The enactment of the fiscal 2025 budget reconciliation law by President Trump on July 4 killed most, but not all, of the projects under the “Neighborhood Access and Equity” program funded by the $3.2 billion for that new program provided and established by the fiscal 2022 budget reconciliation act.

Telling which were killed and which were not is a bit complicated, because the Department of Transportation combined the grant announcement process with another program whose funding has not been canceled, and the Office of Management and Budget combined the money for the NAE program and two other programs in the same budget account.

The NAE program, established for the Federal Highway Administration in section 177 of title 23, United States Code, is so similar to the “Reconnecting Communities” pilot program (RCP) established by section 11509 of the 2021 infrastructure law and run out of the Secretary’s office, that the two were combined into one grant program. Except that the RCP got an average of $100 million per year from the IIJA over five years, and NAE got $3.1 billion in FY 2023 only for one lump sum.

Needless to say, the FY 2023 award list announced on March 13, 2024 was much longer than any other year. If you download the spreadsheet, you can filter using Column B, “Grant” to filter the projects funded with NAE money from those funded with RCP money (and three projects that were funded with money from both).

The reconciliation law gave $3.155 billion for actual NAE grants, and there were $3.148 billion in pure NAE grants announced (the three that were split-funded must have taken $7 million and change from the NAE pot).

But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only around $800 million of the NAE money was actually legally obligated prior to President Trump’s signing the reconciliation law that rescinded any unobligated balances. For those agencies lucky enough to have negotiated and signed their grant agreements before the deadline, they are legally entitled to spend the money under the terms of their grant agreement.

For those who did not get their agreements signed, the money is no longer there. And no, this is not another kind of Trump impoundment shenanigan where the grant awardee can go to court and try to get the money anyway – the money no longer exists. Congress has passed a law declaring that the money no longer exists, and the President has signed that law, which is a legal hurdle so high that we don’t see any court going around it.

Determining which projects made it and which did not involves checking out usaspending.gov and exploring the data by federal budget account. The 2022 reconciliation law made three different appropriations for the Federal Highway Administration, and OMB chose to combine them all into one budget account, number 069-0647, “Neighborhood Access and Environmental Programs, FHWA.”

(By OMB’s numbers, the account has seen a total of $4.352 billion in obligations, which is more than the $4.255 billion that CBO has rounded to, but not so much more that it might have been the number when CBO first scored the bill several months ago.

We didn’t look at every grant, because a lot of them were planning grants of $5 million or less. But here are some of the largest grants that did, and did not, go through.

NAE grants that were successfully obligated prior to rescission include:

• CA Los Angeles multimodal investment package “Removing Barriers and Creating Legacy” – $139 million
• IL Chicago Transit Authority – replace 2 miles of Blue Line track between Kedzie and Pulaski – $111 million
• NY (Buffalo) Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority – design and construct a low/no emission BRT line along Bailey Avenue in the City of Buffalo – $102.7 million
• WA (Seattle) Sound Transit – design and built two new stations on the Stride BRT line on I-405 South in King County – $69.8 million
• CA Sacramento Area Council of Governments – projects to address barrier transportation facilities in disadvantaged communities that are prioritized for infill development and are bisected by auto facilities – $22.5 million
• OK Seminole Nation Public Transit – build a new transit hub building on reservation grounds – $22.5 million

There was one grant award that was mostly completed. The New York State DOT was awarded $180.0 million for a series of projects in a disadvantaged area of downtown Syracuse. They were able to sign three separate grant agreements of $71.5 million, $56.4 million, and $22.2 million for a total of $150.0 million in legally obligated grant agreements prior to rescission. The NAE grant was to be the sole source of funding, so New York can either truncate the scope of the project by by 20 percent or else find $30 million somewhere else to complete the whole thing.

NAE grants that did not reach the stage of obligation prior to rescission and thus have been canceled include:

• OR (Portland) ODOT – build caps over Interstate 5 (Rose Quarter Improvement Project) – only $37.5 million out of a $450 million award to ODOT was obligated prior to rescission, putting the entire project in question. (Total project cost was $1.7 billion.) (See July 16 update from The Oregonian and July 14 update from Portland Mercury.)
• MA (Boston) MDOT – reconfigure Interstate 90 in Allston with new pedestrian connections, a waterfront park, and new local street grid – only $8.1 million out a $335.4 million award to MDOT was obligated prior to rescission, putting the entire project in question. (Total project cost was $1.92 billion.) (See July 18 update from MassLive.)
• PA City of Philadelphia – construct a public park over the existing Vine Street Expressway (“Chinatown Stich” project) – only $8.4 million out of a $158.9 million award to the City was obligated prior to rescission, putting the entire project in question, because the federal NAE grant was 100 percent of total project cost. (See July 16 update from the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
• GA City of Atlanta – “The Stitch” Phase 1 project was to cap parts of I-75 and I-85 in downtown Atlanta with a new 4-acre community park and also make other nearby transportation improvements. None of the $157.6 million in awarded funding was obligated prior to rescission, throwing the entire project into question, because the federal NAE grant represented 79 percent of total project cost. (No local news coverage yet.)
• FL Jacksonville Transportation Authority – the “Emerald Trail” project was to reconnect several disadvantaged communities in Jacksonville that were separate by Interstate 95. None of the $147.1 million in awarded funding was obligated prior to rescission, putting the entire project in question, because the NAE grant represented 80 percent of the total project cost. (See July 8 update from the Jacksonville Times-Union.)
• NY New York City DOT – construct an “active linear park” in Forest Park, Queens, on abandoned transportation right-of-way – only $5.8 million of this $117.7 million award was obligated prior to rescission. The $117.7 million grant was 100 percent of total project cost. (NYC-area media apparently have not realized this yet.)
• TX City of Austin – the “Our Future 35” project was to construct freeway covers and widened multimodal bridges along Interstate 35. None of the $105.2 million grant award was obligated prior to rescission. The $105.2 million was 70 percent of the total project cost. (No local media on this yet.)
• UT (St. George) Utah DOT – construct two new underpasses under Interstate 15 to reconnect bisected neighborhoods – none of the $87.6 million grant award was obligated prior to rescission. The $87.6 million was 45 percent of the total project cost.
• TX (Greater Dallas area) North Central Texas Council of Governments – the overall project will cap highways in four regionally significant locations: Klyde Warren Park, Southern Gateway Park, Dallas I-30, and McKinney SH-5. None of the $80 million grant award was obligated prior to rescission. The $80 million was one-third of the total project cost.
• TN Knoxville Community Development Corporation – meanwhile, back home, “Reconnecting Knoxville” would build almost 10 miles of greenways and transportation pathways to reconnect historic East Knoxville from downtown after creation of the Business Loop (now James White Parkway) severed the neighborhood in the 1960s. None of the $42.6 million grant award was obligated prior to rescission, and the federal grant represented half of the project cost. (See local coverage from WVLT.)