Trump's Transportation Dept. Targets Blue State Priorities

New York Times

25-02-2025

The Department of Transportation delivered a blow to big transportation projects in the two most populous blue states last week when it moved to revoke its approval of New York City's congestion pricing program and announced a review of California's high speed rail project the next day.
The D.O.T.'s moves arrive amid the Trump administration's sweeping campaign to freeze billions in climate funding, cut the federal work force and slash regulations. The agency has also begun the process of rolling back standards requiring automakers to make cars and trucks more fuel efficient.
These and other actions have set off alarm bells among transit advocates and rank-and-file transportation planners, who worry the D.O.T. will meddle in long-planned state and local construction projects and redirect funding from cities to suburbs.
High speed trains in California and the congestion pricing program in New York would have clear climate benefits. The $9 toll on cars entering Manhattan, the first project of its kind in the U.S., will fund public transportation improvements and is expected to cut traffic emissions in the tolling zone. California's rail line would offer solar-powered transportation to millions of people traveling between San Francisco and Los Angeles annually by 2030.
Both projects have faced serious political opposition. The D.O.T.'s movement on California's train funding came one week after Republican lawmakers in the state sent a letter to President Trump expressing support for a federal investigation.
And congestion pricing, which rolled out in New York early this year after Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul delayed the start date, has detractors on both sides of the aisle.
The D.O.T. and the White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
In a letter to Hochul last week, Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, wrote that he did not believe the congestion pricing plan was a 'fair deal,' in part because the tolls will fund public transit, not highways. Duffy said he was moving to revoke a Biden-era federal approval of the plan, but he did not specify an end date for the program.
'CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,' President Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.
New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages the tolls and the subways, has filed a lawsuit challenging his order.
President Trump also has a history with the California rail project. In his first term, the D.O.T. rescinded a billion-dollar Obama-era grant, which was eventually released under former president Biden.
The project, which would enable travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours, has been plagued by escalating costs and could cost more than $100 billion to complete. The Biden administration approved a $3.1 billion grant that would plug some (but not all) of the current funding shortfall.
On Thursday, Duffy announced an investigation into the state's use of the funds, citing 'mismanagement.' He warned that California could be on the hook to pay for future expenditures under the grant if the department finds that it's not meeting certain requirements. A cancellation of the federal grant could delay construction and cripple the project's future.
Some transportation experts see the Trump administration's moves as a departure from his previous term.
'Here's the thing: Most Secretaries of Transportation go around the country announcing investments in improving infrastructure,' said Yonah Freemark, who researches land use and transportation at the Urban Institute, a research organization. Freemark said that Pete Buttigieg and Elaine Chao — the secretaries of the department under the Biden and the first Trump administration — followed this playbook.
'What Duffy is doing right now is just killing things. It's a very different approach,' Freemark said.
Duffy raised eyebrows early in his term when he issued a memo that said D.O.T. funding decisions should 'give preference to communities with marriage and birthrates higher than the national average.' The statement echoed concerns voiced by Vice President JD Vance about falling birthrates in the U.S.
It's not clear exactly how a pro-birth D.O.T. might translate those priorities into government spending. The memo mentioned that a specific grant program that sends money to commuter rails, streetcars, bus lines and other public transit projects would be subject to the new considerations.
Freemark said early analyses had identified urban cores and rural areas to be among the regions with the lowest birthrates. Suburban areas could be poised to benefit the most, he said.
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