After a year of hearing that “the House is definitely going to release and markup a draft bill sometime this month,” Lucy kept the football on the ground, and the House finally released a five-year, $474 billion reauthorization proposal last Sunday on the eve of this year’s Infrastructure Week. Predict the same thing every month, and eventually it will come true. 

How will Congress pay for this enormous bill? The short answer is they won’t—your grandkids will. A modest amount of new funding will come via a controversial new fee on electric vehicles, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the enormous gap between revenues and spending. Just like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), an enormous subsidy from all taxpayers would be required to cover annual spending that is roughly double what the gas tax brings in each year. And all that for a fairly status quo proposal that fails to meet the moment and will not deliver a transportation system that safely, affordably, and reliably gets us all where we need to go. 

But in a bill with less money than the IIJA, it’s transit and passenger rail that take the hit. 

Though leadership on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee describes it as a $580 billion bill, in reality, it includes only $474 billion in guaranteed funding, representing a cut from the $539 billion guaranteed by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Nearly all of that difference comes from cuts to transit, passenger rail, and scrapped competitive grant programs. Highways? They get a healthy bump in guaranteed funding.

1) There was a notable attempt to prevent a repeat of the Trump administration’s massive flood of grant cancellations

This administration has been unwilling to follow the current transportation law, as evidenced most clearly by their abrupt 2025 cancellation of billions in grants that were previously awarded to states and local communities. The BUILD Act included some surprising language aimed at preventing a repeat: “the Secretary may not terminate, withhold, or delay the execution of a grant agreement for a grant or award (in part or in whole) made using funds made available under this Act” based on any arbitrary reasons or a change in preferences of a new administration.  While this provision would be a step in the right direction, it unfortunately does nothing to restore the billions in grants rescinded under the IIJA. 

Another way to think about this provision: it will successfully prevent the cancellation of grant funding for the kinds of projects that this administration will absolutely not select in the first place. This is a move in the right direction, but it’s slamming the proverbial barn door after the horses are already in another zip code.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) did attempt to restore the canceled IIJA grants via this amendment during Thursday’s marathon committee markup. This amendment, which failed on a voice vote, would have retroactively applied to all grants awarded under IIJA, noting that “the Secretary shall obligate and execute grant agreements for any project that was selected, awarded, or publicly announced for funding by the Department on or after November 15, 2021” via the IIJA or Inflation Reduction Act, and prevent the Secretary from canceling them. When it was offered during the markup, Chairman Sam Graves backed the Trump administration’s decision to cancel these grants, noting that Sec. Duffy inherited a backlog of unobligated funds, so the only solution was obviously to cancel them all and take back the money. 

Rep. Huffman had some support, but considering the fact that canceled grants spanned republican and democrat districts alike, you’d think that a sizable number of committee members—but especially those in the minority—would be loudly standing up for those communities and making the restoration of these grants one of their fundamental prerequisites for support. 

Apparently not.

Grant cancellations aside, here are nine other things to know about the BUILD America 250 Act, organized around our three simple principles. (Note: We’re just calling it the BUILD Act from here on.)

Fix it first

Overall, this bill fails to make meaningful strides towards prioritizing maintenance and repair on our roadways. States are not required to demonstrate progress toward any hard and fast targets for road or bridge conditions before building new road capacity with federal-aid highway programs. There is no change to the current paperwork exercise of performance management, and states are not required to set any targets they’d be held accountable for meeting. (Read more about this T4America principle)

2) Dedicated bridge repair funding is back, but lacks accountability

Congress eliminated a dedicated bridge repair program back in 2012, but what’s old is always eventually new again, and the BUILD Act creates a new dedicated formula program for bridge repair. Some IIJA bridge programs are consolidated into a new $9.2 billion annual program—creatively called the Bridge Program. Each state would receive $75 million, plus an amount based on factors like bridge area and the amount of bridge area in poor condition. Some money is set aside to be spent on the thousands of oft-overlooked bridges not on the federal-aid highway system (though states can opt out of this), and 25 percent is set aside for states to run a competition for awards to locally-owned bridges. States have to produce a new report describing progress made on reducing the number of bridges in poor condition, but there are no real penalties for failure. 

Beyond this formula program, there’s a new $2 billion annual competitive grant program (without guaranteed funding) that’s focused on improving the safety, efficiency, and reliability of bridges on the National Highway System only. While the details are different, with dedicated funding and little accountability, the BUILD Act’s approach is not that dissimilar from our pre-2012 approach to bridge repair. 

3) The slightest of head nods toward repair accountability

The National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) is the largest highway-focused program that states have control of. Within this program, states will have to develop and maintain a state asset management plan. Under BUILD, any state that fails to develop and implement its asset management plan will see the federal share for projects within NHPP drop down to just 65 percent. While that sounds like a move in the right direction, there are no requirements that states set or meet binding, positive targets on repair. That’s not going to cut it.

