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.
Workforce recruitment and retention issues that plagued the transportation industry long before the pandemic now threaten the industry’s ability to implement and get the most out of the 2021 infrastructure bill. Though there are workforce development programs in the infrastructure bill, the administration still needs to take action to make these programs a reality.
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.
In every sector of the transportation industry, whether the graying workforce is resulting in high levels of retirement or workers are resigning due to stress caused by the pandemic, transportation workers are leaving large numbers of vacancies that can’t be filled fast enough.
Filling the growing number of vacancies is no easy task. A lack of awareness of the transportation sector coupled with a lack of vocational training for a diversity of transportation needed skills makes qualified applicants hard to find and attract. An overly burdensome hiring process means that hiring can take months, and sometimes qualified applicants are kept from moving forward due to many layers of applicant review for federal employees.
There are other recruitment and retainment issues. Wages aren’t keeping up with the private sector. Rural areas and communities with the least amount of resources struggle to pull in qualified applicants and keep them long-term, especially when they have to compete with neighboring communities for finite talent.
There’s a shortage of good jobs in the transportation industry. Stagnant growth potential, inflexible and unsafe work conditions, and a lack of leadership development already made it difficult for the industry to maintain a strong workforce. When the pandemic came along, it only exacerbated these retainment issues.
Without knowledge retention systems in place, the loss isn’t just about workers; it’s about institutional industry knowledge that isn’t easily replaced. After the long, arduous process of recruiting and hiring, even more time passes before new hires are operating at an equal level to the staff they’ve replaced. Unless the transportation industry invests properly in its workforce, they’ll be unable to use the full potential of the infrastructure bill to benefit communities.
What’s in the law?
The core highway formula programs (NHPP, CMAQ, STBG, and HSIP) allow their funds to be used for workforce development programs. This includes tuition and educational expenses, employee professional development, student internships, apprenticeships, college support, educational outreach activities, and more. States are free to use their existing funds to beef up these efforts
Overall, the federal government is aware of the need to develop the transportation workforce, which is why the infrastructure bill encourages states to create human capital plans, but these plans aren’t required and there’s no funding available to implement the plans once they’re created. Not surprisingly, without an incentive, few states take the federal government’s advice.
The major source of workforce development funds will come from the five percent set-aside for workforce development training related to zero emission vehicles. Specifically the funds can be used to fund workforce development training, including apprenticeships and other labor-management training programs as recipients make the transition to zero emission vehicles.
The infrastructure bill also includes some other workforce development programs, but there’s no dedicated funding for these programs, and most programs have no specific funding item at all, meaning the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, will need to carry out these programs using administrative funds.
Below are programs created by the infrastructure bill with no dedicated funding.
To improve awareness of the transportation sector and help with recruitment problems, Secretary Buttigieg must create a motor carrier driver apprenticeship program for people under the age of 21. The pilot program would include 3,000 apprentices and last three years.
To help diversify the transportation workforce, the federal motor carrier safety administrator has to create an advisory board to educate, mentor, and train women in the trucking industry.
Secretary Buttigieg needs to create an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to carry out a workforce needs assessment.
To develop a transportation technologies and systems industry workforce development implementation plan, Secretary Buttigieg must establish a working group made up of the Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Labor, and other federal agency heads.
With no more than $5 million per year, Secretary Buttigieg is also asked to establish a transportation workforce outreach program to increase awareness of transportation career opportunities especially for diverse populations.
How else could the administration improve workforce development?
Clearly, the administration has a lot of work to do to develop the transportation workforce to realize the full benefit of this historic investment in infrastructure. In the grand scheme of implementation, it might feel easy to overlook workforce development needs, but without human capital, on-the-ground change will be difficult, in some cases even impossible, to achieve.
The Build Back Better Act (BBBA), on ice in Congress, included $20 billion to help build that national workforce. Though not targeted at transportation, these programs, which included expanding apprenticeships and investing in increased enforcement of labor law and civil rights violations to help diversify the workforce, would have undoubtedly helped the transportation industry. Though the BBBA is unlikely to pass as a whole, it’s possible that Congress could still pass this provision, and the administration should encourage them to do so.
How can these programs help achieve our goals?
Equity
There are clear equity implications for ignoring workforce development concerns. In failing to invest in the transportation workforce, the administration will perpetuate existing equity concerns across the professional sphere. Plus, without a strong, well-supported, diverse workforce with staff that reflects the communities they serve, it will be even harder to find equitable solutions to today’s transportation problems. In the end, communities with the least resources will suffer most if we fail to increase their capacity.
So what?
The infrastructure law sets up several avenues to support and develop the transportation workforce, but these programs are underfunded and place the onus on states to take initiative. They will stay that way without administrative action. Advocates can and should work with their local governments to make sure these programs are created at the local level. They can also push their federal representatives to pass additional funding for workforce development.
Note: There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. We also produced memos to explain the available federal programs for funding various types of projects. Read our memo about available funding opportunities for workforce development.
Congress and states love to create small, discrete programs to solve big transportation problems. They don’t like to stop the types of investments that are causing the problems, even when far more money is perpetuating the issues those new programs are meant to solve. With historic amounts of infrastructure funding headed into states’ hands even as streets are growing more dangerous and we urgently need environmental solutions, it’s time to change that strategy.
Illustration produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
Our transportation system has a problem. Every time Congress tries to solve a big transportation challenge, they’re only willing to invest in a small solution.
Take the new infrastructure law (the IIJA). To help fix today’s issues related to climate, safety, equity, and repair, Congress set aside small pots of cash. Then they dumped the rest of their cash into a whole lot more of the same.
Congress doesn’t seem to realize that they’re just feeding the beast, as seen in our latest illustration by visual artist Jean Wei. Flexible formula funds, their favorite one-size-fits-all solution to infrastructure woes, are making our climate, safety, equity, and repair needs worse.
Illustration produced for T4America by Jean Wei
It’s true that states don’t have to use these flexible dollars this way. In fact, they can easily use these funds to address the problems that they claim are priorities. But that’s not what they’ve historically done. Instead, they’ve used formula funds to build more and more dangerous roads. And they’re willing to go to bat over their right to use these funds to make their problems worse. At a recent Senate committee hearing, Senator Capito made this cyclical argument:
This is a bipartisan bill that we passed. There is a climate title in there. There is an emphasis on funding resiliency, greenhouse gas mitigation, carbon emissions, healthy streets. This is an area that we are deeply committed to. But these are grant programs, these are not the formula dollars that go out. So I want to make the distinction and, would you agree, these are two separate programs, or pots of money so to speak? So the discussion that I’m having with you on this guide, doesn’t really apply to the climate title parts of the bill.
She’s saying that all of the new, little grant programs they created in the IIJA are designed to solve those (enormous!) problems. But the enormous piles of formula dollars are sacrosanct and they are for roads, bridges, or whatever each state decides is most important—not those other issues.
It’s clear that the small climate title alone isn’t going to be able to do the heavy lifting to reduce emissions and improve resiliency. The same is true for money set aside for safety, repair, and equity. To address these priorities, states can and should use their flexibility and dip into the historic levels of formula funds that are readily at their disposal. The longer they continue to pretend that these smaller programs are enough, all while going all-in on building more dangerous roads, the larger the beast will grow.
Congress and states love to create small, discrete programs to solve big transportation problems. But there's something wrong with this picture. pic.twitter.com/8RvhXSdYt6
— Transportation for America (@T4America) March 15, 2022
The ultimate point of transportation spending should be to connect people to jobs and services. But that’s not what we primarily use as a measure of success and the new infrastructure law maintains the status quo of focusing on moving vehicles quickly as a (poor) proxy for access. This means that, absent some changes that USDOT can still make, states and communities will need to make the most of the flexibilities within the infrastructure law to advance multimodal access to jobs and services.
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.
For decades, America has failed to accomplish the most foundational transportation policy goal: movingpeople (and goods) from one place to another. As it stands today, too many people are driving too far to reach jobs and essential services like schools or fresh food because we fail to measure access and all of our policies and measures incentivize speed of travel. American cities largely build infrastructure to movevehiclesas far as possible, as fast as possible. Instead, we ought to measure success as “access.”1 At a base level, this just involves finding ways to measure the jobs and services people can access within a certain distance by any mode. And just as crucially, this approach isn’t just limited to measuring vehicles and considers all of the members of a community, regardless of how they get around or any limits to their mobility.
Prioritizing access to destinations in transportation planning will help reduce emissions, make our roads safer, promote public health through more walking, biking or rolling, connect more people to opportunity, and get more for our infrastructure dollars. However, despite the influx of cash and promises of innovation brought on by the 2021 infrastructure law, its programs remain painfully status-quo in their focus on vehicular movement and their lack of accountability. But even with that said, the law’s broad flexibility still allows state and local agencies that want to prioritize access to do so through the range of programs at their disposal.
What’s in the law?
Within the infrastructure law, there’s one dedicated program that directly addresses access to jobs and services in a significant way: USDOT will use the Transportation Access Pilot Program to work with a select number of states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to measure the potential changes in accessibility to jobs and services for a wide spectrum of people and goods from transportation investments.2 This is a good starting point, and T4America strongly encourages USDOT to maximize the opportunities from this program to create a cultural shift in transportation planning and decision-making toward focusing on access.
But this point should be made very clearly: Special programs or funds are NOT required to start prioritizing and improving access.
Nearly every single other large flexible formula program permits states, MPOs and localities to shift their emphasis toward improving access and make the best use of the available funding toward this end. If your state or agency plans to make this a priority, then all of your very flexible funding should be used to support that priority.3
The Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) sets aside 10 percent of a state’s second biggest pot of funding (The Surface Transportation Block Grant Program) for projects that enable accessibility through modes other than driving. The Safe Routes to School program is designed to boost access to public primary and secondary schools (and can be funded through the flexibility provided in the core highway formula programs like NHPP, STBG, HSIP, CRP, CMAQ). The Reconnecting Communities Pilot and Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment competitive grant programs are both valuable resources that can be used to bring multimodal accessibility to areas fractured by divisive or vehicle-dependent infrastructure.
