A year ago today, huge crowds poured onto the platforms at every stop along Amtrak’s Mardi Gras service to celebrate its inaugural ride. This week, the service is set to hit 150,000 riders—more than double the original projections for its first year.

Along with easier travel and improved access across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, the line has brought economic benefits on and off the train for individuals and their communities. For Americans facing rising oil prices and a broader cost-of-living crisis, the $35 average fare for the Mardi Gras service can serve as a convenient and affordable alternative.

Fares produced $5.2 million in ticket revenue in the first year of the Mardi Gras service. And thousands of responses from Amtrak’s Customer Satisfaction Survey show that customer satisfaction is 96 percent when trains run on time, and stays above 82 percent even when there are delays outside Amtrak’s control—perhaps helped by a glass of prosecco, one of the train’s best-selling items. 

David Clark, president and CEO of Visit Mobile and Southern Rail Commissioner, said the Mardi Gras has proven that any initial concerns about potentially delayed trains or poor performance that could drive down ridership were wrong. The Mardi Gras momentum seems to only be growing, with the line celebrating serving 100,000 riders in just eight months of service this April. And its high ridership doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

“The naysayers would say when we get another few months down the road, [ridership is] going to cool off, because the only reason [for strong numbers] right now is that it’s new,” Clark said. “Now we’re a year later, and it’s still very busy, every route, every day.”

More visitors mean more business

Off the train, communities between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, are seeing economic returns from the service. In addition to providing an alternative for regular commuters, places along the route have seen more tourists—and with them, more business.

Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans & Company, the city’s tourism marketing agency, credited the line with bringing thousands of new visitors to New Orleans over the past year—Amtrak’s own count reports that 68,000 riders reached the city using the service—many of whom came from Mobile and other communities across the Mississippi Gulf Coast. 

New Orleans’ economy depends on connectivity, Leger said, but the new line is not just a win for his city. 

“The easier that we can make it for people to come into and connect out of our community, especially throughout the Gulf Coast, makes our whole region more competitive and creates economic opportunity for businesses and for people who live in our communities,” Leger said.

Leger said Mobile saw a nearly 18 percent increase in visitors—about 30,000 more people—and that this wasn’t the biggest increase in visitors among stops. Amtrak’s data reports that over the past year, more than 47,000 riders arrived in Mobile; about 12,000 arrived in Biloxi, Mississippi; nearly 8,000 arrived in Gulfport and Bay St. Louis, both in Mississippi; and almost 4,500 people got off the train in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Kay Kell, a longtime member of the Southern Rail Commission, spoke about renewed economic opportunity in Bay St. Louis, especially in its downtown depot district that once saw vacancies but is now full. New restaurants and even art galleries are seeing more business. 

“A lot of people had never heard of Bay St. Louis,” Kell said. “But we were the first stop, so [Mardi Gras passengers] got off in the beginning, and it’s kind of put us on the map.” 

Clark reported similar growth in Mobile, talking about restaurateurs who now see crowded lunch counters after the train comes into town at 11:30 a.m., and a local tour lead told him last month they’re sold out every weekend through October—largely due to business from Amtrak. 

Not just economic benefits

Both Bay St. Louis and Mobile greet each train and help passengers reach hotels and other nearby destinations. This makes it even easier for visitors—from across the region and the world—to experience the unique culture of the Gulf Coast. Ultimately, the value of bringing passenger rail back to the Gulf Coast isn’t just economic, but also cultural.

“It’s just a new way to travel,” Clark said. “There’s been a rebirth of an experience that’s been missing for a long time.”

The Mardi Gras is the latest example underscoring the broad benefits of investing in passenger rail and public transit down to the most local levels. As Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker put it at the time, “We couldn’t have done it without state, local, and federal officials—and ultimately, a realization that this was good for taxpayers and good for the economy.”

As Congress turns to the next surface transportation reauthorization, it should preserve existing national and regional passenger rail networks and improve service by investing in rail infrastructure, ensuring on-time service, and expanding access to operating funds for long-term support.

The post One year in, the Mardi Gras rail line is bringing broader benefits to the Gulf Coast region appeared first on Transportation For America.

Last year, more than 400 attendees joined us for 50 original sessions, with record numbers of TCamp first-timers and session proposals. We can’t wait to build on that momentum and make TransportationCamp DC 2027 even better.

Registration opens next month. Join the T4America email list to be the first to know when registration goes live and secure your spot!

Interested in sponsoring? Check out our sponsorship opportunities here.

About TransportationCamp DC

TransportationCamp DC is where transportation enthusiasts get together to share their ideas and map out new possibilities. As cities across the country work to reconnect communities divided by harmful infrastructure, pedestrian fatalities continue to rise, and new technology presents opportunities and challenges for the future of transportation, TransportationCamp is as important as ever.

An annual “unconference,” TransportationCamp is a time for advocates, practitioners, business leaders, professionals, students, and anyone else who might call themselves a “transportation nerd” to gather, share their ideas and perspectives, and take stock of where we’re going and how we got here.