4) Reconnecting Communities is functionally dead

This bill completely eliminates the Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant program, which was best understood as the authorized, long-term version of the Reconnecting Communities pilot program, which technically ended this year. This likely means the end of federal money spent on repairing divisive infrastructure, and the end of a program T4America helped create back in 2020. 

The concept of Reconnecting Communities survives as a project eligibility within a new grant program (STAG) that would replace the BUILD competitive grant program. (Yes, this is confusing. The BUILD grant program is the one formerly known as TIGER and RAISE.) But considering that this administration canceled nearly every single unobligated Neighborhood Access and Equity grant project, it’s unlikely that any reconnecting-style projects would win funding in this new grant program under this administration. The Senate should resuscitate this program, and there was an amendment offered during the markup to restore the Reconnecting Communities program and rename it.

Safety over speed

While there are a few changes that could be perceived as small improvements to safety policy, the program fails to make improving safety a centerpiece priority across the entire program and will do very little to reverse the U.S.’s roadway safety crisis. (Read more about this T4America principle)

5) Safe Streets for All local grant program survives

Perhaps the best news in this entire bill is the survival of the Safe Streets for All (SS4A) grant program, which is only available directly to cities and local communities (including tribes) for projects to make concrete changes to their streets to improve safety.  SS4A’s survival is good news for safety, and it was also moved into the highway title of the bill and given guaranteed funding through contract authority, sparing it from future appropriations fights.  In IIJA, 40 percent of SS4A funds were (likely mistakenly) set aside for planning, and one of the eligible uses was for quick-build demonstration projects. The BUILD Act reduces that set-aside to a much more rational 5 percent. That might seem too low, but considering how much money has been put into planning over the last five years, it’s time to pour more money into implementation and actually building projects to improve safety.

The bad news is that the program is roughly half the size it was during the IIJA, and all mentions of Vision Zero were eliminated. And we’re putting a lot of faith in a program that has already been weaponized by this USDOT. USDOT has selectively canceled SS4A grants they didn’t like and also changed the criteria to let applicants know they won’t select projects that make people safer by removing parking or repurposing lane space. This USDOT wants to improve safety with SS4A grants, as long as those improvements don’t come at the expense of their other, higher priorities. 

6) States aiming for more people to die on their roads have to inform the Secretary

Under our weak system of measuring performance, numerous states have routinely set targets for more people to be injured/killed on their roadways. These targets have been posted publicly on FHWA’s website, but the BUILD Act makes a subtle change to require the Secretary to notify Congress when states do it in the future. But there will continue to be no penalty for setting these regressive targets, and Congress has not shown any appetite to create actual accountability for reducing roadway deaths. But it will be harder for Congress to claim they didn’t know that states were aiming for such bad performance. 

Invest in the rest 

While the BUILD Act increases guaranteed funding for highways, guaranteed transit funding is going down. There are a few changes to provide some modest flexibility to use capital dollars for operations, but there are none of the dramatic increases in transit capital or operations funding on par with what it would truly take to invest in the rest and build a world-class transit system. (Read more about this T4America principle.)

7) Guaranteed highway money is going up while transit is decreasing. 

IIJA provided an historic increase in guaranteed funding for highways and transit. That’s only the case for highways this time around. 

Though the bill’s authors are quick to note that transit contract authority is increasing over IIJA levels, the guaranteed amount for transit is actually going down, thanks to the loss of advance appropriations. Transit goes from $91.2 billion in guaranteed funding in the IIJA down to $87.6 billion in BUILD. Highways, meanwhile, jump from $351 billion up to $376 billion in guaranteed funding. This also means that transit is dipping below its typical 20 percent share of the overall bill. The 80/20 split has often fluctuated slightly above or below that 20 percent threshold, but the decrease is still notable.

8) Changes to the transit capital program…which is currently frozen by the Trump administration

No one should be celebrating any positive changes in the program for building and expanding transit systems, considering that it has been ground to a halt by the current administration. The bipartisan authors in the House have failed to recognize this reality nor have they done anything in this bill to attempt to require this administration to follow the law and administer this program in this new five-year proposal.

There are some changes to streamline transit capital project delivery, including rewarding transit agencies that have recently navigated the federal process successfully with a speedier process. Likely recognizing the increasing costs of bus rapid transit projects and other “Small Starts” projects, BUILD raises the funding threshold for these projects up to $1 billion (with a 50 percent max federal share) and changes their name to Streamlined Starts. The law would broaden the eligibility for Core Capacity projects, which could make it possible for projects to do things like investing in automation to increase throughput on a busy rail line. And transit projects in the pipeline can receive extra credit in the evaluation process for local policies in favor of housing development near transit. 

On the negative side, the IIJA-created program for procuring low- and no-emission buses is toast.

9) A new focus on transit safety, crime, and fare evasion

There’s a significant new focus on transit safety and fare evasion—both with funding set aside from transit formulas, but also in new policy requirements. 

