Key facts
- The Trump administration plans to award federal transit money based partly on community birth and marriage rates.
- The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is proposing to cover up to 10 percentage points more of a project's costs if an area's birth and marriage rates meet or exceed national thresholds.
- The new directive applies to all Department of Transportation grants, including highways, airports, and specifically transit projects under the Capital Investment Grant program.
- Charlotte, North Carolina, could be negatively impacted as its marriage rate is below the national average, though its birth rate is above.
- Critics, including transit advocates and legal experts, have called the policy "bizarre," "dystopian," and potentially discriminatory, with expectations of legal challenges.
The Trump administration has introduced a new directive that will prioritize communities with higher birth and marriage rates when awarding federal transit funding. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is seeking public comment on the plan, which could significantly impact how billions of dollars are distributed for infrastructure projects like rail lines and bus lanes.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who championed the initiative, stated that the policy aims to "strengthen American families" and move away from what he described as "Woke" diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Under the proposal, areas meeting or exceeding national birth and marriage rate thresholds could receive up to 10 percentage points more in federal cost-sharing for transit projects.
This approach has drawn sharp criticism. Transit advocates, like Shannon Binns of Sustain Charlotte, express concern that cities like Charlotte, North Carolina, which has a higher birth rate but a lower marriage rate than the national average, could lose out on crucial funding. Former FTA head Peter Rogoff suggested the policy might disproportionately affect large cities in Democratic-leaning states with lower fertility rates.
Conversely, some conservatives, such as Brad Wilcox of the National Marriage Project, argue the policy reflects a genuine concern over declining fertility rates in industrialized nations, with the U.S. below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. However, legal experts like Kym Meyer from the Southern Environmental Law Center question the DOT's authority to link marriage rates, which she views as a personal choice, to transportation needs and anticipate legal challenges.