At TransportationCamp, attendees steer the conversation by submitting, voting on, and facilitating breakout sessions on topics of their choice. Whether you’re interested in methods to reduce transportation emissions, bridge divides, or make our streets safer for all, join TransportationCamp to be part of the conversation!

Frequently asked questions about TransportationCamp DC

1. Why is it called an unconference? At TransportationCamp, every attendee has the opportunity to lead the conversation. Attendees submit topics for 50-minute breakout sessions and get to vote on what they want to discuss in sessions throughout the day, giving participants the power to create the experience they want to have.

2. Who should come to TCamp? Everyone! Advocates, practitioners, Complete Streets Champions, politicians, business leaders, and students are all welcome to join and learn from each other.

3. How do I submit sessions? Attendees will submit their session proposals the morning of Camp and have the opportunity to vote on what they would like to discuss. Come with your idea ready to go.

4. What do I need to know about leading a session? Sessions are fairly informal and often feel more like a conversation, so we recommend a casual, engaging, and inclusive approach. Each breakout room will have a projector and a connection to easily hook up your laptop and share your presentation. You can present on your own, but you can also propose something a little more assembled in advance, such as a panel with 2-3 speakers, potentially developed in partnership with a few other individuals or organizations.

5. What’s the schedule like? Expect a full day from 9-5. The room should open around 8:30 for networking and to propose breakout sessions until about 9:45 a.m. There’s a keynote (see speaker above) around 10 am, and then starting at 11, there are five concurrent 50-minute breakout periods across 9-10 different rooms, with a break for lunch after period 2. There’s typically a closing reception or happy hour (6 p.m. until) somewhere nearby in the District.

The post It’s official: TransportationCamp DC returns on Saturday, January 9th, 2027 appeared first on Transportation For America.

For decades now, Congress has provided funding each year—more than $4.2 billion per year during each year of the IIJA—to cover half or less of the costs of the capital improvements involved in building new transit service or dramatically improving or expanding existing service in communities across the country, with locals picking up the larger share of the tab. If your community is building a new light rail line, bus rapid transit expansion, or commuter rail, they have likely tapped this program. But since taking office, the administration has held the program hostage, failing to sign a grant agreement for a single one of the transit projects currently in the development process. 

Earlier this week, the New York Times took note and spoke to T4America and others about this unprecedented slowdown: (Gift link, we hope)

But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under the program, known as Capital Investment Grants. Large projects ready to enter the final phase of the program’s yearslong pipeline have stalled there. The administration also tried halting payments to the New York and Chicago projects, forcing courts to intervene. …“It’s hard to look at the last year and see anything other than a deliberate slowdown of these grants,” said Steve Davis, director of the advocacy group Transportation for America.

While Trump’s USDOT slowed down transit grants during his first term, a new wrinkle this time has been the Office of Management and Budget’s move to firewall the transit capital funds provided by Congress over the last two years and not “apportioning” them to USDOT so they can be spent.  “More than $7 billion hasn’t been obligated to any project,” wrote Emily Badger and Alicia Parlapiano for the Times. More than $5 billion of that total has been earmarked for next fiscal year, though that’s still no guarantee it would get spent—it would still have to be apportioned to USDOT once October 1 gets here.

The long and short of this move is that, even if USDOT wanted to sign a grant agreement for one of these transit projects and get it moving tomorrow, there’s a chance that they wouldn’t be able to because OMB is holding onto the money—USDOT simply doesn’t have the money in hand. Transit expert (and T4America alum) Sarah Kline told the Times just how shocking this new move is: “I have never seen a situation where the F.T.A. says, ‘Oh, we don’t need $5 billion because we’re not going to have projects ready for that.”

What’s the end goal here? 

A statement from FTA had the expected platitudes about these projects just working their way through the federal pipeline before being ready to sign grant agreements. But you don’t have to squint too hard to see the endgame: 

The first Trump administration proposed ending the program, and just last year, USDOT floated a proposal to end all federal funding for transit—which was quickly shot down by the top Republican on transportation in the House, who said “I’m just not interested.” And then just last week, USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to the Senate to put the administration’s transportation priorities to paper for a long-term replacement for the IIJA. Take a wild guess on one of their top priorities:

We propose eliminating the Mass Transit Account and consolidating all Federal fuel tax revenues into the Highway Account. This will re-establish a direct user-pays model and address the Fund’s looming structural deficit.

Considering all these data points, it’s not too hard to believe that they would like for Congress to end this program and shift the $2-4 billion in annual transit capital spending over to the highway side to “advance the president’s vision for a bold transportation future,” whatever that entails.

As we’ve noted before, if your primary goal is shoring up the Highway Trust Fund by eliminating all other spending in the federal program, you will completely erode the broad, bipartisan coalition required to pass a long-term transportation law. They could propose ending everything else other than highway formula programs, and you’d still need billions in deficit spending to cover a highway program that still wouldn’t be paying for itself.  Why support a deal when only the priorities of a small minority are included? And make no mistake, the support for transit is bipartisan. 

