Congress Calls Out the Trump Administration for Transit Funding Delays

Angie Schmitt sums up the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. on the matter of transit funding, as exposed in a Congressional hearing this week:

The Trump Administration has been starving shovel-ready transit projects of money that Congress had specifically made available — an 'unlawful' form of foot-dragging that has cost local transit providers more than $850 million, according to the latest Congressional report that again confirms what transit agencies and advocates have long known.

Wait time for transit funding has doubled under the Trump administration, according to a report that uses data from the federal Transit Administration. "All that waiting is expensive. Congressional analysts estimate the Trump Administration slowdown has led to $845 million in extra costs for transit agencies," according to Schmitt.

Transportation for America first raised alarms about the tardiness of transit funding allocated by Congress and then held up by the Trump administration, and the problem has persisted throughout the administration's tenure.

"In a Congressional hearing on Tuesday, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) called the Trump Administration’s actions 'unlawful,'" according to Schmitt.

Patrick Sisson provides additional details of Tuesday's hearings and the tardy actions of the Federal Transit Administration in a separate article for Curbed.

The debate goes on as to whether the funding delays are the result of transit antagonism by the Trump administration, incompetence by the Trump administration, a broken and inefficient system—or all three. The fact remains that transit funding was delivered in half the time under the previous administration.