Instead of just one percent, urban agencies will be required to spend 1.5 percent of their transit formula funds on a wide range of eligible transit safety and security projects, including fare evasion prevention, new technology, and new police officers. Agencies have to start gathering and reporting data to FTA on how much money they are losing to fare evasion, and there are requirements for making fare evasion a criminal or civil offense. There are no penalties for the states or cities that continue building streets and roads that ensure that anyone’s walking trip to transit might be the most dangerous part of their journey.

10) Passenger rail loses out big time

After $66 billion guaranteed in IIJA for rail, the BUILD Act provides zero dollars in guaranteed funding for passenger rail and reduces authorized spending below IIJA levels, while making some marginal improvements around rail permitting and Amtrak accountability, and logically combining several programs. 

The result of losing the guaranteed funding means that Congress will have to do something it didn’t have to do over the last five years: consider every year whether or not it will provide the authorized amounts of rail funding. Policy improvements aside, the rail title overall decreases federal investment in passenger rail and is a step back. We expect the Senate Commerce Committee to take a different approach.

The bill was approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on a 66-2 vote in the wee hours of Friday morning. Stay tuned on the blog for more on the law and the next steps.

The post Ten things to know about the BUILD Act’s failure to produce better outcomes appeared first on Transportation For America.

The backstory 

During the first Trump administration, T4America’s Stuck in the Station raised the alarm about USDOT failing to advance transit capital expansion projects for which Congress was appropriating billions of dollars. During that time, USDOT publicly insisted they were faithfully advancing transit projects, but by 2018, USDOT had awarded less than 20 percent of the $2.3 billion Congress had appropriated for this specific purpose. “Future investments in new transit projects would be funded by the localities that use and benefit from these localized projects,” they said when defending their request for zeroing out the program in the president’s budget back in FY18.

After embarrassing hearings and public events where the FTA administrator had to answer for the slowdown, warnings from the Government Accountability Office that they were running “the risk of violating federal law,” and the unprecedented move by Congress of requiring FTA to obligate 85 percent of the transit capital program funds by the end of 2019, the administration finally relented and started signing grant agreements late in the first term. 

This time around, the Trump administration appears to be taking that hostility to a new level by tapping some novel mechanisms to achieve the same ends.

Considering the sorry state of transit in this country before these slowdowns and how the lack of quality transit affects mobility, the economy, and access to opportunity, alarm bells should be ringing big time on Capitol Hill. Consider the state of U.S. transit, via Yonah Freemark at the Urban Institute:

In 1990, 4 of the world’s 14 longest metro networks—or those that include monorail, subway, elevated, and automated light metro—were located in the United States. Today, not a single U.S. network sits on that list. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has not expanded its urban railway systems to keep up with population growth. Compared with other wealthy nations, where transit is much more available, a smaller share of our population has easy access to a subway or elevated station. Without transit alternatives, most Americans have little choice but to drive expensive, polluting cars. And those without access to a car might not have a safe, reliable way to get around. The lack of investment in urban rail contributes to the high carbon dioxide emissions from the U.S. transport sector. It’s also left people in the U.S. spending a large share of their income on transportation, as many Americans struggle with the high costs of living.

As oil prices have continued to climb and new cars are reaching astronomical prices, the administration has responded by making electric cars more expensive, seizing the ability for cities to decide how to keep people safe on their streets and roads, and, as we will chronicle here, slowing down badly needed new transit projects. 

Some quick background on federal transit funding: 

Broadly speaking, transit gets federal dollars in two ways:

1) The most consistent source is annual formula dollars from the Highway Trust Fund (specifically the Mass Transit Account), which are used for capital expenses like buying new railcars or buses, making track upgrades, upgrading electrical equipment, or repairing/upgrading other aspects of hard transit infrastructure. Larger transit agencies get this money directly each year based on their population and levels of transit service, while smaller agencies might get it through their state DOT. But this money is not sufficient to cover the kind of big capital expenditures involved in building new transit service. To support these kinds of projects, money comes from… 

2) The transit Capital Investment Grants program, which comes from discretionary spending each year. The five-year authorization (like the IIJA) sets the basic levels, but unlike the trust fund formula money that flows automatically, appropriators in Congress have to set aside this money each year. There are three types of projects: New Starts for big multi-year projects, typically light or heavy rail; Small Starts, typically for bus rapid transit projects; and Core Capacity for doing things like costly capacity expansions on existing transit lines. 

Transit agencies apply and then wind through a (too long, complicated, and onerous) process within FTA to tick a million boxes and receive a grant agreement in which USDOT agrees to give X transit agency Y amount of dollars over a certain number of years to cover a share of the costs—typically no higher than 50 percent but more often closer to 30 or 40 percent. (Contrast that with the 80-90 percent of highway costs that are covered by the feds.)

The money appropriated by Congress each year is always intended to cover a mix of 1) payments for multi-year projects already approved by FTA, and 2) a suite of new transit projects expected to be approved for construction and funded over the next year. 

