Whether it’s a preference for highway expansion, passenger rail, or bike infrastructure, different administrations can shift grantmaking priorities at the federal level.
New research from the Urban Institute examines how much presidential administrations impact federal transportation funding — and it turns out the influence is significant. According to UI researcher Yonah Freemark, “There are different political priorities for different administrations, and we should be thinking about that when having conversations about the role of the president and other people in the federal administration.”
As Dan Zukowski explains in Smart Cities Dive, “The Obama administration favored transit projects while the Trump administration prioritized road expansion, the report says. The Biden administration focused on bike and pedestrian projects to a larger extent than either previous administration.”
The report suggests four ways to make federal funding more equitable and ensure it reaches the communities that need it most: prioritizing applications from low-income communities, assisting communities with the application process to ensure underresourced communities don’t get left behind, assessing the benefits and drawbacks of infrastructure projects, and improving the transparency of federal grantmaking programs.
Read the full story: How the White House influences transportation grantmaking
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