Since the formula-based programs below are not competitive, they are perhaps the best opportunities for states, MPOs and local governments to prioritize accessibility. Until USDOT makes some fundamental shifts away from the counterproductive measures that they currently use to measure success on specific projects, the onus will be on these state and local agencies to maximize these programs to improve access.
Formula programs
Program
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Complete Streets set-aside
Minimum 2.5% of state and MPO apportionments
Multimodal streets and designated networks for active transportation (walking, cycling).
Directly and comprehensively connect people with jobs, schools, housing, healthcare, childcare and community centers.
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Recreational trails, bike/ped projects, micromobility, and other types of transportation alternatives.
Expand and make accessible active transportation and micromobility networks centered around essential and popular destinations and integrate them with public transit.
Safe Routes to School
Minimum $1 million apportionment to states (subject to appropriations), funding based on enrollment numbers for primary and secondary schools. States can leverage core highway formula funds to fund the program.
Projects that enhance students’ ability to walk and bike to school.
Connect schools with residential areas and community centers with active transportation networks.
Carbon Reduction Program
$6.4 billion
Planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities; roadway right-of-way improvements.
Fund complete street designs that allow communities to access essential and popular destinations and integrate into public transit.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
Competitive grant programs
The following programs are competitively funded (discretionary). Winning these grants is tied to strong local matching funds (at 20–50 percent of the project cost).
Program
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program
$200 million annually
Planning and construction grants to reconnect communities divided by viaducts, highways or other principal arterials. (Highway teardowns, and other types of projects.)
Make improving access the primary consideration as connections are rebuilt between communities, improve active transportation and transit access.
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$200 million annually, subject to appropriations
Active transportation projects and planning grants that build upon a local/regional/state network.
Focus networks around essential and popular community destinations and integrate them with transit facilities.
Transportation Access Pilot Program
No specified amount, funded by USDOT’s operating budget
Developing an accessibility data set, making that data set available, and establishing evaluation measures for states, MPOs and regional transportation organizations.
Set accessibility measures centered around equitable outcomes.
Carbon Reduction Program
$6.4 billion
Planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities; roadway right-of-way improvements.
Fund complete street designs that allow communities to access essential and popular destinations and integrate into public transit.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
Outside of its funding streams, the infrastructure law introduces several policy changes that positively impact accessibility within existing laws. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program now more explicitly calls for the inclusion of projects that are within walking distance and are accessible to public transit systems. The State and Metropolitan Transportation Planning Act now calls for statewide and metropolitan agencies to coordinate transportation, housing, and economic development within their federally mandated plans.
What can the administration do to improve access?
The most important thing the administration needs to do on this count is to repeal their guidance for the value of time, which every agency uses to evaluate most transportation projects. This outdated measure incorrectly assumes that increased traffic speeds lead to time savings, when in fact it mostly just incentivizes sprawling development that spreads people and destinations apart, negating time savings as travel distances grow and grow. Instead, the administration should push for the adoption of data-driven accessibility-focused measures. We dive deep into this specific measure and offer four concrete recommendations for USDOT to follow in our blog post here.
Because Congress chose to make the new $3.2 billion Rural Surface Transportation program a competitive grant program, USDOT can shape this program to prioritize rural projects that actually improve access for more people rather than just the speed of travel for some people driving. This new program is designed to increase connectivity, improve safety, and facilitate the movement of goods and people, but many state DOTs just put forward simple highway expansion projects for rural areas that fail to measurably improve access in those communities. Rural communities deserve a better approach, as we’ve written. USDOT’s guidance for these rural competitive grants should require a multimodal approach and define connectivity, safety/reliability, economic growth and quality of life for drivers and nondrivers alike.
The administration can also revise the Eligibility of Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements Under Federal Transit Law to allow for bikeshare eligibility (and all shared micromobility for that matter) within the Section 5311 (rural transportation) program. While there are significant transit needs in rural communities, we should allow rural communities to decide for themselves about the best ways to improve access within their communities.
How can the new money advance our goals?
Climate
Assessing new transportation projects based on their accessibility benefits, rather than by travel time or level of service, could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.4 Today’s predominant practices exacerbate sprawl and lead to longer trips overall, which is directly tied to increasing emissions. And while most road expansion projects are justified because of their supposed ability to reduce congestion and because of improvements to the “value of time” noted above, in the end they actually just produce more congestion on our roads. Since transportation and land use are so interconnected, integrating transportation and land use measures that combat sprawl and reduce vehicle miles traveled (and emissions) requires assessing projects for their effects on accessibility.
Equity
More often than not, disadvantaged communities bear the brunt of the safety and climate issues brought about by our focus on vehicle speed. As we noted in our post on the value of time measure above, “a highway that destroys a community (see I-49 in Shreveport) is easily justified on the grounds of time savings, even if locals lose 15 minutes having to walk out of their way to cross a now-dangerous street or can no longer walk to their destination at all because a new highway blocks their path. The impact to their time is literally never considered as part of the process of developing such a project.” This is just one example of how focusing instead on access would improve outcomes for more people, especially those who are most harmed by today’s current practices. Our focus should be on bringing more jobs and essential services within reach to those disadvantaged by today’s practices.
So what?
As is the case with many of our other goals, it’s now up to the state, regional or local governments receiving this funding to use it responsibly and to be held accountable for their projects. And there’s no reason why we can’t start to pivot to measuring access instead of leaning on outdated 1950s measures like vehicle speed. With the amount of data currently available that can be used to measure the accessibility benefits of projects, there is no excuse not to start transitioning toward this goal as our guiding light for transportation decisions. And local advocates should start pushing their agencies in this direction.
Despite a fundamental lack of understanding by some members of Congress about the program they’re responsible for overseeing, the law sets states free to spend their federal transportation cash on eligible expenses, however they see fit. Our repair needs will never get addressed until we change this approach.
Illustration produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
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Every time that we’ve polled voters over the years, we hear that taking good care of our existing infrastructure—repair and maintenance—should be priority #1 for our transportation dollars. Ask any member of Congress and they’ll tell you it’s absolutely a top priority. 5 And every state DOT will tell you that keeping things in a state of good repair is either their top priority or second only to safety.
Everyone seems to agree about the importance of repair, yet everyone in charge seems to recoil when anyone suggests creating hard and fast requirements that states prioritize their repair needs before building new infrastructure they will also have to maintain for decades to come.
After seeing Virginia leaders touting the infrastructure law’s $530+ million to address Virginia’s deficient bridges, Wyatt Gordon in the Virginia Mercury recently asked the obvious question: “Why did more than one in 25 bridges deteriorate into a ‘poor or worse condition’ in a state with a nearly $7 billion annual budget for its Department of Transportation?” T4America director Beth Osborne weighed in:
The more you fail in transportation—the more people die, the more expenses increase, the more bridges collapse, the louder the calls to put more money into the programs that produced that failure in the first place. There is no accountability. These senators who voted for [the IIJA] promise us results every time, but I just heard a bridge fell down in Pittsburgh. How many times do they promise the same results without changing the program that is producing these same failures?
Look, it’s worth noting that not every state performs equally when it comes to prioritizing repair with their flexibility, and some states have made sizable shifts from expansion to repair in the last few years. As the above piece notes, states like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are already devoting the lion’s share of their budgets toward repair. They’re doing their best to ignore that second voice in the background of the comic pushing the sexy new expansion project.
But most states are not choosing to do this.
This reminds me of what Mississippi DOT commissioner Dick Hall said during a repair-focused event we held in DC in 2019, where he made a plea for Congress to step in and require repair first. “If you want us to prioritize maintenance, then you’re going to have to tell us ‘you gotta do it,” he said. Until Congress does, some states will do well and other states will just punt questions about paying for all the things they’ve built off to their grandkids to figure out.
“We invested all that money to build a 4-lane highway with absolutely no provision for maintaining what we built. Not a dime. And that has come back to haunt us.”
Consider the new $43 billion bridge repair formula program that Congress created in the infrastructure law. Even though this money is doled out proportionately to the states with the greatest bridge repair needs and Congress just supercharged the funding to the massive flexible programs that all states can use to build new highways, Congress still decided to allow states to use this dedicated “repair” money to build brand new bridges. USDOT’s guidance on the legislative language made it clear that the law allows “the construction of a new highway bridge on a new alignment” as an eligible project, though USDOT gently encouraged states to focus on bridges in poor or fair condition.
We’ll once again just have to hope that all states can deliver on all the repair promises. And in five years, after the IIJA’s $643 billion has been exhausted, we’ll be right back here lamenting the state of our infrastructure and wondering where all the money went, even as we renew the pleas for more funds to “repair our crumbling infrastructure.”
Screen grab from our recent video “Not just a way to get from A to B”, a look at Tucson, AZ’s attempts to expand Complete Streets while centering equity.
When done right, active transportation infrastructure can cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, keep people safer, and promote equity. But how will the new infrastructure law’s $650 billion in formula and competitive grant programs help to build safer, Complete Streets? What policies changed to prioritize active transportation investments? Here’s what you need to know, and how you can make these programs and policies work for you.
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.
For the purposes of this piece, active transportation refers to bicycling, walking, and rolling, like on scooters, wheelchairs, segways, and other personal mobility devices—as well as the infrastructure that supports those activities, like bike lanes, trails, and safe sidewalks. These types of bike- and walk-friendly infrastructure are usually present in Complete Streets, which we define as streets for everyone—designed and managed to prioritize safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who need to use a street.
Getting more people out walking, biking, and rolling can have enormous benefits to public health, climate, economic growth, and equity. But encouraging more routine trips on these modes requires providing safe and convenient facilities in which more people feel comfortable and safe walking, biking, scooting, or rolling. While the infrastructure law preserves the state’s wide flexibility that most use to prioritize moving vehicles quickly over other forms of transportation, it does create new opportunities to expand and improve active transportation through Complete Streets and other projects.
What’s in the law?
