Lessons From Infrastructure Law Implementation
How to Prepare Active Transportation Infrastructure for Future Successes
Prepared for REI Cooperative Action Fund, March 2026
Authored by:
- Scott Goldstein, Senior Director of Government Relations, Rails to Trails Conservancy
- Elle Segal, Advocacy Outreach Director, Rails to Trails Conservancy
- Isabelle Lord, Senior Advocacy Coordinator, Rails to Trails Conservancy
Overview
In 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)—was hailed as being transformative by its supporters, both for its size ($1.2 trillion, with a total of $550 billion in transportation investments) and its scope, which included a wide variety of infrastructure types, as well as new programs and authorities. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—which included the $3 billion Neighborhood Access and Equity (NAE) program and other transportation investments—was designed to complement the IIJA and provide additional investment and authorities.
Together, these laws injected unprecedented funding into active transportation, empowered local and federal officials, and enabled decision-makers to start reimagining how government prioritizes transportation. As a result, America was poised for a new era of investment in active transportation.
This report is an assessment of the impact of the IIJA and IRA on active transportation, from their promise and high expectations to the reality of implementation and effects of a changing political environment. The report looks at what worked and what did not, identifies lessons learned, and recommends next steps for communities and advocates to maximize current and future investment opportunities.
Lessons Learned
Invest in Planning
Having plans and community and local support in place makes it easier to both successfully apply for grants and leverage additional formula and TA funding. Planning is relatively affordable, compared to construction, and allows communities to be ready to take advantage of funding when it becomes available.
Planning consists of a number of elements, including developing and regularly updating strategic goals that inform priority corridors and project selection. These plans should be adopted by the state and regional authorities in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) or Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which states are required to create. Communities may also consider conducting project development and design to advance individual projects so that they are truly “shovel ready.” Community engagement is essential throughout the planning process to ensure both public support and sufficient political will.
In December 2018, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced the Next Level Trails grant program, which was designed to provide a historic level of trail funding across Indiana. This initiative catalyzed trail planning and investment across the state. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress approved the American Rescue Plan (ARP), which included flexible funding for state and local projects. The success of the Next Level Trails initiative ensured Indiana was prepared to leverage these flexible funds for trails, and indeed the state allocated $60 million in ARP funds to the Next Level Trails program.
DOT Decision-Makers Have Significant Influence Over Discretionary Outcomes
Decision-makers at states and the USDOT have enormous influence over how discretionary grants are implemented, and the benefit of these programs to active transportation can vary widely with each election and subsequent appointments. USDOT leadership can redesign applications—including adding, promoting or removing merit criteria within the constraints of the law—choose how and where to provide technical assistance and public engagement to promote funding opportunities, and use the “bully pulpit” of the USDOT Secretary to send national signals about administration priorities and preferences.
Administrations that are proactively supportive of active transportation infrastructure will make it easy for communities to successfully apply for multimodal discretionary grants, whereas administrations that are less proactively supportive may design applications that are especially challenging. USDOT leadership will also influence the hiring of career staff as well as the degree of authority and autonomy those civil service experts will have in their roles. Similarly, decision-makers at state DOTs and MPOs are also important as they set local priorities, determine which applications to submit to the USDOT, and have enormous influence over USDOT decision-makers in how they design grant programs. State DOTs and MPOs are direct decision-makers for how federal resources are invested in their jurisdictions, including for TA, underscoring their significance to the funding process.
As an example, under the Biden administration, the USDOT prioritized and awarded grants for active transportation across multimodal programs, both for stand-alone projects and for elements that were part of larger projects, and the secretary traveled the country highlighting this infrastructure. The Trump administration has taken a different approach. It did not award any stand-alone active transportation infrastructure in the first round of the BUILD awards (or during Trump’s first term), and the secretary has publicly—and through grant application designs—stated a preference for motor vehicle infrastructure over active transportation.
Discretionary Grants Remain Important Catalysts
Discretionary grants are important catalysts for project development, inspire local and regional collaboration and federal innovation, and produce consequential large-scale active transportation projects.
