Durable public policy solutions that democratize development and center communities can advance sustainable transportation choices, encourage multimodal systems, integrate environmental benefits, and address the cumulative impacts of past investments.

One such solution is regenerative financing: the idea that public infrastructure investment should not only fund projects, but also prioritize local vision, promote environmental resilience, and foster long-term prosperity. The next federal transportation reauthorization bill offers a rare chance to put these principles into practice. It must reimagine how the nation funds, designs, and operates its transportation system for the future.

Learning from the Past

We cannot chart a path forward without reckoning with our past. Federal highway policy of the 1950s and 1960s displaced and destroyed thriving neighborhoods across the nation. Communities such as the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, Boston’s Chinatown, and the Northside-East End of Bluefield, West Virginia, were torn apart by state and federal decisions. Public dollars – taxpayer dollars – were used not to build, but to erase.

This devastation sparked activism that helped lead to the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). When President Nixon signed NEPA into law in 1970, there was bipartisan consensus that federal agencies must evaluate environmental and community impacts before approving major projects. NEPA has been described as “Never Eliminate Public Advice,” and for good reason: it mandated transparency and accountability in an era when communities had little visibility into decisions shaping their futures.

Yet today, transportation debates are too often reduced to a false rural-versus-urban binary. Many state DOTs emphasize rural highways while cities struggle for local control over transit and complete streets.

This framing obscures reality – families of every background live in both settings – and it undermines the shared need for reliable, safe, and connected infrastructure.

Here in the District of Columbia, we see how the absence of clear standards and accountability can erode public trust. Too often, “safety” has been invoked as a rationale for policies that heighten enforcement rather than build trust – politicizing our streets and limiting authentic community voice.

This current reality underscores why the next authorization must establish guiding principles that prioritize people over politics.

The Case for a New Way Forward

The challenges are mounting: the Highway Trust Fund is nearing insolvency, extreme weather has cost Americans trillions since 1980, and project timelines stretch so long that by the time construction begins, community voices are often absent.

And yet, the public consistently demonstrates a willingness to invest. Since 2000, a majority of local ballot initiatives to fund transportation have passed. Between 2014 and 2024, 84 percent of transit-related ballot initiatives nationwide were approved – from South Carolina to Washington State. Voters affirmed that infrastructure matters when it delivers tangible benefits. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law underscored this lesson, showing how flexible federal programs can strengthen local economies and improve daily life.

The next reauthorization must build on these lessons – by weaving together regenerative financing, modernized planning, and a long-term vision for prosperity.

Regenerative Financing as a Foundational Framework

Traditional transportation financing has been extractive, prioritizing short-term returns, top-down decision-making, and narrow measures of success like lane miles paved.

Regenerative financing changes the frame. It balances financial, environmental, and social returns. It invests for the long horizon, not the next fiscal quarter. It ensures that dollars circulate locally, strengthening rather than draining communities. It embraces participatory decision-making, giving residents a voice in shaping outcomes. And it builds resilience, sharing and spreading risk rather than deferring it.

Applied to transportation, regenerative financing doesn’t just build roads and rails – it fosters prosperity. Transit investments, green infrastructure, and multimodal networks don’t simply move people; they connect workers to jobs, businesses to customers, and neighborhoods to opportunity.

Reimagining Planning for the 21st Century

Financing reform must be matched with planning reform. Too often, projects remain on Statewide Transportation Improvement Programs for decades, while public engagement is treated as a one-time event. By the time projects break ground, the needs of current users are no longer reflected in the design.

The planning process must be iterative, transparent, and accountable. That means requiring regular engagement checkpoints throughout project development, closing the feedback loop so residents know how their input influenced outcomes, and incorporating user experience – not just technical compliance – into performance measures. Building trust depends on communities seeing themselves not only in the benefits of projects, but also in the decisions that shape them.

Paving the Pathway Forward

Reauthorization is more than a legislative cycle – it is an invitation to imagine a different kind of future. One where highways no longer divide neighborhoods but multimodal systems reconnect them. One where infrastructure dollars circulate locally, building prosperity instead of extracting it. One where climate resilience is not an afterthought but a guiding principle.

The stakes are high. Failure would mean repeating past mistakes: bulldozed communities, polarized debates, and systems that prioritize politics over people. Success would mean leaving behind more than roads and bridges – we could leave a legacy of prosperity, resilience, and reconnection.

The transportation system built today will shape the nation of tomorrow. Congress has a choice: to replicate a system that erases and divides, or to invest in one that uplifts and unites.

That is the promise of regenerative transportation. Let us choose to build a system that leaves every community stronger than before – so we all thrive.