From JARC to Justice40 to JD Vance: Transit’s Role in Social Policy

I’m on a current events brownout. I try to check the news no more than once or twice a day and don’t read past most headlines. I break my news diet for science articles, feel-good stories, and anything on transportation policy.

Outside of the tragic Potomac river mid-air collision, transportation trauma has been light. President Trump has railed against California’s high-speed rail and New York City’s congestion pricing programs (no surprise here) but his anger pales compared to his attacks on DEI programs and undocumented immigrants. Transportation programs survived the 24-hour pause on all grant awards and disbursements and Congress’s year-long continuing resolution resulted in little overall change to the DOT budget. So far, the DOGE sledgehammer has not yet smashed U.S. DOT’s headquarters or regional offices, or at the least the battering has not been as heavy as cuts to USAID, Education, and Health and Human Services.

But there have been a few polarizing moments. The DOT Order “Ensuring Reliance Upon Sound Economic Analysis in Department of Transportation Policies, Programs and Activities.” (also referred to here as the “Duffy Memo”), and in particular, it’s directive to "prioritize projects that give preferences to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average" sparked immediate attention and analysis. The New York Times concluded it would benefit Red states, while the Urban Institute found it would favor communities with more drivers than transit users. An article in Transport Findings pointed out it would prioritize whiter, higher-income areas compared to the Biden administration's Justice40 initiative.

I have a different perspective. Having spent much of my career at the Federal Transit Administration implementing transit programs and initiatives across administrations, I recognize this as the latest entry in a decades-long history of attempts by both political parties to use demographic information, transit investments, and funding decisions as social policy—the deliberate use of government resources to address specific challenges, promote particular outcomes, and support targeted demographic groups deemed worthy of assistance. From programs for seniors and people with disabilities, to initiatives for low-income workers, to efforts targeting disadvantaged communities, transportation dollars have long been instruments to achieve broader societal goals, often with indeterminate results.

I will react to the Duffy Memo, but I will jerk my knee slowly, placing it in this larger context of transit policy and funding to achieve objectives beyond mere mobility—such as reducing poverty, supporting vulnerable populations, promoting economic opportunity, addressing historical inequities, or (in the case of the Duffy Memo) potentially encouraging specific family structures.

Crosscurrents

“We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, promote domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.”

Many public programs serve competing priorities, and transit is no exception. The Federal government’s authority to fund transportation is situated under the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 which gives Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” When Congress has enacted transportation funding laws, legislators cited both the general welfare and the welfare of specific segments of society.

For example, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) which sets national transportation policy define transit, in part, as: “regular, continuing shared-ride surface transportation services that are open to the general public or open to a segment of the general public defined by age, disability, or low income” (emphasis added).  The IIJA also states that one of its purposes is to “continue Federal support for public transportation providers to deliver high quality service to all users, including individuals with disabilities, seniors, and individuals who depend on public transportation” (emphasis added).

These provisions don’t conflict, but they do create crosscurrents: on the one hand, public transportation needs to be open to everyone, civil rights laws prohibit providers from denying service based on race, color, national origin, or disability, and transit is considered successful when more people choose to use it. On the other hand, public transportation exists to serve specific segments of society who may be most in need of mobility assistance and as a force for social uplift in communities that have been historically disadvantaged.

The Safety Net

President Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Act in 1995. Credit: Social Security History

Beginning under the New Deal, America’s social safety net has sought to soften hardships of advanced age and disability. The Social Security Administration began making payments to seniors in 1935 and disability benefits were introduced in 1956. Medicare has provided health insurance for people 65 and older since 1965. Given the historical emphasis on protection for seniors and people with disabilities, it’s not surprising that these groups were the first to receive targeted assistance under public transit programs. Funding for older adults and people with disabilities dates back to the Surface Transportation Authorization Act (STAA) of 1982. In FY 2025, Congress appropriated almost $439 million for the Section 5310 Enhanced Mobility for Seniors and People with Disabilities program. (This amount may seem large but is around 2% of all transit funds authorized by Congress that year).

In the decades since the Great Society, safety net programs in transportation, housing, health care and social services proliferated and, by the early 20th century, some policymakers had concluded that the social safety net was a victim of its own success. A 2004 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report documented a fragmented system of over 60 different federal programs that funded transportation services across various agencies. These programs operated in silos with little coordination, creating inefficiencies, service gaps, and duplication of efforts. In response, a George W. Bush Administration Executive Order created “United We Ride" a federal initiative designed to improve transportation coordination across different government programs. In the past twenty years, agencies that participate in the initiative have developed guidance that allows communities to combine or "braid" funding from multiple federal programs as well as share costs and coordinate resources across programs to create more efficient, coordinated transportation systems.