As an example, dozens of local communities submitted applications for over $3 billion in NAE and RCP funding intended to reconnect neighborhoods divided by infrastructure. Though the substantial majority of the funding was ultimately rescinded, these communities saw the opportunity for trails, biking and walking to stitch neighborhoods back together and to leverage a significant amount of funding for the large-scale investments necessary to build bridges, decks and tunnels over divisive infrastructure. Ultimately, the USDOT awarded a combined $834 million, or 25% of the total $3.3 billion in funding, to projects focused on trails, walking and biking. Eighty-five percent of the 132 projects include elements that account for active transportation. Investments of this scale would not have been possible without such a unique combination of program authority and level of funding.
Many discretionary grants are designed as multimodal programs, and this structure has proven to yield a tremendous number of applicants applying for active-transportation-oriented projects as part of larger multimodal projects. This enables local communities to contextualize active transportation as part of a larger package and enables the USDOT to invest in this infrastructure, even when it may not be inclined to support stand-alone active transportation projects. Even smaller discretionary grants are significantly larger than available funding through the foundational TA program.
Discretionary grants are therefore critical in completing large gaps in active transportation networks and spines.
Finally, discretionary grants often are implemented alongside federal tools to support development of competitive applications. These tools can provide communities valuable insights into local and regional challenges that may prove useful in advancing active transportation. Administrations will typically create tools that align with administration priorities. As an example, the Biden administration created the Equitable Transportation Community Explorer to help communities assess and address transportation disadvantage. This tool was part of the Justice40 initiative and was designed to both help discretionary applicants respond to relevant merit criteria and help communities target investments to improve related outcomes. As of this writing, the Trump administration has yet to produce its own tools; however, it included updated and detailed language within the SS4A application, describing the behavior and technological outcomes it supports as part of its roadway safety efforts.
Case Study: RAISE Program Demonstration Strategy in Baltimore, Maryland
Within the RAISE program, eligible projects ranged from port infrastructure, transit improvements, roads and bridges to trail infrastructure. Despite the wide range of possible projects, applications supporting biking, walking and trails performed well in all rounds. In particular, FY 2023 RAISE grants illustrated the transformative impact of connected trail, walking and biking infrastructure in rural, suburban and urban communities nationwide, with 80% of awards addressing one or more elements of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and nearly $400 million invested to solely fund bicycle and pedestrian projects. This demonstrated that active transportation projects could be successful when competing with other more traditional modes of infrastructure such as bridges and highways.
SS4A Successful Demonstration Category: By offering distinct application categories for planning, demonstration and implementation, SS4A made way for an increased number of “quick build,” or temporary, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure projects. Each year under BIL, the USDOT refined the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) language for this program to encourage applicants to apply for grants that supported their projects at each phase. The City of Baltimore is an example of a community that took advantage of the opportunity to test quick-build projects through the demonstration category of the program. Using an FY 2023 SS4A Planning and Demonstration award, Baltimore plans to implement pop-up Complete Streets projects within their High Injury Network of streets. One pilot strategy includes temporary lane and street closures. The demonstration category gives the city the opportunity to be innovative and creative and change the way they usually plan and implement projects. Across the country, many local elected officials like these quick-build projects because they demonstrate safety outcomes without a high level of investment or permanence and support conversations with community members who may have been initially hesitant about the investment. The popularity of demonstration grants suggests that this category could also work well in other programs.
Storytelling Is Critical
Telling the story of the many benefits of active transportation projects is as essential as it is challenging. Policymakers are confronting a 24/7 media ecosystem across social and traditional media that makes it very difficult for a story to break through.
Still, storytelling remains critical to translating complex programs and large dollar amounts into everyday reality and lived experiences. In part because of the challenges of breaking through, it is very important for stakeholders to communicate regularly, across all media channels, and repeatedly describe the progress and benefits of projects. When projects are complete, it is equally important for stakeholders to uplift the experience of people using the infrastructure and match those with the expected project benefits.
Trail projects provide numerous opportunities for storytelling. Community engagement during the planning process tells the story of what is possible and what the community is trying to achieve. Winning a grant is another opportunity to uplift the benefits of the project that helped allow it to successfully compete for funding. A project groundbreaking is another opportunity to keep the community updated while also demonstrating progress on delivering the project.