Special programs or funds are NOT required for states to make sizable investments in active transportation. If improving safety and providing other travel options are important to your state or agency, the broad flexibility of the biggest federal programs allows them to shift their funding accordingly.
Active transportation and Complete Streets advocates did manage to get some key provisions into the infrastructure law in the form of both policy changes and new or improved funding opportunities. One new funding opportunity is the new $7.3 billion formula and $1.4 billion competitive PROTECT program for at-risk coastal infrastructure grants, where bike/pedestrian facilities were included as eligible projects.
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. The law also lets local municipalities control more of that funding directly by increasing the share of that 10 percent that they directly control from 50 up to 59 percent. Note: the other largest formula programs with which you may be familiar (the alphabet soup of NHPP, STBG, CMAQ, HSIP) have flexibility for active transportation and Complete Streets projects, but states are responsible for flexing those formula dollars for those purposes versus the status quo of valuing vehicles and their speed.
As is reflected in the table below, states and regional metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) now have to spend at minimum 2.5 percent of their federal planning funds to adopt Complete Streets standards, policies, and prioritization plans as well as to plan for active transportation, among other goals like transit-oriented development that make active transportation easier.
The new Bridge Formula Program, meant to fix many of the nation’s worst bridges, will be evaluated based on “benefits to non vehicular and public transportation users.” Some groups are optimistic about the active transportation infrastructure that could emerge from these bridge repair projects, but there are numerous loopholes that will allow states to continue leaving these accommodations off as they repair or replace bridges. We want to see USDOT release clear guidance that these bridge projects shall provide benefits to those who bike, walk, and roll.
Most of the new opportunities in the infrastructure law come through discretionary or competitive funding programs. Here’s a brief guide to the funding programs that can be most easily used for active transportation and Complete Streets projects:
Competitive programs applicable to active transportation
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Projects that promote modes of transportation other than driving, with notable inclusions being anything eligible under the SRTS program and newly defined “vulnerable road user safety assessments”
Build well-planned active transportation networks that provide enough connectivity and access to induce drivers to switch their mode of travel to walking, biking, and/or rolling.
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$1 billion, subject to annual appropriations of $200 million each year.
“Active transportation” networks (within communities) and spine (between communities) projects.
Build well-planned active transportation networks that provide enough connectivity and access to induce drivers to switch their mode of travel to walking and biking
Protect pedestrians and bicyclists not by moving them away from roads, but by making roads safer.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$1.4 billion (competitive grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Local and Regional Infrastructure Project Assistance (a.k.a RAISE competitive grants)
$15 billion, up from only $4 billion spent from 2009-2020
Local or regional projects that improve safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, and connectivity.
Build projects that promote active transportation. Capital projects like in Rockford, IL and northwest Indiana as well as planning projects like in Charleston, WV serve as models for successful complete streets RAISE projects.
State and regional formula programs applicable to active transportation
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Complete Streets set-aside
2.5 percent of each MPO’s federal planning funds
Producing Complete Streets standards, facilitating planning for Complete Streets project prioritization plans, and developing active transportation plans.
$1 million minimum to states, formula based on primary and secondary school enrollment numbers. States can leverage core highway formula funds to fund the program.
Active transportation and complete streets projects, plus education or enforcement activities that allow students to walk, bike, and roll to school safely.
Build complete streets and active transportation facilities that access as many residential and commercial zones as possible.
Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program
$13.2 billion
Any transportation project that reduces emissions from vehicles, from traffic alleviation to micromobility (bike or scooter share) and electric vehicles.
Focus emissions mitigation efforts on mode-shift away from driving, specifically toward enabling active transportation.
Carbon Reduction Program
About 2.56% of each state’s total apportionment from the federal transportation program
Projects that support the reduction of transportation greenhouse gas emissions.
Give people safe and convenient options to bike, walk, or roll instead of driving by planning, designing, and building active transportation facilities.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
How else could the administration promote active transportation?
America’s roads are increasingly dangerous for pedestrians and other vulnerable users. Without addressing that reality, biking, walking, and rolling will remain dangerous and therefore unattractive options.
Though the infrastructure law overall provides a pittance to active transportation while dumping money into the status quo, there are things USDOT can do to improve access to active transportation. For one, they can give teeth to their Safe System approach, encouraging and guiding State DOTs to develop projects that promote safe roads at low speeds. USDOT already has a statutory obligation on the books to prevent projects that “have significant adverse impact on the safety for nonmotorized transportation traffic” (23 U.S. Code 109(m)). USDOT has never enforced or codified internal procedures for that provision, so the department is actually out of compliance with the law and should rectify that with urgency.
In addition, USDOT should update the MUTCD (the street design manual that all traffic engineers use) to build active transportation priorities into road design from the start.6 USDOT should also release clear guidance on how to best utilize the 2.5 percent Complete Streets planning funds set-aside mentioned above. States and MPOs should look to enhance and improve Complete Streets networks with this funding, not just use this new funding stream for work already underway.
On a positive note, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released a memo that, among other things, urged states to simplify the review process for carbon-cutting safety and multimodal projects like bike lanes and sidewalks. This swift language from the administration is encouraging but not binding, and states can still spend the money however they’d like.
USDOT should immediately pursue all avenues for institutionalizing their new road safety strategy which included a full section on the importance of street design and the role it plays in unsafe speeds and safety. Their guidance on revising our broken process for setting speed limits, including moving away from the 85th percentile rule, is powerful, but will fail to have an impact if states ignore it. FHWA should be trying to enshrine this practice with their division administrators and engage state and local traffic engineers in better training.
How can the new money advance our goals?
It can be hard to measure and assess the benefits of increasing active transportation and building safer, Complete Streets. That’s one reason why we at Smart Growth America produced a Benefits of Complete Streets tool to help local communities better measure the potential benefits to health, safety, environment, and economy (using an equity approach) of Complete Streets in your community. Let’s zoom in on how we can maximize climate and equity benefits from the new infrastructure money.
Climate
Vehicle travel is a key contributor to U.S. emissions, so providing people and goods with mobility alternatives is a clear win for climate. But this is a challenge for such a vehicle-dependent country. A 2018 survey found that travel distance and fatigue were the two main reasons why many vehicle trips were not replaced with bike trips. As such, new federally-funded projects should make walking, biking, and rolling as easy, safe, and fast as possible. Walkability audits and assessments, like this survey conducted by the City of Milwaukee in 2021, can help cities plan for Complete Streets and active transportation facilities in the places where they will have the most impact and shift as many trips as possible away from vehicles.
Equity
Biking, walking, and rolling in low-income communities are often hazardous, unpleasant, and inconvenient modes of travel. Good multi-use paths are often located in the wealthy enclaves of many American cities rather than more marginalized communities. This is a major factor contributing to the higher incidence of pedestrian deaths among BIPOC and low-income people. Cities with equitable active transportation plans use two key strategies: data collection and community engagement. Two good examples: Baltimore, MD models equitable data collection in their Complete Streets performance measures and Huntsville, AL has done great community engagement for their demonstration projects. With these strategies in place, every active transportation project has a stronger chance of creating positive equity outcomes and being strong contenders for competitive grant funding from the infrastructure law.
So what?
A new bike lane won’t have much impact if it just connects to dangerous roads on each end. As former Pittsburgh DOT head Karina Ricks said in this terrific video about their city’s Complete Streets policy, it really requires a complete network approach to build Complete Streets and create safe connections that connect many people to many destinations. Despite all the new funding programs, eligibility, and carve-outs, federal funding for active transportation and Complete Streets is still dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for roads and bridges. Many of those projects will expand roads and increase vehicle speed, making walking, biking, and rolling more dangerous and inconvenient.
States and localities should be ready to combat this by utilizing their limited active transportation funding in the most effective way possible. And states should use their considerable formula money flexibility to advance active transportation and Complete Streets (they have the authority to do so.) This will include utilizing the above strategies to maximize benefits, but it will also mean positioning for competitive grant application success. Local leaders will benefit from understanding the flexibilities within each funding program so they can make sure they get their share from their state and MPO, whether those entities are friendly to active transportation or not.
The deep irony here is that for all the promises made by Congress about improving safety and providing more options for people to get around, it will be up to state and local leaders to do the heavy lifting to deliver on those promises and get the most out of this law’s modest provisions for active transportation and Complete Streets.
(For more information on active transportation and Complete Streets funding in the infrastructure law, check out our funding brief on the topic.)
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.
A year in, the Biden administration helped pass historic investments in infrastructure and spoke out about safety, repair, and equity, but a lot of potential improvements have been left on the table. Congress passes the laws but the administration has to implement them. Here’s our update on their progress and the opportunities still left on the table for them to advance their stated goals.
The bottom line: A full year into the administration, we are still waiting for a lot of action on the various priorities we produced a year ago as they were taking office. Any new progress on our wish list since that six-month review has been meager, at best. This lack of progress makes the next year even more challenging. The massive, new infrastructure bill is missing the updates and reforms needed to promote the administration’s priorities while creating a mammoth workload for USDOT. The administration needs to make major progress soon if they want to impact how the IIJA’s funds—already being committed by state DOTs!—are spent.
Here’s what you need to know:
The good: Vocal support for safety, repair, and climate
Encouraging states to make smart investments
Shortly after the passage of the infrastructure bill, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released a memo urging states to prioritize federal funds for repair projects and simplify the review process for carbon-cutting safety and multimodal projects like bike lanes and rapid transit lanes. While it isn’t binding (states retain all the flexibility in the world to use federal dollars for expansion instead of repair), we were encouraged to see the administration swiftly and directly speak out about the nation’s repair needs.
Unfortunately, several states and members of Congress have criticized this and even claimed it has some binding authority. We wish! It is possible this backlash comes from ignorance of the program overall and the fact that DOTs retain full discretion over their funding. It is also possible that they are hoping to discourage the administration from taking more meaningful steps. If the administration cowers in the face of this somewhat performative backlash from DOTs—especially after they used “crumbling roads and bridges” as a central justification for the infrastructure bill’s high price tag—progress will halt with this memo.
