Lastly, the federal rail program sets aside $102 billion over five years to be annually appropriated in advance of other budget needs, from the general fund from the US Treasury. None of the rail funding comes from the Highway Trust Fund.
As far as how these “advance” appropriations are going to work out in practice, no one is really sure what to expect in reality over the next five years as Congress could change several times over during the 2021 infrastructure law’s lifespan. In theory, these programs provided with appropriations in advance (like transit and passenger rail) should be safer than other programs that are wholly discretionary and left up to future appropriators to decide funding each year, but it’s a real possibility that a new Congress could certainly find a way to undo some of the advance funding for programs that they deem unworthy. This will be an issue that we will be keeping a close eye on in the years ahead.
3) What makes the infrastructure law’s funding historic?
The infrastructure law comes with its flaws in policy, but there are still opportunities to maximize the potential of this unprecedented influx of transportation investment. As noted in the first graphic above, these are huge increases in funding over what states and metro areas and transit agencies would have expected to see in just another year of the FAST Act.
The vast majority of that highway money will be allocated to the states using complex formulas that ensure an equitable distribution of funding tied to average gas tax receipts and previous state allocations. Based on what T4America knows on the apportionment formula, the following chart highlights how the total highway funding for formula programs can be sliced and diced to the states. Of all the states, Texas, California, and Florida account for a quarter of the apportionment of the federal highway program. It will be incumbent on USDOT and advocates to hold all of the states accountable for how their federal dollars are used.
Money from the finalized $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal is already flowing out to states and metro areas who are plugging it right into projects both already underway and on the horizon. After covering six things the administration should do immediately to maximize this mammoth infusion of unexpected cash, here’s a longer look at some of the law’s incremental or notable successes, with the aim of equipping the administration and advocates alike to steer this money toward the best possible outcomes.
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.
If you’re looking for good news in the infrastructure bill, passenger rail probably represents the most encouraging and exciting inclusion in the bill. After being woefully neglected over the past 40 years, passenger rail is one of the biggest winners, receiving a historic investment that totals just north of $100 billion over five years. (All of which is thanks to impressive bipartisan work by the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this summer—read our much more detailed take on all the passenger rail provisions here.)
This will provide significant opportunities to reshape American passenger rail in a transformative way. With the record investment, there is ample opportunity to improve safety and state of repair for existing rail infrastructure, make existing service more reliable, and support new, expanded passenger rail service. Communities near rail and lacking in intercity mobility options could connect their community with affordable intercity mobility and integrate passenger rail service with first- and last-mile community connections.
But these improvements are not going to happen automatically nor will they happen easily. The Biden administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, Amtrak and others will have to be very aggressive in ushering this money out the door and supporting state and local plans for those improvements to see the projects that have been promised or mentioned in breathless news coverage come to pass. If the administration fails on this count, this could turn out just like the 2009 Recovery Act, where money sat idle or was even declined by governors. On top of that, freight railroads will be opposed to the improvements in some places, just like they’ve fought or negotiated in bad faith against the publicly and politically popular plan to restore passenger rail along the Gulf Coast.
Additionally, Amtrak’s mission and governing structure have been adjusted to bring a greater focus on expanding and improving the national network. For the majority of Amtrak’s existence, the mission of passenger rail service was to justify investments with performance and operate to make a profit, no matter the cost to user experience, and no matter that nearly every other transportation mode fails to turn a profit. This hampered innovation and opportunity to build and retain rail ridership. Small but significant changes in the infrastructure bill reorient Amtrak’s mission towards the value of the customer and the importance of connecting those customers across urban and rural communities.
While the bill lays out goals for an Amtrak Board of Directors that better represents a diversity of perspectives and communities across the Amtrak system, as we noted last week, those slots need to be filled immediately if the administration is serious about improving passenger rail service and taking advantage of the funding and this historic opportunity.
By reinvigorating passenger rail infrastructure and user experience, this bill could lay the groundwork for other future advancements, including high-speed rail.
As we’ve noted, the bill pours the lion’s share of the funds into the same old highway programs with few substantial changes. And states are already responding to their hard-won flexibility and historic amounts of cash by supercharging previously planned or ill-conceived projects. But there are some notable ways the bill recalibrates the highway program for the long run.
First, a portion of every state’s funding will go to new programs aimed at reducing carbon emissions, improving transportation system resiliency, and congestion relief, in addition to existing money devoted to Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) dollars. States and metro areas must also now dedicate a portion of their planning money towards Complete Streets planning and implementation. (2.5 percent of each state’s State Planning Research dollars and 2.5 percent of their metropolitan planning dollars.) This money will be dwarfed by the hundreds of billions going into streets and roads being designed the same old way, but this is an incremental step toward elevating active transportation and livable streets within the transportation program.
