We spend a lot of money on highways, but when it comes to real performance, we do not get a lot out of all that spending. After over a trillion dollars spent over the last 30 years, our infrastructure conditions and road safety are not any better. Part of the reason why we are able to spend so much money is that the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) has a dedicated revenue source that provides consistent payouts—whether or not the funds are needed for the purpose. While it is politically durable, the Highway Trust Fund is not reliable.
Ever since its inception in 1956, the HTF has struggled to cover the repair bill of the massive federally subsidized highway network that we continue to expand today. This first came to a head in the early 1980s, when the HTF, funded at that time by a four-cent per gallon gas tax, was running out of money to both pay the repair bill for the first generation of highways built in the 1950s and 1960s and continue its rapid rate of expansion led by state DOTs. The choice then was to either borrow from the general fund, raise taxes, or match spending to what funds come in and focus on repairing existing assets. In 1983, during the Reagan administration, Congress chose to raise taxes.
Raising taxes, however, is unpopular, and 1983’s five-cent increase in the gas tax was only made possible by a coalition of pro-transit members of Congress who conditioned their supporting votes on one cent of that increase going to transit, thus creating the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund. Since 2008, instead of having those difficult conversations, Congress has just taken more than $275 billion from all taxpayers to cover the yawning deficit. Despite the fact that transit users—along with all other taxpayers—have been massively subsidizing highway expansion spending for nearly 20 years, transit is being targeted for removal from the Highway Trust Fund.
As a reminder, the issue is highway spending
Eliminating the Mass Transit Account would completely fail to solve the Highway Trust Fund’s deeper problems. The only way out of the transportation funding shortfall is for Congress to once again consider its three options:
Take from the general fund and deficit spend to keep the status quo going
Raise taxes on vehicles that already cost far more than many families can afford during an affordability crisis.
Adjust spending down to match revenues and refocus on repair and reducing highway asset liabilities
We’re in this mess because previous Congresses chose to take money from all taxpayers to prop up a program that is failing to deliver on its promises of safety, state of repair, and mobility. For nearly 20 years Congress has punted on the hard conversations we need to have about the purposes of this program and what we get for our money. And so the nation’s transportation trust fund is rocketing to insolvency, and these proposals are merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The unavoidable truth is that we spend ~$20B more per year than the gas tax brings in on just the highway programs alone. Rep. Graves’ recent idea to add new taxes on cleaner vehicles, like hybrids and EVs, would barely make a dent in that number. USDOT could tell Congress to end all transit funding, passenger rail, competitive grants, and scores of other smaller programs and the trust fund would still be speeding toward insolvency. There are serious ways to address this problem, but these proposals from USDOT are not it.
Washington, D.C. (November 17) — In response to reports from Politico that the Trump administration is proposing to eliminate federal transit funding and the flexibility states have to determine how to spend their own formula dollars, Steve Davis, Director of Transportation for America, offered this statement:
“This short-sighted proposal will annihilate state and local transportation budgets, strand millions of Americans who depend on transit every day in red and blue states alike, produce chaos and increase congestion, seize control from states, and utterly fail to actually solve our most pressing long-term transportation funding issues. The highway formula program alone spends $20 billion more than what the gas tax brings in every year—stealing transit funds won’t change that. Eliminating federal transit funding would cut the transportation options millions depend on and leave families paying even more just to get to work, school, or anywhere else they need to be. This unserious idea should be dead on arrival in Congress, as was a similar proposal in 2012 that was booed out of the room.
The FHWA proposal says that “highway funds should be spent on highway projects,” but gas tax dollars haven’t been exclusively “highway” funds since 1982, when the federal gas tax was raised from 4 to 9 cents and 20 percent of all gas tax funds were permanently devoted to transit. This historic practice—enshrined in a bipartisan deal approved by President Ronald Reagan—has continued for 43 years with broad support in Congress and amongst stakeholders, including the association representing state departments of transportation (AASHTO).
So who would bear the burden of this change? Everyday Americans of nearly every stripe, in communities of all sizes. Hospital workers who use transit to get to their jobs so they can care for us. Millions of rural and urban households without any access to a car. Millions who depend on transit to get them somewhere vital, in cities and towns small and large. Millions of older Americans who can no longer drive. And millions of others who benefit from the trips and cars that transit removes from the road. This proposal would take away travel options from everyday Americans, erode the significant local and national economic benefits of transit, and instead reward those who want to build more highways, no matter the cost.
Any state or country that wants to compete in the modern world is investing in transit. Even highway-happy Texas provides nearly 230 million transit trips for riders each year and is planning for more urban and rural transit as well as intercity connections. We should be building out transit in this country with the same gusto we built the highway system.
A silver lining is that this kind of insanity from the administration should put a nail in the coffin of the “business-as-usual” bipartisan approach to reauthorization. The federal transportation program has produced terrible results for decades, with unsafe, crumbling roads and unrelenting congestion, all while taking more than $275 billion from taxpayers to do it because Congress keeps spending more than the gas tax brings in. The trust fund is broken and beyond repair, and it’s time to stop propping up a program that’s failing both to pay for itself and deliver on its promises. This proposal piles insult on injury as the administration continues to systematically pull funding from local transportation priorities for things like transit and the safety of people walking and biking.
No one in Congress should be willing to negotiate with partners sitting on their hands as the administration takes a blowtorch to their constitutional power of the purse and to the last bipartisan authorization passed in 2021. We’re encouraged to hear Rep. Rick Larsen, the minority leader on the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, call this proposal “harebrained.” But members like Rep. Larsen—who have made it clear that their top priority is passing a largely status quo bipartisan bill—should now be asking themselves: Why spend political capital to help negotiate and pass a bill where my priorities are either going to be targeted today, or eliminated tomorrow?”
The Trump administration’s delay of the nation’s largest public transit and intercity passenger rail project underscores what Congress should already know: the Trump administration is a bad-faith partner and a clear threat to the legislative process.
“The same people who say roads can’t be racist seem to think a tunnel will enact DEI. Everyone knows this project is extremely important to the Northeast Corridor, and the Northeast Corridor makes up 20 percent of U.S. GDP. We need this tunnel, and we have been waiting for it for decades. Get it done and stop making excuses.”
Beth Osborne, President and CEO of Smart Growth America
No matter the justifications, this is just another example of what the administration has been doing since taking office: acting out of retribution, illegally rescinding funds, and canceling congressionally authorized spending. This is nothing new, merely the latest and largest in a series of politicized, confidence-destroying attacks on transportation and bipartisan governance that should make any member of Congress think twice before entrusting authority to this administration in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill.
In the words of Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Shelley Moore Capito, we need to “avoid top-down mandates from Washington, D.C.” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves would agree, in his own words, “we need to continue to empower states and limit federal intrusion,” but will not check an administration intent on governing by vendetta. Democrats are unable to stop the creep of administrative overreach by doing anything other than shutting down the government, and the country’s transportation infrastructure continues to both crumble and kill people while Congress pursues a business-as-usual approach to surface transportation reauthorization.
The transportation system is broken, but negotiations over the surface transportation reauthorization bill don’t align with that reality—the administration will not faithfully implement any bill that Congress passes in a bipartisan fashion. Any agreement on reauthorization will not matter because it will be rendered ineffective the moment it’s signed by the President, who will do everything in his administration’s power to undermine and delay whatever he doesn’t agree with. This is the lesson of the Second Avenue Subway and the Hudson Tunnel Project delay, and the cancellation and impoundment of dozens of other projects last month. If Congress doesn’t learn that lesson now, taxpayers will be left with a transportation system that continues to fail to meet Americans’ needs.
“The Gateway project will be built one day. It will just be much more expensive than it would be if we got moving today. That is, if there is not a bigger emergency caused by a problem that closes the existing tunnel before we can get the Gateway project built.”
Beth Osborne, President and CEO of Smart Growth America
What got us here? Vengeance as governing
Transportation for America has been tracking the administration’s actions for months. Time and again, they have proven that, from the smallest bike lane to the most significant passenger rail infrastructure project in America, USDOT cannot be trusted to execute the programs authorized by Congress as they were intended to be carried out.
This administration has proven they are not a faithful steward of federal funds by exercising a normal or near-normal scope of administrative interpretation—they are malignant actors with an agenda that far exceeds traditional administrative authority and the outlined programs and priorities in law.
“A functioning transportation system that is safe and in good condition is the point. The Gateway project is a big part of that. Instead, USDOT is undergoing a paperwork exercise of unknown parameters and length. Stop studying it, talking about it, and reviewing it, and just build it already.”
Beth Osborne, President and CEO of Smart Growth America
As we have previously cautioned members of Congress, they would be foolish to move forward with a new bipartisan infrastructure deal if the administration can pick and choose, down to the smallest project, what they deem acceptable. The faith is broken—the terms of the agreement no longer exist. Under these conditions, it would be incredibly short-sighted to vote for any long-term reauthorization and believe that their wishes would be faithfully implemented.
Not only is the Trump administration’s USDOT potentially trying to run out the clock for FY22 grants it does not like, but it’s also in parallel cancelling competitive grants awarded to localities and communities across the country. These communities worked tirelessly to secure funding for projects focused on things like the safety of people walking and biking and reducing transportation barriers. Enough should be enough– Congress needs to step up and assert its role over policy before negotiating the next reauthorization.
Certain federal grant funding is expiring at the end of the month
Last week, we warned about a potential “pocket rescission”-style strategy from the US Department of Transportation, intended to run out the clock on certain programs’ previously awarded Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act grants before the funds become unavailable at the end of the federal fiscal year on September 30. Even more concerningly, USDOT may have an internal deadline to obligate funds by as early as next week, in order to close out grant administration before the end of the fiscal year, reducing awardees’ window of time for action.
To understand what is at risk, we analyzed available data for some of the programs most at risk, taking a look at USDOT’s lists of “approved” grants (which are supposedly safe for obligation) and public federal obligation data reported on USASpending.gov.
Altogether, across seven programs that we evaluated (though more could be at risk), we identified over $400 million for projects that could be at risk, and we are tracking them here. In just those programs, we found over 50 projects with awards that did not seem to have any obligations associated with them on USAspending.gov, or were apparently not included among USDOT’s latest list of “approved” grants.
USDOT is also directly cancelling grants that don’t align with their new priorities
Unfortunately, this grant expiration issue is not the only one facing advocates. On August 7, 2025, the White House issued an executive order, making it easier to cancel grants in the future and setting a standard that all discretionary grants should “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.”
Now, independent of the expiration of FY22 grants, USDOT has sent multiple letters cancelling non-state DOT entities’ discretionary grant awards. In at least three places —New Mexico,Illinois, and Connecticut—local news coverage has picked up on the issue, but it is likely much more widespread. More examples of projects we believe to be cancelled can be found on this sheet, but when USDOT controls all funding decision-making, grant recipients can be hesitant to come forward with news on cancellations publicly, out of fear of future reprisal.
