The DOT review took $65.8 million out of the seven previously selected RAISE projects

The city’s award was intended to help fund the estimated $34 million Roxbury Resilient Transportation Corridors project. Plans call for rebuilding and improving sections of three streets in the Roxbury neighborhood with dedicated bus lanes, new sidewalks and bus shelters, separate bike facilities, intersection improvements, green infrastructure and stormwater improvements.

An Aug. 12 accounting compiled by Democratic staff on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as part of an oversight investigation into DOT grant withdrawals identifies Boston among seven RAISE grants totaling $65.8 million that were withdrawn. They include capital construction as well as engineering and design work.

The distinction between a federal selection and a mandatory grant is central to the dispute. After a RAISE selection is announced, DOT and the recipient must still complete a grant agreement before federal money is legally obligated.

A March 2025 DOT directive included in the Boston litigation instructed officials to review the 2022-25 fiscal selections without fully mandated grant agreements and flagship projects that include climate, environmental justice, bicycle infrastructure, electric vehicles and other elements that conflict with the Trump administration’s priorities. Projects could continue unchanged, change scope, or be canceled.

ENR reported in April 2025 that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told senators that the DOT had inherited 3,200 announced but uncompleted grants, some dating back to 2022.

“I’m not going to hold any project,” Duffy said. At the time, he did not say whether unfinished selections could be overturned.

Advanced projects before withdrawals

Albuquerque won an $11.47 million 2022 RAISE grant for its $14.33 million Rail Trail project. Over the next three years, the city worked with the Federal Highway Administration to develop a design that complied with federal laws so construction could begin, according to a federal court ruling. Albuquerque says New Mexico City Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration officials met monthly, with consultants addressing state and federal design feedback.

That process ended on September 9, 2025, when the DOT withdrew the selection, saying the path ran counter to its priority of focusing multimodal grant programs primarily on projects to promote vehicle travel. The city of Albuquerque sued the following month.

Federal attorneys argue the selection never guaranteed the city the money. They called the withdrawal a “simple exercise of agency discretion,” noting that no grant agreement had been executed and that the 2022 award notice said only the execution of an agreement would obligate federal funding.

Chief U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales denied the DOT’s motion to dismiss on July 31 without deciding whether the recall itself was lawful. The federal award represented nearly 80 percent of the project’s budget, and Albuquerque had spent three years working through federal compliance so construction could begin, Gonzales wrote.

“It is false for the defendants to claim that there are no practical consequences to their actions,” he wrote. The DOT’s withdrawal left the project in “budget uncertainty.”

The Boston project had also progressed beyond the award announcement. In 2024, the city held a months-long procurement for a contracting and planning firm to design the project and selected a vendor, though it never executed the contract.

The city also worked with Federal Transit Administration requirements, scheduled the project in the regional transportation improvement program and set aside local matching funds. Boston Transportation Department employees spent hundreds of hours preparing for the grant, according to the city’s lawsuit.

The DOT withdrew the selection on September 9, 2025, saying the project was not consistent with the department’s priorities “due to the project’s inclusion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.” The City says that electric vehicle charging represented less than 1% of the proposal.

Boston offered on Oct. 8 to eliminate charging stations entirely. After additional follow-ups, FTA Regional Administrator Peter Butler told the city in January, “There is no change in the status of the Roxbury Resilient Corridor project.”

The city says it later put the project on hold and temporarily removed local money set aside from its five-year capital plan.

Boston argues that the DOT cannot supersede RAISE selection criteria established by Congress for subsequent administrative priorities. Federal law directs the DOT to consider environmental sustainability, mobility and community connectivity, among other criteria, when selecting RAISE projects. DOT’s position in the Albuquerque litigation is that selection does not require the department to execute a grant agreement with each selected applicant.

The DOT had not responded to ENR’s request for comment as of Sept. 29. City officials also had not responded to follow-up questions about project costs, design status and construction impacts.

Pattern of canceled subsidies

The DOT used the same rationale for vehicle travel to withdraw the $675,000 RAISE selection from McLean County, Illinois for the planning and design of approximately nine miles of Historic Route 66 for bicycles and pedestrians.

In a Sept. 9, 2025 letter provided to ENR, DOT said the project “goes against DOT’s priority of focusing DOT’s multimodal grant programs primarily on projects that promote vehicle travel.”

Unlike Boston and Albuquerque, McLean County had not spent or contractually committed money on engineering, design or construction when the selection was withdrawn, County Engineer Jerry Stokes told ENR. The county subsequently received local highway funding from the Illinois Department of Transportation for Phase I and II engineering.

Other withdrawn selections identified in the House staff accounting include $12.25 million for Delaware’s MLK Boulevard-South Little Creek Road bicycle and pedestrian connector, $5.73 million for Connecticut’s Naugatuck River Greenway design, an $11.75 million capital award for Fairfield, Ala.

Delaware records show design work continues as the state seeks another source of construction funding.

Grant certainty motions to Congress

The March 2025 review extended beyond RAISE. House staff accounting identifies withdrawn or canceled awards in other DOT discretionary programs, and House Democrats have asked the department for a complete list of grants canceled or canceled since Jan. 20, 2025, and previously announced grants that do not yet have signed agreements.

As ENR reported in June, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s BUILD America 250 Act includes language that prohibits the transportation secretary from terminating, withholding, or delaying the execution of grants or awards funded under the proposed authorization because it no longer advances “nonstatutory program goals or agency priorities.”

DOT restored the program’s former BUILD name this year and awarded nearly $1.74 billion to 127 projects in July. Many recipients still need to complete grant agreements, design, environmental reviews and other pre-construction steps before construction begins.

For the seven RAISE selections identified in the House staff accounting, the $65.8 million represents retired federal awards, not the full value of the design and construction work that the grants were intended to advance.