Special Briefing: The Future of Mass Transportation under Trump and the GOP

This Special Briefing is focused on the future of mass transportation under the new Administration and Congress.

Our expert panel discusses the upsurge in construction funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as well as solutions to hundreds of billions of dollars in budgetary shortfalls facing transit networks from coast to coast.

Speakers include Leslie Richards, Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design and former General Manager & CEO of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), the fifth-largest U.S. transit system; Kurt Forsgren, Managing Director and Sector Lead for Transportation, S&P Global; Randy Iwasaki, President and CEO of Iwasaki Consulting Services, Inc. and former Leader of State and Local Transportation for Amazon Web Services; Polly Trottenberg, who recently served as Deputy Secretary of Transportation under Pete Buttigieg; and David Greising, President and CEO, Better Government Association.

Moderated by William Glasgall, Volcker Alliance Public Finance Adviser and Penn IUR Fellow, and Genie Birch, Co-Director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research and Planning Professor at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design) at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, this briefing is the fifty-eighth in a series of sixty-minute online conversations featuring experts from the national research networks of the Volcker Alliance and Penn IUR, along with other leading academics, economists, and federal, state, and local leaders.

Special Briefings are made possible by funding from The Travelers Institute, the Volcker Alliance, and members of the Penn IUR Advisory Board. Recordings of the entire Special Briefings series are available on the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR websites.

Be sure to subscribe to the Special Briefing podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeart Radio and more.

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SPECIAL BRIEFING: THE FUTURE OF MASS TRANSPORTATION UNDER TRUMP AND THE GOP - EVENT RECAP

Tottenberg framed the discussion around Trump’s “dramatically different political orientation, policy priorities, and budgetary and organizational goals” compared to his predecessor, President Joe Biden. Under the Biden administration, transportation policy was a top priority during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. As Trottenberg noted, Biden “believed that our nation’s transit systems were economic drivers, crucial for workers and employers, for our national manufacturing base and for local and regional economies.”

Among other initiatives, key legislation, including the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allocated billions of dollars to improve transit outcomes nationwide “in every major city and most smaller communities,” said Trottenberg. However, the Trump administration has swiftly moved to reverse key policies, including:

• Slashing staff at the Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
• Freezing or canceling previously approved funding for transit projects
• Shifting policy priorities away from public transit investment.
• These changes have sparked widespread concern among state and local transit agencies, with experts warning of rising budget deficits, fare increases, and service reductions.

Forsgren noted the substantial improvement in S&P’s public transportation outlook under the Biden administration, from a negative outlook at the onset of the pandemic in 2020 to a stable outlook in 2024 in recognition of “recovery in passenger ridership levels across the nation,” effective measures by operators “to narrow operating fund deficits,” and most significantly “the growth of dedicated tax revenues, oftentimes sales taxes.”

Today, however, Trump’s attitude and actions toward public transportation present a “new level of uncertainty” for stakeholders to navigate, noted Richards. Exemplifying this uncertainty is SEPTA, the sixth-largest U.S. transit agency, which this year “is facing a $200 million shortfall,” she said. Efforts to balance the authority’s budget may result in “increases in fare” and “decreases in service,” Richards remarked, indicating the spillover effects of funding gaps on the public constituency. Glasgall noted that states will have limited ability “to bail out mass transit systems” as they face broader federal funding cuts across the board under Trump.

Greising spoke to the effects of this rampant uncertainty as a “statewide concern” in the case of Illinois generally and Chicago specifically, which he described as being “in the crosshairs” of ongoing and looming changes at the federal level, partly because of its sanctuary city practices. Despite a binding, full-funding grant agreement from the Biden Administration to extend the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Red Line, a key commuter rail artery, some in Chicago fear that “the funding could potentially be at risk,” said Greising.

“The prospective merger of the Chicago area transit systems,” Greising noted, has emerged as a potential strategy to consolidate the city rail line, Metra commuter rail system, and suburban bus system in an effort to address a cumulative budget deficit of $771 million, which is “expected to grow to about a billion dollars a year in coming years.”

Greising highlighted both governance and funding as key focuses for state and local stakeholders in navigating the new federal policy environment. “There’s a lot of uncertainty about what the federal outlook is in the midst of a significant structural question about the future of transit in Chicago,” he summarized. Forsgren further noted that S&P has “maintained negative outlooks on three mass transit operators that have ongoing structural imbalances,” including the CTA as well as the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority and Bay Area Rapid Transit.

Sharing a West Coast perspective, Iwasaki said that the current administration’s particular focus on curtailing discretionary grants requires additional layers of review and bureaucracy, which “slows the process down to get funding in the hands of the agencies that need it.” Nevertheless, the short-term outlook for mass public transit projects in California remains strong as ridership has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with logistical needs for the upcoming 2026 World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics continuing to drive demand.

