Federal Transit Policy and Funding Update
Capital Investment Grant Program Updates
This Federal Transit update will feature recent developments from the administration for the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) Program. FTA has implemented two changes to the CIG project justification criteria. With adjusted criteria in place, FTA released ratings of projects who sought ratings in their FY 26 CIG Annual Report. Lastly, this update will provide a status report of the FY 26 appropriations for the CIG Program.
CIG Policy Guidance
The Trump Administration released its updated CIG Final Policy Guidance on November 12, 2025, which amends the CIG Policy Guidance issued by the prior administration in December 2024.
The full guidance:
There are two primary changes to the guidance from December 2024:
- Environmental benefits criterion is simplified by assigning a “High” rating for projects in non-attainment air quality regions and “Medium” rating for projects in attainment areas. This abandons quantification of vehicle miles traveled reduction and emissions reduction caused by the project. This change has the potential to impact project sponsors’ environmental rating depending on what their regional air quality attainment status is.
- Land Use criterion changes one of its five subfactors, access to essential services, with deletion of one of five inputs: access within one mile to urgent care medical facilities. The impact of this change to the Land Use criterion will be minimal.
Environmental Benefits
As one of six project justification criteria, FTA evaluates the Environmental Benefits criterion based on the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), per the Clean Air Act. EPA designates geographic areas in one of three typologies, attainment, non-attainment, or maintenance. “Maintenance” areas are geographic areas that were previously designated as “nonattainment” for a particular pollutant and have since met air quality standards but are still subject to requirements in their Maintenance Plan and transportation conformity.
For purposes of CIG Environmental Benefits rating, projects in nonattainment or “maintenance” areas for carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), or particulate matter (PM2.5) will receive a High rating; projects in “attainment” areas for those pollutants will receive a Medium rating. Projects located in geographic areas designated as nonattainment or maintenance for any of the four criteria pollutants will be rated High, and projects located in areas designated as attainment in all four criteria pollutants will be rated Medium.
This revised Environmental Benefits rating methodology applies to New Starts and Small Starts. It does not apply to Core Capacity as FTA assigns a Medium rating to all Core Capacity projects as already generating environmental benefits in a congested corridor.
Land Use
Project justification criteria include five quantifiable sub measures, including access to essential services within one mile of stations. FTA had defined essential services as access to medical and educational facilities, specifically for hospitals, Veterans Administration centers, colleges/universities, supplemental colleges and public schools. The data for hospital locations was formerly publicly accessible via the internet but now requires a user’s license. Therefore, FTA has removed this component from calculation for access to essential services in the Land Use criterion.
CIG Project Ratings
With the two aforementioned CIG policy changes, FTA has now rated projects here Appendix A: Capital Investment Grants Program and Expedited Project Delivery Pilot Program Project Ratings that did not receive ratings in the FY 2026 CIG Annual Report on Funding Recommendations in May, 2025. The sole Core Capacity project received a Medium rating, all seven New Starts projects received a Medium High rating and nine Small Starts projects received ratings ranging from Medium to High.
FTA has not awarded any CIG grants in the first 300 days in office. One CIG project is currently showing an estimated FFGA grant award in late 2025 with a request of 80% federal match. FTA is currently estimating CIG grant awards for two New Starts projects and seven Small Starts projects throughout 2026.
FY 26 CIG Appropriations Status
Although the 43-day government shutdown ended on November 12 — the longest in U.S. history — the THUD appropriations bill remains unresolved. Congress passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) extending FY 25 funding levels until January 30, 2026, setting a new deadline to pass appropriations bills.
Overall, the Trump Administration is requesting $21.2 billion for public transit which is $310 million (1.5%) greater than the FY 2025 THUD appropriation. The total request includes $14.6 billion from the Mass Transit Account, $2.4 billion from the General Fund and a constant $4.25 billion from Advance IIJA Appropriations. The requested funding level, however, is $1.0 billion less than the final year of IIJA authorized funding for FY 26.
The Administration’s CIG Program request is the same as the THUD appropriations in FY 24 and FY 25 of $3.8 billion which includes $2.2 billion from the General Fund and $1.6 billion from Advanced Appropriations.
The CIG Program continues to be FTA’s largest discretionary grant program. The CIG 2026 Annual Report updated with project ratings can be found here: FY26 Annual Report on Funding Recommendations. Similar to last year, FTA does not prescribe funding splits for Advanced Appropriations by CIG project type as presented in the table below. This provides FTA greater latitude to recommend CIG grants once ready rather than have to fit grant awards into project type funding lanes.
CIG Sub-Program: Existing New Starts
- FY 2025 CIG Appropriations: $1,891 Million
- FY 2026 FTA Funding Request: $1,357 Million
- FY 2025 House THUD: $1,357 Million
- FY 2026 Senate THUD: $1,357 Million
CIG Sub-Program: Unallocated — Available for Grants
- FY 2025 CIG Appropriations: $1,876 Million
- FY 2026 FTA Funding Request: $2,410 Million
- FY 2025 House THUD: $255 Million
- FY 2026 Senate THUD: $2,155 Million
CIG Sub-Program: PMOC Oversight
- FY 2025 CIG Appropriations: $38 Million
- FY 2026 FTA Funding Request: $38 Million
- FY 2025 House THUD: $38 Million
- FY 2026 Senate THUD: $38 Million
CIG Sub-Program: PMOC Oversight
- FY 2025 CIG Appropriations: $3,805 Million
- FY 2026 FTA Funding Request: $3,805 Million
- FY 2025 House THUD: $1,635 Million
- FY 2026 Senate THUD: $3,550 Million
The CIG funding table illustrates the wide disparity between the House and Senate THUD Committee appropriations bills, $1.9 billion (117%) difference. The House Committee approved on a party-line vote, while the Senate Committee approved on a bipartisan 27-1 vote. Once the full chambers approve their respective THUD bills, it will take much negotiation to reconcile their differences before January 30.
As of the November CIG Dashboard, there are 47 projects in the pipeline requesting $28.6 billion of CIG funding. Seventeen of these projects are supported by HDR teams. Reach out to an HDR project manager or mark.fuhrman [at] hdrinc.com (Mark Fuhrmann) with FTA and/or CIG questions.
