Major crime is down 29 percent compared to last year on New York City’s subways and buses — a seemingly positive trend. But that’s not how the U.S. Department of Transportation sees it. 

The Department of Transportation, or DOT, sent a letter to New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority on March 18 warning that it must address safety on its system or risk losing federal funding. The department sent a similar letter to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs public transportation in the nation’s capital, earlier in March. 

The moves represent an emerging pattern in the DOT’s approach to transportation under President Donald Trump: target the highest-profile climate-friendly programs in states with Democratic leadership. 

Over a two-day period in February, the department rescinded the Federal Highway Administration’s approval for New York City’s congestion pricing program and announced a review of funding for a section of a project to build high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy proudly listed the accomplishments in an X post. 

“1. Terminated NYC elitist, anti-worker congestion pricing,” he wrote. “2. Launched an investigation into the $16 billion in taxpayer dollars wasted on a high-speed rail project that, after 17 years, has yet to lay a single mile of track.” 

These attention-grabbing threats and cancellations have faced legal challenges — but if the department prevails in cutting funding, it could mean millions of tons of unnecessary annual carbon emissions over the coming decades. Meanwhile, Duffy has promised to review federal funding for all manner of climate projects across the country — a significant departure from agency norms. Ann Shikany, a former DOT deputy assistant secretary for policy, said the actions taken by the department in the past two months run counter to how recent transitions of power have gone. 

Previously, “each administration has followed through with the previous administration’s grants, but now they’re saying they’re going to renegotiate those,” Shikany said. “Those are projects that are already in construction, already spending their money.” 

On Trump’s first day in office, he signed a slew of executive orders instructing federal agencies to eliminate programs that focus on climate change, greenhouse gas reduction, and environmental justice, among other priorities. Duffy quickly directed DOT staff to begin reviewing all programs that meet those criteria. 

In March, agency leadership sent staffers an internal memo instructing them to freeze projects focused on climate and equity, specifically calling out projects focused on bike infrastructure or electric vehicles. Current and former staffers told Grist there is still confusion within the agency about which programs are at risk of being cut. 

A coalition of nonprofits and cities has sued the administration over the leaked March memo, arguing that the DOT’s freezing of funding violates the Impoundment Control Act, which limits the president’s ability to rescind funding approved by Congress, and the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires that agency actions not be “arbitrary” or “capricious.”

Emily Conner, who spoke to Grist after her position as a grant management specialist with the Federal Transit Administration was terminated in February, said there was a push within the agency to award as many discretionary grants as possible in the waning weeks of Biden’s presidency. Conner, who since speaking to Grist has been reinstated to her position, said she was worried that federal transit funding could come to a “screeching halt,” due to the administration’s chaotic transportation policy approach. 

As grant recipients across the country await word on the fate of the programs they once thought would fund projects in their states and cities, the department has chosen to make examples of large-scale projects that aim to reduce transportation emissions in blue cities and states.  

Public transit

Taking a subway, bus, or other form of public transit is more climate-friendly than driving a car. The United Nations estimates that choosing public transportation over driving “can reduce up to 2.2 tons of carbon emissions annually per individual.” Similarly, a 2009 DOT report showed that transit emitted less than half as much carbon per passenger-mile traveled compared to private autos. 

In Duffy’s letters to the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — or MTA and WMATA, respectively — he outlined safety, specifically reducing crime and fare evasion, as a priority. 

But crime on the MTA and WMATA transit systems has trended down in recent years. WMATA’s general manager and chief executive officer, Randy Clarke, wrote in a letter to the DOT that the number of crimes per million riders has fallen from 8.03 in 2023 to 2.9 so far in 2025. The MTA has seen an expansion of police officers on the subway system under New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s safety plan, which began in March 2024, and recently reported that crime is down even compared to pre-pandemic levels.

In the letter to the MTA, Duffy threatened to withhold funding — a significant threat, as about 20 percent of the agency’s budget for major infrastructure projects for the next five years, or $14 billion, comes from the federal government. That budget includes plans to purchase 500 electric buses — part of the MTA’s plan to shift entirely to zero-emissions buses by 2040. It estimates that the transition will save 500,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year. 

Justin Balik, a vice president at the climate advocacy organization Evergreen Action, said that prioritizing public safety on public transit is important but that the DOT letters are not productive.

“I think what you’re seeing, to use the New York letter for example, is a hammer in search of a nail,” Balik said. DOT appears to be “walking backwards from a predetermined outcome, which is, ‘We want to really rake New York over the coals and other transit systems over the coals.’” 

Duffy has already hinted at targeting other cities, adding the Chicago Transit Authority to the list of public transit agencies that could be in danger in an interview on Fox News. “If people can’t go to the subway and not be afraid of being stabbed or thrown in front of tracks or burnt … We’re going to pull your money,” he said. 