Poverty

President Clinton Signs the Welfare Reform Law in 1996. Credit: Social Security History

Beginning in the late 1990s, transit social policy expanded to support low-income people in general and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (welfare) recipients in particular. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act which required Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients to begin working within two years of receiving benefits. Policymakers worried that people without access to cars would struggle to meet the new employment timelines, especially since many jobs were located in the suburbs and not well served by existing transit routes, which were designed to transport suburban workers downtown. In response, Congress created the Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program in the 1998 Intermodal Surface Transportation Equity Act (ISTEA). JARC funded transit services that helped low-income workers access jobs or provided reverse commute (city-to-suburb) transit. The program started out as a pilot and eventually grew to a $165 million formula program funding to transit agencies across the country. In 2012 the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st century (MAP-21) reauthorization consolidated the JARC program into the more general Urbanized Area Formula Program and Rural Formula Programs. For the past twelve years a relatively small portion of transportation funds have been allocated on the basis of a state or urbanized area’s share of people with incomes up to 150% of the poverty line. Transit agencies can choose to steer funding towards services benefitting welfare recipients or low-income people in particular or fund transit for the public at large.

More recent anti-poverty legislation has developed place-based solutions. In FY 2021 Congress created the “Areas of Persistent Poverty” program though the annual appropriations process. This program, which lasted through FY 2023, provided $20 million annually for planning studies to improve transit in counties in which 20 percent or more of the population has lived in poverty over the past 30 years or any census tract with a poverty rate of at least 20 percent. (FTA selected specific projects to fund via a national competition).

Screenshot from FTA’s mapping tool that identified census tracts meeting the areas of persistent poverty threshold and the historically disadvantaged communities threshold under the Justice40 initiative.

After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017, the Trump Administration worked to steer transportation funding to projects taking place in “opportunity zones” defined as Census tracts with a poverty rate of at least 20% or where the median family income that does not exceed 80% of the state or metropolitan area. Rather directly funding projects in areas experiencing distress, the Act attempts to spur economic development by allowing people who invest in a Qualified Opportunity Fund (a corporation or partnership established specifically for the purpose of investing in Qualified Opportunity Zone property) to defer capital gains taxes.

Subsequently, U.S. DOT and FTA gave preference to projects serving these areas as part of their selection criteria for discretionary programs (programs where DOT officials rather than Congress identify funding recipients). For example, the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Grants Program (formerly known as the TIGER program) and FTA’s Bus and Bus Facilities Infrastructure Investment Program awarded additional points in their competition for funding for projects in Opportunity Zones. The Duffy Memo also expresses a preference for funding projects in these areas. Insofar as transportation investments help improve property values in opportunity zone areas, benefits of Transportation Department preferences might extend to opportunity zone investors as well as a transit project’s users.

Screenshot of an interactive opportunity zone explorer from StatsAmerica

Miscellany

Other segments of American society have received targeted transit assistance over time. Beginning in 2005, transit agencies serving northeastern states received extra funding under the “high density states” program which took into account a state’s population density (the program’s 370 person per square mile funding  threshold was established to ensure the votes of key senators at the time). In FY 2025, $379 million is allocated under this program.

In 2012 under MAP-21, Congress created a formula program to allocate funds directly to tribal nations (previously, tribes could receive transit funds only as subrecipients of State departments of Transportation) this program received around $36 million in FY 2025. MAP-21 also created a $20 million program to provide additional funding to the Appalachian region.

Under the Obama Administration, FTA awarded $64 million for the Veterans Transportation and Community Living Initiative (VTCLI) which focused on creating or expanding "one-call, one-click" transportation resource centers that would connect veterans and others to transportation options in their communities. Congress never established a stand-alone program for Veterans transportation. Rather, FTA created the initiative using funding and program authorities from existing statutory programs, including ones for buses and bus facilities, research, and technical assistance.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx also championed transportation investments to promote social mobility. His “Ladders of Opportunity" initiative focused on connecting disadvantaged and low-income populations—including veterans, seniors, and youths—with centers of education, employment, job training, health care, and other vital services. FTA administered the “Ladders” initiative through the buses and bus facilities programs, giving priority to projects that provided ready access to work for individuals lacking reliable transportation, especially in low-income and underserved neighborhoods; projects connecting to universities, hospitals, or other places that can lead to improved quality of life;

Other FTA initiatives in the past ten years have steered financial assistance to transit agencies providing access to healthcare and transportation for people recovering from opioid abuse.