In total, we believe there are roughly 200 projects that may not be approved by the Trump administration, and remain unobligated out of the initial 3,200 awarded but unobligated discretionary grants backlog the Trump administration inherited from the Biden administration at the start of their term. The status of these 200 grants is unclear, and it is difficult to determine which projects are specifically at risk due to a systemic lack of transparency in federal grant funding.
These 200 grants may be at risk of both expiration at the end of this fiscal year or at risk of being actively cancelled for not aligning with the president’s transportation priorities. Considering they are not to be found on a list of approved grants, assume that the list of 50+ FY22 grants at risk of expiring and the list of cancelled grants could constitute part of the 200 grants with an unclear status.
USDOT has not publicly discussed any information regarding the cancellations of these grants. If you know about a project that has received a notice of cancellation from USDOT, especially from the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, Safe Streets and Roads for All grant, or RAISE/BUILD program, please let us know. Drop us a tip here.
Why is this happening?
USDOT has indicated for months that it planned to cancel grants that do not align with the administration’s policy priorities. Early on, we drew attention to these concerns, which began with policy memos indicating the intention to cancel obligated grants, a move that only intensified with continued scrutiny of awarded competitive grant projects. While the Secretary claimed progress as the DOT made project-by-project review of grants its priority, approval may not have come easily for grantees.
Getting a project sponsor’s grant to the new “approval” stage can be challenging for certain grantees. In order to get approval, grantees have had to change the scope of projects to eliminate equity-related provisions and agree to new standard Terms and Conditions for competitive grant agreements that conditioned aid on cooperation with federal agencies and allowed greater flexibility for the USDOT to cancel funds for any policy reason. As these new processes unfolded, we noticed a major slowdown in funding obligations for key competitive programs relative to the previous administration, all while the administration was touting progress on its new metric of approvals.
There is serious uncertainty around what exactly is at risk, brought on by the status quo opacity around federal discretionary grant administration that has been true across any Presidential administration. USDOT, under the current and previous administrations, has not been transparent or proactive in informing the public of the status of specific projects’ grant agreements but they have always been quick to tout award announcements. While the Biden administration maintained a list of awarded grant projects funded by the IIJA, it lacked important data on whether projects had been obligated or not yet. The true number of unobligated, awarded grants left at the end of the Biden administration, which Secretary Duffy stated was at over 3,200 projects when he inherited the office, was not clear to the public. As a result, the obligation of those funds has been left to an administration with vastly different priorities for infrastructure and transportation.
To improve transparency, USDOT should create an online, public dashboard that notes the status of each announced discretionary grant award under all federal programs, and include the status of any agreements between the grantee and the awarding federal agencies. To support transparency efforts, Congress should require that USDOT create such a tool in the interest of transparency and to ensure faithful implementation of the programs they passed and funded.
Enough should be enough
Right now, many members of Congress are not getting what they voted for in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. If members of Congress and the communities they represent cannot expect to receive what has already been passed in law, why should you trust that the next bill will preserve your priorities?
USASpending.gov data showing zero new funding obligated to Reconnecting Communities Pilot program projects (CFDA 20.940) since January, 2025 as of September 16, 2025.
Congress should make certain that it is getting what it paid for under the previous surface transportation reauthorization before storming into the next one. Otherwise, what do you expect will happen to the next round of programs included in a bill that the executive branch does not like?
A leaked policy memo from leadership at USDOT will add a new layer of extra-legal review of all awarded competitive grant projects without fully signed federal funding obligations, calling for bicycle infrastructure, green infrastructure, and EV chargers to be cut from projects.
What’s in USDOT’s new memo?
Drawing authority from the President’s inaugural slate of executive orders and the Secretary of Transportation’s first round of policy memos, the Department of Transportation Secretary’s office has, according to a leaked policy memo, issued another round of unprecedented orders, calling for the removal of all elements of projects related to bike infrastructure, charging infrastructure, climate change or those that take equity into account competitive grant funding. The memo specifically applies to competitive grants that have not yet completed grant agreements or obligated the funding, including those that have only been partially obligated. Projects with existing and executed grant agreements are not subject to additional review, but any new federal dollars made out to those projects would be.
What’s the difference between funding that is announced or obligated?
When the federal government announces an award, the awardee does not get that funding as a grant. First, the federal government and the awardee have to negotiate and sign a funding agreement, which lays out the project scope, schedule, and budget and demonstrates the availability of required nonfederal funding match.
Funds can be canceled or reclaimed until they are obligated, which is a binding commitment to pay out money. Funding cannot be obligated until the grant agreement is signed and all permitting and relevant regulations are complied with. Planning grants that don’t have those regulatory requirements are obligated once there is a signed grant agreement. However, capital (ie, construction) projects would need to complete regulatory review and permitting before being obligated.
Once there is a grant agreement and funds are obligated, an awardee must spend their own funding and file for reimbursement from the federal government.
This memo instructs USDOT operating administrations, like The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), to conduct a project-by-project analysis to identify any activities that include primary elements of “equity, climate change, environmental justice, green infrastructure, bicycle infrastructure, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure.” Once projects are identified for non-compliance with the administration’s priorities, they will be subject to individual scrutiny for a final decision on whether they will be canceled, modified, or continue as planned. Projects that contain “flagged activities” could be revised, even if they meet all requirements of law, to comply with this administration’s agenda. This comes full circle from the “Woke Rescission” memo, which we unpacked in a previous blog, and follows the episode of STIP and TIP review of obligated projects that were recently walked back (though the new burdensome review remains an issue for environmental permits, according to a recent letter from AASHTO).
While it is normal for a new administration to set its own agenda, it has always applied to spending and policy going forward. This administration is setting the precedent that any project not underway can be undone when there is a new president. This memo furthers the agenda laid out in the “Unleashing American Energy” memo, which calls for increased reliance on fossil fuel consumption.
Under this approach, USDOT will reach back to 2022 to defund many projects that Congress specifically defined as eligible activities in the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Congress defines the scope of what federal programs can fund. Even under the Biden administration—despite its commitments to advancing zero-emission transportation—USDOT still followed congressional intent by awarding the statutorily required 25% of funds to more emitting fossil fuel buses under the Low or No Emission bus program, despite strong demand for zero-emission buses from applicants.
By nature of being eligible for funding, the bike, green infrastructure, and EV chargers elements of projects already got the okay for funding from Congress on a bipartisan basis. If this becomes precedent, future presidents could make unilateral decisions to freeze funding for any project that does not align with their own priorities. Allowing the pendulum to swing back and forth every four years undermines the rationale of the supposedly stable highway trust fund—perhaps further evidence that the model is no longer sustainable. If funding appropriated years in advance can be arbitrarily revoked, why even plan beyond the next fiscal year?
For an administration that has spoken at length about the elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse, even absent the hugely dangerous and detrimental impact this will have on people’s health, safety, and long-term environmental sustainability of the transportation system, these reviews are going to slow down projects they would want to proceed. Actions like these continue to sow confusion and are inefficient, waste staff time, and squander funds and resources at the federal and local levels.
What’s at stake
Nearly $2.9 billion in funding was announced for the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program for projects in over 1,700 communities. Only $515 million has been obligated across 979 grant,s according to a search of USASpending data. The vast majority of this program’s funding, $2.4 billion, and hundreds of communities receiving assistance through this program would now be subject to review and renegotiation due to this memo.
About $7.6 billion was announced under the RAISE/BUILD program for federal fiscal years 2022 through 2025. Still, only $1.25 billion, or less, of funding has been secured and obligated, leaving the rest of the announced funds, representing potentially hundreds of projects, stuck once again in the grant review process.
Zooming out to the whole program, based on data last updated by the USDOT on January 31, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, and the Federal Railroad Administration have a combined $51 billion in funds unobligated for non-formula programs. Much of these funds are now likely subject to review, cuts, and delays.
It likely will not stop there
While the current memo applies to competitive grants, there is good reason to expect that this administration will expand this review to cover other programs, too, if they find they don’t agree with how states, regions, localities, and transit agencies are using the funds.
For example, new, flexible formula programs created in the IIJA designed to address infrastructure resiliency, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, and build out the national network of electric vehicle infrastructure remain at risk and could be the next target for politicized review and freezes. Further, if Congress decides to rescind funds for impounded or frozen climate-related programs, the impacts would disproportionately hit rural states, likely disrupting planned projects of all types. Carbon Reduction Program and PROTECT funds have been programmed for anything from new highway lighting to tunnel rehabilitation. Members of Congress should be aware of how cuts to these programs may fall hardest on whose constituents.
Join us for a webinar on Tuesday, February 25th at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the state of transportation funding, including recent executive orders and the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization.
Federal transportation funding is at a crossroads, with executive orders and USDOT directives reshaping priorities and halting projects, not to mention federal surface transportation program planning already underway. In a rapidly shifting USDOT, what is the latest on projects across the country facing uncertainty, delays, and outright cuts to obligated funding? How will the Trump administration’s policies influence long-term funding decisions? And could a shift in the reauthorization status quo really be a bad thing?
Join Beth Osborne, Director of Transportation for America, for a timely discussion on the state of federal transportation funding, what to expect in the coming months, and how advocates and practitioners can navigate this evolving landscape.
Federal funding recipients across the country are dealing with uncertainty, delays, and outright cuts to obligated funding. Our updated analysis of disbursements at risk finds that over $20 billion for projects currently underway across the country might be eliminated, according to new memos introduced by Secretary Duffy’s DOT. But don’t feel overwhelmed. We’ve got the information you need.
*THE LATEST: USDOT is expected to move forward with transportation funding freezes as soon as this week*
It’s been a frenetic start to President Trump’s second term in office, and transportation funding and policy has already played a much more significant role than it did during his first. While we covered much of this in our last blog on the impact of the new administration’s Executive Orders, let’s recap all that has occurred to bring you up to speed.
Three things you need to know:
A sweeping rollback of electrification, climate resilience, and equity-focused infrastructure policies – The Trump administration’s executive orders have set out to dismantle DEI and equity-related initiatives, environmental justice efforts, and climate programs established during previous administrations. This includes firing staff and removing resources, freezing funds from key infrastructure programs like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program, and even halting technical assistance programs like the USDOT Reconnecting Communities Institute. Over $20 billion in project funding is at risk.
Funding freeze confusion continues unabated despite rescissions – The broad and haphazard language in President Trump’s executive orders and memos from the OMB has led to widespread uncertainty among federal agencies, states, and grant recipients. Despite a temporary restraining order from a federal judge, the administration has continued to push its policy objectives, and we expect their funding freezes to continue without judicial authorization or legal justification.
Time is running out for billions of dollars in project funding – USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy’s two recent memos outline a dramatic shift in how Trump’s USDOT will prioritize funding, with plans to eliminate programs related “in any way” to “climate change, ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, racial equity, gender identity, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” goals, environmental justice, or the Justice 40 Initiative.” Other policy objectives to prioritize families, user-pay models, and benefit-cost analysis remain ill-defined and murky. Crucially, USDOT’s new memos set a timeline for the elimination of all agency policies, funding agreements, and programs by February 18, 2025.
