How Trump Weaponized the Department of Transportation
For the past year, New York City residents have been breathing a bit easier. That’s thanks to the state’s congestion pricing program, one of the landmark transportation success stories of 2025. A year after the program kicked off, traffic volumes have fallen, pedestrians are safer, and money from the program is modernizing the subway system. All of this progress has been delivered under a looming threat from the White House to halt it in its tracks. In February 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the federal government would kill the program. President Trump declared, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD … LONG LIVE THE KING!”For now, the courts have kept congestion pricing alive. But the threats to the program marked the start of a dark turn in federal transit policy. Historically—and even during Trump’s first term—transportation was an area of relative bipartisan calm. That is no longer the case.Political scientists have a term for how President Trump governs: “Competitive authoritarianism.” Like Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hungary under Viktor Orbán, the United States has become a country that holds elections but where the government uses and abuses the law to persecute critics and tilt the political playing field. The most obvious tools of repression may be guns, cops, and lawyers: ICE agents terrorizing people in their neighborhoods, an FBI that sees abuse and looks the other way, a Justice Department that prosecutes critics. In Duffy, Trump has found a henchman ready to enlist the Transportation Department in support.Take immigration. Last April, Duffy sent a letter to every state Transportation Department and public transit operator demanding that they cooperate with ICE operations or lose potentially tens of billions of dollars in annual federal funding. The U.S. Transportation Department repeated the threat to withhold funds in June, as President Trump ordered agents to surge into Democratic-run cities. This week, Duffy went on live TV to smear the Minnesotans killed by ICE and lie about the circumstances around their deaths.Take, as well, the administration’s efforts to stoke racial division. Duffy’s April letter also singled out diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts for particular scorn. In October, Duffy froze federal funding for two Chicago subway projects, citing the Chicago Transit Authority’s implementation of a DOT policy that supports small businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged people.Autocratic governments often target scientists because their knowledge represents a threat to regime messaging. So it has been no surprise to see the ax come for transportation research. In May, the DOT pulled $54 million in university research grants focused on improving transportation for low-income workers and people of color. The Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, preemptively canceled projects and disbanded committees related to climate, sustainability, equity, and air quality.Duffy has used both the checkbook and the bully pulpit in attempts to intimidate Trump’s political rivals. In June, the DOT pulled $4 billion in federal funding for California high-speed rail. In December, it cut grants for a Colorado bus station, electric-vehicle chargers, and a train safety project to pressure the state to release election-denier Tina Peters from prison. In the past two months alone, agency statements have blasted the governors of California, Colorado, North Carolina, New York, Maryland, and Minnesota.All of this is a sharp contrast from the first Trump administration, when the Department of Transportation was led by Elaine Chao, a Republican institutionalist. While Chao compiled a terrible record on the environment and safety, the DOT remained “an island of relative normalcy,” according to Jeff Davis of the Eno Center for Transportation. Under Chao, the DOT was criticized for a bias toward rural areas, but it at least celebrated grants to blue states. As the Trump administration attacked immigrants, Chao even made a point of celebrating Chinese immigrant railroad workers.The good news is that several of Trump’s Transportation Department’s efforts have been stymied. In November, a court ruled that DOT could not condition grant funds on cooperation with ICE; the DOT dropped its appeal and has taken steps to comply. Judges have ordered some transportation research funding restored. Transportation researchers and my colleagues at the Union of Concerned Scientists have organized independent conferences to showcase banned work. State attorneys general have won court rulings.With the federal government using transit funding as a weapon, some states have found that raising their own can be a shield. Threats against Illinois transit don’t resound in the same way after state lawmakers passed a massive transportation package that will stabilize bus and rail finances across the state. New York’s congestion pricing program has brought in over $500 million thus far, funding transit improvements that will stick around no matter what happens in court.Alongside the damage wrought by Duffy’s actions stands a pile of missed opportunities. Transportation policy can be a powerful force for economic mobility, and offers the potential to make places healthier, safer, and greener. A Department of Transportation focused on persecuting foes is one that is failing to improve lives. As things stand, the U.S. remains saddled with a car-dependent transportation system that underserves many while costing households an arm and a leg.As New York and the White House prepare for their judicial showdown, the politics of congestion pricing suggest another potential response to the Trump administration’s weaponization of transit. Immediately after President Trump posted “LONG LIVE THE KING” last February, New York Governor Kathy Hochul held a defiant news conference, where she declared, “The streets of this city, where battles were fought; we stood up to a king. And we won then.… We’re fighting for our residents, our commuters, our riders, our drivers, our emergency personnel.” Pro-transit protesters took to Times Square with slogans that echoed the first “No Kings” rallies, which had taken place just days before.Some of the movement organizations that sent people into the streets would later endorse Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City mayor. Transportation, encapsulated by the slogan “Make buses fast and free,” was central to his winning argument for a more affordable city. Within two weeks of taking office, Mamdani advanced a rapid-bus project and street-safety fixes that had been stuck in bureaucracy for years. Duffy has shown that transportation policy can be a tool of authoritarians. New Yorkers’ response suggests it can be part of the antidote, demonstrating the ability of government to improve our lives and fueling the organizing we need to win a more democratic society.