94 percent of traffic crashes are NOT caused by human error
In January, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) took the misleading and oft-cited statistic that “94 percent of crashes are caused by human error” off of their website. Some examples of the types of “human error” this statistic refers to:
A pedestrian without access to a crosswalk for a mile in either direction attempts to cross the street and is hit by a driver going the speed limit, which happens to be too fast to yield.
A driver is traveling down a wide open road at the 60 mph speed limit. The speed limit changes from 60 mph to 30 mph, but the driver doesn’t see the sign and no design changes signal a need to slow down. The driver continues traveling at 60 mph.
A driver in a large SUV turns right on a curved slip lane, indicating that they need not slow down on the turn. At that speed, there is no time to react to a pedestrian in the marked crosswalk. The high front end of their vehicle obscures their view of the road, and they collide with a five-foot-tall pedestrian that has just begun to cross the street.
These are all failures of design, not evidence of human errors.
This false statistic has misdirected attention away from the dangerous design of roadways, which fails to include adequate space for pedestrians and cyclists and makes safe driving unintuitive. While this statistic has been around so long and has been so frequently cited by transportation agencies, removing it from federal materials will help bring the focus back to the dangerous design decisions that often put nondrivers in harm’s way.
The new USDOT safety strategy calls out dangerous design and unsafe speeds
In January the USDOT released a new road safety strategy which included a full section on the importance of street design and a second section on the role it plays in unsafe speeds and safety for the very first time. The strategy also encouraged revisiting speed limits and our broken process for setting them, including moving away from the 85th percentile rule. They go further to state that USDOT is considering prohibiting state DOTs and MPOs from setting performance targets to do worse (e.g., increase fatalities), which would be welcome news.
Like the FHWA memo, this strategy cannot deliver on-the-ground changes by itself. Revising and reframing the handbook of engineering standards (the MUTCD), which engineers rely on to design roads, would be a more effective way to bring about safe street designs. But as we said in our statement in January, this strategy can work well if paired with that sort of administrative action.
The incomplete: Less talk, more action
However encouraging these moves above are, federal strategies and memos have no real bearing on state decision-making. Regardless of what the USDOT advises, states can take full advantage of the flexibility in the infrastructure bill to spend their new dollars however they would like to.
But FHWA hasn’t added teeth to this request. Though their memo referenced above encourages states to invest in repair first, FHWA also recently released guidance clearly letting states know they can use bridge repair dollars to construct new bridges, even if this construction has nothing to do with repair needs. This is an example of the roadblocks the administration will face now because of policy changes they failed to negotiate for the infrastructure bill, and it’s all the more reason that the administration must take action now to meet their goals. The law alone cannot help them make repair a priority, because it specifically allowed states to ignore repair needs.
The administration continues to brag about the IIJA’s exciting-but-overmatched new programs focused on improving safety, reducing emissions, advancing equity and improving state of repair. But the funding for many of these new programs is not yet out the door because Congress has not approved a budget for the next year. This means that all brand new programs are in limbo and existing programs’ funding levels are currently frozen at FAST Act levels. So programs like the new Carbon Reduction program or increased funding for transit capital grants that the administration has been bragging about can’t go forward. The administration needs to put their political heft into pushing Congress forward on a budget.
The opportunity: Actions the administration can take right now
Our list of specific actions are listed 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). We have also added two high priority actions that we will track going forward.
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.
NEW
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.
NEW
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.
In addition to the actions we called for above, there are additional steps the Biden administration can take now to help guide the implementation process:
Administer clear and firm guidance and discretionary funding opportunities that aligns with their goals
The Biden team can deliver guidance and craft discretionary grant funding notices that significantly shape the impact of this bill. They should do all they can to ensure states don’t abuse their flexibility in a way that ignores rising crash rates, increases the repair backlog, and over-invests in projects that are inequitable or unsustainable, like wide roads and highways with limited crossings that can make local travel dangerous for those outside of a car.
FHWA has issued a memo calling for states to invest in repair projects and lowering the impact of transportation projects on the communities adjacent and the environment, and we hope states will follow that guidance, in spite of the fact that it isn’t a directive.. But that’s really the bare minimum. They can send a clear message to other applicants by awarding competitive grants only to projects that strongly align with their repair, safety, equity, and climate goals, and send powerful messages by rewarding the states that are spending their formula dollars in productive ways toward those same goals.
1/2 Sen. McConnell has fired off a letter to governors in response to FHWA's guidance encouraging states to prioritize repair and safety over expansion. He writes that the guidance “has no effect of law…” This is true.
Though the infrastructure bill allotted a lot of money for capital work, it will require a major investment in human capital, especially the new passenger rail program. For example, the Biden team will need to support opportunities to help solve staffing issues at the local and state levels, including the bus operator shortage and other workforce issues. They will also need to help states, most of which do have experienced staff for developing and building rail projects, stand up these new programs.
While the infrastructure law contains a generational investment in passenger rail, that potential will be squandered without sufficient staff in place to create and implement these new programs. Hiring in the federal government takes time, while these programs are expected to be running very soon. Additionally, USDOT nominees still haven’t been confirmed (some still haven’t been nominated), and the Amtrak board is functionally empty with all members serving expired terms. The board is in urgent and immediate need of new appointments, particularly those that can provide perspective outside of the Northeast Corridor.
Reevaluate the metrics and definitions that will help determine how goals are reached
The administration should audit and quantifiably measure how the nation is making progress on infrastructure goals. But the metrics and models that we use matter. States rely on flawed and outdated models to determine the need or effectiveness of projects. The Biden administration can and should deliver 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. Data on state DOT projects should also be more readily available to the public (and more current), so that taxpayers can better hold their local leaders accountable.
The expansion of grant and formula eligibility in the infrastructure law to include micromobility will give communities and states additional options for providing more transportation options, but those that are doing the most to make their streets safe and convenient stand to gain the most as well.
Photo courtesy of Lyft
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.
Micromobility—local travel on smaller vehicles like bikes, scooters, or other personal mobility devices—has become a vital part of our mobility landscape in just a few short years. The recent growth of shared micromobility networks owned and maintained by either cities or private companies has made such vehicles accessible and popular in urbanized areas. For example, Citi Bike in New York City grew 38 percent year-over-year, with a total of 28 million rides taken in 2021; based on ride volume, Citi Bike would be ranked as the 25th largest transit system in the US.
When these networks are integrated into public transit systems, like in Los Angeles, they act as extensions to trains and buses that allow passengers to make valuable first- and last-mile connections. During major disruptions in transit service, such as in New York or Washington D.C., they can act as vital reinforcements.
The most notable change in the infrastructure law on this count was to expand the eligibility of numerous programs to include micromobility. Below, T4America breaks down those policy changes, funding opportunities, and how best to advance micromobility in your community.
What’s in the law?
The 2021 infrastructure law is the first to authorize shared micromobility infrastructure—which can include vehicles, docking stations, protected lanes for bikes and scooters, or apps and websites for public access to shared networks—and operations funding. The most notable change comes from expanding the eligibility within the existing Transportation Alternatives Program, which “sets aside” 10 percent of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant Program—a state’s second biggest pot of federal funds—for transportation alternatives.7 Since 2015 this program has included projects to make walking or biking safer and more convenient; now, shared micromobility is an eligible project type.
This is a small but notable step to recognize the dramatic changes in our mobility landscape over the last decade, but whether or not any of this funding encourages greater shared micromobility will be left up to the states and metro areas who decide how to spend these funds.
Micromobility projects can also be advanced by new and revised infrastructure programs dedicated to climate change mitigation, transit improvements, safety, and disaster resilience. Other highlights include the new Carbon Reduction Program and the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, which funds projects under $15 million that focus on safety, are designed to increase pedestrian and cyclist activity, and build active transportation networks. Also notable is the new Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which is intended for initiatives that reduce traffic fatalities, including “complete streets” projects that foster active transportation use.
The formula-based programs below are perhaps the best opportunities for states, MPOs and local governments to leverage funding for micromobility. These programs are not competitive, so it is up to these governments to use this money effectively as outlined.
Formula
Program Name
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Recreational trails, bike/ped projects, micromobility, and other types of transportation alternatives.
Expand useful micromobility options and build connective networks in communities that address demand.
Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program
$2.745 billion
Transportation projects or programs that reduce congestion and improve air quality. CMAQ funding can be used for both capital and operating expenses.
Maximize MPO provisions for bike- and scooter-share capital projects and operations. Use funding to support operations that increase equity and program reach.
Carbon Reduction Program
$6.4 billion
Planning, designing, and building on- and off-road active transportation facilities; roadway right-of-way improvements.
Fund complete street designs that integrate micromobility infrastructure such as protected lanes and docking stations.
National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program
$5 billion
Implement electric vehicle charging on designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, with remaining funds being spent at discretion of state governments.
Implement electric bike/scooter charging facilities as part of integrated micromobility networks.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Implement micromobility vehicles and stations as a redundancy measure for evacuation or recovery mobility processes.
Urbanized Area Formula Grant Program
$33.5 billion
Planning, operation, and capital improvement for public transportation systems.
Build micromobility infrastructure at and nearby public transportation facilities and promote integration of bike- and scooter-share systems with local transit fares and services.
The following programs are competitively funded (discretionary), and winning these grants is tied to strong local matching (at 20–50% of the project cost).
Competitive program name
Authorized funding
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$200 million, subject to annual appropriations and the whims of Congress
“Active transportation” projects.
Finance micromobility stations and vehicles as part of useful active transportation networks.
Safe Streets and Roads for All
$6 billion
“Vision Zero” plans and implementation projects.
Incorporate micromobility stations and protected lanes into complete streets projects.
Rural Surface Transportation Program
At least $25 million to each eligible project
Most projects on rural roads, including projects that protect all road users but also highway projects with adverse effects.
Introduce micromobility infrastructure to streets in rural areas; prioritize electric micromobility funding to achieve longer-distance trips. This should be framed so rural areas do not only have one choice in spending these funds.