Despite the two standing court orders to halt the funding freeze, the Trump administration’s federal agencies are still refusing to disburse funding for obligated awards. Violating a judge’s order is clearly illegal, but that has not stopped the administration as of yet.
The Trump administration and USDOT are ignoring a temporary restraining order from a federal judge and continuing to assert their authority to pause disbursements and new obligations at their discretion.
As the administration’s intentions to undo progress on policies, programs, and projects come into focus, we took a look at the billions of dollars in funding at stake in congressional districts across the country.
Our analysis has found that more than $20 billion could be at risk, based on what “references or relates in any way” to concepts anathema to the new administration.
The administration is indicating that they could take this action even if a grant agreement (which is basically a contract) has been signed and even where a project sponsor has spent money assuming they would be reimbursed under that grant agreement.
What kind of projects would fit the bill?
Who knows? While all of the administration’s actions have been dramatic, none has been clear or specific. It could mean all projects funded under the “Carbon Reduction Program,” including road work in Indiana and modernized lighting in Arizona, have funding halted. It could mean an end to rural transit operating assistance for tribal communities in Idaho. It could mean senior transit projects focused on equitably serving their communities get cut. It could mean that states that voted for President Trump lose out on nearly $7 billion in owed funding disbursements that were approved on a bipartisan basis. It could mean projects under the National Highway Performance Program that have an element of something that USDOT finds offensive.
In addition to spending analysis by state, we also mapped congressional-level spending data based on our analysis of funding that could be at risk of cancellation due to new memos implementing President Trump's executive orders. Explore this map and see how funding could be affected across the country.
What you can do:
Congress’ constitutional power to make decisions over funding is at stake. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, though flawed, passed on a bipartisan basis and is distributing benefits across the country that may be undone by the new administration.
Ask your state and local officials what they plan to do without certain streams of federal funding. Share the data about the project and program funding at risk with them. We split funding information down to the state, county, and congressional district levels in our analysis of funding at risk.
Make sure your Congressional delegation is aware of the risk to your project and ask what they can do. If you meet with them in person or by phone, that is better than a letter. If you want to also write a letter, see below.
Can’t find your district? Funding might be coming to your community through statewide awards, which are labeled as a congressional district ending in 90.
Orders, in accordance with the EOs outlined above, “to identify and eliminateall orders, directives, rules, regulations, notices, guidance documents, funding agreements, programs, and policy statements, or portions thereof, which were authorized, adopted, or approved between noon on January 20, 2021 and noon on January 20, 2025, and which reference or relate in any way to climate change, "greenhouse gas" emissions, racial equity, gender identity, "diversity, equity, and inclusion" goals, environmental justice, or the Justice 40 Initiative.”
Within 10 days, all DOT Operating Administrations (such as FHWA, FTA, NHTSA, FRA, etc.) and the Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) must identify and develop a report on all DOT “orders, directives, rules, regulations, notices, guidance documents, funding agreements, programs, and policy statements” relevant to the EOs.
Within 10 days of the report (20 days after the January 29 memo), all operating agencies and the OST shall “initiate all lawful actions necessary to rescind, cancel, revoke, and terminate all DOT orders, directives, rules, regulations, notices, guidance documents, funding agreements, programs, policy statements, or portions thereof, which are subject to the relevant executive orders and which are not required by clear and express statutory language.
This new policy memo updates standards for policies, programs, and activities to “maintain reliance on rigorous economic analysis and positive cost-benefit calculations,” setting forth the following policy principles:
USDOT grantmaking, lending, policymaking, and rulemaking shall be “based on sound economic principles and analysis supported by rigorous cost-benefit requirements and data-driven decisions.”
Grants, loans, policies, and rules must have benefits that outweigh costs. While the EPA updates estimates of the social cost of carbon, the methods used to estimate the value of changes in greenhouse gas emissions from agency actions are reverted to guidance issued in 2003.
Asserts that DOT-supported programs or activities (including grants and loans) shall not be used to further local political objectives or projects that “are purely local in nature and unrelated to a proper Federal interest.” [“Local in nature” or a “proper Federal interest” is undefined.)
USDOT should support projects and goals that:
Utilize user-pay models. [This is not defined but could refer to anything from congestion pricing, road tolling, to having EVs pay into the Highway Trust Fund. This was mentioned in the Mandate for Leadership’s Department of Transportation section. However, President Trump has voiced opposition to congestion pricing.
Mitigate impacts on families and family-specific difficulties, and give preference to communities with “marriage and birth rates higher than the national average, (including in administering the Federal Transit Administration’s Capital Investment Grant program).
Recipients of DOT support or assistance are prohibited from imposing vaccine and mask mandates. [It is unclear if this applies to past, existing, or future mandates. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have one form of vaccine mandate or another, particularly for public school students. In terms of mask mandates, there are no statewide mandates currently.]
Require local compliance and cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement and “other goals and objectives” specified by the President and Secretary.
Finally, this memo directs USDOT to update all Notices of Funding Opportunities, grant agreements, loan agreements, and program documents, etc. to comply with this memo. [Updating open funding opportunities at the beginning of a new administration is common.]
What's happened so far and, when?
January 20, 2025:
President Trump signs the following executive orders:
These EOs sought to undo environmental justice, climate, equity, and electrification-focused Executive Orders made during the Biden administration and Civil Rights Act-era equity Executive Orders dating back to President Johnson in the 1960s.
Federal employees whose work relates to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have been placed on leave, and web pages on accessibility and whistleblowing have been removed. We anticipate even more employees and resources will be targeted in the coming weeks.
The EO 14154: Unleashing American Energy singles out the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure grant programs to pause the disbursement of funds, but due to imprecise wording, the order paused all funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act programs.
These Executive Orders are significant and have been referenced in memos from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT). These memos call for identifying and eliminating funding agreements and programs that were out of line with the policy outlined in these orders.
January 21, 2025:
OMB released a new memo, M-25-11, to “clarify” the scope of EO 14154: Unleashing American Energy. However, the memo references a section in the EO that was unclear about which specific programs or policies the administration meant to cut.
This memo effectively paused all new obligations to existing, appropriated programs, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program, the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI), and even technical assistance provided under the Thriving Communities Program and Reconnecting Communities Institute was halted.
Late in the evening, OMB circulated the M-25-13 memo to all agencies, calling for a pause in all federal disbursements, profoundly confusing federal employees, Members of Congress, and recipients of federal funds and services from the federal government.
January 28, 2025:
OMB sent agencies an expansive spreadsheet in a PDF to grade every federal assistance listing (including defunct ones), requiring unspecified employees in the federal bureaucracy to justify the work conducted under specific programs and ensure they were not advancing equity, climate mitigation, or anything amongst a list of policies the Trump administration objects to.
Amidst significant confusion about the implications, objections from Congress’s majority, and one looming court-ordered pause out of two parallel legal cases (in the federal courts of the District of Columbia and Rhode Island), the Trump administration’s OMB pulled the funding rescission memo.
However, comments from White House Press Secretary Leavitt and other actions from the administration demonstrated that they would continue to pursue the end goals of the memo through agency actions.
These actions included a stop-work order for the Road to Zero Coalition, which funds safety efforts from seat belt use and truck safety to police enforcement and safety education. It was launched under the Obama Administration and continued through the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration.
USDOT Memos: Following Secretary Sean Duffy’s confirmation to lead USDOT, the agency released two policy memos with potentially far-reaching implications for projects underway today and how the agency will approach projects during the administration.
January 31, 2025:
The Rhode Island federal judges overseeing a suit brought forward by 22 states and DC issued a temporary restraining order to force an end to the administration’s funding freeze.
However, agency-issued stop orders were not lifted and new ones were put in place.
February 3, 2025:
The Department of Justice responds to the Rhode Island Judge’s Temporary Restraining Order and asserts that the executive branch has the authority to continue implementing the Executive Orders outlined above. The Trump administration continues to direct agencies to halt disbursements and the obligation of funding that goes against the administration’s new policy objectives.
What might happen next?
Based on the memos and timelines set forth by inaugural executive orders, the following dates may be of importance going forward.
February 6, 2025:
New unelected and unappointed political operatives in USDOT are expected to begin identifying specific programs, policies, and projects for elimination following the memos issued by Sec. Duffy on his first day in office.
February 8, 2025:
USDOT will submit a written report identifying all policies, funding agreements, programs, etc., that conflict with the President’s broad executive orders. This deadline was set by the “Woke Rescission” memo.
Within 10 days of the submission of this report, the USDOT will initiate all lawful actions necessary to rescind, cancel, revoke, and terminate all USDOT funding agreements, policies, guidances, etc, out of line with Trump administration policies and executive orders.
Considering the administration’s interpretation of what is lawful, it is unclear to what extent active projects with obligated funding and authorized programs are at risk.
February 18, 2025:
February 18 marks the deadline for the elimination of USDOT funding agreements, policies, guidances, etc., that are out of line with Trump administration policies and executive orders, per the “Woke Rescission” memo.
April 20, 2025:
This date marks 90 days of the temporary freeze initially announced on January 20. This date was not referenced in OMB memo M-25-13 or in policy memos released by USDOT. There is no indication that this would be the end of any planned pause for funding disbursement or obligation.
Though transportation has often bridged party divides, just two weeks into President Trump’s second term there are numerous signs that this trend may shift. As General Counsel for USDOT during Trump’s first term and a current Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Steven Bradbury has made clear his dislike of public transportation, clean energy reform, and pedestrian safety efforts. His key role in authoring Project 2025’s Chapter 19 on transportation helps clarify his views on American transportation.
President Trump’s choice for Deputy DOT Secretary authored the transportation section of Project 2025, which calls for ending federal support for transit projects, Vision Zero, and fuel economy standards. Photo courtesy of Transport Topics.
Hostile towards transit
While DOT’s mission is to connect communities, increase accessibility, safety, and promote mobility choice, Bradbury has called for the opposite. In Project 2025, he proposed completely abolishing all federal funds for new transit and major improvements or expansions. Abolishing transit Capital Investment Grants (CIG) would cut billions from major transit agencies across the U.S. and hobble efforts to build new transit, expand transit, or make substantial core improvements to existing transit. It is interesting, however, that he has not called for the end of federal transit formula funding. Still, the demand for expansions and improvements is likely to grow, as transit usage is finally growing post-pandemic.
Transit is already severely underfunded, particularly compared to highways, yet Bradbury wants to “move away from using the Highway Trust Fund to prop up mass transit.” Never mind that the Highway Trust Fund has been subsidized by all taxpayers with general fund dollars to the tune of more than $275 billion since 2008. While motorists benefit every day from subsidized roads, he seems to think transit riders should not receive the same treatment.
Electric vehicles are in his crosshairs, too
Bradbury has attacked all things emissions-regulating, launching an attack against electric vehicles. He criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s “radical EV goals,” claiming Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which aim to lower emissions harmful to health and the environment for new cars, will only force lower-income families to drive older, unsafe cars.
