MassDOT’s $327M Grant Among Rescinded Awards After ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

The way forward for Massachusetts’ $1.9-billion Allston Multimodal Mission 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 Lawmakers rescinded unobligated funds for the grant program, referred to as Neighborhood Entry and Fairness, within the latest funds reconciliation package deal known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and specialists say billions of {dollars} for initiatives throughout the nation could also be impacted.

“Massachusetts received 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 Mission 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 area 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 means of 2022’s Inflation Discount Act. This system was centered on supporting initiatives enhancing walkability, security and reasonably priced transportation entry. U.S. Dept. of Transportation officers selected the Allston project for an award in 2024. Funding for this system was to stay out there by means of 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However on July 18, MassDOT officers mentioned they acquired verbal notification that the grant had been rescinded, aside from $8 million that had already been obligated.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 individuals of Massachusetts deserve higher from their federal authorities,” Healey mentioned.

Now, MassDOT will bear a assessment to guage the best way to ship on the identical targets with the out there assets, 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 assessment, she added, however didn’t identify the agency and state officers didn’t instantly reply to inquiries. 

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

Rescinded Funds

The Neighborhood Entry and Fairness grant program was one among 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 applications embody these serving to fund the usage of low-carbon development supplies in federal buildings and transportation initiatives, applications focusing on air air pollution, applications 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 means of 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 referred to 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 have now executed the exhausting work—planning, design, group enter, and now we’re liable to dropping a transformative funding that can assist jobs, security and long-term development.”

MassDOT’s grant was one of many largest awards beneath the Neighborhood Entry and Fairness program. Different important grants beneath this system embody $450 million to the Oregon Dept. of Transportation for its I-5 Rose Quarter Enchancment Mission, $180 million to the New York State Dept. of Transportation for its I-81 Connecting Syracuse Mission, $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 prime and $147 million for Jacksonville, Fla.’s Emerald Path challenge.