But there was no sign in the budget released by the White House this week of the trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that Mr. Trump touted last summer. Instead, he proposed slicing the Department of Transportation’s budget by 13 percent, or $2.4 billion. The cuts would put the Federal Aviation Administration under the thumb of the private sector, reduce funding for Amtrak and wipe out resources for new transit projects.
The initial budget summary proposes terminating funding for Amtrak’s long-haul services, though the profitable Northeast Corridor trains would remain. Also cut is the Essential Air Services, which provides grants to mostly rural airports that wouldn’t be able to financially sustain themselves on their own. Both programs largely serve rural communities and states without major transit hubs.
The budget also calls for a limit to federal funding for New Starts, a federal infrastructure grant program that is anticipated as a major source of funding for the proposed Gateway tunnel that would relieve the aging and decrepit 100-year old Hudson River rail tunnels in New York.