And this is where new problems are starting to arise.

An unprecedented slowdown in transit construction grants

The Trump administration is the first administration in at least three decades to fail to approve a new transit project in its first year, as noted back in early March by Yonah Freemark for Urban. Since taking office in January 2025, USDOT has not signed a single full-funding grant agreement for a new metro, light rail, or bus rapid transit line. This is even slower than their progress in the first term. 

While it may be true that transit projects are just simply not ready to sign an agreement and proceed to construction, it’s hard to believe that not a single project was ready to go over the last 14 months. It’s also important to remember that successfully shepherding projects through the federal process quickly and successfully is FTA’s mission.

Tracking the “pipeline” of projects

USDOT is required by law to issue a report by February (which is always late) detailing the ratings for all transit capital projects in the pipeline, a list of projects with recommended funding amounts, and an overview of the program’s next three years. It’s incredibly striking to see the evolution in the detail FTA provides in this annual report to Congress over the last few years.

Here’s what the detailed page of projects and budget requests looks like in the report from the last year (FY25) of the Biden administration, for which they requested a total of ~$4 billion for the upcoming fiscal year to cover five ongoing projects with full funding agreements, plus five new New Starts projects and ten Small Starts projects slated for approval—mostly BRT projects.  (p. 4 in the March 2024 report)

We would compare that to the same page in this year’s FY27 report from Trump’s USDOT, but it doesn’t actually exist. This is what the comparable page looks like from this year’s report: 

Just by comparison, even in last year’s report—the first issued after taking office—the administration was requesting a typical amount of money for projects likely to be getting approved: 

• $1.4b for existing New Starts grant agreements, and $2.4 billion for new grant agreements for New Starts, Core Capacity, and Small Starts transit capital projects “that may become ready for a construction grant agreement” in the year ahead. They even listed 15 separate projects that may become ready.

Fast forward a full year later, after not signing a single grant agreement or awarding a single dollar of that $2.4 billion to any of those 15 projects, here’s their request for the upcoming fiscal year from this year’s report:

• “$1.202 billion for existing FFGAs and other projects that may become ready for construction funding during FY 2027”

Keep in mind that Congress has now appropriated nearly $6 billion for advancing these transit projects. $1.2 billion—their request for the year ahead—is basically what is needed to fulfill their existing contractual agreements to ongoing projects with grant agreements. While they mention “projects that may become ready for construction,” they are requesting only enough money to fulfill current obligations.

New strategies to stonewall transit projects 

Despite the polarization, Congress has continued to provide USDOT with billions for transit construction each year. But this is where some of the newer shenanigans are emerging. 

Even though Congress has appropriated more than $6 billion for ongoing and new transit capital projects, the Office of Management and Budget has employed a new strategy of apportioning only a fraction of that amount. (Simply put, apportionment means transferring it into the USDOT bank account.) While it’s relatively normal for OMB to make available only what’s needed for payments in any given year, or even by month, in this case, they’re holding back far more than is normal. 

Without those funds available to them, USDOT couldn’t approve a new transit project if it wanted to.

Though Congress was expecting USDOT to spend roughly $2.4 billion on new projects expected to sign a grant agreement during this current fiscal year, OMB has sent (apportioned) just $500 million more than the $1.2b they owe to ongoing projects. That means OMB is stonewalling $4.9 billion that Congress has appropriated. While OMB may just be holding onto those funds until USDOT is ready to approve a project or shifting them into the next fiscal year, it could also represent a new tactic for stalling out new transit expansions for the duration of this administration. 

If USDOT doesn’t sign grant agreements, there are points of pressure that Congress can tap, as they did back in 2018-2020. But if USDOT doesn’t have the money available in its bank account, that’s another thing entirely. This issue has been popping up elsewhere, as it’s become a new form of rescissions from the administration. 

It certainly appears that the administration is laying the groundwork to stop all transit capital construction in this program.

Is Congress asleep at the switch?

It’s been fairly shocking to share these developments on Capitol Hill and be met with looks of surprise from various offices. Members should be livid, raising the alarm on another way that the administration is flouting Congress’s duly passed laws and budgets. Instead, Democrats on the House transportation committee are rolling ahead to support a reauthorization proposal that will look a lot like the expiring IIJA—at the precise moment that the administration is failing to faithfully implement the existing bipartisan bill, and their negotiating partners on reauthorization are silent about it.

Why strike a bipartisan deal when it’s only your priorities that get cast aside the next day? Why negotiate in good faith with those who are not doing the same?

It’s time to call a few committee hearings, send some letters to USDOT, and mandate more information about the progress of transit projects in the pipeline. Congress needs to wake up and remember that they make the laws, and the executive branch implements them. If they allocate money to advance and approve new transit projects, that needs to happen, or someone at USDOT needs to explain why it’s not.

