U.S. DOT Orders Review of All Grants Related to Green Infrastructure, Bikes

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has ordered officials to stop action on all Biden-era discretionary grants to build bike lanes and other "green infrastructure" so the agency can review the project for possible removal.

The memo cited as its authority five executive orders issued by the Trump administration that take aim at the diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility goals of the Biden administration, as well as the previous president's efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the nation's transportation system, which Trump and Duffy have characterized as a so-called "Green New Deal."

Those efforts were a centerpiece of previous DOT secretary Buttigieg's strategy to implement the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, from which he allocated billions of dollars in discretionary grants to sustainable and equitable modes — but now that Duffy and Trump are holding the reins, they've signaled that they'll use the same programs to vastly expand America's consumption of fossil fuels instead.

"The focus of this review," the memo stated, "is to identify project scope and activities that are allocating funding to advance climate, equity and other priorities counter to the Administration's executive orders."

As a start, DOT heads are being asked to undertake a "project-by-project review" to identify proposals that include references to not only DEIA, but also grants "whose primary purpose is bicycle infrastructure." After the review, "project teams" will conduct a review to "flag any project ... for potential removal" if the projects involve an "equity analysis, green infrastructure, bicycle infrastructure [and] EV and/or EV-charging infrastructure."

That review would also flag projects whose purpose is to "improve the condition for environmental justice communities or actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions." While projects that have fully obligated their funds are not subject to the order, projects with partially obligated funds are.

The memo sent an early morning shockwave through the League of American Bicyclists' annual "Bike Summit" this week in Washington, where attendees received an "all-hands" style email blast alerting advocates that "the Administration has ordered a HALT work on all discretionary grants (RAISE, SSFA [Safe Streets and Roads for All], etc) that have the words 'bike lanes' in it. Other DEIA catch phrases also included."

The email from National Bike Summit Organizer Caron Whitaker asked advocates — already fanning out across Capitol Hill as part of the annual "lobby day" — to "PLEASE make sure to spend some time focusing in on those grant lists!!"

Whitaker said that her read of the memo is that all projects that are solely related to active transportation are now being red-flagged and anything involving multimodal transport are being yellow-flagged. Highway projects, she added, still have a green light.

Hill insider Yonah Freemark posted two screen shots of the document on his Bluesky account:

After initial publication of this story, Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) slammed
the Trump Administration for "ignor[ing] Congress and the law by slashing grants for bike and pedestrian infrastructure and EV charging.

“This unilateral decision by US DOT is halting four years’ worth of awarded projects and undermines the federal-state-local partnership for infrastructure delivery,” said Larsen, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. "It is nonsensical to abandon locally-developed projects that benefit communities across the country, and I urge the Administration to reverse course.”

The League of American Bicyclists said the halt on safety projects "will only hurt communities."

"Whether bike lanes for commuters or making kids’ routes to school safer, these federal funds are common sense investments in safety for everyone in the community," the group said in a statement. "These grants aren’t ideological, they are based on the local priorities for safer streets. In Arkansas, this will put an end to nearly $176 million in economic investments in road safety. In Mississippi, there are $115 million in the balance. People in these communities want these projects, and the states applied for these grants to better serve their citizens. The administration should enable these states and communities to do the work to make their roads and streets safer and better for everyone."

And Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey issued a terse statement on Bluesky.

The U.S. DOT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.