Trump’s DOT is directing 87 percent of total grant dollars to states that backed the President in the last election.
New USDOT priorities are shifting more funding to roads and highways, with little left over for public transit or multimodal projects, reports Matthew Sage in Streetsblog USA. Sage outlines the $488 million in grants awarded under the DOT’s Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program, “one of the largest and most flexible tools the agency has to support infrastructure construction nationwide.”
According to Sage, two-thirds and 77 percent of funding for BUILD projects this year are going to roadway projects, many of them aimed at widening roads for drivers. Only four transit projects won funding this year, totaling around $49 million.
The grants also appear politically motivated: “An egregious 83 percent of the announced projects — representing 87 percent of total grant dollars from this cycle — are going to states that backed Trump in the last election,” Sage notes. Only three states — Alaska, Ohio, and Wyoming — received grants for multiple projects.
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