Trump’s Transportation Proposal Will Worsen Affordability Across the Board

We need more transit, not less

By Emmett Hopkins

According to recent reports, the Trump administration is trying to cut transit funding to every state, fundamentally changing the way federal transportation policy has operated for more than four decades. The administration has been trying for months to reduce funding, by tying grants to birth rates and banning certain types of projects altogether. This latest action is both an economic and political disaster: it will worsen the escalating affordability crisis and take away states’ ability to direct transportation dollars to benefit working people.

Trump’s first proposal takes away states’ flexibility to fund transit, limiting their opportunities to address transportation affordability. Starting in 1976, Congress has routinely made the bipartisan decision to give states flexibility to spend federal highway dollars on public transit, and states’ consistent use of this ability shows the demand for transit funding. But in an apparent bid to kill public transit, the Trump administration is proposing to take away this flexibility from state and local governments.

The second proposal would eliminate the mass transit account from the Highway Trust Fund. In 1982, Congress created the transit account, in a move that tacitly acknowledged that more than one third of people do not drive or have access to a car. The transit account is about 20 percent of the trust fund and sustains many transit services, especially in rural settings. Trump wants to kill it completely.

The administration may think these are targeted attacks on places that did not vote for Trump, but this is misguided thinking. Climate and Community Institute (CCI) acquired and studied three recent years of data from the FHWA financial management information system that illustrates how each state is relying on the flexible nature of federal funding.

Numerous states, including purple and red states like Nevada, Florida, Ohio and Arizona, have consistently relied on transferring funding out of “highway” programs to provide essential transit services for their residents. Florida, for example, transferred $244 million of its Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) money into transit from 2021-2023. During the same period, Arizona transferred $113 million from STBG and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ) to use for transit. Transportation for America’s analysis of the distribution of mass transit account funding tells a similar story. Of the states that rely most heavily on their allocations from the Mass Transit Account to deliver transit service, most voted for Trump, including Idaho, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Among rural transit agencies, those in Texas, Nevada and Idaho would stand to lose the most.

To characterize the current process as moving highway money into transit is also inaccurate. Many programs housed within the federal highway administration were created by Congress for purposes distinct from highway building. Congress’ intent for STBG is for flexible funding to be used by states and municipalities for whatever their transportation needs, as has been the case since the first incarnation of this program in 1991. CMAQ’s purpose is to reduce traffic congestion in order to improve air quality. States rely on these programs to build safe local streets that support mixed uses for walkers, bikes, buses, and cars.

Trump’s proposed changes will worsen the affordability crisis by forcing more people into transportation insecurity or financial crisis. In towns and counties across every part of the country, data shows that many people don’t drive a car. These are older adults who rely on transit or rides to get their groceries. They are teachers and health care workers who use the bus to get to work. They are people with disabilities who use transit, paratransit, and shared rides to access their families and jobs. CCI’s analysis of census data finds that renters are six times more likely to live in zero-car households, and that children in low income households are eight times more likely to have no household car access.

If people currently relying on transit are forced to get a car, this could spell financial disaster for their households, potentially setting off impossible decisions between buying groceries, paying rent, and having a way to get to work. Between loan or lease payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and repairs, car drivers in the US pay an average of $1,015 per month to own and maintain a vehicle. Cash-strapped families would have to take this monthly amount away from their housing and grocery budgets. For this reason, a reduction of transit is an attack on affordability for the average American, and especially for working-class people who already face mounting burdens of housing instability, soaring utility costs, and high grocery bills.

Taking away transit funding will also increase congestion and deliver chaos to the streets. It will not only hit peoples’ household budgets, but will also ripple impacts through small businesses, medical facilities, schools, and grocery stores, all of whom rely on functioning transportation systems including transit to smoothly move goods, customers, and employees. Drivers and nondrivers will feel the impacts. Not to mention that transportation is also the largest sectoral source of US greenhouse gas emissions, which reducing public transit would make even worse, adding further fuel to the climate crisis.

States across the political spectrum are demanding more transit, not less. If the president and Congress are serious about reducing the cost of living, they should instead champion proposals to increase federal support for transit operations.