Local and Regional Infrastructure Project Assistance (a.k.a RAISE)
$15 billion (not a new program, but this funding is substantially more than in the past)
Local or regional projects that improve safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, and community connectivity.
Prioritize shared micromobility infrastructure that benefits surrounding communities, improves bike/pedestrian safety, and serves communities equitably.
How else could the administration improve micromobility?
To further aid the development and expansion of shared micromobility infrastructure, there are several steps the administration could take.
Further study and guidance is needed on how micromobility can be integrated with transit to better support ridership and access. Micromobility options work best when they circulate short distance trips within communities and connect them to transit facilities for longer-distance travel. In Washington, D.C., for example, 82 percent of Capital Bikeshare riders have used shared micromobility services to get to or from public transit. Best practices in design, both national and international, should inform more pointed recommendations and project eligibility standards for shared vehicle infrastructure.
The administration needs to provide guidance and technical support so everyone can fully understand how their projects can be made eligible for each grant. Many agencies won’t know much about micromobility eligibility, and USDOT can and should help fill those knowledge gaps.
In light of these suggestions, it is important for local and state governments to also consider every point of flexibility within the infrastructure law to fund micromobility infrastructure. For example, funding for electric vehicle infrastructure can be used to support electric scooter and bicycle charging facilities. The administration should also evaluate grantees based on how they will protect and connect disadvantaged users and communities. Colorado is establishing an emissions budget for new highway projects that requires corresponding investment in greener modes, which could be a good model for a cross-program policy.
How can the new money advance our goals?
Safety
The most significant constraint on the expansion of shared micromobility is the supportive infrastructure that makes riding on a bike or scooter feel safe, in both perception and reality. This can include fully protected bike lanes, visible and enforced curbside pickup/dropoff zones, complete signage and wayfinding standards for bicycles and other shared mobility options, and traffic control improvements such as signal retimings that allow micromobility users to safely traverse streets. Places that will realize the greatest benefits of expanded shared mobility options are those that also make safety the fundamental consideration of every other dollar spent.
Climate
Micromobility is a valuable tool in helping to decrease driving (and emissions) for short-distance trips, which are the bulk of all trips taken each day. Good micromobility service can also increase transit ridership by improving access and expanding the catchment area around stations, helping to lower emissions with greater transit use at the same time. Moreover, a 2021 report by Lyft states that 41 percent of its micromobility customers are weekly users of public transit and 54 percent do not own or lease a personal vehicle. The design of micromobility access points and networks is also important. Incorporating shade into station and protected lane designs can go a long way toward reducing the disastrous urban heat island effect, which can come from trees or in the form of solar panels.
Equity
When administered and implemented thoughtfully, micromobility makes car-free transportation accessible in areas that are underserved by our current road network. Localities will need to plan the location, price, and other features of bike- and scooter-share in a way that is viable across all communities. In particular, micromobility must address the fact that Black, Hispanic, and Native American pedestrians are disproportionately killed on America’s roads, and safety improvements should be prioritized where they are most needed. Furthermore, low-income communities experience the brunt of the urban heat island effect. When planned equitably, incorporating shade and landscaping into micromobility stations can be a step toward making such communities more resilient to high temperatures.
So what?
States, regions, and communities now have several avenues through which federal funding for micromobility is available. But micromobility is one of many applications from an already small funding pool, and without a thoughtful overarching plan for implementation, new initiatives will have limited and inequitable benefits. As such, advocates must work with their governments to pursue a detailed, equitable vision for micromobility so they can build a strong case for federal funding and the local matches needed to secure it.
Note: There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. We have also produced short memos explaining the available federal programs for funding various types of projects. Read our memo about available funding opportunities for micromobility projects.
With scores of 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. How should prospective grant applicants start preparing for success?
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.
The USDOT will have to find ways to administer and harmonize nearly five dozen programs with other Biden administration goals, like the Justice40 initiative that emphasizes equitable distribution of resources, especially towards historically marginalized communities. They’ve got a lot of work to do. But communities don’t need to wait on USDOT to begin preparing their projects that emphasize the state of repair of their transportation system, advance safety for all users, and improve mobility and access for all people.
Here are three pivotal strategies that communities can use to better position themselves to win competitive grants.
1) Match project objectives to the program criteria
The most successful projects clearly define the problem or need of your community, and tailor the project to clearly address these needs—and those needs match the criteria that USDOT has laid out for evaluating projects. This means collecting and utilizing data, observations, and community feedback that affirm the problem or need.
It also means putting the project in context. Remember those reviewing your application may not be familiar with your project or your challenges and may never have been to your community at all. So start your application by clearly stating what the project is, why it is needed in the community, what will be accomplished by building it, and other efforts in the area (past and current) that will support those results. It is also helpful to include maps, pictures, and sketches to help those reviewing your application fully understand what is at stake and what could be accomplished.
For example, depending on the context of the grant, USDOT looks favorably upon projects that are well-integrated into the development of their adjacent built environment and region, and that have broad support from everyone involved or affected. While transportation projects can have specific goals like cutting down on traffic or creating economic development, they should not do these at the expense of other goals like equity, housing affordability, or environmental health. USDOT recognizes this and rewards projects that form diverse coalitions, have buy-in from local businesses, and best meet the broader needs of the surrounding community.
Projects will be filtered for eligibility but evaluated first and foremost on how well they address the criteria included in the notice of funding opportunity. Everything else is secondary. Your project does not need to knock it out of the park on all of the criteria (rarely does any project do that), but it should produce impressive results in two or three areas.
2) Build a strong, broad coalition of support
Projects with a broad base of supporters will always do better. This means support from the community, civic leaders and local elected leaders. It also helps to have support from your state, especially if you need your state department of transportation to manage the money or help with the project. But USDOT will understand if you are dealing with a state that does not share your (and USDOT’s) priorities. If that is the case, state it outright.
When building a coalition for a project, consider who else would care about a potential project? Who else is a logical partner and stakeholder that you could collaborate with? Perhaps a neighboring community is also pursuing a similar priority, presenting a chance to pool resources together. Explore partnerships with the private sector. Advocacy to state legislatures to set aside funding to support state and local matches to grant programs, like what Colorado is doing, can go a long way in making grant applications more competitive. And even better is to build or develop projects from the beginning with partners and stakeholders who will be automatic champions as that project moves forward, rather than trying to gather support for a completed project idea.
A broad range of supporters can help you put together a local match, which most competitive grant programs still require. State and local project sponsors must bring some amount of non-federal funding to match the federal dollars. Any funding that does not originate with the federal government will do, including local, state, philanthropic, business and even some in-kind contributions. A broad number of contributors is often more impressive than a larger single source of funding. This is important because projects often run into trouble along the way. Maybe bids come back high or construction finds an unexpected utility or artifact. When such problems occur, projects are more likely to proceed and be successful with a broad range of support.(It’s nearly a decade old, but our primer on local revenue best practices is still a good starting point to learn about the available options.)
Finally, support from your congressional delegation is good too. It won’t help if your project doesn’t match the program criteria, but USDOT might use this support as a tie breaker. If there are a few equally good projects, it just makes sense for USDOT to choose the one that has support from the Congressional delegation. Letters are a good starting point, but phone calls and meetings with USDOT are better.
3) Know the funding program parameters
Choosing and applying to the right competitive grant program is necessary for most effectively coordinating the above strategies. If you would like to know the breadth of options available, check out our funding briefs. You can view all the various programs by the projects they can fund and for which jurisdictional level. Note: many grants have wide flexibility that may not be immediately obvious. We did our best in these funding briefs to describe these flexibilities, so read closely.
Once an applicant selects a program, applicants must identify what USDOT requires for that funding. The Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO) for each program explicitly states the requirements (such as the 2022 RAISE grants NOFO that was released on January 28th). Past NOFOs and grant applications—even from other applicants!—available in the public record, are a useful resource for understanding what successful applications look like. Applicants who are willing to put in more time can dig into the US Code (23 or 49 USC) or the Code of Federal Regulations (23 or 49 CFR).
Applicants will also need to set up the necessary administrative steps. For instance, they will need to know or request a Unique Entity Identifier through SAM.gov. If your organization has been using a DUNS number, a unique identifier has already been assigned since the federal government is migrating away from DUNS by April 4, 2022. These steps are more numerous than we can easily include here, but we can direct you to some resources that can help: 1) The USDOT maintains a website on how to do business with the FHWA, which contains a specific page on FHWA terms and conditions, 2) FTA has its own website outlining the The Transit Award Management System (TrAMS), its hub for federal transit grants, and 3) the General Services Administration maintains a site for live grant opportunity listings.
Read and pay close attention to who is eligible to apply, what projects are eligible for funding, as well as when and how to apply. And get to work on all of these requirements early. Get your Unique Entity Identifier as soon as you can, as this will take weeks if you don’t already have one. In fact, you do not have to wait to apply for a grant to set this up. Also, Grants.gov requires you to set up an account, and it can get overloaded by very popular programs close to the deadline. Don’t risk it! Do everything you can in advance. Apply a week early because you will not get more time if the system goes down at the last minute.
Still unsure on program parameters or if your project is eligible? Each NOFO lists a webinar to get an overview of the funding opportunity, ask questions, and learn the process to follow up with additional questions. You can also contact your FHWA Division HQ or Regional FTA HQ and ask questions of them over email or phone. In addition, T4A members gain access to our staff and our knowledge of federal programs.
Want access to in-depth analysis of what your community needs to do to tap into federal funding? Consider joining as a T4A Member.
Passenger rail was one of the brightest spots in the new infrastructure bill, with $102 billion for passenger and freight rail projects through direct grants to Amtrak and competitive grant programs. Here’s what you need to know about this new money and the bill’s rail policy changes, and how they can be best used to expand and improve passenger rail service across the U.S.
Boarding the inaugural FrontRunner commuter train from Provo to Salt Lake. Flickr photo by Steven Vance.