The claim that older cars are dangerous is an old argument that was more true before safety regulations put into place 15 years ago requiring backup cameras and high crashworthy standards. It also seems to ignore the danger caused by brand new SUVs and trucks with huge front blind zones and hood heights so tall that crashes hit pedestrians in the head and chest making them 45 percent more likely to kill.
He seems to think speed is more important than safety
Despite the number of people killed while walking increasing 75 percent since 2010, he wants to abolish Vision Zero as a federal policy, calling it an approach “actively seeking congestion for automobiles to reduce speeds.” T4America’s top priority is Safety over Speed, whereas Bradbury wants to “refocus the FHWA on maintaining and improving the highway system.” Apparently, “improving” does not include safety improvements. (We wonder what his position would be on creating a requirement for states to spend formula dollars on repairing their roads and bridges before making costly expansions?)
USDOT has already shut down the National Safety Council’s Road to Zero program on the grounds that it violates one of President Trump’s executive orders, though it is unclear which one. This administration has been focused on ending vehicle efficiency, diversity, climate and environmental justice programs, but this is the first piece of evidence that USDOT may view saving lives as a partisan cause. 1
While Bradbury won’t be running USDOT, his appointment to this top post is a decent signal that we should expect to see USDOT either slow down or completely halt all grants for new transit projects (ramping up what we saw in the first Trump administration), an assault on electrification overall, and every effort made to roll back any modest improvements on prioritizing safety.
Last Wednesday (Jan. 15), former Congressman Sean Duffy faced questions from the Senate Commerce Committee, tasked to vet the next Transportation Secretary. Here are three things T4America gleaned from the hearing as opportunities for working with Secretary-designate Duffy.
While it’s difficult with almost any eventual USDOT Secretary to try and anticipate precisely how they’ll choose to run the department, these confirmation hearings (and the nominee’s record to some degree) can help give a rough sense of what they care about before they are confirmed. And the limited amount of time to prepare in this specific case might mean that this hearing is more of a look at Duffy’s priorities and interests rather than revealing what he may be directed to prioritize by the president and the executive branch.
As one example of how these differences are already emerging, Duffy responded to questions about future spending under the infrastructure law (the IIJA) by pledging to follow that law and see those funds spent. Yet, on day one of the Trump presidency, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at suspending all IIJA funding for 90 days. (This could be challenged in the courts, as those spending decisions are determined by Congress and existing law.)
It won’t be clear for quite some time what the Trump administration wants to accomplish in transportation—which appears to be farther down their list of priorities. But with that in mind, here are three areas where some doors could be opened to collaborate or work with USDOT over the next four years.
1) Safety
Mr. Duffy strongly affirmed his desire to leave a legacy at USDOT on safety. We suspected this could be an area where he brings a strong interest due to his personal connection to the issue: His wife Rachel was critically injured in a traffic crash years before they were married, he was on an Amtrak train that crashed in West Virginia that killed a truck driver, and has frequently spoken about safety issues.
Questions from the committee touched on various safety issues, from autonomous vehicles, to passenger and freight rail (including the issue of blocked railroad grade crossings impeding traffic and emergency response), and briefly on active transportation safety. On that note, Duffy said he would be willing to explore and engage in advancing and eventually implementing the Sarah Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act, which would make changes to the federal Highway Safety Improvement Program to help spur states to build and complete protected bike and pedestrian networks. Mr. Duffy even spoke about the need for proactive federal rules on autonomous vehicles that would focus on safety, which is not the direction Congress has tried to go in over the past few years. With roadway fatalities continuing to rise, despite advances in vehicle safety technology and innovation that the committee spent extensive time on, this area could be an opportunity to work with the incoming USDOT Secretary. Automated vehicles should not be tested without greater transparency and safeguards. With a legacy emphasis on safety, Secretary-nominee Duffy also provides an opening to focus on addressing existing standards for the nation’s roadways that are inherently Dangerous by Design and need to be fundamentally reworked.
2) Multimodal transportation investments
Members from both parties of the committee raised issues that touch on a wide spectrum of different modes of travel, including passenger rail, the resilience of public transit operations, and rural community connectivity.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) reminded Mr. Duffy that he is up to “be the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, not just the Department of Cars.” Mr. Duffy expressed support for a multimodal transportation point of view, in addition to supporting a robust and innovative automotive market that is inclusive of electric vehicles. (This is another area where differences with the President are already emerging: the President is trying to reverse incentives and mandates for electric vehicle adoption.)
Senators Baldwin (D-WI) and Duckworth (D-IL) also highlighted the need for Mr. Duffy to not forget and integrate the mobility needs of 70 million Americans with disabilities, who may be mobility, cognitive, vision, or hearing impaired. Light on details, Mr. Duffy did repeat on multiple occasions the need to support a transportation network that facilitates consumer choice. This leaves room for advocates and others to help USDOT understand their charge to promote safe and efficient movement of all Americans, regardless of ability and the community they live in.
3) Transparency and streamlining
This could be one of the areas of common ground for making much-needed reforms to the (arduous) process of how transportation projects get approved and built—especially transit projects—and how much they cost. Nearly every Senator touched upon implementing the 2021 infrastructure law and other related congressional mandates, project delivery, the NEPA process, and how to speed up efficient and cost-effective transportation projects. Over and over we find transportation projects held up over onerous permitting and review processes, which rightfully slow down highway boondoggles, but also hold up solid public transit and zero-emission mobility projects. There’s a dire need to shake up the status quo to streamline beneficial community-led projects and hold back projects that divide by design.
Senator Fischer (R-NE) requested that Duffy tackle the issue of guidance consistency, when USDOT headquarters says and interprets a policy or guideline, then FHWA division offices use unique, creative interpretations of the same policy or guideline. Senators Cruz (R-TX), Capito (R-WV), and Cantwell (D-WA) requested firm commitment for transparent delivery of information to the committee, especially on how USDOT is evaluating projects for discretionary programs and program effectiveness.
A constant concern from transportation stakeholders has been if existing infrastructure laws would be undercut by the incoming administration. Mr. Duffy has indicated he intends to abide by congressional mandates and laws if confirmed as USDOT Secretary. There is an opening to engage Secretary nominee Duffy on the standardized reporting, oversight, and efficient use of federal transportation dollars.
Looking ahead
Mr. Duffy is likely to enjoy a relatively smooth confirmation process. With the next surface transportation reauthorization looming, Duffy’s USDOT will be charged with helping Congress understand what can or should be changed with the overall transportation program to produce better outcomes. While it will take some time for their agenda to emerge, these openings in safety, multimodal transportation investments, and transparency revealed in Mr. Duffy’s confirmation hearing could provide some possible pathways to make a substantial impact on U.S. transportation.
January will bring in a new presidential administration and a new Congress for the run-up to the reauthorization of the country’s transportation law in 2026. Though uncertainty prevails as power and leadership shifts in Washington, there are a few things we’re expecting to see in 2025. Here are five:
1. Trade groups will assemble their (typical) wish lists for the 2026 reauthorization
If you can believe it, we’re already nearing the end of the “infrastructure law” passed by Congress in November 2021. The five-year Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) will expire on September 30, 2026, so the incoming Congress will hold hearings and develop a proposal for the bill to replace it. That means that the big-monied machine of trade groups and interest groups, which count on perpetually increasing federal infrastructure dollars, are already spinning up their efforts.
You can already see some of their letters calling for more funding for the same programs and same results. In the new year, the transportation policy/funding “wish lists” will start to emerge from groups spanning the spectrum from old-guard trade groups like the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which represents the interests of state DOTs, to groups like the American Highway Users Alliance (founded by GM!), which are primarily interested in building more highways in all places. (Your grandkids can worry about the maintenance.)
AASHTO is already halfway through their timeline for the next reauthorization though one can already predict what they’ll be asking for in the next five year authorization, as it’s changed very little:
More money distributed to state DOTs through guaranteed formula programs
More flexibility to states in how those funds are spent
No requirement to produce any particular outcome — no reward for performing well and certainly no punishment for doing poorly
To be fair, our platform is pretty simple too, but instead of focusing on money, ours is focused on common-sense outcomes that have broad and significant support from the people who depend on our transportation network: Stop expanding at the expense of repair, make safety the actual top priority, and prioritize investing in the transportation we’ve neglected for over 50 years.
Unlike a platform of “give state agencies more taxpayer money without any accountability,” our priorities have broad support with the taxpayers who cover the full cost of this program…which brings us to #2.
2. Without further giveaways from taxpayers, the transportation trust fund will inch closer to insolvency
The most important thing to understand about funding for transportation is that the bedrock idea of “the user pays” for the transportation system through fuel or gasoline taxes has been dead for a long, long time. The federal program currently spends ~$20 billion more per year than the gas tax brings in. Because the gas tax has not changed for more than three decades as the fuel efficiency of vehicles has improved and inflation has reduced purchasing power, the highway “trust fund” has stayed solvent only because we have taken more than $280 billion in extra tax dollars from all Americans since 2008—whether they drive or buy gas or not.
This is why the Congressional Budget Office currently projects that in 2028 the federal government will only bring in enough funding for the Highway Trust Fund to cover a fraction of the transportation program authorized in the IIJA. And it’s why the first thing you’ll hear Congress (and most transportation industry groups) talking about in 2025 won’t be policy, or outcomes, or accomplishing anything specific with this $500B program. Instead, the reverberating refrain will be the need to “find more money.” (We’ll have more on the trust fund in a future post but this short explainer by the Peterson Foundation is a great place to understand the history and where things currently stand. But notice that the cities they list as the most congested are some of the best places.)
The two bookend options for addressing this structural imbalance are:
Scale the program down to the size of what the gas tax brings. This second option has been suggested before, including a 2014 proposal by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and 28 Senate Republicans to defund the nation’s transportation system—except for a small interstate maintenance fund—and leave it to states to make up for the lost funding.
3. Transit could face significant cuts (only partially because of the looming insolvency)
About 20 percent of the federal highway trust fund goes to transit each year. This 80/20 split was conceived during the Reagan Administration in the 1980s as part of a compromise to raise the gas tax. To get support, a deal was made to devote a portion of the increase to transit and provide stable support. (Imagine a day when members of Congress and advocates would demand bold change in policy and approach before they supported more funding for the existing program.) This funding split has become the historical practice, supported in a bipartisan fashion over the years. But not always.
When the Republicans controlled the House during the Obama administration in 2012, they proposed addressing a funding shortfall for highways by kicking transit out of the trust fund for what eventually became the MAP-21 two-year authorization law in 2012. T4America organized opposition from an enormous spectrum of more than 600 groups, from chambers of commerce to labor, and the proposal was abandoned in the face of bipartisan opposition when it was clear it would fail on the House floor. (However, MAP-21 was only two years long instead of the usual five because there wasn’t enough support for the additional deficit spending needed to cover a longer bill.)
There certainly could be a similar proposal in the next year, though it’s worth noting that this idea did not resurface during the last Trump administration.
