The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Is About Our Transportation Future, Too
Transportation didn’t get a lot of mention in the public discussion of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But it’s everywhere.
By Kea Wilson
Republican lawmakers have passed a bill that could send shockwaves through the American transportation system — even if almost no one’s talking about it.
In the days since President Trump signed the reconciliation package formerly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, overwhelmed journalists have been racing to untangle everything hidden in its 869 pages, with deep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program winning most of the headlines. A trillion dollars in slashed taxes for the one percent and a $150 billion cash infusion for Trump’s mass deportation scheme have risen to the top of the narrative heap, too, with the defunding of Planned Parenthood and increasing student loan payments typically getting relegated to “additional outrages” roundups.
If any transportation-related feature of the bill gets mentioned at all, it’s usually the Sep. 30 plan to axe the electric vehicle tax credit, or the $12.5 billion fix to America’s Air Traffic Control system. The Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant program, which was passed with a bang under Biden, lost as much as 94 percent of its funding on Friday with barely so much as a whimper — never mind any acknowledgement of the harm that will do to the communities that were slated to have polluting, dangerous downtown highways removed under the program.
The reality is, though, that transportation affects virtually everything about our lives — which means it’s deeply entangled with virtually everything in the Republicans’ package. And unless transportation reform advocates start seeing the deep intersections between our issues and harmful policies like these, it will be impossible for us to ever truly achieve our goals.