Intersectionality

President Biden at a signing ceremony for the executive order that launched the Justice40 initiative. Source: Society of Environmental Journalists

Efforts linking federal funding with social policy may have peaked under the Justice40 Initiative which President Biden launched through Executive Order 14008 in January 2021. The order described a whole-of-government effort with the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. Unlike prior programs that used a single demographic category or numerical threshold, Justice40 employed criteria that took into account multiple socioeconomic indicators such as income levels, environmental burden indicators such as proximity to hazardous sites, climate vulnerability indicators such as flood risks, and energy burden factors to identify “disadvantaged communities.”  The Administration’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) used census tract-level data to identify communities as "disadvantaged" if they met specific thresholds across these categories.

A screen shot from the CEJST screening tool showing a census tract in the City of Baltimore that is identified as disadvantaged, along with links to social and environmental factors used in the screening process. Source: NDC Partnership.

As with Opportunity Zones, and Ladders of Opportunity, FTA incorporated Justice40 considerations into its Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) for competitive grant programs by requiring applicants to describe how projects would benefit disadvantaged communities and giving additional consideration to projects serving these areas. FTA’s updated Capital Investment Grant Program (CIG) policy guidance also tweaked the criteria used to rate new transit projects to increase the weight given to estimated trips made on the project by transit dependent persons when evaluating mobility benefits. The guidance notes that “this [provision] supports the goals identified in the DOT equity action plan, the Justice40 initiative (Executive Order 14008) and Executive Order 14096.”

Family Matters

This history of transit investment in social policy may help us better understand how Secretary Duffy might: “prioritize projects that….give preferences to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.” His department could lobby Congress to create stand-alone programs in the mold of the Enhanced Mobility, JARC program, or Areas of Persistent Poverty Programs. Or, to really go after the big game, DOT and their allies in Congress could update statutory formulas to steer funding towards areas with high marriage and birth rates. This is a scenario that many people reacting to the announcement were envisioning, Changes to formula criteria of even a few percentages can move hundreds and millions of dollars, but formula alterations are difficult because, absent a large increase in funding totals, they tend to create winners and losers. The last time transit formulas were significantly changed was in 2012 under MAP-21.

Absent statutory changes, DOT could introduce criteria in competitive programs that give priority to areas with high birth and marriage rates, as was done to promote Opportunity Zones and Justice40. It could get creative and fashion a new initiative like the Obama era Veterans Transportation program that uses uncommitted money and existing statutory authority. And given that the memo mentions the CIG program in particular, the FTA could update its CIG policy guidance again to weight the rating criteria in favor of communities with higher birth rates. Anyone want to ride the double pink line?  

Natalism

Sean Duffy is sworn in as Transportation Secretary. Source: U.S. DOT

The Duffy Memo is an example of natalist policy being championed under the Trump Administration by the likes of Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and Duffy himself, who is married with nine children. I’ll define natalism as a philosophy that having children is intrinsically valuable and should be encouraged and a policy of increasing birthrates based on the assumption that population growth is beneficial for society, economy, and cultural continuity.

Many feminists, myself included, believe natalism unfairly frames reproduction as a woman's duty to society, that it reinforces traditional gender roles by emphasizing motherhood as women's primary social contribution, and that it rarely addresses equal parenting or redistribution of domestic labor. Some critics also argue that it is aimed at specific women--usually educated, middle-class, white women--as a way of countering immigration and promoting white supremacy.

But, while I harbor suspicions about the natalists’ motivations, I am on board with policies that improve conditions for those who choose to have children and for the children themselves.  And here the Duffy Memo provides a lot to like. Consider provisions such as this one:

“Statutes governing DOT programs, policies, and activities shall be administered to identify and avoid….adverse impacts on families and communities. Adverse impacts may include, but are not limited to, noise; water pollution; soil contamination; a denial or a reduction in transportation services; increased difficulty in raising children in a safe and stable environment; and disruption of community cohesion, safety, or economic vitality.”

Although the list of adverse impacts reads like a recitation of the Ten Plagues, this language wouldn’t be out of place in the (now repealed) Justice40 Order.

A second provision reads:

“Statutes governing DOT programs, policies, and activities shall be administered to maximize…benefits to families and communities. The benefits may include, but are not limited to, economic opportunities such as increased access to jobs, healthcare facilities, recreational activities, commercial activity, or any actions or project components that will help alleviate poverty, enhance safety, and primarily benefit families and communities by improving the quality of their lives, raising their standard of living, or enabling them to participate more fully in our economy.”