Another possible development is a repeat from the first Trump administration: using their authority to call for needless and repetitive studies or analysis to slow down the process of awarding transit funds, costing local communities millions in delays (all while calling for relaxation of federal community protection regulations to speed highway projects). A different Congress could also certainly decide to cut the funding for expanding or building new transit, which is almost entirely discretionary rather than protected like formula programs.
(This was our progress report on awarded transit funding a year and a half into Trump’s first term—less than a third sent to projects in the pipeline.)
4. Changes to competitive grant programs
Every administration puts their own stamp on discretionary programs by choosing who/where to award them within the criteria created by Congress. For example, during the last Trump admin, the RAISE program shifted toward projects that states could fund but had deprioritized (largely rural road projects and fewer multimodal projects) rather than encouraging more innovative and multimodal projects. This will almost certainly be the case once again.
There has also been some chatter about de-funding some competitive programs in the next Congress, many notable ones are likely to survive as T4America Director Beth Osborne notes in this Q&A with David Zipper from November:
Switching toward highways, Project 2025 proposes terminating competitive grant programs like RAISE that allocate billions of dollars to state and local governments for high-priority projects. How realistic is that?
I don’t think Congress will let the Trump administration get rid of competitive programs, because legislators get so much credit for that spending. Federal formula programs just go to the states, and the states do what they want. But for the competitive grant programs, Congress gets a notification about new awards, and they have three days to do whatever event around them that they wish. Basically, Project 2025 was suggesting that Congress never get credit for federal spending in infrastructure again. Maybe that sounded good to the Heritage Foundation, but there’s a lot of Project 2025 that is divorced from the reality of how anything happens in the real world.
Some are also concerned that grants announced but not locked in by a grant agreement or obligated (meaning legally committed) could be revoked. The Trump Administration might try to do that for grants to projects they don’t support. But to do that, they would have to let the Congressional delegation know that a project they likely announced is now being taken away.
Congress could also look to unobligated funds to pay for the next transportation bill or a tax bill, and this has happened in the past with unspent earmarks. But generally this has occurred only after communities have had many, many years to spend their funding and it has become clear that they are unlikely to get their projects into the ground. One risk is that a Republican Congress decides to defund a program, like the passenger rail program, by saying the funding isn’t moving and needs to be put to a different priority that can use that money now.
5. Administrative actions will stop and change
USDOT has a lot of latitude to create and enforce rules and regulations to improve the effectiveness and safety of the transportation system, so it’s reasonable to expect that many good existing or pending rules will be shelved or reversed.
First, NHTSA’s proposal to create new requirements to finally consider the safety impacts of larger vehicles on people outside of the vehicles is almost certainly not going to be finalized. It will either be pulled completely or weakened. Second, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards which require more efficient vehicles will likely be frozen or even rolled back. (There are already a number of loopholes which allow automakers to trend toward larger, fuel-inefficient trucks and SUVs.)
And third, while companies are currently testing autonomous vehicles with almost no oversight in several states, we could see a resuscitation of the AV Start Act (read our archives here), the industry-led move to codify that practice into law nationwide. That would usher in widespread testing of autonomous vehicles across the country with almost no guardrails to ensure their safety, no requirement to collect and report data on their performance, no notifications to the public about when and where those tests are happening, and no oversight other than the voluntary oversight of the manufacturers and testers.
There will certainly be some negative developments over the next two to four years that we will need to organize and fight. And some hoped for actions that will not come to pass. But anyone who thinks that Republicans seizing control of the presidency and Congress means only a destructive reauthorization in 2026 fails to understand that past few reauthorizations—including the IIJA—that caused plenty of damage were fully supported by the majority of Democrats and how programmatic changes were put in place by the Biden administration over the last 4 years (check out Fueling the Crisis; additional analysis that will be out in the next few weeks). As we said during negotiations over the IIJA, Democrats and Republicans regularly join forces “to undermine their own goals for the sake of ‘bipartisanship,’ consistently passing bills that make U.S. transportation inefficient, expensive, unsafe, unsustainable and in poor condition. They both favor flexibility and deference over accountability for good outcomes and guaranteeing the taxpayer a good return for their investment.”
There will almost certainly be some negative developments ahead but on the whole, expect the same status quo to prevail. Which is not good news either.
Ask anyone at a state department of transportation, and they’ll tell you that safety is their top priority. Despite these good intentions, our streets keep getting more deadly. To reverse a decades-long trend of steadily increasing pedestrian deaths, state DOTs and federal leaders will need to fundamentally shift their approach away from speed.
7,522 people were struck and killed while walking in 2022, an average of more than 20 deaths per day. These numbers represent the harsh reality many Americans see on a day-to-day basis: in most places across the U.S., there are few options to travel safely and comfortably outside of a vehicle. When that’s the case, a simple walk to school, work, or the grocery store can mean risking injury or death.
Some of the deadliest roads in the nation are state-owned—often wide, high-speed roadways that place an emphasis on vehicle travel, even as they cut through places where people frequently walk, bike, or roll. However, design changes on these deadly roadways often face pushback from state DOTs—even when those same DOTs claim that safety is their number one priority.
There is a logical disconnect between the way our leaders describe the goals of our roadways and the way our roadways are designed. Despite the stated goal of safety, engineers’ actual top priority is moving cars quickly—as evidenced by measures and models like value of time and level of service.
Years of research have shown that when roads are designed for vehicles to drive as quickly as possible, there are serious consequences for the safety of all other travelers. Yet the same design changes that would improve safety also come up against barrier after barrier to progress.
The change we need from state DOTs
The unfortunate reality is that our traffic engineers have been taught for decades that most problems can be solved with wide, high-speed lanes. Changing that thinking requires a real culture shift, starting at the very top. State DOTs require strong leadership and support to tailor projects to a well-defined problem and evaluate the outcomes of their decisions.
A willingness to rethink old models and reckon with the fact that the go-to solution hasn’t solved many of our transportation problems can go a long way in bringing about a safer travel environment. The good news is that alternative solutions are out there—if state DOTs are willing to give them a try. A select number of state DOTs have already started to implement change by, for example, navigating opportunities to utilize a Complete Streets approach on rural highways or trying out a quick-build demonstration project to boost engagement.
The typical approach to designing our roadways has left safety behind. We can’t curb the danger with more of the same. Going forward, state DOTs will need to think outside of the box to protect everyone traveling on their roads.
Our federal leaders have to be part of the solution
Guidance and regulations from USDOT often set standards that prioritize high-speed vehicle travel, but these same regulations also allow state DOTs to make safer choices if they wish. Unfortunately, practitioners at state DOTs don’t always seem to know they have this flexibility, and even if they are aware, they face additional barriers if they want to use it.
When state DOTs use extra time and effort to overcome these barriers and test out a new safety feature, this gets no notice from the federal government—even if it results in improved safety. In fact, if a state DOT does nothing and allows more people to die on their roadways, that DOT receives the same level of funding and attention as those making effective safety improvements. This creates a system where it is far more practical to maintain the deadly status quo than it is to implement proven safety methods.
Recently, our colleagues at Smart Growth America wrapped up a series of technical assistance projects to build partnerships between local communities and state DOTs and advance safety on state-owned roadways. T4A Director and VP of Transportation and Thriving Communities Beth Osborne reflected on the experience:
We’ve heard through our years of work, including most recently with participants in this program, that state DOT staff often feel left on their own to determine whether a non-traditional safety treatment they may like to try out is permitted by USDOT…even if it has a proven track record of improving safety. There is a great opportunity for federal leaders to work with states, local leaders, and safety and public health partners to foster and support more learning through demonstration projects with proactive new guidance.
For state DOTs to truly prioritize safety over speed, system-wide change is necessary—and they can’t do it alone. USDOT can help by providing affirmative guidance that promotes safety strategies that actually achieve results. Future legislation must also hold states accountable for choosing safety over speed.
It’s Safety Over Speed Week
Click below to access more content related to our first principle for infrastructure investment, Design for safety over speed. Find all three of our principles here.
It will take years to unwind decades of dangerous street designs that have helped contribute to a 40-year high in pedestrian deaths, but quick-build demonstration projects can make a concrete difference overnight. Every state, county, and city that wants to prioritize safety first should be deploying them.
Ask anyone at a state DOT, and they’ll tell you that safety is their top priority. Despite these good intentions, our streets keep getting more deadly. To reverse a decades-long trend of steadily increasing pedestrian deaths, state DOTs and federal leaders will need to fundamentally shift their approach away from speed.
Our roads have never been deadlier for people walking, biking, and rolling and the federal government and state DOTs are not doing enough. If we want to fix this, we have to acknowledge the fact that our roads are dangerous and finally make safety a real priority for road design, not just a sound bite.
While we might have the most extensive highway infrastructure in the world, the U.S. is delivering pitifully poor results compared to our peers when it comes to cost, efficiency, emissions, and safety. What can Congress and USDOT do to invest in the rest?
Under federal transportation policy, funding for highways greatly outpaces transit. Worse, it is hard to overstate how little of total funding has been allocated to building sidewalks and bike routes. For Americans who are unable to drive or lack regular access to a car, the lack of alternative options has very real consequences. In addition, when we fail to invest in opportunities to walk, bike, and take public transit, communities lose out on the wide-scale benefits these options provide. Multimodal transportation investments that make transit and walking more practical options for people promote ecologically and fiscally sustainable options for economic development.
Our system today costs us much more than we think, with poor outcomes for all users, including public health and climate outcomes, which have a disproportionate impact on Black and low-income communities historically marginalized from transportation decision-making. We continue to invest in road capacity expansions as our go-to strategy to alleviate congestion or drive economic growth, despite proof that this strategy does not work. As a result, cities remain locked in a Sisyphean strategy that continues to leave us stuck in traffic, even after COVID-19, with more remote work options than ever.
Across recent major bills, federal investment in highway programs has vastly outpaced investments in transit.
Instead of continuing oversized investments in the bloated federal highway program that fail to deliver results, the next transportation reauthorization bill needs to invest in the rest to build a world-class, multimodal transportation system. Here are some steps Congress and USDOT can take to get started.
1. Fix the data
We need quality data to make quality decisions. Transportation generates plenty of opportunities to collect data, from vehicular speed and throughput to how many miles of bike lane are being built. However, ensuring data quality matters much more than raw quantity of measures alone. While we have plenty of data-oriented solutions and measures to advance and plan specific transportation projects, the data underlying our system is full of holes.
Right now, it’s difficult for policymakers and advocates to determine how we are spending our money and to identify the actual effects of spending trends. Critical performance measure data tracked by the Federal Highway Administration can take years to update or be presented incomplete, missing data entirely. But even quality data is insufficient when we interpret it through the same old flawed processes that take us to the same old conclusions that lead us to the same bad outcomes.
We need better information to make better decisions at the federal, state, and local levels. Practitioners should have access to tools that effectively model and account for induced demand, land use changes, greenhouse gasses, and access to jobs and services in ways that can inform investment decisions away from strategies that have not worked in the past. Current and planned transportation investments should be reported on a more standardized basis in order for state advocates to understand where their funds are actually going.
