Infrastructure Deal ‘Worst Ratio for Transit Funding Since Nixon’

Washington is one step closer to passing an infrastructure package that would provide historic funding for transit, and then immediately undercut it with historic funding for drivers.

Following months of fraught negotiations, a bipartisan group of 22 Senators (all of them White) reached the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal on Wednesday night to advance debate on a $1-trillion infrastructure plan that would inject $550 billion of one-time investment into the nation’s public transportation networks, roads, and more.

Many details of the bill remain vague, but many sustainable transportation advocates were troubled by top-line funding ratios that would give transit a smaller percentage share of federal dollars than at any point since the Nixon administration, slash 95 percent of funding for a program that would reconnect BIPOC communities sundered by highways, and threw only crumbs to ending the accelerating roadway safety crisis.

Here are four developments to watch as the negotiations continue.

1. The end of the 80/20 split…but not in a good way

Since the early days of the Reagan era, a handshake agreement in Washington has essentially guaranteed that drivers get 80 percent of federal infrastructure funding and transit agencies get 20 percent. (In practice, the ratio is really more like 87/13, but let’s keep things simple for now. ) The top-line numbers in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, though, would tip that ratio a little towards drivers, landing at roughly 82/18 — a slap in the face to advocates who hoped to see drivers split the pie 50/50, at the least.

“This is the worst ratio for transit funding since the Nixon Administration, and it’s a suicide mission that prioritizes cars and highways over more equitable and sustainable forms of transportation,” Renae Reynolds, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said in a statement. “If we are going to meaningfully tackle the climate crisis and the backwards infrastructure policies that got us here, we need to do a lot more.”

There’s a lot of debate right now about whether that math will hold up once more details are revealed about how the $110 billion in funding for “roads” will actually be spent — because some of that money might not be actually spent on roads. In the fact sheet on the deal, the White House noted that “the bill also includes a total of $17.5 billion for major projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding programs,” which is said to include some big rail and transit projects, too. But that’s not confirmed.