When it comes to the new infrastructure bill, there was a lot of bad and ugly in the highway and transit sections, but passenger rail was by far the biggest winner, with over $102 billion set aside to invest in the expansion of reliable and frequent rail service and much needed changes to Amtrak’s mission and priorities that can put us on a path to a more robust national and regional passenger rail network. But the work is far from done. The ultimate verdict will rest on Amtrak and the Biden administration’s ability to get organized, engage with regional leaders, and then spend this historic money quickly and effectively.
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.
What’s in the law?
New funding
Building upon the success of the FAST Act, which included passenger rail in a multi-year authorization for the first time (see p.4), the 2021 infrastructure law takes the biggest step forward yet to invest in the future of passenger rail in America. Congress increased rail funding by 750 percent over FAST Act levels with an increased focus on bolstering service on the national network and making needed investments to improve the Northeast Corridor. The law also made policy changes to several key grant programs, making them more attractive to eligible recipients.
$41.5 billion of the law’s $102 billion for rail will go to Amtrak, and a majority of those funds ($27.5 billion) will go to Amtrak’s national network. This is in stark contrast to how funding has been traditionally allocated, when passenger rail networks had to justify their existence by showing a high profit margin. In the FAST Act, the Northeast Corridor (Amtrak’s busiest and most profitable rail corridor from DC to Boston) received a larger share of federal funds.
This vital step will encourage more passenger rail and intercity rail expansion, giving more people in more places the ability to affordably travel, thanks in part to a recalibrated Amtrak mission to place customer experience and community connections over profits.
Policy changes
The law also makes a number of changes to improve the passenger experience. For the stations in many (mostly rural) parts of the country, there are no station agents available to answer questions, help riders purchase tickets, or check luggage. For those who do not have access to a computer or internet at home, not having a station agent at their local station means they cannot purchase a ticket or if they are elderly, do not have assistance to check luggage. A station agent will now be required at any location that has 40 or more passengers per day. From a service standpoint, the bill also prohibits Amtrak from discontinuing or cutting rural services as long as Amtrak receives at least baseline funding (i.e. the same amount of money they received last year) to operate service, preserving the national network.
Amtrak is also no longer required to provide food service with a profit margin. The old requirement to turn a profit on food put Amtrak in a position of either providing cheaper, nutrient poor food (i.e. junk food) or no food service at all. Access to good, nutrient rich food on passenger trains will drastically improve the rider experience, which will help increase ridership.
When it comes to governance, Amtrak’s board of directors has traditionally drawn heavily from people that lived or had expertise in the Northeast Corridor, leading to a very lopsided investment and expansion strategy focused on northeastern passenger rail, often at the expense of better service elsewhere or a truly national network—the stated purpose of Amtrak. The infrastructure law changes the requirements and sets quotas for who can be appointed to the Board, enabling a more regionally diverse group of decision-makers that will more fully represent the interests of a truly national network. (Right now the board is functionally empty, with all board members serving expired terms. The Biden administration should have appointed a new board yesterday. More on that below.)
The law also directs funding to improve accessibility for all riders, especially those who may use assistive devices (wheelchairs, walkers, canes, etc.). It invests $50 million annually to help cover the additional costs that make the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) program (a loan program for making capital improvements) more user-friendly and less financially onerous. This same RRIF program was also tweaked so that it can help finance transit-oriented development projects around passenger rail stations—a smart way to grow ridership.
The law includes $50 million annually to the Restoration and Enhancement (R&E) grant program that provides funds to help operate passenger rail. The increase in funds can help subsidize the overall cost a state or locality may need to pay in order to cover the costs of operating new or existing passenger rail routes. As an example, the Gulf Coast rail project has long planned to use these R&E grants to support the new service as it gets off the ground for the first three years. A change in this law allows projects like this one to extend R&E funds over six years rather than the current three, allowing for a longer off-ramp to help cover operations costs. Lowering the financial burden that poorer states would need to contribute for service operations would significantly benefit their communities by connecting them to regional economic centers, healthcare, and educational opportunities. The law also allows Tribal entities to apply for R&E grants.
The law also creates the administrative infrastructure needed to expand passenger rail. It creates a new program that incentivizes up to ten interstate rail compacts—like the Southern Rail Commission at the center of Gulf Coast expansion—that are vital for developing and realizing a regional and national rail network. Interstate rail compacts are made up of contiguous states that want to establish a vision for and seek investments for intercity passenger rail in their region. (The final provisions were similar to a House proposal from Rep. Cohen, which we wrote about here.) The bill allows for these ten commissions to apply for up to $1 million annually to operate their respective commissions.
How else could the administration improve the rail program?
These rail provisions are worth celebrating, but in order for the nation to reap the benefits, the administration has much more work to do, and must take action quickly on several items. The work is not done, and if the administration is not proactive, they could squander the promise of this historic, once-in-a-generation investment in rail.
Their first step should be to immediately (it’s overdue) nominate a new board to lead Amtrak in accordance with the new law. We hope the administration will appoint a board that reflects the demographics of our nation and create a requirement that board members ride the three levels of service Amtrak offers on an annual basis (commuter, long-distance, etc.). The sooner the administration takes action on Amtrak’s Board, the quicker the American public can ride passenger trains in parts of the country that need it most.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) should begin the process to stand up the new interstate rail compacts program, which is key to fostering the bottom-up growth of the national network. The FRA Administrator should convene those who have expressed interest in creating a compact to explain how to establish one, how the FRA can ensure their success, and how to maximize this new funding.
When it comes to awarding competitive grants such as CRISI, R&E, and others, the administration should be very careful with awarding grants to private sector passenger rail companies. Private sector passenger rail companies like the Brightline in Florida and Las Vegas are important components but are not essential to building the national network. While there are limited cases where private passenger rail can be additive to the national passenger rail network, it should remain the goal of the administration to connect communities, and we should not let the private sector reorient the goals and vision of the national rail network.
How can the new money advance our goals?
There are people across the country that are unable to experience everything their region or the country has to offer due to the barriers of long-distance travel. Not to mention the major greenhouse gas emissions that result from driving a personal vehicle or flying. Passenger rail can help bridge these equity gaps and achieve our climate goals.
Equity: For poorer Americans who live in rural areas, long-distance travel poses a number of financial obstacles to overcome. A regional airport that has commercial flights can often be a few hours’ drive away, require lengthy layovers, and charge expensive rates. And for many, driving long distances can be a challenge as well. The financial barriers of owning or renting a car are already extremely high for low-income families and the need to have and maintain a car that could sustain long hours of highway driving poses an even greater barrier to travel. Accessible passenger rail is an affordable option that can connect more people to regional economic hubs, educational opportunities, healthcare or even recreational activities. Passenger rail can boost local economies and create jobs for communities along a service route or who have a stop in their community.
In a study conducted by the Trent Lott institute, the States of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi would bring in, at minimum, an estimated $107 million in economic output from restoring Gulf Coast passenger rail service. The funds from the infrastructure law should also be used to make platforms, train cars, and stations more accessible for all riders. The demand for rail service in this corridor is very high, as seen during the 2018 inspection train along this corridor.
Climate: While the overall law failed to prioritize climate change in a holistic way across all programs, passenger rail investments can be a powerful tool for reducing emissions. As mentioned above, investments in passenger rail can provide another viable alternative to car travel or plane travel which emit large amounts of dangerous pollutants. If travelers have affordable medium- to long-distance travel options, they will take advantage of those opportunities. This, however, requires a true investment in intercity passenger rail corridors throughout the country that work together to create a fully connected national network. The infrastructure law provides the money to make this happen, but it will be up to Amtrak and the Biden administration to get organized, engage with regional leaders, and then spend the money effectively.
So what?
There are ample opportunities for states, cities, localities and even advocates to help create our national rail network. There are multiple funding opportunities available for regions that, like the Gulf Coast, are working to reestablish and expand passenger rail service. Advocates can encourage their state to join or start an interstate rail commission or inform their state and local governments of the federal funding opportunities available.
An important note for advocates (that we will also address in detail in a future post about putting together strong applications for competitive grants): Strong local matching funds (ranging from 20 to 50 percent of project cost) are critical to winning these grants, and the process to raise these funds starts by engaging in state and local budget processes far in advance (6-9 months before the start of the fiscal year.) So advocates, this means you should engage agencies early and often on resource prioritization to realize transit projects.
Note: There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. We have also produced short memos explaining the available federal programs for funding various types of projects. Read our memo about available funding opportunities for passenger rail projects.
If you have additional ideas for how to utilize these expanded programs, or have questions about the content listed here, please contact us. Our policy staff is eager to hear from you.
There is very little new funding in the infrastructure bill specifically dedicated to repair and no new requirements on highway monies for prioritizing repair on roads and bridges. Overall the law doubled down on the practice of giving states immense flexibility with the bulk of their money and then hoping that they use that flexibility to prioritize repair. Advocates should be ready to hold states and metros accountable for making progress.
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.
Those are just a few high profile US bridge collapses over the last decade. Many smaller ones have escaped national scrutiny. And of course, who knows how many potential collapses were avoided (good!) through weight restrictions, lane closures, or outright closures that resulted in lengthy detours (bad!).
These collapses all happened for a plethora of overlapping reasons related to engineering, age of infrastructure, design flaws, ineffective inspection systems, and others, but they are also the by-product of our overall reactive vs. proactive approach to repair and our failure to require repair ahead of building new. The House’s five-year INVEST Act would have instituted a fix-it-first requirement, but the Senate and the administration discarded INVEST and ultimately struck a deal to continue the status quo on repair: giving states money and freedom, and hoping they use their discretion to maintain the system.
What’s in the law?
While states are given wide latitude on how to spend their money, they unquestionably will have more money at their disposal for the next five years because nearly all of the core programs that are typically used on repair needs increased in size. There are two major programs worth highlighting:
1) The National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) is one of the two largest sources of funding used for repair—about 53 percent of all states’ base highway formula apportionment (~$147 billion in the new infrastructure law). NHPP funds are intended to be spent on the National Highway System’s roads and bridges, as well as transit or for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in an NHS corridor. The easiest way to understand the NHS is that it consists of a spectrum from nearly all multi-lane arterial roads up to interstates, as well as a lot of two-lane rural state highways. Funding for the NHPP went up by 26 percent over the FAST Act, which means more money theoretically available for repair projects if states choose to spend it that way. The infrastructure law did open up NHPP to fund more climate mitigation projects classified as “protective features,” including raising roadways, replacing culverts and drainage, and “natural infrastructure.” Advocates and local leaders—especially in coastal areas—should work hard to make their state or metro area aware that these types of projects are now eligible for NHPP funding. (Relying on the past precedent of emergency aid for repairs after disasters will be risky as climate emergencies become more frequent but funding stays the same.)