Whatever the reason these transit projects are frozen, the unfortunate reality is that it’s the people in local communities who are paying and will continue to pay the price:

And any unspent grant money is something tangible not built — a subway station without elevators for accessibility, a bus line without dedicated lanes for faster travel, a commuter rail that can’t carry enough trains.

H/t to Emily Badger and the New York Times for their work to spotlight this important story.

The post New York Times shines a spotlight on Trump’s transit intransigence appeared first on Transportation For America.

After we were lightly ridiculed inside and outside of the Capitol for consistently predicting that Congress was never going to get a new bill finished this year, you can nail that coffin shut on 2026 reauthorization: It’s not happening in this Congress. The House’s (bad) BUILD America 250 Act (we call it the BUILD Act) is not scheduled for a floor vote anytime soon, but even if a miracle occurred, the Senate is already working on an extension and would not consider it. Senator Shelly Moore Capito, who chairs the core Senate committee with jurisdiction, has already told reporters that the committee is working on text to extend the IIJA.

While it’s nice to (once again) be right, we can now ask: What will we see in that extension, and how long should it be? And most importantly, why should Congress keep passing extensions for the foreseeable future and refuse to negotiate on reauthorization?

Why and what is an extension?

One of the reasons we were so confident that Congress would never pass something before this year’s deadline was that doing so would have been completely unprecedented. They’ve simply never done it before! Extensions have happened every single time a reauthorization is facing an expiration in the modern era. Our Reauthorization 101 guide shows that the federal program has been operating on an extension literally a third of the time since 1997!

Originally due to expire in 2009, SAFETEA-LU was extended a mind-boggling TEN times for 33 total months before MAP-21 was passed to replace it in 2012. It’s notable that the same core issue Congress was stuck on back then—how to pay for a bankrupt transportation program that spends way more money than the gas tax brings in—is the same fundamental sticking point today.  

The reason for these past extensions is the same reason as today: To buy more time for negotiations and policy development because Congress couldn’t get the job done in the time allotted. But in this case, the issue will be punted to a new Congress in January.

The historical precedent is a “clean” extension

This is a phrase you’ve probably heard already. All this means is continuing existing programs at current year funding levels, with no major changes to the policy that Congress approved back in 2021 with the IIJA. No new major programs are created, nor are any existing programs repealed. Funding-wise, it’s basically a bonus year of IIJA, although with funding levels typically remaining at the same level as this current fiscal year, rather than increasing as they ordinarily do during each successive year of a long-term law.

The only major changes included in past extensions have been financing-related steps to transfer money into the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent for the life of the extension, which is almost certainly needed in this case.

There should be one exception to this precedent: Congress should include language that requires USDOT to restore rescinded grants and fully implement the programs and funding that they wrote into law in the IIJA. There’s a good chance that USDOT will just ignore any requirements Congress chooses to insert, just like they’ve already done with the IIJA. This is just more proof that Congress needs to force this issue and start complaining loudly and publicly about the ways the administration has undermined the bipartisan will of Congress. 

A new wrinkle in 2026: Advance appropriations 

One complicating factor that did not exist in past extension cycles is the novel mechanism Congress used in the IIJA called “advance appropriations.” This was a way for Congress to provide more money that would automatically become available in the future fiscal years of the IIJA, without requiring further action by Congress in annual appropriations bills. One example of this is the transit capital grants program that funds new transit. (Yes, the same one currently frozen by the Trump admin, which was covered this week by the New York Times.) In the past, this program would have funds “authorized” for it over the life of the five-year authorization law, but Congress’ appropriations committees would have to debate and approve money for that program each year. But in the IIJA, around a third of the total funding for transit capital grants was provided by guaranteed advance appropriations. Two-thirds of the historic $66 billion for passenger rail was also provided by this method. 

Extending the program for a year while potentially providing additional advance appropriations is definitely more complex than in the past, though it’s also still just another form of deficit spending, which is going to be required no matter what.

What now? Pass a one-year clean extension

When Congress is chugging along in the reauthorization process, with proposals moving through both chambers, shorter extensions could make sense to keep the pressure up and provide just enough time. But with just one chamber having passed a bill they should honestly scrap and forget about (The BUILD Act) and with an election looming just 33 days after expiration, that is not the context for this Congress. While many members will return,  reauthorization will ultimately be handed over to the 120th Congress, which will include scores of newly elected members. 

A year is the most prudent length to give the next Congress so that they have enough time to get seated and start their work, which will not get going immediately in 2027 as members will face a range of competing issues. A six-month extension would expire in March, giving them a ticking clock and almost certainly requiring another extension anyway.

Make it a year.

Forget about reauthorization—Congress should keep passing extensions

Yes, you read that right.

There is no deal to be made on a new long-term surface transportation reauthorization as long as this administration is failing to follow the existing law. Congress should keep passing one-year extensions of the IIJA until they see faithful implementation of the law by the administration and USDOT.

