The Trump administration may eliminate the mass transit account of the Highway Trust Fund and prohibit states from using highway formula dollars for transit projects, according to Politico. If passed as part of the Surface Transportation Act reauthorization legislation, which would go into effect Oct. 1, 2026, the move “will annihilate state and local transportation budgets,” according to Transportation for America.
Congress created the mass transit account in 1982 as part of a deal to raise gasoline taxes to support the Highway Trust Fund. President Ronald Reagan signed it into law in 1983. “It will allow us to complete the interstate system,” he said, as well as “strengthen and improve our bridges, make all of us safer, and help our cities meet their public transit needs.”
American Public Transportation Association President and CEO Paul Skoutelas urged President Trump to reject the plan to cut off this significant source of federal funding for mass transit. “These reckless proposals would devastate Americans in cities, suburbs, and rural communities across the country — cutting off critical transit services that provide access to jobs, health care, and education,” Skoutelas said in a statement.
Past federal fuel tax increases were split 80-20 between the highway account and the mass transit account, but the transit account’s share of the fuel tax revenue has never been close to 20%, according to the Eno Center for Transportation. Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, mass transit has received 18.2% of the highway fund’s spending authority.
“We're not going to be spending money on murals and train stations or bike paths or walking paths,” Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., said Nov. 4 on Punchbowl News. “We're going to spend money on traditional infrastructure, that's roads and bridges.” Graves is chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
“Where do these harebrained ideas come from?” Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said in an emailed statement. “Millions of people travel everyday using transit. Most states rely on transit to provide another option for people to move around. Transit investments create and support jobs. Need I go on? These heavy-handed, top-down, egghead think tank ideas need to die.”
Clean energy advocates also rejected the proposal. “At a moment when families are already feeling squeezed, the administration is trying to limit transportation options, increase car dependence, and force everyone onto the most expensive possible path,” Evergreen Action Senior Transportation Policy Lead Liya Rechtman said in a statement.