The truth is that when transit projects get artificially slowed down by bureaucrats and political appointees in Washington, it’s not the political opposition that pays the price. It’s the taxpayers who have to pay inflated costs for needlessly delayed projects, and the riders who have to wait for new or expanded transit service that will improve connections and access where they live—those who are again going to be stuck in the station.

The post USDOT’s historic failure to advance any new transit projects in 14 months may be a sign of things to come appeared first on Transportation For America.

State spending on repair has increased, but record levels of roadway expansion continue to increase the repair backlog

Despite historic levels of federal transportation funding and modest shifts in state spending toward prioritizing repair, the condition of the nation’s federal-aid-eligible roadways has barely improved, according to a new report from Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense. From 2018 to 2024, the share of roads in poor condition declined only marginally, even as states continued to expand their road systems and create billions in new long-term maintenance obligations.

Repair Priorities 2026 analyzes federal and state spending alongside nationwide roadway conditions to evaluate how transportation dollars are used and whether those investments are improving outcomes. As of 2024, 16.34 percent of federal-aid-eligible roads were in poor condition, despite tens of billions of dollars spent annually on repairs between 2018 and 2024. States spent an average of 39 percent of their transportation funds on repair, compared to 25 percent on expansion over that period.

“Every time Congress passes a transportation bill, to a person they promise it will ‘fix our crumbling roads and bridges,’ but it never does because the bill they pass says nothing of the sort,” said Beth Osborne, President and CEO of Smart Growth America. “Taxpayers should be tired of watching Congress and those who draw their paycheck from the federal transportation program divide up taxpayer money to provide themselves more cash, more flexibility, and less oversight. It’s not their money, it’s the taxpayers’ money. And it is time to deliver the results that have been promised to them for decades.” 

“Congress authorized $56.8 billion from the Highway Trust Fund in FY2024, more than enough to fix every poor road on the federal-aid system. Yet conditions have barely moved in decades. That’s because there are no enforceable requirements to actually spend that money on repair first. Taxpayers aren’t getting what they were promised, and with reauthorization coming, Congress has no more excuses.” – Steve Ellis, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Findings from Repair Priorities include:

• The share of federal-aid-eligible roads in poor condition declined from 19 percent in 2018 to 16.34 percent in 2024
• States added nearly 113,000 lane-miles of roadway between 2018 and 2024—enough to span the U.S. 45 times—increasing long-term maintenance obligations. 
• Maintaining existing roads in good condition requires $32.6B annually, with an additional $10.6B needed to address the maintenance backlog. In total, $43.2B per year is needed just to keep the system in acceptable repair
• Overall, 17 states saw an increase in the percentage of roads in poor condition from 2018 to 2024, while 31 states improved road condition, but these gains were uneven and often modest
• Nationally, the share of bridges in poor condition declined from 7.6 percent in 2018 to 6.7 percent in 2024. Still, 41,730 bridges across the 50 states remain in poor condition and require significant maintenance or rehabilitation

Federal policy gives states broad flexibility in how they spend their federal funds. And while many states have shifted the balance of more funding toward repair over the last decade, many other states are deferring maintenance in favor of roadway expansion, even while their leaders use the rhetoric of fixing “crumbling roads and bridges” to justify increased funding.

Between 2018 and 2024, the national road network grew by 112,957 lane-miles, adding an estimated $5.3 billion in new annual maintenance obligations. Unless Congress implements stronger requirements that prioritize repair for existing and new roads, this ongoing trend will continue to undermine any progress.

The report also shows significant variation across states. In some states, spending on expansion still outpaces repair by a wide margin, making them particularly vulnerable to worsening conditions. Roads are often framed as assets, but they also represent major financial liabilities requiring operational and maintenance costs over their full lifecycles. 

Even where progress has been made, rising construction costs and decades of deferred maintenance mean available funding will cover an ever-smaller share of overall needs. Without a meaningful shift in priorities, the backlog of roads in poor condition will persist—and likely worsen.

The report recommends that Congress:

• Guarantees measurable improvements in road conditions tied to federal funding
• Requires states to repair their existing systems before allowing expansion of new capacity
• Improves transparency and reporting on how transportation funds are spent

Despite more than $1.5 trillion in federal transportation spending over the past 30 years, road conditions have largely stayed the same. The nation needs $43.2 billion each year just to keep the federal-aid highway system in acceptable repair. That is a significant cost, but Congress authorized $56.8 billion from the Highway Trust Fund in FY2024—more than enough to cover the cost of fixing the system. The issue is not funding. It is how the money is spent.

Read the report >>

The post New release: Repair Priorities 2026 appeared first on Transportation For America.

As Congress gears up for surface transportation reauthorization, a slew of marker bills has emerged. These standalone proposals signal priorities, test ideas, and lay the groundwork for the final package. While they rarely pass on their own, these bills play an outsized role in shaping the debate. Taken together, they offer an early look at whether federal transportation policy is moving toward building a more accountable, multimodal system or doubling down on outdated approaches. 

