Congressional Democrats have accused the Federal Transit Administration and White House budget office of stymying grants meant for major transit construction projects around the country, stalling efforts to expand subways, railroads and bus infrastructure.
The multibillion-dollar Capital Investment Grants program, which helps communities fund transit expansion projects they often cannot afford on their own, has awarded no new grant funding since the start of the Trump administration.
In a letter to the F.T.A. and budget office Tuesday, 42 Democrats from the House and Senate, including many who represent communities seeking these funds, demanded that the administration immediately advance projects under the program. Dozens of communities are pursuing funding for ambitious transit infrastructure in a multiyear pipeline. But the Trump administration has yet to sign a grant agreement with any of them, a drought detailed in a New York Times article last month that the lawmakers cited in the letter.
Under the second Trump administration, major projects have been held up for months from entering a critical final stage of the program. The budget office has made unusual moves with the program’s funding, pushing more than $5 billion appropriated by Congress out of reach for new grants this fiscal year.
And the administration tried to cut off funds to three marquee projects in states run by Democrats — the Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway in the New York area, and the Red Line extension in Chicago — that received grants under the Biden administration. Russell Vought, the White House budget director, said at the time that the administration froze the funds to ensure they were not “based on unconstitutional D.E.I. principles.” Federal judges have since blocked the moves.
“We have watched for months,” the Democrats wrote, as the two agencies “have stonewalled the progress of worthy transit projects while President Trump and Department of Transportation Secretary Duffy are proclaiming a commitment to a ‘golden age of transportation.’”
The letter expressed concern that the delays involved “political considerations, which could further violate statutory requirements.”
In a statement, the F.T.A. dismissed the letter as “partisan.”
“The truth is F.T.A. is investing into transformative transportation projects across the country — regardless of politics — all while fighting to enhance safety for the millions of Americans who are tired of being afraid every time they get on public transit,” said Peyton Vogel, an F.T.A. spokesperson.
Last week, the F.T.A. did move a large commuter rail project in Utah one step closer to a funding agreement. The FrontRunner 2X project would add a second track to sections of a rail corridor that connects much of the state’s booming population, enabling more trains to run with more frequent service.
In admitting the project to the final “engineering” phase of the program, the F.T.A. announced it was committing $1.28 billion to the plan. But Utah must complete additional requirements first, including securing the remainder of the $3.2 billion total project cost from other sources. A final grant agreement isn’t expected until next spring.
The Utah project has been a priority of Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation, and state leaders have framed it as an essential infrastructure investment ahead of the 2034 Winter Olympics in Utah.
But projects in the grant pipeline without Republican backers have continued to languish. The congressional letter notes that two projects in Los Angeles and Boston — which have been waiting to enter the engineering phase far longer — remain stalled. Those projects have also received higher ratings than the Utah one in a key F.T.A. assessment that considers factors like the cost effectiveness and potential congestion relief of a project.
“It smacks of blue state-red state politics,” said Representative Rick Larsen of Washington, the lead Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who organized the letter with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
“What they’re doing is they’re punishing blue states, they’re delaying jobs, and they’re increasing project costs,” Mr. Larsen said. “That will be the outcome of these delays.”
Other projects in red states, he said, may be collateral damage in the administration’s hostility toward the program.
Funding delays can drive up the price of a project, given rapidly escalating construction costs. That means taxpayers may ultimately pay more for some of these projects, or the projects may become so expensive that local communities can no longer cover their share of the costs.
“Delay by itself is one way to kill off a project — letting the costs rise to an unaffordable level,” said Peter Rogoff, a former F.T.A. administrator and former head of Sound Transit in Seattle. Regardless of whether that’s intentional, he said, “we could be in a situation where delay is having that effect nonetheless.”
For many federal programs, funding expires at the end of each fiscal year, on Sept. 30. But these infrastructure dollars have no such expiration date, to allow for the long timelines and unexpected complications of major construction projects. That means money the administration is not spending now won’t disappear — the accumulating pot could still be spent later.
But that feature of the program also means it’s harder for critics to prove that the administration is defying Congress by refusing to spend funds appropriated for these grants. The administration can argue, as it has so far, that projects are simply still working their way through the lengthy program pipeline.