The administration is disrespecting both the intent of Congress’s bipartisan action on the IIJA as well as the American people and their local communities getting jerked around by USDOT’s unprecedented action to withhold or rescind funding for grant programs, delay (possibly indefinitely) all transit Capital Investment Grants, reinterpret grant-funding criteria, and weaponize programs like the Safe Streets for All program. Congress passes the laws; the executive branch implements them. USDOT is not, nor should it be, above that respect. 

Faithful implementation of IIJA would mean ensuring that authorized programs, competitive grant processes, and statutory requirements are administered according to the law and without unauthorized delay, reinterpretation, substitution, or withholding. 

We find it baffling that Congress—especially the Democrats and those leading the negotiations in the House and Senate—would choose to strike any deal to give this administration additional money when the same people are telling you loudly and publicly that they will not honor the full scope of whatever bipartisan deal you reach.  

Until Congress sees the full and faithful implementation of the IIJA, they should stay away from the negotiating table and keep extending the law one year at a time until there is an administration that can be trusted to implement the law as written.

The post Extend the IIJA for one more year—and potentially more appeared first on Transportation For America.

For 12 years, I served on the SRC, alongside fellow Mississippians Gil Carmichael and Kay Kell. At the time, the SRC was focused, disciplined, and dedicated to running new passenger rail, and in fact did so, including the Gulf Coast Limited in 1996 and 1997. But over time, the SRC lost its drive. Many of us left. But when John Spain began his term as an SRC commissioner, he brought with him a renewed purpose for the organization at exactly the right moment.

As a member of the executive committee, John made it clear that the measure of our collective success would not be another meeting or pronouncement, but actually running a new train. He was singular in that goal, and never lost sight of it.

Working alongside fellow commissioners Knox Ross, Greg White, and so many other dedicated commissioners and partners, John helped the SRC not only become one of the most effective regional passenger rail organizations in the country but also the model for future regional rail commissions and the powerful force for rail that it is today. The commission built relationships on Capitol Hill, in state legislatures, and with Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration, chambers of commerce, local elected officials, and anyone else willing to open the door. They asked boldly, advocated relentlessly, and never stopped pushing until passenger rail became impossible to ignore.

When Transportation for America was brought into this work years ago, we were trusted to advance a vision that many believed was still years away. As new staff joined our team, fresh-faced and enthusiastic, they found themselves immediately welcomed into a partnership defined by collaboration and ambition. John embraced each new face, recognizing that building a stronger movement meant investing in the people who would carry it forward.

The Southern Rail Commission wasn’t going to become more effective by doing more of the same. John understood that if the goal was transformational change, the organization itself had to evolve. Today, the Amtrak Mardi Gras Service stands as proof that persistence matters. What was once an ambitious vision is now a reality, carrying riders across the Gulf Coast, demonstrating that passenger rail remains a powerful tool for economic development, tourism, and regional connectivity.

As two passionate people, John and I sometimes butted heads, but I could always count on his tireless advocacy and absolute commitment to the cause. He believed deeply in the work, and he inspired others to believe alongside him.

John has recently retired from these efforts, and he will be sorely missed. The new Amtrak Mardi Gras Service is approaching its first full year of operation with significantly higher ridership than projected and the most positive on-board service in the nation. John fought for that, and he deserves our respect and admiration in doing so. He certainly has mine, and by John’s own measure, his service to the SRC has been a great success: He ran that new train.

The post John Spain’s lasting legacy at the Southern Rail Commission appeared first on Transportation For America.

Congress should extend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) for a year to keep the transportation funding moving, and then they should not even consider coming to the negotiating table on a long-term bill until past grants that are rescinded are restored, frozen transit capital projects are restarted, and ironclad protections are put in place to ensure that USDOT faithfully implements whatever Congress assembles—whether it aligns with the administration’s priorities or not.

During the surface transportation reauthorization process, Congress sets policies, priorities, and funding levels for multiple years to come. USDOT’s role is to implement the law as Congress has written it, which includes issuing regulations and managing grant programs. But Congress—not the Executive Branch—decides the nation’s long-term transportation policy, strategy, and funding. 

But these well-established roles have been upended by this administration. 

USDOT has shown blatant disrespect for the intent and allocation of Congressional funding from the IIJA since the Trump administration took office in 2025. 

USDOT has usurped Congress’s constitutional authority by withholding funding for projects and programs they oppose, delaying the Capital Investment Grants pipeline, killing research programs that they did not agree with, and reinterpreting grant-funding criteria to align with their agenda by weaponizing programs like Safe Streets and Roads for All by refusing to select projects that propose data-backed safety measures like new crosswalks, bike lanes, or lane configurations. Despite the courts saying that withholding congressionally appropriated funding is illegal, it is clear that the Executive Branch holds the fundamental belief that USDOT has unilateral discretion to determine how transportation funding should be spent, regardless of what the law says. Many of the specific priorities in Secretary Duffy’s letter for the next reauthorization align precisely with the ways the administration has already undermined the existing law on the books. This letter is another clear example of USDOT’s belief that if they disagree with a grant program that Congress codified into law, it does not need to implement it. 

