Federally funded transportation projects have the potential to expand access to opportunity and improve quality of life. Unfortunately, major transportation projects have historically involved destruction of communities of color, had limited benefits for nondrivers, and increased pollution. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has sought to address these inequities as a part of the Biden administration’s goal of supporting underserved communities.
Our research analyzes how effective DOT has been—now and in the past—in expanding access to transportation in all communities, with an emphasis on those that are historically underserved, overburdened, and disadvantaged.
To do this, we developed the first comprehensive geospatial database of projects funded by DOT’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.
What We Found
Applications for RAISE grants are more likely to be for projects located in counties with high shares of people of color and higher household incomes. Although the Biden administration has increased funding to projects in disadvantaged neighborhoods, which have high levels of poverty and other characteristics of disinvestment, a substantial share of disadvantaged counties have never had a project funded by the RAISE program.
Share of tracts within 300 meters of RAISE projects that are classified as disadvantaged, 2009–24
Source: Author analysis of RAISE award data, including TIGER (2009–17) and BUILD (2018–20) data.
Notes: Tracts classified as disadvantaged by the federal government. Horizontal line symbolizes the share of the nation’s census tracts classified as disadvantaged (37 percent). Roughly 33 percent of the nation’s population lived in these tracts in 2010.
Communities with higher shares of people of color tend to be more likely to receive winning RAISE projects, especially during Democratic administrations, even after controlling for other local characteristics.
Share of annual RAISE funding, by county type, 2009–24
Source: Author analysis of RAISE award data, including TIGER (2009–17) and BUILD (2018–20) data, and US Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) data (five-year estimates from 2005–09, 2011–15, and 2018–22).
Notes: High poverty rate counties = poverty rates above 20 percent. High share of people of color = greater than 50 percent of residents are people of color. Low income = median incomes under $60,000 (2024 inflation-adjusted dollars). We use 2005–09 ACS estimates for projects from 2009 through 2014; 2011-15 ACS estimates for projects from 2015 through 2021; and 2018–22 ACS estimates for projects from 2022 through 2024.
Presidential administrations have influenced what types of projects win grants. Under the Obama administration, DOT prioritized public transit projects, the Trump administration invested significantly in road expansion, and the Biden administration invested in pedestrian and cycling projects.
Based on our findings, we recommend the following:
- Federal agencies could ensure that their annual equity action plans review and prioritize applications for projects in communities with the highest shares of people with low incomes.
- Congress could fund federal agencies to expand low-cost or free technical assistance to communities with lower levels of funding and staff capacity, which could make it easier for these communities to apply for and receive federal grants.
- Agencies could evaluate potential positive and negative impacts associated with new infrastructure projects, acknowledging that transportation can bring both mobility and pollution.
- Agencies could strive for greater transparency and granularity in their release of program data—both for awards and applications—in order to improve study of how the programs meet the needs of disadvantaged communities at the local level.
How We Did It
We assigned RAISE project applications to the counties in which the projects were proposed to be located, and RAISE awards to the specific locations where projects were planned, allowing us to analyze the characteristics of the areas where state, regional, and local leaders are applying for and receiving funding to build transportation projects. We considered both neighborhood-level data, which are important in identifying the communities directly affected by projects, and county-level data, which reflect the regional character of transportation projects.
We used this database to analyze 16 years of federal grant applications and awards from RAISE and its antecedents, totaling over $16 billion from 2009 through 2024 and awarded to more than 1,200 projects of a variety of transportation modes (the RAISE program was previously called TIGER or BUILD, depending on the year). This report does not evaluate the impact of these investments. Rather, our research focuses on the distribution of federal funds, the types of investments being made, and the communities that receive them.