So far, the picture is mixed. Here’s a look at three recent proposals that together capture the good, the bad, and the ugly of where things might be headed.

The good: measuring what matters in transportation 

The Generating Resilient, Environmentally Exceptional National (GREEN) Streets Act, introduced by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), and its companion legislation introduced by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), would meaningfully shift how we approach transportation and climate policy. The bill would establish clear goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions across our transportation system at a time when transportation remains the largest source of emissions in the U.S.

For decades, federal transportation policy has prioritized expanding highway networks, based on the assumption that most trips will be made by car. The result is a system that encourages more driving, leading to increased congestion, higher emissions, and greater burdens on communities already facing public health challenges and an affordability crisis.

The GREEN Streets Act would begin to address this by directing the U.S. Department of Transportation to set minimum standards for states to reduce emissions, vehicle miles traveled, and air pollution on public roads. By focusing on outcomes rather than infrastructure expansion, the bill would help reorient transportation policy toward improving access and affordability.

The bad: punitive EV fees that won’t fix the Highway Trust Fund

There’s no question that the Highway Trust Fund faces a real fiscal challenge, but not every proposed solution actually addresses this.

One idea that has been circulating for years and is now gaining renewed traction is putting federal fees on electric vehicles (EVs). House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-MO) has made clear that EV fees are very much in play in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization. He signaled that if they don’t make it into a Senate package, he will pursue them through other legislative options, including in the House’s draft of the 2025 budget reconciliation bill. 

It makes sense that EV drivers should contribute to transportation investments, especially as their share of the vehicle fleet grows, but this proposal misses the mark entirely. For starters, the proposed fees are wildly disproportionate. In 2019, the average gas-powered vehicle paid roughly $95 in federal gas taxes each year. A $250 annual fee on EVs would be more than double that amount, despite EVs currently making up a relatively small share of vehicles on the road. Finally, Chairman Graves’ proposal does not direct those funds into the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund. Other marker bills—like one from Sen. Fischer and Rep. Dusty Johnson that would impose a one-time $1,000 fee on all EVs—are even more extreme. 

Many states already have their own EV registration fees, often at similarly inflated levels. Piling on a federal fee risks creating a punitive system that discourages EV adoption without improving the Highway Trust Fund’s long-term outlook.

You can’t solve a structural funding problem on the backs of a growing but small minority of drivers. Aggressive EV fees won’t change the underlying math of rising highway construction costs and declining gas tax revenues. A sustainable solution will require a broader rethink of how we fund transportation, not a band-aid solution that’s unfair and ultimately ineffective.

The ugly: more“flexibility” that undermines accountability

The Highway Funding Transferability Improvement Act, introduced by Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), and its companion bill introduced by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) would increase how much flexibility states have to transfer federal highway funds to other highway programs from 50 percent up to 75 percent. Supporters of the bill frame this change as allowing more local control and streamlining transfers between programs, but in reality, it risks weakening one of the few tools Congress has to ensure federal dollars are spent as intended. 

States already have significant flexibility under current law, including the ability to transfer unlimited funds to transit programs, as long as the projects are eligible under both funding categories. If states aren’t investing in transit, safety, or emissions-reducing projects today, it’s not because they lack flexibility. It’s because the state isn’t interested in those investments.

This proposal would allow states to shift further funding away from programs that specifically address safety, air quality, and multimodal transportation. In practice, it could shrink already limited investments in these projects to an even smaller fraction than Congress intended.

We’ve seen how this plays out. Flexibility can be valuable, but not when it comes at the expense of accountability. Expanding that authority risks opening the floodgates, particularly in places with poor safety records or ongoing air quality challenges.

What does this mean for surface transportation reauthorization?

Marker bills are initial ideas that can be incorporated into a surface transportation reauthorization package that allocates how hundreds of billions of dollars are spent.  It will shape whether we double down on outdated, car-centric policies or move toward a system that prioritizes repair, safety, and multimodal investment. 

The good news is that there are thoughtful ideas on the table, but the challenge is that there are just as many that would move us backward. When the draft of the surface transportation reauthorization bill is released, T4America will examine proposals and grade them against our core principles, which have broad support from voters across the political spectrum. Bills that fall short of these very attainable goals will be rated accordingly, while those that meet the mark will earn our ringing endorsement.

The post The good, the bad, and the ugly: early signals for reauthorization appeared first on Transportation For America.

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system is in crisis, with six suburban member cities threatening to hold votes to leave the system in the past year. Citing relatively low ridership, local politicians from member cities argued that their investments in DART are not resulting in benefits for their constituents. The DART system is the second-longest light rail system in the United States. It even recently opened a new light rail line, connecting some of the same cities that have threatened to leave it. However, the agency serves one of the most sprawling regions in the U.S., and it lacks the operations funding to increase frequencies and expand service further. 