The administration’s track record and this letter should be a clear signal to Congress that, even if members negotiate in good faith and preserve bipartisan grant programs, putting those good-faith negotiations into the next reauthorization bill will not matter—because there is no guarantee that USDOT will actually implement them. This letter is just a preview of how the administration plans to carry out whatever deal Congress may make on reauthorization: However they please. 

The Executive Branch’s audacity to intervene in this way signifies that we have reached the end of the premise of surface transportation reauthorization as we know it. Even if the Senate does the right thing and decides not to capitulate to USDOT’s requests, the damage has already been done. 

The question now is whether Congress understands what this means for their attempt to pass a new “bipartisan” transportation law.  If USDOT decides that it does not have to do what the law says, it begs the question of why members should continue to negotiate the law as though the old rules still apply.

Congress needs to decide between striking a deal that the administration will not implement, or waiting for proof that USDOT will faithfully implement the law before signing the next deal. This decision is more important than ever, because without assurance that the law will be followed, the bipartisan legacy of transportation is dead, and USDOT will have killed it.

The post USDOT letter shows it will likely undermine any bipartisan reauthorization deal appeared first on Transportation For America.

At the 2026 FIFA World Cup, sold-out stadiums full of incredible crowds obscured just how expensive, slow, and inefficient it was for them to reach many of those games. In many of the U.S. host cities, the tens of thousands of people attending each game reached their destinations despite our regressive transit options, not because of them. 

While this was the highest-attended World Cup in history, it certainly wasn’t the easiest to access for domestic and international travelers alike. One reporter walked for 6 hours in 90-degree weather to get from Penn Station in Manhattan to Met Life Stadium all the way out in the lowlands of New Jersey. 28,000 steps in the sweltering New York and New Jersey heat sounds daunting, but the alternative was purchasing train tickets with 700% markups, totaling $98.  Scotland fans saved over $85,000 by paying for 20 school buses to avoid using New Jersey Transit. 

To serve existing residents well, which has the by-product of becoming a desirable host country for international events, U.S. policymakers must create world-class transit through sustainable financing mechanisms and land-use reform. Bringing predictable, convenient, and affordable transit services on par with those of other host countries will help future international fans embrace our hospitality and return the United States to the cultural spotlight. 

How we got here

Since the U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup, over 30 years of surface transportation policy have yielded worse transportation outcomes. This year’s transit debacle was as predictable as it was avoidable. Federal policymakers embraced press releases but ignored the hard work of funding, planning, and enhancing transit operations at the state and local levels. While the Trump administration gave $100 million to aid World Cup planning, capital, and operations in 11 host cities in March 2026, that paltry last-second investment could hardly address the overwhelming fan demand or the years of improvements that were needed but neglected. 

Since winning hosting rights to this World Cup all the way back in 2018, host-city transit agencies have not received adequate federal support. Outside of emergency funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, the last eight years of federal transit funding have been lackluster. According to our own research in World-Class American Transit, to achieve world-class transit fleets in our 11 host cities by 2045, we would need about $36.22 billion for buses and $27.96 billion for rail. 

A better way to travel

Transit, in many instances, is the first impression of a city, and it is a rare opportunity to showcase technological innovation and shape our guests’ perception. We have seen a glimpse of what could be. Fans in Atlanta took 4.66 million trips on MARTA’s rail system during the World Cup, and Philadelphia saw a 20 percent increase in ridership on the Airport Regional Line before and after a match. Regrettably, challenges in New Jersey, Boston, and other cities overshadow those successes and others, leaving a poor impression on international sports fans.  

The Los Angeles (LA) Metro’s story was different, but it started years ago. LA Voters passed 4 sales tax propositions (Prop A in 1980, Prop C in 1990, Measure R in 2008, and Measure M in 2018). Together, these successful measures added 2 cents per dollar to the local sales tax, enabling the financial capital to start building regional transportation projects. In addition, Metro added an independent taxpayer oversight committee and tax receipts for each proposition, enabling community buy-in from key stakeholders. By pairing robust local revenue with federal investments, Los Angeles has laid the foundation for continued improvements long after the Olympics.

The city is finally seeing the return on its investment. While Inglewood isn’t as transit-accessible as Atlanta’s downtown stadium site adjacent to a heavy rail stop, LA created affordable direct transit services to SoFi Stadium, boosting ridership and connecting people to the downtown core. At $3.50, LA Metro provided 212,865 rides directly to and from SoFi Stadium without major disruptions. Fans treated LA Metro as an extension of the stadium experience, releasing collective energy into the air and injecting our nation with vibrancy. However, all of the economic activity and spirited energy wouldn’t have been possible without the transportation connectivity provided by the last few decades of intentional investment and the sound planning for special services for this summer. 