Here is more old wine in new bottles. The Duffy memo’s aspirations that can be found in programs like JARC, Veterans initiatives, United We Ride, and Ladders of Opportunity

Our Kids

The Duffy memo’s focus on helping families and children is overdue. Over the past decade, scholars across the political spectrum have been sounding the alarm on life outcomes for America’s youngest people. For example, Robert Putnam’s book “Our Kids: the American Dream in Crisis” (2015) documents widening gaps in resources, opportunities, and outcomes between children from upper-middle-class families and those from working-class and poor families. He highlights significant changes in family formation across class lines, demonstrates how residential segregation by income has created vast disparities in school quality and community resources available to children and notes that children from different class backgrounds experience dramatically different access to mentors, role models, and social connections that facilitate opportunity. The book concludes with policy recommendations aimed at narrowing the opportunity gap, including early childhood education, community schools, criminal justice reform, and workplace policies that support families.

Historically transit has been much more focused on assisting people whose mobility is limited due to advanced age then providing mobility to children and teens who are too young to drive or haven’t gotten a license. By law (and at the insistence of the school bus industry) transit agencies cannot provide dedicated transportation to and from school. And agencies are more likely to mention serving older adults then children in their applications for FTA funding, even when they are not applying for funds dedicated for seniors and people with disabilities.

In 2022, I analyzed purpose and benefit statements of over 19,000 transit projects FTA funded from 2016-2021 and tallied projects whose narratives mentioned children (or a synonym) along with those whose narratives included seniors (or a synonym). Federally funded transit projects are almost six times more likely to focus on seniors than they are on young people.

Excerpt from: “Who Benefits: An Equity Analysis of Transit Project Narratives, 2016-2021

Given the notable decline in American teens getting their driver's licenses over the past few decades, transit’s post-pandemic ridership slump, and the need for agencies to attract the next generation or riders, it might make sense to add a new focus on public transportation for young people as well as safe places to walk and bike for families. It may be time to reconsider policies separating school and public transit, provide transportation assistance to pre- and post-natal care, set up transit routes to childcare, co-locate childcare at transit facilities, or offer fare-free transit to people under 18 and their parents or caregivers.

Outcomes

On the other hand, do we really need another targeted transportation program? Would it be better simply to provide more funding or fewer impediments for transit projects writ large? And wouldn’t it make sense to know if past targeted programs have made a difference before creating new ones? Has the Enhanced Mobility program enhanced mobility for seniors and people with disabilities? Did the JARC program help people gain and maintain employment? Is persistent poverty less persistent? Did veterans who used VTCLI programs access more opportunities? The Duffy Memo raised a lot of eyebrows on the notion that more transportation investments could actually cause people to decide to tie the knot and/or have another baby, as well as cynicism that the policy is nothing more than a way to steer projects towards portions of Trump’s base. But even if Administration officials are sincere about using transportation funding as an incentive for family formation, how will we ever know whether one lead to the other?

Policymakers ask a lot of the social programs discussed here. The initiatives and the people who implement them are expected, not just to provide rides, but to break some of our most entrenched and multifaceted problems. Problems like poverty have confounding factors make it difficult, if not impossible, to identify a causal relationship between investments and outcomes. That said, people have tried and should continue to try to complete program evaluation that goes beyond counting the number of buses purchased or rides provided and asks whether programs changed lives and improved communities. Reductions in Force that target agency’s research and analytics capacity would be counterproductive.

Final Thoughts

The knee-jerk reactions to the Duffy Memo—both supportive and critical—reflect our polarized political climate more than substantive policy analysis. By examining this directive within the broader history of targeted transportation funding, we can see that demographic prioritization has been a consistent feature of American transit policy, though the preferred demographics shift with political winds.

What remains constant is the expectation that transportation funding can solve complex social problems—from poverty to aging to family formation—often without adequate resources or evaluation mechanisms to determine success. Perhaps the most productive path forward isn't arguing over which demographic groups deserve preference, but rather building robust systems to understand what works, for whom, and why.

Transportation policy will likely continue to reflect the social priorities of whoever occupies the White House, but its effectiveness will depend less on which groups receive preference and more on whether we commit to learning from both successes and failures. We need to better understand whether and how investments have promoted the general welfare and made our union a little more perfect. Only then can our transit systems truly deliver on their promise to ensure the blessings of liberty for all Americans—regardless of age, income, disability status, or family structure.