June 17, 2025
From Capitol Hill to Capitol Budget: The Power of Public Transportation Investment
An editorial on high-impact infrastructure and the transformative power of transit investment.
Article by Jesse Williams, Business Development Manager
A new rail or bus system is more than a line on a map; it represents opportunity.
Public transportation provides the opportunity to tackle societal challenges while driving economic growth by connecting communities to jobs, schools, and healthcare—making it essential to financial, educational, and health wellbeing.
Connected and future-ready transit systems help cities become agile, sustainable, and responsive. Because as cities grow and evolve, so must the infrastructure that connects them.
Federal funding through programs like the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grants (CIG), Federal State Partnership Program or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law attract State, local, and private investment, accelerating delivery and fostering public-private partnerships towards projects that are part of larger programmatic plans, including the essential plans such as maintaining assets to a state of good repair.
For every $1 invested in public transportation, those investments stimulate approximately $4 in economic returns.
Some $20.5 billion in formula transit funds were allocated under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to simply modernize aging infrastructure. In Baltimore, the $6 billion investment in the Frederick Douglass Tunnel for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor replaces a 150-year-old Civil War-era tunnel to improve reliability, increase capacity, and allow speeds up to 100 mph through the tunnel, supporting both passenger and freight operations.
In Northern California, the $206 million Sonoma-Marin Commuter Rail in delivered 41 miles of commuter rail translating directly into major community infrastructure upgrades.
In Seattle and the surrounding Puget Sound region, where traffic congestion is some of the worst in the country, federal grants and state investments for the Lynnwood Link Extension and the Downtown Redmond Link Extension are changing lives by connecting growing communities in the north and east suburbs. Together, they add over 16 miles of light rail and eight new stations. The Lynnwood Link alone is expected to serve 47,000 to 55,000 weekday riders by 2026, reducing travel time, cutting emissions, and relieving I-5 gridlock. The Redmond Link extension will link thousands of Eastside workers to Microsoft headquarters, new housing, and the city’s vibrant downtown without needing a car.
In Portland, with half of the funds coming from Federal and State, regional and local contributions making up the remaining 50 percent, TriMet was able to enhance mobility across the entire light rail system with the recent Orange Line East Segment project, bringing the region’s total light rail system to 60 miles, improving transit access across the metro region.
As cities rely on public transportation, they begin to embrace and take advantage of the opportunities they provide.
These local success stories reflect the broader benefits of investing in regional transit: such investments can yield up to 13 times the return in household and travel time savings and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 11% in dense urban areas (such as Chicago). Communities that prioritize public transit help reduce the country’s carbon emissions by an estimated 63 million metric tons each year.
Government investment ignites growth for private-sector formation and innovation in rail delivery, resulting in millions of both private and public-sector jobs. A recent study shows that every $1 billion invested in high-speed rail investment creates approximately 24,000 jobs.
As Diane Cowin, a longtime transit advocate, put it: “I saw how the opportunities for community building and access to new jobs, healthcare, and affordable homes could redefine people’s lives.”
That’s the essence of these investments; they’re transformational in every way. They connect major job centers to affordable housing, they invite private investment around major intermodal centers, they connect our aging and disadvantaged populations to needed care, they safeguard growing communities against limited capacity of aging and landlocked roads.
Investing in America’s infrastructure always pays off.