A blueprint for the future

The recipe for success is clear: articulating reasonable goals and committing to a world-class experience through multi-year strategic plans and sustained funding. After LA won the 2028 Olympics back in 2017 and the long-term financing mechanisms were in place, city officials had a financially backed master plan to support their international events. Sustainable transit funding at the state and local level is a start, but federal policy and investments must supplement it. Host cities cannot do this alone. 

With the 2028 Olympics on the horizon, LA Metro is fast-tracking multimodal expansion projects—though they face the obstacle of capital investment grants that have been completely frozen by the Trump administration, with several of their projects stuck in the pipeline.

While it will take a long time to see visible multimodal improvements, we cannot afford to accept government inaction. In the upcoming reauthorization, Congress can radically shift transportation policy so that both international guests and—most importantly—Americans of all stripes can utilize public transit effectively. 

Los Angeles has shown us a successful blueprint: financing long-term infrastructure with voter support, committing to a strategic regional plan, and having federal appropriations rapidly accelerate the process. After the World Cup gets all the headlines, most of the host cities go back to subpar transit service that fails to serve everyone else for the years in between international events. American “football” enthusiasts fell in love with World Cup soccer, and with enough care and investment, Americans will fall in love with public transit, too. If the United States wants to host world-class events, let’s plan to serve our residents’ transit needs each day, and we can have a system that is ready to shine when the world comes to town.

The post The World Cup put America’s transit systems to the test appeared first on Transportation For America.

Repair Priorities 2026 found that even though states now spend an average of 39 percent of their funding on road repair and 25 percent on expansion, according to data from 2018 to 2024, there’s only been a three percentage point decrease in the share of federal-aid-eligible roads rated in poor condition across the country. These spending priority changes aren’t seen in every state, and even those that finally made the shift continue to face a growing maintenance backlog that spending can’t solve on its own.

West Virginia: Investing in expansion to the point of insolvency 

The consequences of years prioritizing expansion over maintenance aren’t just crumbling infrastructure, but can even include fiscal ruin. That’s at least the case in West Virginia, where former Gov. and current Sen. Jim Justice’s Roads to Prosperity initiative was meant to boost the economy through new infrastructure. Not only did prioritizing expansion over maintenance allow more of the state’s roads to fall into disrepair, but it also left little funding to address future upkeep or changing road conditions, leaving its Department of Transportation in a state of insolvency.

Roads to Prosperity, funded through tax revenue and general obligation bonds, spent the majority of its funding—a whopping 97 percent—in the first seven years, even though its bonds will take 30 years for the state to repay.  That means the state now owes about $120 million each year in interest payments on those bonds, eating up funds that should go toward maintaining the roads that will fall into disrepair, in one of the largest state-owned highway systems in the country. 

(The state’s misspending was so severe that current Gov. Patrick Morrisey said that the federal government stepped in, warning that federal funds would be cut if the state didn’t change how it managed its highway system.)

Last year, Gov. Morrisey completely overhauled spending and culture within the state’s Department of Transportation, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing immediate needs and maintaining existing infrastructure over new investments. But West Virginia is still set to face significant challenges in the coming years. The state already ranks among the 10 worst for road conditions. Along with the 26 percent of its roads already in poor condition, Repair Priorities 2026 found that nearly 47 percent of its roads are in fair condition, meaning they’re at risk of falling into the former. 

Our report also found that West Virginia has one of the highest rates of bridges in poor condition across the country, but still spent more on bridge expansion than maintenance in 2024.

Michigan: Spending that can’t overcome its maintenance backlog

Even states that shifted their spending priorities earlier on are struggling to see better outcomes. Repair Priorities 2026 highlighted Michigan as an example of a state with “good spending” but “poor outcomes.” Even though it was the state with the seventh highest spending on road maintenance in 2024—putting 56 percent of its average annual spending toward road maintenance—the state’s road conditions still rank as some of the worst across the country, improving by only 7 percent since 2018. 

Just spending more money isn’t enough to deliver better outcomes. Spending must be thoughtfully directed toward preventative maintenance, which stops more roads from falling into poor conditions, requiring more expensive repairs, and adding to maintenance backlogs. Instead of this approach, Michigan has spent its funds on reconstructing its roads—a more intensive, expensive, and delayed repair strategy—leaving little funding left over to prevent more roads from falling into states of disrepair and later requiring similar treatment.

Michigan, which shifted its spending priorities a few years ahead of West Virginia, demonstrates that states that didn’t change their spending priorities fast enough now find themselves stuck with maintenance backlogs that are nearly impossible to spend their way out of. And the state’s approach to transportation spending doesn’t seem set to change anytime soon, since the current structure of state law still fails to consider how the state should spend its transportation funding.

Simply put, decades of poor prioritization continue to outweigh progress. It would’ve cost less to stabilize the system earlier, and now that construction and labor costs have increased and road conditions have worsened, the price of inaction is even higher. Michigan is one of 13 states confronting the challenges of repairing its roads once they have fallen into poor condition, even while increasing their spending on maintenance. 