2. Better utilize federal programs
The transformative investment levels required to provide a world class transportation system won’t be met with small, individual discretionary grant programs alone. The real workhorses of the federal transportation program—the Surface Transportation Block Grant and National Highway Performance Program—often provide a significant portion of federal funds for states to invest how they see fit, which almost always means building more roads. Spending on new road capacity is delivering diminishing returns and should be rededicated to opportunities to take public transit or walk, bike, and roll.
Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), there are many programs available to create more transportation options. However, finding and applying for these funds can be a strain on communities. Congress should consider consolidating the number of programs and expanding the size of smaller programs that provide funding access for local communities to address local safety, access, and resilience priorities. In implementing these federal programs, USDOT should streamline grant applications for smaller localities and jurisdictions while continuing to provide specialized assistance and relevant application information for lower resourced communities.
3. Fund transit operations, and use funding to boost frequency
When properly supported, transit provides immense value to communities and users from all walks of life. Unfortunately, transit has received significantly less support over the years compared to highway projects.
In order to unlock the transformative economic, climate, and equity benefits that transit can bring to a region, transit service needs to be frequent and provide access to jobs and services. We can do this by helping to fund transit operations and structuring federal grant programs to provide a pathway for transit agencies to reliably increase service and frequency to get people where they need to go.
Pairing the above with walkable, denser development around transit and a method to raise revenues that captures the value transit brings to a region could help advance investments in building out our transit systems, making them even more valuable resources.
4. Build out the passenger rail network
The IIJA is proving to be a launchpad for a passenger rail revival in the United States. There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way. However, as projects develop, there’s still much more work to be done and it takes a long time to bring a train up to top speed. If we want to build off our successes, reauthorization should ensure that we don’t stop building our rail network commitments now. Continuing our investments in national connectivity, and service is the best path forward to a strong national rail system. Learn more about how federal leaders can help advance passenger rail here.
The stakes
Congress and USDOT can play a major role in supporting a multimodal, world-class transportation system. Providing a floor for consistent investment in transit and active transportation infrastructure will be vital in ensuring that every American can reach their destinations safely, conveniently, and efficiently.
It’s Invest in the Rest Week
Click below to access more content related to our third principle for infrastructure investment, Invest in the Rest. Find all three of our principles here.
While we might have the most extensive highway infrastructure in the world, our system is delivering pitifully poor results compared to our peers when it comes to cost, efficiency, emissions, and safety. What can Congress and USDOT do to invest in the rest?
Last week, Transportation for America joined organizations and advocates nationwide in the Week Without Driving challenge. During this week, all Americans, including transportation practitioners and policymakers, are encouraged to travel without a car, allowing them to experience local barriers to walking, biking, and taking public transit firsthand.
For decades, federal highway funding and funding for all other types of transportation (public transit, opportunities to walk and bike) have been severely unbalanced. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, pedestrian deaths, and traffic, the Department of Transportation must invest in more transportation alternatives.
In testimony to the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Beth Osborne explained how our current approach to transportation is failing average Americans and what steps need to be taken to build a system that responds to taxpayer needs.
Beth Osborne addresses the House T&I Committee on July 24, 2024.
Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne was invited to speak before the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee today during a hearing on the United States Department of Transportation’s regulatory and administrative agenda. In her testimony, she highlighted that current federal investments are failing to achieve their intended results, arguing for stronger accountability for the American taxpayer.
“The point is that federal spending and what we get for it is not regulated nor is there much oversight. There is very little transparency into where funding is allocated and there is rarely a report on whether a project delivered any of the benefits that were promised.”
—Beth Osborne
She also noted that the few regulations that are in place are slowing innovation, particularly for safe streets. Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design report found that pedestrian fatalities reached a 40-year high in 2022, concluding that designing for safety over speed would help save thousands of lives. However, street design engineers at the state and local level regularly cite federal rules and standards as the reason they cannot narrow lane widths, add color in the roadway, or slow traffic speeds.
Every five to seven years, our nation’s leaders funnel more taxpayer dollars into our transportation system, hoping that this time more money for the same old approach will lead to different results. Each and every time, they have been proven wrong. As transportation emissions rise and deaths on our roadways increase, accountability to the American people is long overdue.
By mandating emissions tracking and target setting, the GHG Emissions Measure addresses an urgent need for climate action. And while this popular rule is an important first step, its success hinges on immediate and effective action at the state and local levels, which would signify a shift towards a cleaner, and greener, transportation landscape.
The United States Capitol building. (John Xavier via Flickr)
On November 22, 2023, the Department of Transportation released the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Measure rule, requiring state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to measure and report their transportation-associated emissions, as well as set targets to lower these emissions. This rule is long overdue, with a period of public comment on the rule having closed over a year ago in October 2022. More than 60,000 comments were received by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), with comments in favor outweighing those opposed by more than 3,000 to 1, demonstrating overwhelming support from government agencies, and transit and advocacy groups, for progress on emissions reduction.
What does this mean for state DOTs and MPOs?
With the passage of the rule, all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are mandated to measure GHG emissions associated with on-road mobile sources on the National Highway System (NHS) within their geographic or planning area boundaries. Additionally, state DOTs will need to establish 2 and 4-year emissions reduction targets, and MPOs will need to establish 4-year targets. State DOTs are expected to submit their first targets on February 1, 2024, signifying the administration’s endorsement of an aggressive and rapid policy rollout in the right direction. Both state DOTs and MPOs will need to consistently provide updates to report their progress in meeting their targets.
The GHG rule expands on important work in setting declining GHG emissions targets that already exist and has been implemented in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Crucially, the new rule provides a national framework and recommended method that standardizes how emissions should be calculated. A uniform calculation methodology allows for consistency across the board in emissions data that is currently produced and will be produced, and the ability to uniformly compare progress through timely updates.
State DOTs and MPOs are awarded a high degree of flexibility in setting their own declining GHG targets and pathways for achieving them, allowing alignment with their respective policy priorities. This also means that there is no incentive to set competitive targets, and there are no penalties imposed for failures to meet these set targets either. While the rule brings sunlight to progress on emissions targets, the absence of an enforcement mechanism implies that it may not drive substantial action in shifting the status quo.
Moreover, it is important to note that the emissions mandated for tracking and reporting by this rule pertain only to travel on the National Highway System (NHS), not all roads. As of 2020, the NHS represented only 5.3% of total mainline miles of roadway in the US. By solely focusing on NHS-related travel, more than 46% of the total vehicle miles traveled in the US are overlooked.
From awareness to action
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is channeling historic amounts of federal funding into states for transportation projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Among its programs is the Carbon Reduction program which provides funding for state projects focusing on carbon emissions reduction. These dollars hold unprecedented potential for investment in transportation projects that create climate-resilient and reliable transit networks. However, there is also the possibility that this money may continue to be invested in highway widening projects, leading to the opposite outcome of actually increasing emissions. Constituents deserve to know that their taxpayer money is going where it needs to go.
The new law arms the public with an important advocacy and transparency tool to assess whether the administration is fulfilling its promise of delivering on sustainable and equitable transportation options. This accountability encourages states and local leaders to align their work with their constituents’ goals and prioritize projects accordingly.
Confronting the climate crisis demands urgency. Changing climate conditions across the country are increasingly threatening the connectivity, efficiency, and safety of our transportation systems, impacting communities’ abilities to access daily necessities and get where they need to go. With adverse weather events impacting reliable service and recently witnessed air quality crises, the administration could not afford to delay decisive action any longer.
The science on this has also never been clearer. The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasizes the unequivocal need to implement transformative change in the transportation sector. The transportation sector is the largest source of GHG emissions in the United States, and aligning climate goals with transportation agency goals is pivotal to moving closer to achieving the nation’s ambitious net-zero goals. Ultimately, the GHG performance measure should pave the way for more aggressive and ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation policies.
The GHG rule is not a silver bullet
T4A’s director, Beth Osborne, wrote in our statement on the rule that “these decisions have benefits beyond reducing emissions, like providing people with more opportunities to travel outside of a car, which enhances safety and mobility.” It is important to remember that achieving climate targets and creating equitable communities hinges on breaking free from car dependency. Electrification and vehicle efficiency, on their own, will not lead us out of the climate crisis. Our report, Driving Down Emissions, underscores the importance of accounting for factors like induced demand and shifting away from car-oriented land use in efforts to reduce emissions.
The GHG rule is a valuable, first step on a long path towards ensuring climate accountability and transparency in our transportation system, but we must continue to capitalize on this momentum to ensure that our transportation agencies move in the right direction. While we applaud the release of the new rule, it is evident that we need immediate and effective implementation and investment in greener forms of transportation, if the law will have the much-needed impact it intends.
The GHG emissions measure will require U.S. states and territories to measure and report transportation-related emissions on federal roadways.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 27) — Last Wednesday (11/22), the Biden Administration released the U.S. Department of Transportation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) rule. The rule requires all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, to track greenhouse gas emissions associated with travel on the parts of the National Highway System that lie within their boundaries and sets a unified standard for reporting emissions.
Transportation is the leading contributor to GHG emissions in the U.S. and the performance measure is an important first step to advance climate goals by bringing sunlight to states’ progress on emissions targets, allowing states and MPOs to better align their work with climate goals, and demonstrating to policymakers and taxpayers what they are getting for their transportation investments.
“We thank USDOT for its leadership in requiring states to measure GHG emissions from transportation,” said Beth Osborne, Director of Transportation for America. “Because transportation is responsible for nearly a third of climate emissions nationwide, and as much as half in some metro areas, determining the impact of transportation investments on climate emissions is essential for understanding how well the transportation system is performing. It is hard to think of a way that states could participate in a solution without articulating the current problem and setting targets for achieving them.”
“This rule is a crucial first step toward climate accountability in transportation and very simple for the states to implement, but we must go further by investing in public transportation and location efficiency to allow people to reach the things they need without being forced to drive more and more each year,” continued Beth. “These investments have benefits beyond reducing emissions, including public health benefits and providing people with more opportunities to travel outside of a car, which enhances safety and economic mobility.”
“Transportation for America stands ready to support the rule’s implementation and we look forward to continuing to advocate for increased transparency and aggressive climate change mitigation policies and investments.”
This GHG rule is final and is now in effect. The first milestone requires State DOTs to establish and report targets on February 1, 2024, necessitating a rapid rollout and immediate implementation measures from federal and state governments alike.
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Transportation for America is an advocacy organization made up of local, regional, and state leaders who envision a transportation system that safely, affordably, and conveniently connects people of all means and ability to jobs, services, and opportunity through multiple modes of travel. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America.
The predicted traffic levels on which transportation planners base their decisions are erroneous and rooted in obsolete methods. Here’s how transportation models fail to accurately predict future traffic, and how you can call out their misuse.