Elected officials from the Dallas suburbs regularly criticize the current value of DART, saying that their residents don’t benefit from the system. They’re not completely off base. DART should increase the frequency of its buses and trains so people can count on transit to take them where they need to go when they need to travel. This will require investment in equipment and personnel using local, state, and federal funding to bring Dallas’ transit to a world-class level. In the meantime, the suburbs are limiting DART ridership by making it difficult for their residents to access stations. 

When cities restrict housing around transit stations, they miss out on the economic benefits and increased ridership that come with transit-oriented development (TOD), instead setting transit up for failure. But better land-use decisions that allow more people to live near stations would increase ridership, strengthening the argument for investing in more frequent and reliable public transportation. The DFW Metroplex’s transit struggles show how restricting housing construction and connectivity around transit stations can undermine the entire transportation system by limiting the number of people who can easily use it. 

Standard suburban planning hurts ridership

Plano is a suburb north of Dallas with a population of 300,000 people served by multiple DART light-rail stops and bus routes. It’s also a leader in attempting to cut DART funding. All the while, the city has heavily restricted where you can build apartment buildings with four or more units. 

In Plano, the land around transit stops—which should be where more missing middle housing is allowed—is zoned almost exclusively for low-density single-family homes, while higher-density developments such as apartments are concentrated near highways.  

Take a look at the end of the line: Parker Road Station. It’s Plano’s station with the highest ridership, even though it’s surrounded by parking. The land to the east of the station is zoned for single-family housing. The land north and west of the station is zoned for apartments, but these are primarily designed for highway access. The surrounding streets feed into U.S. 75, which cuts through the city, destroying the possibility of a connected street grid. Coupled with the long and winding roads of the single-family developments, a relatively short walk to the station turns into an unpleasant, indirect hike. Plano’s zoning decisions exacerbate the need to drive and park at the station rather than walk, bike, or take a bus, making it hard to access the station and, in turn, depressing ridership. 

If most of the housing is adjacent to a highway, and you have to get into the car to get to a train that’s slower and less reliable than the car and doesn’t take you near your destination, why wouldn’t you just drive? It’s no wonder Plano is disappointed by the service they get. They’ve made the system difficult to use, all the while they demand better results from it.  

This story repeats itself in many of the surrounding suburbs. Farmers Branch, another town that just withdrew its referendum on leaving DART, zoned the area around its station to favor car-dependent infrastructure and single-family housing. A highway cuts through the town, the areas north and west of the station are zoned for commercial use, and the station is surrounded by parking. In Farmers Branch, you are not allowed to build apartments around this station, limiting the number of people who can easily access the stop. A walk to the station would be indirect, long, and unpleasant because of roads designed to favor high-speed car traffic. In comparison, a drive is faster and more convenient.

We can still invest in the rest

DART and similar systems around the Sunbelt aren’t destined for failure. Building world-class transit in DFW is possible. By our estimates, this will require an investment of $7.26 billion annually to build up the area’s transit fleet and infrastructure to world-class levels. While increasing the number of transit vehicles alone is not a panacea to DART’s woes, running transit frequently and reliably can catalyze the same type of development that supports transit. 

The federal government and localities share responsibility for fostering TOD. Legislation like the Build HUBS Act would improve financing mechanisms for localities to build housing near transit stops. However, without zoning regulations that enable building housing near transit, communities won’t be able to effectively leverage federal funding opportunities. 

DART isn’t doomed. Its failures result from choices made by cities, the state, and the federal government every day. And they can choose to fund its operations and build housing nearby to stop a transit death spiral before it starts. 

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Transportation for America is ready to grade the next surface transportation reauthorization, and our rubric is incredibly simple.

The federal government has spent $1.5 trillion over the past 30 years to achieve its stated goals of improving safety, fixing infrastructure, reducing congestion and emissions, and improving public health. The reality is that despite the massive amount of money poured into the system, we don’t have much to show for it. The success of the next transportation bill should not be measured by how much or how little money we put into the program, but by how well it holds the system accountable for achieving our national goals and being responsible to the American taxpayer. 

Similar to our past scorecards, T4America will be grading legislative text on a pass/fail basis against our three core principles. In line with these principles, T4America will be looking for how the text prioritizes 1) safer roads over speed, 2) the maintenance of existing infrastructure, and 3) investing in more transportation options.

Safety over speed

The roads in most developed countries are safer than ours and continue to improve, but Congress continues to prioritize vehicle speed above all else, including safety.  Safety needs to come first. 

What we’ll be looking for: States and MPOs should be required to set concrete targets to improve roadway safety and reduce roadway deaths and to report progress on safety goals. When states fail to meet those safety targets, their flexible funding under the National Highway Performance Program and the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program should be dedicated to projects that are proven to move the needle on safety. Localities also need evidence-based guidance for roadway designs, and the federal government needs to overhaul its own road safety guidance and provide localities the freedom to experiment. Read T4America’s policy recommendations for prioritizing safety over speed in surface transportation reauthorization. 