2) The Surface Transportation Block Grant Program is exactly what it says: a block grant given to states for all surface transportation needs. This second biggest pot of money states can use on repair is also the most flexible. Not only can these funds be used on repair projects, but they can also go toward transit, biking, walking, and nearly other possible mode of surface travel—though many states do not take advantage of that flexibility. This program represents 23 percent of all highway formula dollars, and was increased by 35 percent from the FAST Act, up to $79 billion in the new infrastructure law.
The $43 billion bridge formula program is “designed” to repair bridges, whether on the National Highway System or what are known as “off-system” bridges owned by counties, cities, or other localities. While states still have to come up with 20 percent of the cost for repairing the bigger NHS and other state-owned bridges, this program can cover 100 percent of the cost of repairing or rehabilitating these locally owned off-system bridges, to try and incentivize more funding toward these vital but smaller bridges—like the Fern Hollow bridge in Pittsburgh that just collapsed—which many states ignore.
The construction of a new highway bridge on a new alignment is an eligible project under the BFP, but FHWA encourages States to first focus their BFP funding on projects that improve the condition of in-service highway bridges classified in poor condition and that preserve or improve the condition of in-service highway bridges classified in fair condition. Note that the FHWA considers the construction of a new highway bridge in a new location, in connection with replacement of an existing highway bridge in poor condition, to be improving the condition of an in-service highway bridge.
While states are free to neglect repair needs on their roads, bridges, and highways, the new infrastructure law does uphold the much stricter existing State of Good Repair programs and requirements for public transit. (Yes, we require state of repair on transit, but not on roads and bridges.) The funding for both transit and rail repair grants was also increased dramatically.
Transit:$3.5 billion for state of good repair grants represents a $1 billion increase over the FAST Act. These formula grants provide funding to repair or replace a wide variety of rail infrastructure (rail itself, signals, stations, navigational systems, etc.) The infrastructure law also created a new $300 million rail vehicle replacement competitive grant program that can be used to replace any rolling rail stock. Larger, legacy rail systems with especially old infrastructure will fare better in the grant process for this new program.
Passenger rail:$53.5 billion for state of good repair grants (up from $6 billion in the FAST Act) within two different programs to improve the state of good repair, improve performance, or expand or establish new intercity passenger rail service, including privately operated intercity passenger rail service if an eligible applicant is involved. Notably, these repair funds (from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail, formerly the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair) are closely tied up with the money being used to expand interstate rail service, so regions will need to coordinate their grant applications between connectivity/expansion and their repair needs in order to best utilize these funds. Funds from the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement (CRISI) program are more broadly directed toward repair and safety improvement projects.
How could the administration improve these repair provisions?
Unfortunately, the deal the administration struck with Congress limits the extent of their own authority. States control the bulk of the money, with no fix-it-first requirements. Yes, USDOT has urged states to prioritize repair (and climate, equity, etc.) with their huge formula programs. Some governors and AASHTO already responded to that modest request with shock at the suggestion, even though they know they retain the freedom to continue ignoring those needs.
But there are still things the administration can do. They can choose to prioritize repair and modernization (and climate resilience) within their large range of competitive or discretionary grant programs, and prioritize repairing transit/rail infrastructure in communities that need it most or have been historically underserved to serve their equity goals. USDOT could issue guidance or scoping requirements to include identifying climate threats (extreme weather, extreme temperatures) and the frequency the asset will need repair/maintenance based on the design. And they could require this for any project that undergoes a NEPA environmental review.
How can this advance our goals? How can advocates improve outcomes on repair?
When it comes to advocates and local leaders, the greatest potential is with increasing awareness, reporting, and accountability. For example, even though climate-related projects are now eligible for NHPP funds, governors, legislators or the DOT leadership may not realize it or may have zero interest in pursuing those projects. Further, there are very few states that have a pipeline of resilience projects ready to tee up. Advocates should fill that information gap to make the most of the new climate mitigation eligibility within this huge pot of cash, and focus on the projects that would protect and serve the most climate-vulnerable neighborhoods and people.
And lastly, you should be reaching out to every reporter on a transportation beat in your state to remind them of the promises that transportation agencies are making on repair.
When we go in-depth with a reporter who is new (or sometimes even a vet!) on the federal transportation beat, they are often shocked to learn there are no requirements for states to repair things first. Help bring your media along and give them actionable information to hold your decision makers accountable. They have just been given a nearly unprecedented windfall of federal cash for the next five years and have the complete freedom to spend it all on repair projects. If your state makes slow or no progress on repair (or does better in some parts of the state than others) that is due to spending priorities set by the governor, legislature and/or DOT.
Advocates and the media should be holding anyone who fails to move the needle in the right direction publicly accountable.
So what?
As one of our three core priorities, repair was one of our biggest disappointments in the infrastructure law. The last decade has shown us repeatedly that too often states use their flexibility to build new things they can’t afford to maintain while neglecting to properly address their repair needs. This is one of the most fiscally irresponsible things we do with transportation policy. Every dollar spent on a roadway expansion project is both a dollar that was not spent on repair, and a dollar that created decades of future repair costs. When Sen. Manchin talks about being concerned about costs passed to our grandkids, our current approach to repair should be exhibit A.
The administration should use every tool in their arsenal to ensure that the funds they control prioritize repair, while using their regulatory toolbox to nudge states and metros toward the same goal. Advocates can have some of the greatest impact by working to both publicize repair needs (including climate related projects) and hold their decision makers accountable for making progress.
With a massive increase in guaranteed federal funding coming their way, they have no excuses left.
The new infrastructure bill authorizes $109 billion to fund public transit projects through formula and competitive grant programs. Here’s what you need to know about the new money and (modest) policy changes to the transit program, as well as how you can make them work for you.
The new infrastructure law is already pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into transportation projects and has created dozens of new USDOT grant programs that will advance hundreds of other projects. With this new law in place, T4America is empowering states and local communities to leverage this funding toward the best possible local projects. To that end, we’re embarking on a longer series of posts where we will be walking through specific topics like transit, climate, equity, rail, providing clear information about the law’s funding for that area, new grant programs, and how local officials and advocates alike can utilize the new funding to prioritize repair over expansion, improve access to jobs and services, and put safety over speed. This first post is about transit.
This post is part of a series of content T4America is producing to explain the new $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which now 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 this law will guide you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
What’s in the law?
The first thing to know is that the infrastructure law failed to make any transformational changes to transit policy. (We covered this in #3 here.) Unlike the significant changes made to other areas, Congress carried forward the same old policy from the FAST Act, maintaining the status quo in which transit projects are subject to onerous oversight not required of highway projects. The second thing to know is that the law increased overall federal transit funding by 79%. This does not begin to address the full needs of transit in the U.S., but will allow numerous states and cities to make major investments in transit.
That funding is split between several programs. The largest share ($23 billion over five years) goes toward the core program for making capital improvements to expand or improve high capacity transit service. By comparison, the FAST Act spent $11.5 billion on this program, the Capital Investments Grant program (CIG). Notably, CIG money cannot be used to maintain or operate existing service. As defined by federal law, a “fixed guideway” for CIG projects is a means of public transit that operates on its own right-of-way, like a rail line, dedicated bus rapid transit line (bus lane), or even a ferry route.
CIG grants are split into Small Starts (projects under $400 million, most often bus or bus rapid transit projects) and New Starts/Core Capacity (larger projects, where nearly all of the rail projects happen), and the two have different processes for funding approval. Under the previous infrastructure law, only projects that cost less than $300 million were eligible for Small Starts. The new infrastructure law increased that number to $400 million but left the maximum federal share of a project the same, at $150 million. This means local agencies with Small Starts projects that cost more than $300 million will need to come up with a higher percentage of local or state funds than in previous years.
While CIG funding cannot be used for repair projects, the infrastructure law increased funding for its State of Good Repair Formula Program from $13.4 billion in the FAST Act to $21.6 billion over five years. These non-competitive grants are distributed by USDOT to fixed guideway transit systems that are at least seven years old. So while transit agencies will not need to apply for funding, they will need to proactively identify repair needs to access this cash. There is also a new Rail Vehicle Competitive Grant program, funded for $1.5 billion over five years, aimed to help transit agencies leverage local/state/private financing to replace rail vehicles (think streetcars, subway rail, or light rail cars). The law also included $1.75 billion in competitive grant funding to help agencies meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility standards, which can include repairs and upgrades to station elevators, boarding ramps, adequate support rails and signage, among other necessary services. USDOT has made clear that projects that engage with pertinent stakeholders and have community support will be best positioned to receive these competitive grant monies.
In a minor but notable change, the law also strengthened reporting requirements to count all assaults on transit workers, a step in the right direction as transit operators continue to face rising rates of assault by transit riders.
How else could the administration improve the transit program?
Though Congress failed to make any real substantive changes to transit policy and instead locked the status quo in amber for another five years, Biden’s USDOT does have some leeway for interpreting and implementing this policy. For one, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) could absolutely update their guidance for both formula and grant programs to more strongly emphasize that transit projects prioritize equitable access for all users (regardless of mobility challenges) and climate adaptation and resilience. Those who have been around for a few years will remember that FTA once rewarded transit capital projects “that tended to favor shorter travel times and longer distances between stops—rather than the number of people moved or the numbers of residents with access to reliable transit service.” This resulted in projects that moved suburban commuters quickly through a city but failed to improve transit access in order to score high in FTA’s cost-effectiveness criteria. But this is the kind of guidance that FTA and USDOT have the latitude to change.