The 26-lane Katy Freeway in Houston had worse traffic after its widening than before. Were the traffic models wrong? Photo: Wikimedia Commons
You’ve seen it before. A state DOT claims they must widen a highway through your community to reduce congestion and accommodate future traffic. The transportation agency points to traffic projections that we all take at face value. They might even claim that widening the highway will improve traffic flow thereby reducing emissions. You don’t want the highway widening in your community, but what can you do in the face of experts saying it is necessary and pointing to data that “proves” their case?
Transportation agencies use transportation models to predict future traffic and plan the roadway system accordingly. But the underlying algorithm for these models was developed in the 1980s when the computers in use were less powerful than today’s smartphones. Due to this past limitation in computing power, travel demand models use a simplified approach that doesn’t accurately represent how people make travel decisions.
T4America experts collaborated with our partners to look inside the black box of transportation models (also sometimes called travel demand models or traffic models). We submitted a memo to the US Department of Transportation asking them to apply more accountability to agencies using these models to correct them.
Some of the transportation models’ specific flaws
The proof that transportation models are failing us is plain to see in the long term trends. Over the last 20 years, congestion has increased in every single U.S. metropolitan area regardless of how much they’ve expanded their highways and regardless of whether their population grew or shrank.
In what way have transportation models misled us? It largely has to do with the underlying approach which is too simple, chosen because of limited 1980s computing power. Transportation models use a Static Traffic Assignment (STA) algorithm which is a sort of snapshot in time of how much traffic is on each roadway in a region at a given moment. This static algorithm is problematic, since people make decisions on different factors every day, often in the moment. People are dynamic not static.
What’s more, STAs do not properly account for bottlenecks, or constrain forecasts based on roadway capacity. No roadway can ever carry more cars than its maximum capacity, any more than a coffee mug can hold 110% of its coffee capacity. Yet agencies routinely and confidently make claims like, “without this expansion, the roadway will be at 110% capacity.” If you point out that a roadway can’t handle more cars than it has capacity for, they say that extra 10 percent is “latent demand.” In other words, they are certain that there’s exactly 10 percent more cars and trips out there that must be served.
We call this induced demand—demand created by the new road itself—a concept those same agencies often claim doesn’t exist. (But which the public absolutely understands, as our brand new national polling shows.) By trying to sell the project on all that “latent” demand, they can claim a traffic nightmare if nothing is done without admitting that the project will actually create more traffic—and more greenhouse gas emissions, fine particulates, etc. [USDOT and the Environmental Protection Agency support that approach for some unfathomable reason, never asking if the models used to justify federally funded projects have been right.]
In reality, as congestion increases toward that 100% capacity mark, people make different travel decisions, change their routes, choose to travel at a different time, use a different mode or choose a closer destination to fulfill the same need. If there is a crash, people delay their trip or consult Google maps and choose a different route. But transportation models using the STA approach unrealistically assume people will blindly keep driving a congested roadway, no matter what is happening or how long their trip will take.
Not only does the model assume no changes in behavior, but it will also output results that show drivers stuck at one bottleneck, while simultaneously allowing them to magically pass through that one to also be stuck at another bottleneck downstream.
Compounding these issues, planners rarely, if ever, look back at their past work to see if their predictions were correct. Did the traffic materialize? We’re stuck with decades-old models that are never tested or upgraded to reflect reality, as shown here:
This graphic from the Frontier Group combines past federal projections of future growth in vehicle miles traveled. Every year a new optimistic projection was made that ultimately didn’t pan out, but they kept on predicting the same thing.
How to question your region’s model
We’re hopeful that USDOT will eventually provide accountability to upgrade the state of practice on transportation modeling, but you can also ask questions about the transportation models used to promote road widenings in your community. Here are some things you can ask your local transportation planners to illustrate the flaws of using transportation model results to justify road widenings:
Does your model use Static Traffic Assignment?
What is the maximum volume to capacity in your model runs, and how is that realistic? (If they give a volume over 100%, ask how a road can carry more than its capacity. And ask if latent demand will fill the new capacity they are building then what good will this investment do?)
How does your model account for dynamic changes in commuting patterns, responses to crashes, or the threshold at which people shift to other modes?
What is your protocol for evaluating the accuracy of your past traffic projections and using that to improve upon the model? Where is it published?
Getting our transportation models to better reflect reality will help planners make better decisions about where to invest our tax dollars. Calling on USDOT to upgrade standards for transportation models, and calling out their misuse locally in the meantime will help us turn the corner to more sensible improvements to transportation in our nation.
Residents of Fowler, CA assess current conditions along State Highway 99 and Golden Street Corridor, which did not receive a Reconnecting Communities grant in the first round of funding. Photo credit: CalWalks and safeTREC
In March 2023, USDOT announced the initial 45 awardees for the opening round of the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program. This first-of-its-kind program represents the start of a new series of initiatives that confronts the legacy of inequitable infrastructure projects in the US and will (un)pave the way for the Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant program created in the Inflation Reduction Act. But to meet the needs of communities, the USDOT needs to expand its vision and scope of funds available.
This illustration was produced for T4America by visual artist Jean Wei. IG/@weisanboo
435 communities applied for the first round of the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program (RCP), despite the fact that only $195 million in funding was available. To put this in perspective, the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grants (MPDG) program received about the same number of applications for nearly 15 times the funding ($2.85 billion). If those numbers are anything to go by, we can see that the demand from communities to fix divisive transportation infrastructure far outstrips what even the largest discretionary grant programs could garner. This is especially true when formula funding, which dwarves discretionary funding, continues to perpetuate the very issues the Reconnecting Communities Pilot seeks to resolve.
That demand comes from a diverse array of applicants. The Reconnecting Communities Pilot program received applications from 51 states and territories, from smaller communities like Phenix City, Alabama, home to less than 40,000 people, to large cities with millions of residents like Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
With that variation in size came variations in resources. We know some of these project applicants, like the grant-winning recipient Reconnect Rondo, hosted accompanying websites and social media pages managed by activist community partners, boosting the strength of application narratives. On the other end of the spectrum, two individuals applying to the program accidentally gave their own names instead of the name of the city that the grant would apply for, a sign of the difference in preparedness for the competitiveness of this grant program.
Who were these applicants? USDOT has done great work releasing outcome information in this first year of the program, and we acknowledge their efforts to release the name and state of aspiring applicants. However, we are still missing crucial information to assess how funding has been distributed and lack information on 21 applicants. T4A has requested more data from USDOT, including the individual census tracts used to assess each community as disadvantaged according to the Justice40 initiative.
In the meantime, we conducted an analysis of every applicant at the county level using data from EJScreen, the EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening tool. Though this method has limitations, it allowed us to learn more about the applicants, even those who did not receive awards and a profile from USDOT, across a variety of environmental and social measures. See the below map of applicants, with successful applicants marked in green and unsuccessful ones marked in red:
While it may be difficult to quantify the social costs of divisive infrastructure, the costs to physical health remain apparent. Including those who did not receive an award, RCP applicants had on average lower air quality, higher risk for cancer, lower income, and higher rates of unemployment than the typical American community according to EJScreen data. Many of these communities are severely marginalized, and may only be able to heal if we increase RCP funding to meet demand.
Among these many applicants was Stillwater. Stillwater is a smaller city in Oklahoma, and like many communities in the United States, highway infrastructure has left its mark on the community. Two state highways cut through the city’s downtown, creating dangerous barriers to people walking or biking in the city. In an attempt to undo the damage and support its status as a growing active transportation hub, Stillwater applied for an RCP grant to plan for a new pedestrian bridge over State Highway 51 and create a new active transportation map to connect the city and increase protections for vulnerable road users.
Current conditions along State Highway 51 place pedestrians dangerously close to fast car travel. Source: Stillwater, OK Corridor Plan
Further west, Fowler is a small agricultural city in California. CA State Highway 99 and Golden State Boulevard cuts diagonally across Fowler, preventing access to almost half of the city. The community applied for an RCP grant to better connect the community across the highway. Fowler is located in Fresno county, which has some of the worst air quality and pollution in the nation.
Edinburg, Texas applied for a planning grant to convert a high-speed, arterial-style road into a Complete Street. The road, which requires children to walk across a nearly 80-foot-wide unsignalized crossing, runs adjacent to neighborhoods, a playground, and an elementary school. According to EJscreen data, Edinburg’s county has some of the country’s worst cancer-causing air pollution and has a higher proportion of people earning under the federal poverty line than 84 percent of the country. 101 of 113 census tracts in the county were identified as disadvantaged according to Justice40 metrics.
The outsized demand for the Reconnecting Communities Pilot and widespread community interest in the program’s unique mission is a sign that the pilot has been a resounding success. But with current levels of funding, the RCP will not be able to meet the massive scale of community need. Instead, USDOT should increase funding for the Reconnecting Communities Pilot and the Neighborhood Access and Equity Program to meet this historic demand.
But competitive grant programs cannot be communities’ only recourse to restore community links. Funding for the Reconnecting Communities program would have to expand by an order of magnitude to meet the demand from hundreds of qualified communities. The approach to funding these types of projects needs to change on a system-wide level, and there’s no better way to fund these projects than through formula dollars. Almost 90 percent of Highway Trust Fund funding goes to formula programs, and states have vast flexibility in how formula dollars could be used. Most, if not all, reconnecting communities projects would already be eligible under existing formula programs. States should take the opportunity to use formula dollars to reconcile the legacy of damaging transportation infrastructure, rather than repeat past mistakes.
Eligible communities have an opportunity to apply to Smart Growth America’s Community Connectors program to help prepare for the next round of competitive Reconnecting Communities grants and other funding opportunities.
This morning, the Biden administration announced the first awards for the Reconnecting Communities Program. $185 million will fund 45 projects designed to address harms caused by divisive infrastructure. In response, T4A director Beth Osborne released the following statement:
“We commend USDOT for this commitment to reconnecting communities, a brand new concept for federal infrastructure dollars. The first round of awards is an encouraging list of projects to repair divides across the country, from Alaska to Puerto Rico, and in communities large and small, opening the door for greater economic opportunity and safer travel.
“With 435 applications received, there is clearly a huge demand for funds to repair and reconnect divides caused by harmful infrastructure projects. There are a wide variety of efforts listed, including removing highway ramps, turning high-speed roads into safer streets, highway redesigns and caps, and pedestrian tunnels. With such a range, the success of these projects will be an important lesson for future awards. With just $1 billion available over five years, the administration will need to continue to think carefully about which projects will maximize the program’s impact. Only six projects received capital funds for substantially advancing a project—signifying both the challenges in planning and advancing these projects, and the sheer limitations of the available funding.
“USDOT said today that reconnecting communities is not just a program, but a principle. USDOT will need to use every dollar and tool at their disposal to advance that principle which is being undermined by other state and metro transportation projects advanced by last year’s infrastructure law. Even as this modest but welcome $185 million will advance some exciting projects to restore communities, states are right now planning billions on projects that can further divide and segment communities. The Reconnecting Communities Program should be the tip of the spear for ushering in a new paradigm for the rest of the federal transportation program.”