Congestion pricing

Another climate-friendly project with a target on its back is New York City’s congestion pricing system. The program, designed in part to reduce traffic and improve air quality, charges drivers a toll when they enter the busiest parts of Manhattan, south of 60th Street. Most of the revenue will go to the MTA, which is banking on getting $15 billion for infrastructure projects as a result of the tolls

After years of debate and delay, the program went into effect in January. The impact has been dramatic: The MTA’s data shows that traffic in the tolled portion of Manhattan was down 11 percent this February compared to February 2024. A 2023 MTA report — based on a version of congestion pricing with higher tolls than were actually implemented — found that the tolled area would see decreases in fine particulate matter and carbon dioxide emissions by more than 10 percent by 2045.  

During his 2024 election campaign, Trump called for the end of the program, and Duffy has sought to make good on that promise, writing that it is too expensive for working-class Americans. In February, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration rescinded approval for the toll program, just three months after approving it under the Biden administration. It gave New York until March 21 to end the program, but the state sued Duffy for trying to block the program and ignored the DOT’s deadline. The DOT did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Balik said the Trump administration is out of touch with New York City residents. “Trump’s moves to undermine congestion pricing, if you look at recent surveys, are not exactly endearing the administration to voters in the area,” Balik said. 

Indeed, a March Siena poll found that 42 percent of New York City residents support the program, compared to 35 percent who say it should be eliminated. The support figure is up from 32 percent in December, before tolling had begun. 

Hochul, who unilaterally paused the program last summer shortly before it was initially supposed to go into effect, has transformed into a champion of congestion pricing. In a March press conference, she invited critics “to come here now and feel a very different New York City that is very alive, and it’s vital. It is not jammed and stuck in traffic.”

High-speed rail

Like congestion pricing, the California High-Speed Rail project has been a long journey. California voters approved $9.95 billion for a high-speed rail system in 2008. It was originally supposed to be completed by 2020 but has been delayed by legal challenges and because it started construction before certain pre-construction activities, like relocating utility infrastructure in the train’s path, had been completed in some instances. In its current form, the project aims to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. 

The rail line, which will be entirely solar-powered, has the potential to shift the state away from more carbon intensive forms of transportation, like driving and flying. It would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by between 0.6 million and 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — equivalent to removing between 142,000 and 700,000 cars from the road — according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s 2024 Sustainability Report.

Trump canceled around $1 billion in federal funding for the project in his first term, and his administration is scrutinizing it once again with a review led by the Federal Railroad Administration, a DOT subagency, of the $4 billion in federal funding for the Central Valley portion of the project. 

“President Trump is right that this project is in dire need of an investigation,” Duffy said in a press release. If the project has violated any of the terms of its grants, he added, “I will have to consider whether that money could be given to deserving infrastructure projects elsewhere in the United States.”

The first Trump administration’s efforts to cancel $1 billion faced legal challenges, and the Biden administration wound up reinstating the funding. This time around, the legality of the DOT taking back funding hinges on whether the probe finds a violation of a grant agreement or regulation, or fraud. 

About 80 percent of the $13 billion the program has spent so far has come from the state of California, according to California High-Speed Rail Authority spokesperson Carol Dahmen. The estimated total cost for the program is now $106 billion, and it expects to begin operating between 2030 and 2033. Of the 494 miles of planned track, 171 miles are under design or construction and 463 miles have been cleared through the state’s required environmental impact review process, with approval expected for the last stretch from Anaheim to Los Angeles later this year. 

Even as the Trump DOT casts doubt on the viability of public high-speed rail, it appears to be promoting the role private companies can play in the industry. In the press release, the department called the Brightline West project, a private high-speed rail project from Los Angeles to Las Vegas expected to begin running in 2028, “impressive.” 

Rick Harnish, executive director at the high-speed rail advocacy nonprofit High Speed Rail Alliance, said Brightline is a good example of how high-speed rail can work — and emphasized that even private infrastructure projects are rarely entirely privately financed. “It fits the Tesla model a lot better, where it looks like a private company, but it’s in large part federally funded,” he said. Brightline West received a $3 billion grant from the Federal Railroad Administration in September. 

Despite the seemingly bleak outlook for climate-friendly projects under the Trump administration, some experts see this as a galvanizing moment for states like California and New York to reconsider their transportation policy. Corrigan Salerno, a policy manager at the advocacy group Transportation for America, said states have the tools to introduce more climate friendly transportation policies. For instance, Colorado and Minnesota have implemented policies designed to reduce highway building and boost investment in public transit, biking, and walking in recent years.  

“I think the Trump administration represents a major setback for climate, but I don’t think it’s a death blow,” he said. “The federal government does not provide the majority of investments in transportation in the United States, and at the end of the day, the fight is in the states.”