Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It.

The New York Times ^ | July 27, 2026Updated 12:35 p.m. ET | Emily Badger, Alicia Parlapiano

[E. Pluribus Unum]

For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio.

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.

As the number of pending projects builds up, so has anxiety about the federal government’s support for major transit infrastructure. Money that Congress designated for that purpose is accumulating too: More than $7 billion hasn’t been obligated to any project.

“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.

The program illustrates a subtler tactic in how the Trump administration is managing federal funds: not just terminating grants, as it did in droves last year, but quietly declining to give out new ones.

That absence of action is harder to trace, and harder for communities to contest. More than a dozen transit agencies and local governments seeking grants declined interviews or would not comment about the program, amid fears that a fleeting phrase could anger the administration with millions of dollars on the...

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: aliciaparlapiano; chicago; emilybadger; fakenews; fighttruth; illinois; indiana; indianapolis; newyork; newyorkcity; newyorkslimes; porkbarrel; reprivatizeitall; sanantonio; tds; texas; traintonowhere

[Carry_Okie]

Public transit is at best a State responsibility, if not strictly local.
It’s been a feeding trough for unions.

[madrastex]

Damned good show, Mr President!
Lets get some sound reasoning behind these “projects”.

[SteelPSUGOP]

These are giant money sucks from rural and suburban areas. Let these big cities fund their own PT monstrosities.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

The Hussein/Biden Regime only enforced laws “that they agreed with”

The Drive-By Media basically said: “Yay!”

[Carry_Okie]

These are giant money sucks from rural and suburban areas.

That's not how it worked with the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). Its primary purpose was to bring suburban commuters to San Francisco. It was a bonanza for suburban developers.

[shelterguy]

Like the light rail line in Minneapolistan,which is called the somali trolley. Billions wasted on a train nobody pays to ride. They let the thugs ride it without paying and nothing is done about it.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit to line Union and Dem Politician pockets.

Hundreds of billions allocated, hundreds of billions disappeared, but only a few billions of projects got built. California water projects (state proposition) and California HSR come to mind.

[Fledermaus]

What happened to the money Obama got?

All he did was put his name on signs at existing projects.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

TWO absolutely beautiful charts!!

[monkeyshine]

It’s how local politicians skim money to big money donors, developers and voting blocs.

Trump is a builder, he probably has a pretty good idea how much the cities and states are being scammed - or rather how much the cities and states are scamming the federal taxpayer. One only need look at California. We have a speed train 20 years late and $100 billion over budget. We are still working on a part of I-5 that was budgeted during Obama’s term. I-5 from Los Angeles to the Bay Area needs 2 more lanes in each direction but the powers that be decided a silly speed train running 50 miles to the east was a better use of funds than a federal interstate that runs from Mexico to Canada.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Winning!

[Paladin2]

Public Transit has become a Killing Field.

We need NONE of it....

[DouglasKC]

I’m guessing that 99% of these funds are political payback.

[PGR88]

It funds bloated blue-city bureaucracies, their political structures, and kick-backs to politicians

[OrangeHoof]

I’ve stated before that the primary purpose of mass transit was to give the criminals in the inner cities easier access to suburban homes.

[LegendHasIt]

Thank you New York Times for confirming WE made the correct choice.

[Carry_Okie]

Billions wasted on a train nobody pays to ride.

I think you'll like it.

[shelterguy]

“””I’ve stated before that the primary purpose of mass transit was to give the criminals in the inner cities easier access to suburban homes.”””””

Yup. The somali trolley in Minneapolistan is now almost complete into some nice suburbs to the West. They will have a better quality of stuff to steal that way.

[Fungi]

Did the New York Slime ever take exception to the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) legislation? Did it ever note how many individuals were provided with internet access? Nope. Because no one was given access.