USDOT has finally added more substance to their plan to implement the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative. Despite some questions about how many programs can meet Biden’s goal of spending 40 percent on disadvantaged communities, the projects and programs they’ve moved toward Justice40 suggest a real effort to improve equity.
Back in May, we wrote about Executive Order 14008, signed by President Biden a week after his inauguration to establish an initiative known as Justice40. This is the administration’s effort to fulfill Biden’s campaign promise to direct “at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.”
At the time, we identified two main concerns with Justice40’s upcoming implementation. First, because over two-thirds of the money that USDOT distributes is through formula funds, we were worried that USDOT didn’t actually have the ability to direct 40 percent of its investments to disadvantaged communities. Second, we were concerned whether the concentration would actually help those communities, especially given what happened the last time the federal government concentrated transportation spending within marginalized communities.
Now, based on information that USDOT has released shedding light on their plan to implement this policy, as well as a webinar the agency conducted on November 17, 2022, we have a much clearer picture of how much money will be subject to Justice40 and what projects it may be used to fund.
One word worth tens of billions of dollars
USDOT stated in its webinar that it plans to apply Justice40 to approximately $204 billion of funding, which is slightly more than the sum total of its discretionary funding as authorized in the 2021 infrastructure law (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA). However, based on the list of covered programs, over one-fifth of that is formula funds over which the agency has questionable control.
For example, the Carbon Reduction Program and National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program together have just over $11 billion authorized by the IIJA. Both of these programs require states to detail how they plan to spend these funds before receiving them. If USDOT wants Justice40 to apply to these programs in more than name only, it could threaten to withhold funds from states with inadequate plans. However, this muscular implementation strategy would result in substantial political backlash and possible legal challenge.
Similarly, the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program has some statutorily-required set-asides that the IIJA also mandates benefit “disadvantaged communities or low-income communities.” However, this set-aside is significantly less than 40 percent of the program’s total funds. This calls into question whether the department will actually be able to apply Justice40 to this and other less-prescriptive formula programs.
These discrepancies extend to the whole Justice40 umbrella. The 39 programs seem to be authorized at $20 billion less than the agency claimed in its webinar. By either estimate—ours or USDOT’s—the department’s Justice40 targets are tens of billions of dollars below 40 percent of surface transportation spending. This may explain why the department’s language defining Justice40 in its webinar changed to “that at least 40 percent of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities” (emphasis ours).
Some of the right funds in most of the right places
Thankfully, how the money going to Justice40 communities is being spent is much more promising. This starts with defining the disadvantages a community must face to identify as a Justice40 community. The agency focuses on six criteria—transportation, health, environment, economic, resilience, and equity—to inform these decisions.
Within transportation, the focus will be on addressing transportation access, health, environmental, economic, resilience, and equity disadvantages. Overall, this is an excellent set of priorities. The one thing worth watching is how one criterion within transportation access disadvantage is interpreted: percent of total population with a drive time to employment greater than or equal to 30 minutes.
First of all, a 30-45 minute commute is pretty standard and not generally seen as a disadvantage. Second, the only mode with a time focus is driving, while transit trips tend to be much longer creating a much bigger disadvantage to those impacted. And finally, this kind of measure has typically been used to justify the same old highway expansions that are at least as likely to create problems for disadvantaged populations. It is just one factor of many, but this is one area where the administration could improve and lead the way in modernization by using a multimodal access measure.
Thankfully, the other five criteria of disadvantage more than make up for this. Access to jobs and services, as opposed to travel time, is mentioned in both the health and economic categories. The environment criterion focuses on “pollutants and poisons,” and equity criterion highlights shared communal discrimination and oppression, much of which can be tied directly to highway infrastructure. Together, these criteria imply that Justice40 funds will go to the right places.
USDOT also considers benefits and burdens beyond just dollars and cents in its five impact areas: safety, jobs and economic competitiveness, resilience, access, and emissions. In both safety and emissions, increased speeds and traffic volumes are identified as burdens. Reducing congestion and improving traffic flow are even listed as ways to introduce these burdens. In at least one part of USDOT, it seems that the 1970s-induced fear of idling’s impact is finally in the rearview mirror.
The jobs and economic competitiveness category speaks to the focus on increasing the vitality of communities, even linking air quality to economic competitiveness. By even mentioning access, but expressly describing division of a community as a burden, the agency’s entire effort to implement Justice40 is imbued with the spirit of the new Reconnecting Communities Program.
Still, there are places to improve. Construction impacts are described as a burden without discussing different types of construction impacts. Building improvements for transit or active transportation is disruptive, but they are temporary compared to the permanent disruption of many highway projects. In addition, the resilience category rightly mentions judging a project’s ability to withstand an accelerating climate crisis. But, adjudicating whether an individual project would help speed up said climate crisis—such as by entrenching emissions-intensive modes of transportation—could ensure that Justice40 doesn’t fund projects that sow the seeds of other projects’ destruction. Furthermore, these drawbacks don’t change that USDOT conceives of benefits to communities as more than lines in their local and state DOTs’ balance sheets.
But the agency also seems set to ensure that they are actually able to deliver said benefits. Whether or not they control all of the funds they claim to, the programs they apply to Justice40 are overwhelmingly climate-friendly and community-connecting. Nearly one-fourth of the funds the agency will apply the initiative to are for rail programs. The covered Federal Highway Administration programs aren’t ones that easily allow for building more lanes: CMAQ is explicitly dedicated to VMT reduction and the Congestion Relief Program has many eligible applications that will be looked upon favorably given the agency’s definition of benefits and burdens. Especially important is the $30 billion under the purview of the Federal Transit Administration, given the disproportionate reliance of historically underinvested-in communities on transit. Choosing programs like these means the investments being made in Justice40 communities will be good for equitable access to economic opportunity, public health, the climate, and quality of life.
Infrastructure Week becomes implementation years
According to the agency’s website, these targeted infusions of resources are “not a one-time investment.” Making information about grant programs more accessible and creating tools developed to help communities bolster their applications to these programs are two efforts that reflect this desire to lower administrative burdens far beyond the end of a Biden administration.
Justice40’s long-term impact will be most greatly influenced by state capacity. For decades, planning capacity in the United States has slowly atrophied, like soil during a drought, with significantrepercussions. This means that when Congress rains new resources down as it has with the IIJA, DOTs are unable to take full advantage of it. This can be seen even at the federal level: methodical steps taken by staff since the very week the initiative was announced still haven’t covered new formula programs like the Carbon Reduction Program, about a fifth of authorizations.
Fully implementing this initiative was always going to take years, and USDOT’s webinar acknowledged that transportation policy will continue past the IIJA, detailing ways that states and MPOs can include Justice40 principles in their longer-term plans. When combined with the types of projects that will likely be delivered, this has the potential to make the initiative transformational for U.S. transportation policy. However, whether it is a one-time investment, whether resources make it from the balance sheets to the streets—whether Justice40 becomes runoff or soaks deep enough to change how communities across the country move through their day-to-day lives—depends on each state’s capacity and commitment to the goals of the initiative.
Beginning in November of 2023, Vulnerable Road User (VRU) safety assessments will be required as appendices or addendum to Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSPs). While the goal of these assessments is to strengthen the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), recent federal guidance falls short on addressing dangerous road design.
In the United States, pedestrian deaths by vehicles are at an all-time high, rising more than 50 percent between 2010 and 2020. Change is needed—in road design, in policy, and in policy implementation. Thanks to the highly touted 2021 infrastructure law, there is funding available for improvement, but only if states are willing to budget for safety.
Since 2005, states have been required to set safety measure targets. These targets are intended to help states monitor their progress on road safety, but they face two central issues. First, states can set rising fatality targets—so if fatalities go up, they’ll still be considered “on track.” Second, states don’t face any significant penalty for failing to meet a target. In other words, a state can set a goal to have more traffic fatalities than they had last year, and they face no punishment if traffic fatalities go up even higher than they expected.
In October 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released guidance on requirements and recommendations for the Vulnerable Road User (VRU) Safety Assessment.The guidelines are meant to assist states in developing design-focused infrastructure improvements. In comparison to the more general requirement of measuring safety targets, the goal of VRU assessments is to specifically address reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries on roads that are particularly dangerous for vulnerable road users.
While the guidance is a step in the right direction, limits on data requirements and potential funding streams to implement change will likely hinder the impact of the policy.
Connecting VRU safety assessments to traffic fatalities
The guidance requires states to analyze roadway characteristics in order to identify high-risk areas. Two of the roadway characteristics that must be reported are speed and roadway classification. (Roadway classification relates directly to speed—you’ll never see a freeway where the speed limit is 15 mph, and you’ll never see a residential street where the speed limit is 65.) These are important components of crash data, because the higher a vehicle’s speed, the more likely a crash will end in a fatality.
The guidance also requires reporting demographic information—race/ethnicity, income, and age—of the population surrounding the crash area. Fatal crashes disproportionately impact communities of color, the elderly, and low-income individuals, but these impacts are often underreported. If collected effectively, states will be able to more fully consider not only where traffic fatalities occur but who the traffic fatalities impact. An additional category, disability, would further the effort.
In addition to the VRU safety assessment requirements, the FHWA recommends including data such as surrounding land-use patterns, the presence of sidewalks, and the presence of transit stops. These three data references speak to the importance of street design as it relates to pedestrian safety. For example, walking a mile to a bus stop along a busy street without sidewalk access is significantly more dangerous than walking a block on a wide sidewalk.
Projects for high-risk areas
The guidance requires states to propose projects to improve conditions faced by road users in high-risk areas. Complete Streets projects, for example, are proven to reduce safety risks for all street users—pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and transit riders. Another example of a project aimed at improving road safety for all users is a Road Safety Audit (RSA). The FHWA works with state and local jurisdictions, as well as tribal governments, to conduct RSAs. With guidance and the resources to back it up, jurisdictions do not have to figure out how to meet this requirement on their own.
What’s missing?
Roadway design has a clear impact on safety. Factors like width, multiple lanes, traffic control at intersections, and the presence of crosswalks all play a part in whether or not drivers speed—and make fatal mistakes. Yet the current guidance does not require states to consider the layout of the road.
This guidance also fails to provide direction on where to seek funding for safety projects after an assessment is conducted. For example, local public agencies have access to formula funds through the FHWA. States receive 60 percent of their federal highway dollars from the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP). This massive source of funds can and should be used to address designing roads for safety. The Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) is another readily available resource, comprising one quarter of the federal money sent to states.
Vulnerable road users have the right to expect safety, but by ignoring key design elements, the guidelines fail to provide this. States need to critically assess infrastructure design flaws—and the extent to which they disproportionately impact vulnerable road users—so that funding can be directed towards necessary remedies.
The bottom line
The specific requirements set forth under the new guidance are an overdue upgrade in reporting on vehicle and pedestrian crashes. However, the guidance falls short by failing to require data collection on key safety factors. To address the ongoing crisis of roadway fatalities, states would benefit from more direction, including information on how to access and use their available funds to advance their safety goals.