Iwasaki highlighted the role of innovation, including the rise of autonomous vehicles, in enhancing the accessibility, reliability, and efficiency of public transportation. Richards echoed the importance of leveraging technological advancements to address operational challenges, such as using artificial intelligence “to better understand rider behaviors.”

With ridership metrics serving as one of the primary indicators of successful public transportation, transit-oriented development presents a symbiotic opportunity to align public transit design with the living arrangements and working habits of its user base. The feasibility of such projects, however, is subject to important limiting factors, Forsgren noted, foremost among which is markedly heightened “build-out and construction risk” under the current uncertain federal funding environment.

The challenge of bringing transit-oriented development to market is further exacerbated by an inherent trade-off between the public need for affordable housing versus lender and investor expectations for project returns, noted Trottenberg. Strategic coordination on both developmental and operational levels will become increasingly important across the state and local spheres as well as private and public sectors as uncertainty abounds at the federal level.

Concluding the Special Briefing, Richards emphasized the prevailing importance of mass transportation as a public good in American cities regardless of the current political moment: “When you look at cities where people want to live and work, they have strong, healthy transit systems. I don’t see a future without strong, healthy transit systems if we want healthy, vital areas and communities here in the U.S. So we have to figure this out.”

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Leslie S. Richards is the CEO and 11th General Manager of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), the sixth largest public transportation agency in the U.S. with a budget of more than $2 billion and a vast network of 9,500 employees that enable the five million residents of the Greater Philadelphia region to connect to each other. SEPTA operates across six transportation modes and has 2,800 vehicles in service, 285 subway and rail stations, 13,000 bus and trolley stops, and 150 routes. Prior to joining SEPTA, Richards was the first woman secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), one of the largest and most innovative transportation agencies in the U.S. Richards left a lasting mark on the department by creating strategic solutions for the long-term success of Pennsylvania’s transportation needs through innovative, collaborative programs such as PennDOT Connects. A staunch advocate for women and diversity in transportation and government, Richards has been recognized for her leadership in the industry and commitment to public service. Prior to her public service, she worked in the private sector as a senior project manager for environmental and civil engineering firms. Richards is a graduate of Brown University, where she concentrated in economics and urban studies. She received a master's of regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her husband in Philadelphia. 

Kurt Forsgren is a managing director and Sector Leader for Transportation in U.S. Public Finance and also works with S&P’s Global Sustainable Finance Team. Based in Boston, he focuses on credit analysis as a primary analyst while also serving as a credit committee chair, industry researcher and spokesperson on transportation infrastructure as well as climate and environmental, social, governance topics. 

Beginning in S&P Global’s San Francisco office in 1992, Kurt’s experience spans Public Finance and Project Finance, encompassing a variety of sectors. Prior to joining the company, Kurt was a transportation consultant at KPMG. A member of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, Boston Municipal Analyst Forum, and Boston Economic Club, Kurt earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Maine and a Master of Government Administration degree from the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania.

Randy Iwasaki is the President and CEO of Iwasaki Consulting Services, Inc. Prior to that, he was the Leader of State and Local Transportation for Amazon Web Services (AWS).  In that position he leads AWS’s data support and analysis services for state and local transportation agencies, including; artificial intelligence support; use of AWS services in development of new technology in transportation; data analysis methods for policy and planning analyses; traffic operational support; and other uses of AWS services by state and local transportation agencies.  Prior to joining AWS Randy served for over 10 years as Executive Director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority recognized as one of the most innovative transportation agencies in the United States.  He founded GoMentum Station, the largest secure automated vehicle test facility in the nation.  Prior to that he was a 27-year employee of the California Department of Transportation, where he rose through the ranks to become Chief Deputy Director from 2004 to 2009 and Director from 2009 to 2010.  He is an internationally recognized leader in transportation research and innovation, and is frequently called upon to speak to the latest developments in automated and connected vehicle technology development and testing.  He has been on dozens of TRB committees and research panels over the course of his career - serving as the chair of several of them.  He served as Chair of the USDOT’s Freight Advisory Committee for three years.    

Polly Trottenberg most recently served as the Deputy Secretary at the US Department of Transportation in the Biden Administration.  She served as the 55,000-person agency's Chief Operating Officer and helped lead its implementation of the landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.  In 2023, she also served as the Acting Federal Aviation Administrator.

Trottenberg served as New York City’s Transportation Commissioner in the de Blasio Administration, overseeing the agency responsible for the safe, efficient, and equitable operations of the City’s transportation network. She helped implement the landmark Vision Zero program and led NYCDOT through COVID-19 response and recovery, prioritizing transforming City streets to promote livability, sustainable transportation, and economic recovery.  She also served on the Board of the MTA for five years.

Trottenberg served at USDOT in the Obama Administration as the Assistant Secretary and Under Secretary for Policy. She also served in the Senate for 12 years for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, and Senator Barbara Boxer.  

David Greising is the president and chief executive of the Better Government Association, joining the BGA in 2018. For nearly a century, the BGA has fought for honest and effective government through investigative journalism and policy advocacy.