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Trump’s DOT: Want highways and transit? Get married, have babies

 The Lynx Blue Line train
The Charlotte Ledger
The U.S. Department of Transportation under President Trump is changing the way it awards money for highways and transit.

The Trump administration said last week that the U.S. Department of Transportation will award grant money for highways and new transit projects based, in part, on which communities have higher marriage and birth rates.

That could impact Charlotte, which is seeking billions of federal dollars for new light rail and commuter rail lines.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s Jan. 29 memo says the DOT will end what he called former President Biden’s “Woke” DEI policies and will instead work to “strengthen American families.”

And when awarding grant money, Duffy also said the DOT will give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. It also said its funding decisions will be based on “sound economic principles and analysis supported by rigorous cost-benefit requirements and data-driven decisions.”

The U.S. DOT wants to award money to communities with high marriage and birth rates.
The U.S. DOT wants to award money to communities with high marriage and birth rates.

The memo covers all grants awarded by the DOT, including for highways and airports. It also specifically said that it covers transit grants awarded by the Federal Transit Administration under its Capital Investment Grant program.

That could be bad news for Charlotte.

Mecklenburg County’s marriage rate is far lower than the national average, according to the Opportunity Insights Atlas created by Harvard researchers.

The county could fare slightly better when it comes to birth rates. Mecklenburg County health department data show Mecklenburg is above the national average.

Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Kym Meyer says she expects the DOT to be sued over the new guidance.

“But if it were to be followed I think you’d see Charlotte losing out on most federal funding,” she said. “And specifically they call out the federal transit funding that goes to fund the Lynx Line in Charlotte or Bus Rapid Transit in Charlotte.”

Charlotte is hoping Mecklenburg County voters approve a one-cent sales tax increase to pay for a multibillion-dollar transportation plan. It first needs Republican lawmakers in Raleigh to OK the increase.

It plans to build a commuter rail line to Lake Norman. It also may build light rail to the airport; extend its streetcar through central Charlotte; and extend the Lynx Blue Line to Pineville or Ballantyne.

The Charlotte Area Transit System’s financial models assume the FTA will pay for half of the construction costs of the projects. The federal government paid for half of the Lynx Blue Line.

It’s not uncommon for new administrations to change how the DOT awards grants. In the Biden administration, for instance, there was an emphasis on funding projects that it believed would lessen the impacts of climate change.

But Meyer said she’s never seen a policy that considers birth rates and marriage rates.

If the policy is implemented, it would generally hurt Democratic-voting areas. For example, Oregon has low birth and marriage rates, as does New York state and much of the Northeast.

But while blue cities may have lower birth rates than other cities, they are often growing faster because more people are moving there, including more immigrants.

The nation’s falling fertility rate has become a major focus of some conservatives, like Elon Musk, who posts about it often on his social media platform X.

And when Vice President JD Vance spoke at the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., earlier this month he said: “I want more babies in the U.S.”

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Steve Harrison is WFAE's politics and government reporter. Prior to joining WFAE, Steve worked at the Charlotte Observer, where he started on the business desk, then covered politics extensively as the Observer’s lead city government reporter. Steve also spent 10 years with the Miami Herald. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Sporting News and Sports Illustrated.