An emerging consideration: As the autonomous vehicle (AV) market continues to expand, it is vital to ensure that the rapid growth of this industry does not come at the expense of safety. The next law must promote transparency, make AV data public, and require reporting of collisions, malfunctions, and other anomalies. Local oversight also needs to be preserved, and localities should be able to determine how autonomous vehicles are deployed and operated on their streets. Finally, left unchecked, empty AVs could clog our roads while waiting for passengers. USDOT should establish a pricing mechanism that disincentivizes AV operators from allowing their vehicles to operate without passengers, preventing roads from being filled with empty cars.  Read T4America’s other policy recommendations on ensuring AVs meet their potential. 

Fix it first 

Prioritizing roadway expansion and leaving maintenance as an afterthought, with no long-term plan for decades of maintenance costs, is nonsensical. We can’t afford to keep expanding the size and scope of the system without a clear plan to maintain what we’ve already built. Our last Repair Priorities report showed that we’d need $231.4 billion per year just to keep our existing road network in acceptable condition. Every new road, lane-mile, or bridge adds a costly new financial obligation for decades to come, pushing that number even higher.  We need to be accountable to taxpayers and cannot continue to defer maintenance.  Federal funding should prioritize fixing what we have before building anything new.

What we’ll be looking for: Legislative language must center accountability to ensure that maintenance is not on the back burner. If federal funds are given to grantees to increase roadway capacity, recipients should first demonstrate that they can maintain that asset over the course of its entire lifetime. Grants should not be distributed to agencies that cannot maintain the capacity they claim to need. States and MPOs should be required to set clear, measurable targets for improving pavement conditions, and when they fail to meet those targets, USDOT should step in and reorient National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Block Grant funds toward repair. See the rest of T4Americas’s policy recommendations to prioritize existing maintenance needs. 

Fixing roads should also include reconnecting communities and addressing the harms of previous infrastructure decisions. Projects built in the 1950s (and continuing through today) destroyed local economies and undermined the health and connectivity of people living near highways. Language that expands programs like the Reconnecting Communities Program (RCP), a competitive grant that funds the redesign and deconstruction of outdated infrastructure, must be included in the text (we’ll be looking out for the REPAIR Infrastructure Act, which continues the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program). Opportunities like RCP offered communities the chance to improve access to daily needs such as jobs, schools, food, recreation, and healthcare resources by building complete streets, fixing sidewalks, and investing in access to public transit. Additionally, models need to be updated for accuracy so agencies can accurately assess the impacts of highway alternative projects, and agencies must be transparent with the public about which models they use. Read the rest of our policy recommendations for an idea of what we are looking for in the next surface reauthorization bill to fix our past infrastructure history. 

Invest in the rest

As the U.S. has built out the highway system, there has been too little support for other modes of transportation. Households need choices for how to get around, and we do not have freedom if there is a monopoly on mobility. The next surface reauthorization bill text must ensure we can build out a world-class transit system, a strong passenger rail network, and take charge of the electric vehicle market (EV).

What we’ll be looking for: One of the biggest challenges localities face is securing reliable funding for transit operations. Fare revenue does not cover the full cost of transit operations, and only smaller systems are allowed to use their federal funds on operations. Larger systems do not have that flexibility, and even if they did, that flexibility comes at the expense of money for capital improvements. In the next surface bill, T4America will be looking for policies that provide robust support for federal transit operations (similar to the Stronger Communities Through Better Transit Act). Rural communities also rely on transit, and we will be looking for language that improves mobility services in rural areas by streamlining funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Read T4America’s full policy recommendations on how to build out world-class transit. 

Passenger rail needs to be preserved and expanded on in the next surface bill. Amtrak’s national network of long-distance and state-supported routes provides vital transportation connections for communities. We are looking for policies that restructure roles and responsibilities, so that Amtrak’s board includes representation from individuals with demonstrated interest in the system and regular experience using passenger rail. The legislation should also encourage residential, commercial, and mixed-use development near rail stations to support transit-oriented development. Read T4America’s complete policy recommendations on building world-class passenger rail. 

Federal transportation policy should position the U.S. to build a competitive advantage in electric vehicle manufacturing. An important part of supporting this market is expanding a reliable charging network by increasing the flexibility within the EV fueling program. The surface bill should include reducing unnecessary restrictions on the National Electric Vehicle (NEVI) program and ensuring that EVs pay into the system just like gas and diesel cars do. Read T4America’s other policy recommendations on investing in the EV market. 

Looking ahead

T4America will look closely at any reauthorization proposal and grade it against our three core principles—priorities with broad support from voters across the political spectrum. Bills that fall short of these very attainable goals will be rated accordingly, while proposals that deliver the mark will earn a ringing endorsement. We will publish our scorecards and determine whether the next surface reauthorization law would actually deliver measurable and improved outcomes. 

The post Here’s how we will grade the next surface reauthorization bill appeared first on Transportation For America.