Additionally, after construction begins, regularly sharing photos or descriptions of progress and project milestones will help keep a drumbeat of support as the project advances. When the project is complete, a celebration or other opening ceremony, followed by regular photos and stories of the trail/infrastructure in use, will keep the community both engaged and reminded of why it made the investment. Before and after photos and stories can also serve to reinforce the value of the project and its transformative potential and impact.
Political Will and Political Leadership Are Critical
As described above, decision-makers at all levels of government have enormous influence over program design and outcomes. However, their authority is derived from their political leadership, whose willingness to promote and support active transportation is not guaranteed. Creating sustained public support for this infrastructure is essential to pressuring local, state and federal political leadership to consistently prioritize active transportation infrastructure. Sustained public support is also necessary to encourage candidates supportive of active transportation infrastructure to seek office and to subsequently invest in this infrastructure, and to hold policymakers accountable to the communities they serve.
At the federal level, the administration and Congress can influence funding by sending signals through public and private comments as well as their policy proposals. While the secretary of transportation has broad authority to implement programs created by Congress, they must act consistent with the president’s priorities and be mindful of congressional interest in program and project outcomes. Whether and how members of Congress and the president discuss active transportation—including by attending events, visiting project sites, introducing legislation or engaging in private communications with the secretary—their communications will shape how the secretary chooses to leverage their authority in support of this infrastructure.
Similarly, state and local political leaders articulate a vision, set local goals and appoint transportation officials tasked with selecting and administering the projects to achieve those goals, and raise local transportation funds. Long before a project can be considered for a federal discretionary award or formula funding, it must have the local political support to be selected for regional plans as well as design and engineering. The willingness of state DOTs and local/regional transportation officials to prioritize and advance projects flows from the support of the public and all levels of civic and elected leadership.
As mentioned above, Congress rescinded nearly $3 billion for the IRA’s NAE grant program, including $750 million for trail, walking and biking projects. As trail funding was proposed to be eliminated from their own districts, members of Congress did not fight back, instead putting their heads down and voting for the rescission as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Meanwhile, a similar effort to sell public lands as part of the same bill failed under the pressure of bipartisan pushback, with members of Congress publicly fighting to preserve public lands.
At the same time, the USDOT was undertaking reviews of previously awarded grants, including thousands of trail, walking and biking projects across multiple programs, and had clearly stated that it was considering canceling or modifying active transportation projects. The NAE rescission sent a signal to the USDOT that there would not be a political cost if it were to pursue its efforts to cancel or modify these projects.
As of this writing, the USDOT project reviews are ongoing; however, the department has announced the cancellation of several trail and active transportation projects and has used unusually strong language to describe some of these projects as “hostile to motor vehicles.” It is difficult to assess from public information the full scope of the cancellations and the rationale. Department officials have not described why some active transportation projects were chosen for cancellation while many others were allowed to proceed. Nor have department officials described how the USDOT weighed the safety benefit of canceled projects against the administration’s stated priority of vehicle throughput. In addition, projects have been canceled in states and regions represented by officials from both major political parties, suggesting there is no clear political rationale for the cancellations.
Beyond canceled projects, the USDOT has periodically announced its approval of previously awarded grants following grant reviews and has since said that the review process is nearly complete. The department has not made clear whether approved projects will still be required to remove project elements in order to proceed and, if so, how many projects and what elements are impacted. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to reach firm conclusions; however, two factors appear relevant: 1) political leadership, and 2) public and political support. While their rationale may not be clear, departmental political leadership are choosing to cancel some projects and allow others. Additionally, based on the department’s stated priorities, it is reasonable to conclude that there would be more cancellations and alterations but for the support of members of Congress and local communities for this infrastructure. Therefore, robust public and political support for trail, walking and biking infrastructure is likely to reduce the number of cancellations and alterations.