States can’t just start spending on repairs—we need more states to allocate bigger, more concentrated funding to preventative maintenance as soon as possible. Congress can make states do just that by requiring them to dedicate funding to repairing and maintaining existing systems before building anything new, and to demonstrate they can afford to operate and maintain new infrastructure alongside what they already have.

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The Senate Letter is a step in the right direction

The letter, led by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), was released on June 3, 2026, and calls for the next surface transportation reauthorization bill to prioritize affordability, reduce political interference, improve roadway safety, and address the nation’s maintenance backlog. The letter provides a strong starting point for how the Senate should approach negotiations over the next surface program bill while calling out ongoing issues with the current administration’s implementation of the program. 

The letter’s first priority area spotlights political interference in transportation and infrastructure grants. Since January 2025, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) has not signed a single Federal Transit Administration-issued Capital Investment Grant (CIG) that provides full funding for a new metro, light rail, or bus rapid transit line. This isn’t a new strategy; in the first Trump Administration, there were also attempts to slow or stop transit capital expansion projects. 

The letter is clear: “Congress cannot have confidence in a final bill — even one that is bipartisan and negotiated in good faith — if the Administration is actively failing to implement the laws already in place.” This raises a vital question to the rest of the Senate: If we see that CIG cannot be implemented faithfully, why do we assume a future bill would be implemented differently, and why is there such a rush to pass a bad bill with only minimal “wins”?

The letter’s next priority calls for the next surface transportation reauthorization program to focus on safer transportation for all roadway users. The letter argues that a bill “must also ensure that states are reducing fatalities on their roads or else face requirements to invest federal dollars in highway safety projects.”

Why is this important? The United States has a traffic safety crisis, where the rate of roadway fatalities is much higher than that of our global peers. The letter also highlights that the burden of the roadway safety crisis falls especially hard on pedestrians, who experienced a 72 percent increase in fatalities from 2009 to 2015. 

The letter also acknowledges transportation’s role in the affordability crisis and is the second-highest expense for households, averaging $13,318 per household in 2024. The letter says, “Families deserve affordable options for daily travel, including transit, passenger rail, walking, and biking. By developing other ways to get around, families can save money on fuel, reduce vehicle maintenance costs, reduce insurance costs, and even avoid purchasing additional vehicles altogether.”

Finally, the letter recognizes the condition of our federal-aid roadways and how poor road conditions increase vehicle maintenance costs and lead to greater wear and tear on cars, arguing that “Focusing on road maintenance over road expansion is critical to reducing travel costs for American families.”

Priorities can turn into policy with real outcomes 

This letter shows that Senate Democrats are ready to create a federal transportation program focused on real outcomes—from addressing affordability to building in safeguards to ensure faithful implementation.

First and foremost, after a year and a half of stalled, canceled, and rescinded discretionary grants, the next transportation reauthorization bill must include airtight language to ensure that no administration can interfere with awarded grants based on their own politics or priorities. This can’t just be language stating “The Secretary may not terminate grant agreements”; it must include clear wording that, if grant agreements are not honored, there will be consequences, such as lawsuits and language to restore grants that have been interfered with. The Senate should not be eager to provide funds for an administration that has proven it will not always fully implement a reauthorization as intended. Without good-faith implementation, communities applying for grants will be undermined, and their trust in the transportation program will be eroded. 

Moreover, the Senate must ensure that the next reauthorization bill centers on proven roadway safety strategies that accommodate all road users, including drivers, pedestrians, bikers, and transit riders. The Senate has an opportunity to write policy requiring states and MPOs to set safety targets based on proven safe roadway design elements and to publish reports on traffic fatalities to increase transparency and direct investments to the most dangerous corridors. 

To help make transportation more affordable, Congress should invest in more rail, transit, and active transportation options so that households across the country can have cheaper alternatives to get to school, work, and access services. The Senate can invest in transit reliability by providing federal transit operating funds to improve service frequency and by providing robust, guaranteed funding for passenger rail projects. If more reliable and frequent transit options are invested in, households could save $750 annually in gas and vehicle maintenance and $1,300 in vehicle depreciation. 

Despite $1.5 trillion in federal transportation spending, the abysmal condition of our roadways has barely improved. Strong language in the Senate version of the transportation reauthorization bill must ensure that poor roadway conditions are improved and maintained. Reauthorization text must also include language that ensures any federal funding provided to states for expansion is contingent on demonstrating the capacity to operate and maintain those roadways over the long term. Finally, there must be both progressive targets set for federal-aid roadway repair and a cap on funds if these goals are not met. 

Until we can focus on outcomes, Congress must focus on a clean extension for surface transportation reauthorization

A clean, one-year extension (or a straight extension of the previous surface transportation law with no changes) looks increasingly likely as Congress approaches the August recess. Instead of attempting to force a status quo bill through a floor vote, Congress should focus on extending the current law for one year, which would also continue the funding provided by IIJA’s advanced appropriations, giving them more time to negotiate a bill that aligns with their stated priorities. Members should use the letter as a guide for what a pragmatic bill should look like to be accountable to the American taxpayer, be fiscally responsible, and aim for measurable outcomes. T4America applauds the leaders in the Senate for the letter, but the next step is to put those priorities into action. 

