MassDOT’s $327M Grant Among Rescinded Awards After ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

The way forward for Massachusetts’ $1.9-billion Allston Multimodal Challenge is in query after state officers say the Trump administration terminated $327 million of a $335 million grant the U.S. Dept. of Transportation awarded for the challenge in 2023. Lawmakers rescinded unobligated funds for the grant program, known as Neighborhood Entry and Fairness, within the current finances reconciliation package deal known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and consultants say billions of {dollars} for initiatives throughout the nation could also be impacted.

“Massachusetts gained this funding to assist our communities and our financial system—and the Trump administration wants to revive it,” Gov. Maura Healey mentioned in a press release.

The Allston Multimodal Challenge is deliberate to reconfigure transportation infrastructure alongside a stretch of Interstate 90 in Boston. It will embody changing the Allston Viaduct, which carries a part of I-90. The scope additionally consists of constructing a MBTA station on the Worcester Commuter Rail Line and a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation (MassDOT) officers say the challenge would reconnect communities and open up house for redevelopment and a waterfront park in a Boston neighborhood state officers described as an “environmental justice group.”

Lawmakers established the Neighborhood Entry and Fairness program by 2022’s Inflation Discount Act. This system was targeted on supporting initiatives bettering walkability, security and inexpensive transportation entry. U.S. Dept. of Transportation officers selected the Allston project for an award in 2024. Funding for this system was to stay obtainable by the top of September 2026.

However on July 18, MassDOT officers mentioned they acquired verbal notification that the grant had been rescinded, aside from $8 million that had already been obligated. 

“The folks of Massachusetts deserve higher from their federal authorities,” Healey mentioned.

Now, MassDOT will bear a evaluate to judge the best way to ship on the identical objectives with the obtainable sources, mentioned Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Massachusetts transportation secretary and MassDOT CEO, in a press release. Officers are consulting with an out of doors engineering agency within the evaluate, she added, however didn’t identify the agency and state officers didn’t instantly reply to inquiries. 

“We consider within the Allston Multimodal Challenge and can keep engaged and in communication with the [project] job drive, challenge companions and elected officers as we chart our path ahead,” Tibbits-Nutt mentioned. 

Rescinded Funds

The Neighborhood Entry and Fairness grant program was certainly one of a slate that Republican members of Congress rescinded of their reconciliation package deal, which President Donald Trump signed into legislation on July 4. Different focused packages embody these serving to fund using low-carbon development supplies in federal buildings and transportation initiatives, packages focusing on air air pollution, packages selling environmental justice for traditionally underserved communities and different Biden-era initiatives that the Trump administration has not prioritized. 

The nonprofit group Transportation for America analyzed government spending data and located solely $777 million of the $3.2 billion awarded by the Neighborhood Entry and Fairness program had been obligated, leaving $2.4 billion to be rescinded.

Different grant awardees contacted by ENR didn’t instantly reply to inquiries concerning the standing of their funding. Neither did U.S. DOT representatives. However some recipients have known as on lawmakers to guard their funding. 

“This funding is significant to Toledo’s future,” Wade Kapszukiewicz, the mayor of Toledo, Ohio, mentioned earlier than the reconciliation invoice was handed in a press release concerning the metropolis’s $28.5-million Neighborhood Entry and Fairness grant for a visitors security challenge. The grant was set to cowl 100% of the challenge prices. “We now have achieved the onerous work—planning, design, group enter, and now we’re susceptible to shedding a transformative funding that can assist jobs, security and long-term progress.”

MassDOT’s grant was one of many largest awards below the Neighborhood Entry and Fairness program. Different vital grants below this system embody $450 million to the Oregon Dept. of Transportation for its I-5 Rose Quarter Enchancment Challenge, $180 million to the New York State Dept. of Transportation for its I-81 Connecting Syracuse Challenge, $158.9 million for a challenge to construct a freeway cap over I-676 in Philadelphia, $157.6 million to cap I-78 and I-85 in Atlanta and construct a park on high and $147 million for Jacksonville, Fla.’s Emerald Path challenge.