The Circuit Trails (railstotrails.org/circuit) network in the Greater Philadelphia region offers a positive vision and example of harnessing political will to support successful outcomes. Support from the regional MPO, local elected officials, local advocates and philanthropic entities has been instrumental in obtaining $41.7 million in federal funding for projects in FY 2023, including a $19 million RAISE grant. The support has also been critical to the project’s repeated success over the years in securing funds, dating back to the initial grants given in 2009 under TIGER, the program that originated RAISE.
In Utah, multiple MPOs, the state DOT and advocacy organizations have been instrumental in successfully advocating for state funding and statewide trail-network planning. Partially as a result of this collaboration and broad support, the state received a nearly $10 million RAISE planning grant for the “Utah Trail Network Four Corners Planning Study” in 2024 and a $25 million RAISE grant in 2023.
Local Match Continues to Be an Obstacle
Identifying the required local match—often 20% of the cost of a project—is one of the main challenges communities face in accessing federal funding. In late 2023, RTC polled nearly 400 of its partners on barriers to federal funding; the poll identified raising local matching funds as the top challenge, followed closely by grant writing and project management capacity. These and other challenges left many communities overwhelmed and unable or uninterested in applying for federal funding.
Local match is the portion of a project cost that must be provided by the grant recipient (generally a state or local community). Congress requires a local match for most federal transportation funding to ensure that communities are supportive of a project and have “skin in the game.” The IIJA included some different reforms across programs to reduce the local match burden, including waiving or reducing the match for certain disadvantaged communities and allowing certain federal funds to count for a local match, among others.
While the local match has always presented challenges, the increased interest from lower-capacity communities for IIJA funding has both highlighted and exacerbated this challenge. As more communities determined that they want this infrastructure and sought to take advantage of new federal programs, they were forced to confront the requirement to identify a local source for 20% of the project cost. Even accounting for IIJA reforms, and the relative affordability of active transportation infrastructure compared to other larger projects, this issue presented a major obstacle to enabling communities to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the IIJA.
Recognizing this challenge, RTC has proposed reducing the local match for the largest source of federal funding for trails, walking and biking—TA. The active transportation community should consider how it can engage Congress to reform the historical requirement of a 20% local match to ensure that more communities can take advantage of future federal funding.
Appropriations Is Not a Viable Strategy for New Programs
ATIIP was created to deliver the connected active-transportation network of spine trails and community connections that other programs were unable to deliver. The IIJA authorized Congress to appropriate $200 million each year for ATIIP. While this was a significant victory, subjecting this new program to annual appropriations ultimately limited its impact. Members of the Congressional appropriations committees were once considered among the most influential; today, however, the overall appropriations process is dysfunctional, and Congress rarely passes all 12 appropriations bills on time, often relying on continuing resolutions (CRs) to fund the government. Additionally, the IIJA provided advanced appropriations for several programs, reducing the import of the appropriations committees to the transportation appropriations process and ultimately leaving little room for newly authorized programs such as ATIIP to receive funding.
New Programs Demonstrated Different Transportation Future; Intentional Investment Required to Realize
The IIJA created or expanded over a hundred discretionary programs and many more formula programs that together were designed to demonstrate what it looks like to modernize our transportation priorities and make different types of investments. The projects that were chosen are the manifestation of this new approach. Change is often difficult, and these investments and programs also demonstrate how important it will be for policymakers to intentionally design and implement programs for the future they wish to realize. Fortunately, the IIJA resulted in the planning and construction of thousands of active transportation projects around the country that will be the real and living examples of what is possible for generations and a model for a future administration or Congress.
Conclusion
The decisions made today will determine the size, scope and impact of tomorrow’s active-transportation infrastructure investments and the role of active transportation in the next surface transportation law. The development and implementation of the IIJA and IRA offer important insights into how communities, stakeholders and governments can build a walkable, bikeable future; lay the groundwork for renewed federal investment; and take advantage of that investment, should it materialize.
This report identifies specific lessons learned for the entire active transportation movement. RTC will apply these lessons to its work and will review its existing policy proposals and engagement strategies to ensure they align with these findings.
RTC recognizes that policy proposals relevant to the political moment today may not be enough to fully realize the active transportation vision of all American communities. Our movement must continue to candidly assess what works and what does not, and to adjust tactics and strategies accordingly.
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