The Trump administration canceled grants for street safety measures, pedestrian trails and bike lanes in communities around the country this month, each time offering a simple rationale for yanking back federal aid: The projects aren’t designed for cars.

A San Diego County road improvement project including bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a US Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year ago.

In Fairfield, Alabama, converting street lanes to trail space on Vinesville Road was also deemed “hostile” to cars, and “counter to DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”

Officials in Boston got a similar explanation, as the Trump administration pulled back a previously awarded grant to improve walking, biking and transit in the city’s Mattapan Square neighborhood in a way that would change the “current auto-centric configuration.” Another grant to improve safety at intersections in the city was terminated, the DOT said, because it could “impede vehicle capacity and speed.”

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his quest to undo the policies of Joe Biden, including rescinding funding for projects involving electric vehicle charging and clean energy.

But the wave of cancellations issued Sept. 9 by the DOT demonstrates just how determined the administration is to promote the use of single-occupancy vehicles in cities and towns – and to thwart local governments’ attempts to develop other ways for residents to get around.

A DOT spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Growing Demand

Transit advocates and local officials have had inklings that a reversal could be coming since Trump returned to power in January. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has regularly heaped scorn on major transit systems, including New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and signaled that the department would prioritize projects that are designed around automobiles.

Still, local officials and transit advocates said they were surprised by the language DOT used in rescinding previously awarded grants, and alarmed that the department seemed to be taking particular aim at programs that were designed to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists in a period of elevated traffic injuries and deaths.

In Albuquerque, city officials have been concerned that a move like this was coming for months, said Terry Brunner, the city’s chief of staff and director of its Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency. The city received word earlier this year that an $11.5 million grant it won in 2022 to complete a downtown section of a rail trail was being “reviewed” by the Trump DOT.

“We knew what might be coming, but we weren’t sure,” Brunner said in an interview.

The administration is taking aim at discretionary grants – awards of federal funding for which states and counties apply. The DOT has aimed cuts at the RAISE infrastructure grant program and the Safe Streets for All program, among others, according to people familiar with the clawbacks and a review of notices sent to local governments.

The attacks on pedestrian safety and “active transportation networks” are ironic because demand for such infrastructure is growing in Republican and Trump-supporting municipalities, not just liberal cities, said Kevin Mills, vice president of policy at the nonprofit Rails to Trails Conservancy.

Despite rhetoric that associates non-car infrastructure development with liberal politics, “at the local level, there really isn’t that divide,” Mills said in an interview. Florida, he noted, is a red state with “extremely strong” plans to grow its network of mixed-use trails for bikes and pedestrians.

Transit planners increasingly have opted for alternative transit projects that can also alleviate automobile congestion, an approach Mills said is often more effective than car-focused projects. “These canceled projects may do that better,” he said.

The clawbacks mark the end of some of these projects, like the trail in Fairfield.

“It can’t get done without that money,” said Yvette Reynolds, the city clerk, about the $11.7 million federal grant for the trail project that was rescinded.

Making up for Shortfalls

Grant recipients aren’t necessarily giving in.

“The City won these competitive federal grants to replace sidewalks, improve lighting, upgrade bus stops, and plant trees on neighborhood streets,” a spokesperson for the administration of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in an email. “The federal government’s decision to cancel these grants once again ignores the clear intent of Congress and we are reviewing our options.”

Officials in McLean County, Illinois, started work in 1999 on a 10-foot-wide bike and pedestrian trail that would stretch from one end of the county to the other, tracing the path of historic Route 66 and providing a safe alternative for cyclists in a region bounded by highways and train tracks, project records show. The county planned to use its $675,000 federal grant to plan and design the final nine miles of the path – money that would unlock additional pots of construction funding to complete the project.

“This makes it shovel-ready. That’s why it’s so important to us,” said Cathy Dreyer, the assistant county administrator. She said in an interview that the county had applied for a state grant that same morning, hoping to make up the shortfall.

In Albuquerque, Brunner was disappointed but looking on the bright side. Ever since Trump took office and the city’s grant was put under review, the city had made no progress on getting the agreement finalized, the step that would allow Albuquerque to actually get its money. That problem was compounded by the administration’s wholesale cuts to the federal workforce, which further reduced DOT’s capacity to work on the project, he said. Now, at least they’re freed up to look for funding elsewhere.

“Honestly, the feds have been ghosting us on this for the last nine months,” he said. “If there’s a plus side to this, getting them out of the way may actually make this project move a little bit faster.”

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