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One of the most common objections to repair-first transportation policy is that Congress cannot require states to prioritize maintaining existing roads before they build new ones. But why not?

As Congress works toward the next surface transportation reauthorization, lawmakers don’t need to start from scratch. They already have a blueprint from the negotiations that produced the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in 2021.

In 2020, the House passed the INVEST Act, which included bipartisan provisions authored by Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI). Those provisions demonstrated that prioritizing maintenance isn’t just good policy—it is a politically viable approach with bipartisan backing.

Congress has both the authority and the proven legislative model for repair-first policy.

How the INVEST Act prioritized repair like never before

The INVEST in America Act was dramatically strengthened by a bipartisan amendment from Rep. García and Rep. Gallagher, who came together to codify new repair requirements that had never been included in a federal transportation bill. With that in place, the INVEST Act’s impressive final provisions included three core requirements:

First, it required transportation agencies to develop a maintenance plan for any new capacity they wanted to build to prove they had the means to maintain it. If a state wanted to widen a highway or add new lanes, it would have to publicly demonstrate how it planned to maintain the new infrastructure while also taking care of the roads and bridges it already owned. This is a minimum level of fiscal prudence that most voters are astonished to learn is not required in the federal program. Transit agencies are already expected to plan for long-term maintenance, and roads should not be treated differently. 

Second, the amendment required states to use travel-demand models with a demonstrated record of accuracy when evaluating highway expansion projects. These models forecast future traffic volumes and estimate whether adding lanes or building new roads will reduce congestion enough to justify investment. Since these forecasts heavily influence decisions, their accuracy matters. Yet many traditional models assume steady traffic growth and overstate the benefits of highway expansion while overlooking induced demand and long-term maintenance costs. The amendment sought to improve decision making by requiring states to ground their investment decisions in more concrete evidence rather than these assumptions. 

Third, the amendment required a more complete accounting of project benefits and costs. Instead of evaluating projects primarily on expected congestion reduction, states would need to consider a broader set of outcomes, including safety, greenhouse gas emissions, access to jobs and essential services, and other performance measures established in the bill. In practice, highway expansion projects are often justified by projections that promise faster travel times or reduced congestion, even though evidence shows those benefits are short-lived. As a result, projects that increase emissions, create barriers for people walking or biking, or consume limited transportation dollars that could have been used to repair existing infrastructure can still move forward because congestion reduction is treated as the overriding priority. The amendment sought to ensure that transportation investments are evaluated based on their full range of impacts, not just their ability to move more vehicles.

The Senate scrapped it all

Despite the progress made in the House, the INVEST Act never became law. The Senate pursued a different path with its own transportation reauthorization proposal, which utterly failed to include key reforms like prioritizing repair, improving project evaluation, or addressing emissions and equity outcomes. Unfortunately, that Senate framework became the basis for the IIJA, which largely carried forward the policy structure of the 2015 FAST Act rather than adopting the House’s more ambitious reforms. 

The House’s current reauthorization proposal, the Build America 250 Act , fails to move the needle on prioritizing repair. It’s a far cry from what the House proposed (and approved!) in 2020 with the INVEST Act.

The BUILD Act preserves the status quo that has produced a system too big to maintain without borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from our grandchildren. States retain broad flexibility to spend federal dollars on repair, expansion, or new construction, and the bill does not require meaningful progress toward reducing maintenance backlogs before adding new capacity. State DOTs and asphalt and concrete manufacturers win, and voters and the traveling public lose. Again.

This matters because despite historic amounts of funding being poured into America’s transportation system, the share of roads in poor condition has only declined by 3 percentage points between 2018 and 2024. States have failed to make meaningful improvements in reducing the share of the maintenance backlog, which is increasingly expensive to maintain. Simply increasing transportation funding without requiring states to prioritize repair over expansion will not fix the problem.

2026’s BUILD Act misses the same opportunity

Rep. García recently proposed an amendment to the BUILD Act that would have incorporated the same principles requiring greater accountability that he helped to advance in the INVEST Act, but it failed on a voice vote. (Rep. Mike Gallagher left the House in 2024.) 

The cheap lip service continues: Congress continues talking about the importance of repair. Transportation agencies routinely say that maintaining existing infrastructure is a priority. Yet the federal program still allows states to expand systems they cannot afford to maintain. Instead of spending on highway expansion, we could invest in viable transportation alternatives that give households options when gas prices rise and other household costs increase. We could reduce future maintenance liabilities instead of increasing them.

The lesson from looking back at the INVEST Act is that fixing what we have first isn’t controversial, but common sense. Requiring agencies to explain how they will maintain new infrastructure, justify expansion with accurate analysis, and consider broader public outcomes is responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. 

The Senate now has another opportunity to prioritize repair. INVEST offers them a clear starting point, but the Senate can go further and deliver what voters actually want: fixing it first.

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