Within the largest pot of funding that states and metro areas control (the Surface Transportation Block Grant program), the amount set aside for smaller but vital transportation projects like bikeways, new sidewalks, safe routes to school, and micromobility was increased from 1.5 percent up to 10 percent. This bill also lets local municipalities control more of this funding directly by increasing the share of that 10 percent that they directly control from 50 up to 59 percent
Lastly, while the $1 billion Reconnecting Communities program will be overpowered by hundreds of billions in highway funds perpetuating the very problem this program aims to solve, its inclusion is an important step toward repairing the damage of past highway projects and is worth celebrating. For the first time, Congress is acknowledging the racist and damaging history of highway building, laying the groundwork for future efforts and also providing a way for advocates to spotlight how some of the worst excesses of the past are still going on today in many urban areas. But devoting any federal dollars to tearing down divisive infrastructure plus the means to stitch communities together again is a vital step on the path toward reorienting the highway program to serving people and communities with the transportation system.
Most of the headlines and coverage about transit focused on the fact that it will receive historic levels of investment over the next five years from the infrastructure deal. That’s certainly good news, but that also glosses over some important shortcomings.
First off, unlike the Senate Commerce Committee did with passenger rail, the Senate Banking Committee never actually drafted a transit title to incorporate into the infrastructure bill. This preserved the transit policy status quo in amber for the next five years. Secondly, while the House’s superior INVEST Act proposal focused on trying to maximize transit service, frequency, and access, this bill failed to fix the current priority of keeping costs down no matter the effects on people when it comes to service, ridership, and access to transit. T4America is still looking to Congress to redress that wrong within the still-in-progress budget reconciliation bill (the Build Back Better Act), ensuring that public transportation, a fundamental backbone in our communities and a lifeline towards affordable housing opportunities, is properly funded.
Thirdly, while the $39 billion is a historic amount for transit and many excellent projects will be built because of it, this amount should have been higher. $10 billion was cut from the original infrastructure deal’s framework agreement with the White House back in June.
While we weren’t anticipating the Senate increasing the share for transit, the infrastructure bill did maintain the historic practice of devoting at least 20 percent towards public transportation and did not decrease it. On a positive note, the bill emphasized improving the nation’s transit state of good repair, plus improving transit accessibility via a grant program to retrofit transit stations for mobility and accessibility.
Although the infrastructure bill continues to heavily fund conventional highway and road expansions, digging us into an ever deeper hole of traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, it is also the federal government’s biggest investment yet in climate adaptation and protection and recognizes the severity of the impacts of climate change which are already being experienced across America.
The new PROTECT program dedicates $7.3 billion (~2.9 percent of each state’s share of all highway funds) and $1.4 billion in competitive grants to shore up and improve the resilience of the transportation network, including highways, public transportation, rail, ports, and natural barrier infrastructure. Knowing where climate- and weather-related events are likely to be worse is a vital first step, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will invest $492 million in flood mapping and water modeling which could inform future infrastructure planning and investment.
The existing Alternative Fuels program is expanded and recalibrated to focus more, though not exclusively, on zero-emission vehicles and related infrastructure. A new Carbon Reduction program will dedicate ~2.5 percent of each state’s share of highway funds (~$6.4 billion total) to support active transportation, public transit, congestion pricing, and other strategies to reduce carbon emissions. (Although the core highway program will continue making emissions worse.)
All of this represents a positive first step in federal recognition of the severity of the impacts of climate change, but it is still not scaled to the level of risk that we face, though we applaud Congress for taking a bipartisan step on climate change and we hope to see more.
When it comes to safety, a new federal safety program, even a large one, is not what we need. The entire $300+ billion transportation program should be a safety program, with safety for all users as the highest and ultimate consideration in every single case on every single project. A transportation system that cannot safely move people from A to B should be viewed as a failure, regardless of whatever other benefits it brings.
With that backdrop in mind, there are key safety provisions that ensure a fairer shake for vulnerable road users. If injuries to and deaths of people walking, biking or using assistive devices exceed 15 percent of a state’s total traffic injuries and fatalities, then that state must dedicate at least 15 percent of their Highway Safety Improvement Program dollars towards proven strategies to make those people safer and lower that share. This helps put some teeth into highway safety dollars to target investments where they are critically needed, versus typical lip-service and disingenuous investments sold as safety projects that are really about increasing capacity, speed, or other goals.
The new Safe Streets and Roads for All program is a competitive grant program allowing applicants to seek funding to better plan and implement Vision Zero strategies in their communities and regions. Once deemed a niche concept, the Vision Zero safety framework has gained some prominence. For it to go mainstream, it will need to be fundamental to all highway spending.
Looking ahead
Though this bill leaves much to be desired, there are still some notable changes that will start to shape the direction of state, regional, and local transportation programs. The key will be how they are used. In the coming weeks, T4America will highlight key opportunities to better administer, deliver, and shape the US transportation program for generations to come.
