AUSTIN (KXAN) -- In recent months, Project 2025 has generated political buzz and conversation among Republicans and Democrats in the lead-up to the November presidential election. Produced by the Heritage Foundation, the roughly 900-page document is denoted as a "2025 Presidential Transition Project" to help promote conservative ideals.
Baked into its federal restructuring proposals are ideologies on how to revamp the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) -- with proposed policies that could impact communities across the United States, including in Austin.
How Project 2025 envisions federal transportation initiatives
Project 2025 takes aim at the current structure of the DOT, which authors criticize as having become "a de facto grantmaking and lending organization" instead of focusing on transportation safety regulation and policymaking.
"Such a role is held more appropriately by transportation asset owners; primarily states, municipalities, and the private sector," Project 2025 documents read.
The policy document said the focus of federal funding should be on "the pressing transportation challenges that most directly affect average Americans," including efforts to lower vehicle costs and commercial shipping expenses. Arguments included shifting the Federal Highway Administration's efforts strictly toward ensuring the safety and quality of highways and bridges nationally, instead of funding infrastructure projects that support added hiking trails, bike lanes, sidewalks and other local infrastructure.
"In many cases, such projects should be the sole responsibility of local or state governments, not dependent on FHWA funding. For local projects, federal involvement adds red tape and bureaucratic delays rather than value," it noted.
Among its proposals included revamping how Congress delineates funding to states, with Project 2025 authors proposing transportation grants be sent to each state to allow them to purchase whichever transportation services best fit their needs.
Its critiques also included denouncing the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's allocation of tens of billions of dollars for expanded or developed transit systems across the U.S. Among programs targeted by Project 2025 include the Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program, a resource for future mass transit development nationwide as well as in Austin.
The Austin impact
Overseen by the Federal Transit Administration, the CIG program launched in 1991 and funds projects like light rail, heavy rail, commuter rail, streetcars and bus rapid transit development. That program is responsible for the nearly $66 million allocation to expand rapid bus transit in Austin via CapMetro's upcoming Expo Center and Pleasant Valley MetroRapid lines.
Currently, the CIG program has earmarked Austin's first phase of light rail as a project seeking CIG funding that could receive a construction grant down the road.
The Austin Transit Partnership, the organization overseeing the development of Austin's Project Connect system, has said officials are striving for a 50% funding match from the federal government to support this first phase of light rail construction.
Project 2025 argued the CIG program funded "only novel transit projects" and added former President Donald Trump's administration had tried to convince Congress to eliminate the program to no avail. Under its arguments, Project 2025 authors said the program should be reevaluated and updated to make sure all projects "meet sound economic standards and a rigorous cost-benefit analysis."
"The Department of Transportation should be evaluating which aspects of transportation are contributing to the economic competitiveness of the United States and the well-being of Americans - and that therefore should continue to be funded," documents read.
Bill McCamley, executive director of Transit Forward in Austin, denounced the ideology and the implications it could have on diversifying transit options locally, should a similar proposal be adopted by future presidential administrations.
"We need $4 billion out of that grant to be able to finish the light rail portion of Project Connect. It was always a partnership between the local tax money being put in from the voter-approved Project Connect initiative back in 2020 and the federal government, and this is a fairly common way of doing things," he said. "[Project 2025] would really harm the ability for Austin to finish the light rail project that we all need."
McCamley took issue with funding challenges made in Project 2025's proposal, which he said would limit Austin's ability to vary its available transit modes. That diversification is essential, he argued, given the sheer population growth in the Texas capital coupled with congestion and mobility issues.
Austin isn't alone with its traffic woes. The Texas Department of Transportation is developing a Statewide Multimodal Transit Plan that is designed to be "inclusive of all current and emerging forms of public transportation, supporting technologies, and intersections with other modes," per a TxDOT overview.
Those documents noted Texans traveled more than four million miles each day in 2023 utilizing public transit. This latest multimodal plan is designed to identify planning efforts to address population and economic growth along with congestion through 2050.
"This shouldn't be a political issue. This is a math problem. We've got a lot more people living in the same space, and we need to find new options for folks to be able to get around," McCamley said, adding: "More mass transit with more housing near it is one of the most concrete things that we can do to make Austin more affordable for everybody."
Is former President Donald Trump affiliated with Project 2025?
While some of the authors behind Project 2025 served in the Trump Administration, the former president and current presidential candidate denied a personal affiliation with the policy document during his September presidential debate appearance against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
"I haven't read it. I don't want to read it -- purposefully," Trump said Sept. 10 on the debate stage, per Associated Press reporting.
When analyzing authors behind sections of Project 2025, multiple writers listed previously served in the Trump Administration, including:
While Trump has repeatedly denounced any affiliation with Project 2025, his vice presidential running mate -- Senator J.D. Vance -- has praised the efforts of Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and key figure behind Project 2025. Vance also wrote the forward for Roberts' upcoming book, "Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America," set to be released in November.