Furthermore, FTA project guidance can place higher value on projects that have supportive land uses and facilitate first- and last-mile connections to transit, inclusive of shared micromobility.
How can the new money advance our goals?
Overall, assessing the transit needs of your community will be the best way to find and utilize the right funding sources. Advocates should work with transit agencies to pursue and develop the plans and projects that would best serve marginalized communities and improve the state of repair, and then work with the agencies to finalize plans to submit for capital funding. Here’s how this funding could be used to advance transit-related equity and climate goals.
Equity: As mentioned above, expanding and improving transit is the best way to serve and improve access in marginalized, underserved communities. But if these investments are directed to the wrong projects, they can instead reinforce racist land-use decisions (like those of “urban renewal”). Transit investments need to shift away from “development potential” and instead be meticulously planned around serving the people already living in the communities in question. Follow the people! Planners, transit agencies, and all stakeholders should direct their projects toward improving accessibility, connecting people not only along commute corridors, but to food, parks, shopping, health services, and other services. As we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, the people who most need transit are not served by the commuter-centric model present in most American cities.
Climate: The infrastructure law is not the climate legislation that the Biden administration billed it to be. The new transit money should be spent to give as many people as possible greater access to high quality transit, helping to keep the growth of emissions and vehicle miles traveled in check. Doing so will be incredibly important considering the historic amount that Congress also provided for new highway spending in the infrastructure law. Cities can focus on electrification of projects using known technologies we can implement today (wires, limited range batteries), rather than holding out for expensive or nonexistent technologies to become widespread. Cities also should look at ways to better quantify and qualify the impact that transit projects can have on climate change (such as highlighting induced demand on roadways without the transit project).
So what?
For local transportation officials who have an interest in expanding and improving transit service, the overall increase in transit funding means that more projects will get funded, allowing you to push through projects that have stalled out due to a lack of funding. For cities in transit-unfriendly states, those state DOTs will need to spend the additional transit formula money anyway (which is inclusive of operating and capital repair dollars), so if cities approach them with detailed transit plans and projects that have community support, the state will find these projects hard to turn down. For competitive grants, knowing the intricacies of grant eligibility and USDOT’s selection criteria will make your applications that much stronger.
For advocates and concerned citizens, the next time your local transportation officials say they don’t have enough money for critical vehicle repairs or equitable network expansion, you can point them to specific formula and competitive grants, as well as the eligibility criteria to prove that your project can receive that funding.
One last important note we addressed in our competitive grants blog post: Strong local matching funds (ranging from 20 to 50 percent of project cost) are critical to winning these grants, and the process to raise these funds starts by engaging in state and local budget processes far in advance (6-9 months before the start of the fiscal year.) So advocates, this means you should engage agencies early and often on resource prioritization to realize transit projects.
Note: There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. We also produced memos to explain the available federal programs for funding various types of projects. Read our memos about available funding opportunities for transit capital and operating projects. In conjunction with TransitCenter and the National Campaign for Transit Justice, we also produced a table of transit funding opportunities. View that table here.
If you have additional ideas for how to utilize these expanded programs, or have questions about the content listed here, please contact us. Our policy staff is eager to hear from you.
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.
The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is notable both for including Congress’ most significant effort to address climate change, and its general failure to make fundamental changes to a transportation program that’s responsible for massive increases in transportation emissions, worsening state of repair, unequal access to jobs, and increasing numbers of people killed on our roadways.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
First, you can read our short statement about the deal’s passage (signed by President Biden on Monday, November 15!) In a sea of media coverage and complicated explainers, we wanted to drill into just a few basic things you should know and remember about this new bill:
1) Transportation policy and funding is now wrapped up until 2026
Did you catch this one?
The way this deal was repeatedly referred to in the media as a standalone infrastructure bill created a lot of confusion, so it’s worth being clear on this count: Congress just wrapped up the every-five-years process of transportation reauthorization because the Senate’s five-year transportation policy proposals passed earlier this summer were the foundation of this larger infrastructure deal. There’s a lot of additional money that will go into various forms of infrastructure, but of the $645 billion total for transportation, about $300 billion is for a new five-year reauthorization to replace the expiring FAST Act. The additional ~$345 billion consists of annual appropriations of various kinds which are not guaranteed or sourced from gas taxes via the highway trust fund (see #4 below for more on that.)
So other than the annual appropriations process where Congress decides funding levels for some discretionary programs like the transit capital construction program or BUILD grants, funding and policy decisions are now finished for five years, and the focus now moves to implementation, i.e., how this money gets spent and where.
2) So what was in the five-year reauthorization included in the deal?
We took a long look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when the deal passed the full Senate back in August, and almost nothing has changed since:
[It] includes a lot of new spending, but that spending isn’t directed toward outcomes, much less the priorities that the President articulated in The American Jobs Plan. Though this bill mentions safety, climate, and equity often, as it stands, it will fail to produce meaningful shifts. “The White House will soon discover that they’ve dealt themselves a challenging hand in their long-term effort to address climate change and persistent inequities, while kicking the can down a crumbling road that’s likely to stay that way,” T4America director Beth Osborne said in our full statement after Tuesday’s final vote.
There is some good news, though. When it comes to the next five years of policy and spending, passenger rail was the biggest winner, making the expansion of reliable, frequent rail service to more Americans a cornerstone of the deal’s approach. The rail portion will “1) expand, increase, and improve service, 2) focus on the entire national network (rather than just the northeast corridor), 3) encourage more local, ground-up coalitions of local-state partnerships for improving or adding new service, and 4) make it easier to finance projects and expand that authority to transit-oriented development projects.” We explained these provisions in-depth in this post.
3) More money for transit but with policy crafted in 2015 (and before!)
The transit portion of reauthorization was never produced by the Senate Banking Committee, which means that this deal basically carried forward the status quo approach to transit policy from the now-replaced FAST Act, but with a historic amount of transit funding (along with a historic amount of highway funding.) The House’s discarded five-year INVEST Act proposal contained some vital improvements to transit policy, but it was ignored by the Senate when assembling the larger infrastructure deal.
We’ll have much more about the modest changes to the transit program in a later post—including what’s next.
4) What else was included in the non-reauthorization portions of the bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag?
This great chart from the National Association of Counties shows where the additional transportation money— outside of the ~$300 billion, five-year authorization—is going:
5) Time to hold the administration and Congress accountable for accomplishing their ambitious promises
The Biden administration has made significant promises to taxpayers about what they are going to accomplish with this historic investment when it comes to repair, climate change, safety, equity, and an equitable economic recovery from the past year and a half. They’ve assembled a tremendous team of superstar smart people at USDOT to make it happen. They’ve shown their willingness to use their administrative authority to at least temporarily halt damaging highway projects. They’ve created a litany of helpful new competitive grant programs they now need to write the rules for awarding.
But watching the president sign the bill isn’t just a celebration, it’s a cue for them to get to work with some major urgency: the first year of this money is flowing out the door already, so states are already pouring this money into projects already underway.
It will require a herculean effort from them to make sure this bill accomplishes what they believe it will. As we said when the deal was first approved by Congress on November 5, “The administration is confident they can make substantial progress on all of these goals despite those deficiencies. Most states are promising to use the flexibility they fought for to make marked improvements across these priorities. To make that happen, both the administration and the states will need to make major changes to how they approach transportation, but we know they can do it.”
Because they missed the chance to codify a wholly different approach to transportation into law, they only have the option of making changes that are administrative or imposed by the executive branch—changes which can all be undone by a future administration.
Now is the time for us, the media, advocates and local leaders of all stripes to hold them accountable for what they have promised to accomplish with this historically massive infrastructure bill.
After Congress’ final passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, aka “the infrastructure deal” on Friday, November 5, Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne offered this statement:
“As we have stated before, the transportation portion of the infrastructure bill spends a lot of money but fails to target it to the needs of the day: building strong economic centers, providing equitable access to opportunity, addressing catastrophic climate change, improving safety, or repairing infrastructure in poor condition.
“The administration is confident they can make substantial progress on all of these goals despite those deficiencies. Most states are promising to use the flexibility they fought for to make marked improvements across these priorities. To make that happen, both the administration and the states will need to make major changes to how they approach transportation, but we know they can do it.
“We stand ready to support this important and challenging work. We also encourage everyone— elected leaders, businesses, taxpayers, advocates and the press—to follow their results and hold them to their promises.”
Update 9/21: This post was updated to include progress made in the House since its original post date.
Congress’ final infrastructure deal (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) didn’t live up to the original bipartisan package announced with pride by the White House and Senate on June 24, cutting transit funding by $10 billion while almost all other areas matched the original proposal. The House’s budget reconciliation package takes steps to restore this funding, while also going further to provide equitable access to goods and services, improve climate outcomes, and reduce the negative impacts of the transportation system on disadvantaged communities.
The House’s reconciliation package includes a new $10 billion transit program, helping to rectify the $10 billion taken from transit in the final bipartisan infrastructure bill. This funding includes flexibility for operations support, which will be key for transit agencies hit hard by the pandemic. It’s also specifically designed to connect residents of disadvantaged or persistent poverty communities to jobs and essential services.
Another win for equity: the budget also provides $4 billion for communities negatively impacted by transportation. These funds can be used to improve walkability, reduce the public health impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and improve road safety.
There’s an additional $4 billion for incentive grants for states that reduce GHG emissions significantly or adopt targets to reach zero emissions by 2050. Funding is also included for USDOT to institute a GHG emissions performance measure to help prioritize projects that reduce travel time and emissions. Former President Trump repealed this measure and reinstating it is one of our key tasks for the Biden administration.
To help address needs at a local level, the House added $6 billion to advance local surface transportation projects.
The House also added $10 billion for the planning and development of public high-speed rail projects and $150 million for credit risk premium assistance, making it easier for smaller railroads to access and benefit from these funds. This funding will help improve passenger rail service, making it a more convenient and reliable form of transportation.
We enthusiastically support these programs and encourage you to tell your senator to include them in the final budget reconciliation package.
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