Federal funding for transportation

The OMB breaks down transport funding into four components: Ground, Air, Water and Other. Allocated within the budget, large portions is directed at ground transportation, which is composed of expenditure for constructing and maintaining streets, highways, bridges, railways and other public transportation systems. Funding for airports and air traffic is the second-largest segment. The remaining one-tenth is directed toward port oversight, ferries and transportation costs, not under-the-ground or under-air umbrellas. The proportion of spending for each category is consistent, but there are slight changes from year to year.

Funding for transportation has increased nominally nearly every year over the previous decade, with slight declines in 2004, 2013 and 2015. Although transportation spending growth has occurred consistently, the expansion is most pronounced during high unemployment. Federal and state governments expand spending during economic downturns to staunch job losses. This was the case when the dot-com bubble burst, as transportation spending rose at an annualized rate of 8.4% between 2000 and 2004. Similarly, the financial meltdown and, pursuant to the following economic downturn, triggered soaring federal funding for transportation.

Most notably, the 2009 Stimulus bill allocated $51.2 billion for roads, bridges, railways and other transportation expenditures, leading to substantial increases in 2009 and 2010. Nonetheless, the United States has a severe backlog of infrastructure projects. According to the latest US infrastructure report card published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the US received a grade of C- for infrastructure overall and a grade of D for roads. The 2020 CARES Act helped boost financing for the transportation sector in the form of appropriations for agencies that handle various forms of travel from the FTA to the FAA. In part because of this bill, funding for transportation from the Federal Government increased by 50.1% in 2020. Other legislation signed since then, like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have also provided additional funding for the transportation sector. However, funding trickled down in 2022 following an end to CARES Act-related funding as this had lessened how much funding was necessitated in the year as the country starts to reopen, triggering more trips being taken in the period. In turn, a correction in how much funding was necessitated had influenced funding to lower in 2023. However, transportation funding by the Federal government is set to expand in 2024 and 2025 as many projects related to infrastructure that were financed by the Federal government amid the passage of key bills that help allow states to do so will trigger more funding in the period.