{"id":13797,"date":"2025-09-28T01:20:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T01:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-transportation-department-withdraws-grants-for-bike-lanes-and-trails\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T01:20:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T01:20:29","slug":"trumps-transportation-department-withdraws-grants-for-bike-lanes-and-trails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-transportation-department-withdraws-grants-for-bike-lanes-and-trails\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s transportation department withdraws grants for bike lanes and trails"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\">\n<div>\n<p>                                <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=\"1758923735000\" data-recent-thresholdinhours=\"1\">                    <template data-date-tpl>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]<\/template>                    <span data-date><\/span>                <\/bsp-timestamp>            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>                                        <bsp-page-actions>                            <\/bsp-page-actions>                                                                                            <\/div>\n<div>\n<p>CHICAGO (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump&rsquo;s transportation department has been <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/green-transportation-climate-transit-bikes-trump-buses-a3915d4859e9fd44bb7e81d993fb549f\">pulling back grants<\/a><\/span>  already announced for recreational trails and bicycle lanes, telling local officials their projects fail to promote <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/arizona-casa-grande-transportation-mass-transit-3737ff1cfc71c366c55f313cdd114fa1\">road capacity<\/a><\/span>  or are &ldquo;hostile to motor vehicles.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The department recently sent letters to local governments in at least six states &mdash; Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Mexico &mdash; informing them it was <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/duffy-transportation-memo-birth-marriage-rates-trump-8de1f95efc97e8b585bb0c93857ec951\">withdrawing money<\/a><\/span>  awarded under the $1.1 trillion infrastructure law former President Joe Biden <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/joe-biden-congress-infrastructure-bill-signing-b5b8cca843133de060778f049861b144\">signed in 2021.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The reversals are among the clearest signals yet of the drastic shift from the Biden administration&rsquo;s emphasis on alternative transportation, such as <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/chicago-transit-cuts-suburb-harvey-fiscal-cliff-ed1363d3cb271633dde2af0829634988\">transit<\/a><\/span>  and biking, to the Trump administration&rsquo;s focus on preserving and expanding lanes for cars and trucks.<\/p>\n<p>While the new grants Trump&rsquo;s transportation department announced this year reflect that change, it&rsquo;s practically unprecedented for an administration to claw back grants awarded by a predecessor without a compelling reason, such as potential environmental harms. However, the latest recalled projects didn&rsquo;t have fully funded grant agreements in place, which would have made reversing them far trickier.<\/p>\n<p>The transportation department&rsquo;s press office didn&rsquo;t respond to emails requesting comment.<\/p>\n<h2>Prioritizing roads, not trails<\/h2>\n<p>Connecticut won a $5.7 million federal grant last summer to help design segments of a 44-mile (71-kilometer) <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/great-american-rail-trail-connecting-biking-hiking-aede7122a345fd32ae6567769b5951a0\">recreational trail<\/a><\/span>  connecting several communities along the Naugatuck River.<\/p>\n<p>Rick Dunne, executive director of the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, said the grant&rsquo;s final details were being negotiated when the U.S. Department of Transportation sent a letter this month to inform local officials that the project wouldn&rsquo;t move forward. The agency wants &ldquo;multimodal grant programs&rdquo; to focus on &ldquo;projects that promote vehicular travel,&rdquo; the letter explained.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re defining quality of life for Americans as enhancing automobile operations,&rdquo; Dunne said.<\/p>\n<p>The same reason was given in a letter sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, pulling $11.5 million in funding for a leg of a rail trail cutting through the city&rsquo;s core. It was among the first active transportation projects awarded under the infrastructure law, with funding announced in 2022, but it was still going through the approval process.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We are going to stand up for Albuquerque and prevent the Trump Administration from pulling money from a project the people of Albuquerque want,&rdquo; Mayor Tim Keller said in a press release. &ldquo;We will see you in court.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Mills, vice president of policy for the Rails to Trails Conservancy, called the cuts &ldquo;an affront to the priorities set by Congress and Americans&rsquo; demands for safer, more convenient walking and biking routes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>DOT also withdrew a $20 million grant awarded in 2022 to transform three streetscapes in Boston. The reversal was based in part on the project&rsquo;s electric vehicle charging stations, which the administration said contradicted its preference for promoting &ldquo;traditional forms of energy and natural resources,&rdquo; <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/local-news\/2025\/09\/22\/trump-administration-cancels-20m-grant-for-roxbury-street-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Boston Globe reported<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<h2>No project too small to cut<\/h2>\n<p>Some of the withdrawn projects were relatively small in dollars and scope but still targeted for reversal due to the department&rsquo;s changing priorities.<\/p>\n<p>One applied to just a single block in San Diego County, California, where the community wanted to test whether it could <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hoboken-zero-traffic-deaths-daylighting-pedestrian-safety-007dec67706c1c09129da1436a3d9762\">improve safety<\/a><\/span>  without disrupting traffic flow. It sought to employ &ldquo;creative roadway features&rdquo; such as roundabouts in place of traffic signals, with plans to expand the approach to other intersections if the model proved successful, said Donna Durckel, spokesperson for the county&rsquo;s Land Use and Environment Group.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump&rsquo;s transportation officials flagged it as &ldquo;hostile to motor vehicles&rdquo; in a letter sent Sept. 9 because the project included a so-called <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/road-diets-traffic-safety-transportation-department-trump-2486cac519fdc56348532717e43dc81d\">road diet<\/a><\/span>  that would have reduced the stretch from four lanes to two.<\/p>\n<p>On the same day, McLean County in central Illinois got a similar letter recalling federal funding awarded last year to help design a final 9-mile segment of a bike and pedestrian trail along Route 66. County engineer Jerry Stokes said the project wouldn&rsquo;t affect motor vehicle travel but would promote safety by getting bicyclists and pedestrians off the road.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re kind of at a standstill now until new funding sources become available,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-transportation-infrastructure-grants-hostile-cars-37495f299378ac0980a3dea5b450e004\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] CHICAGO (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump&rsquo;s transportation department has been pulling back grants already announced for recreational trails and bicycle lanes, telling local officials their projects fail to promote road capacity or are &ldquo;hostile to motor vehicles.&rdquo; The department recently sent letters to local governments in at least [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}