114 Organizations Sign Letter to DOT Appealing to Avoid Highway Funding Under RCP Grant Program
Image: Janifest, Adobe Stock
On November 2, 2022 America Walks and 113 other organizations penned a letter to Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttiegeg encouraging the department to decline funding for proposals that expand highway infrastructure. In the letter, the participating organizations, representing the Freeway Fighters Network, point out the potential for misuse of a grant program intended to remove transportation barriers that allow people of all ages and abilities to maneuver through daily life in their cities. The letter states that “several state departments of transportation and other entities have submitted applications to the program that could threaten to capture its funds to continue the harm caused by highways — not undo it.”
The Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) discretionary grant program was established under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program allows for $1 billion to be granted over 5 years to fund projects that improve land use, environmental components, housing, economic development, and health and safety conditions related to transportation facilities that divide communities.
The letter points out that some state departments of transportation, such as Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Oregon are using the grant application as an opportunity to submit proposals to expand highway infrastructure.
According to the Freeway Fighter’s Network letter, “proposals like these leave in place the structures that cause damage — or even worse, expand them. For that reason, they address neither environmental justice nor equitable development and result in either a negligible increase in community connectivity or a net decrease, in the case of proposals that bundle highway expansions into the project.”
A move away from highway infrastructure is better for communities and for the environment.
