I edit Streetsblog Chicago, which reports on and advocates for walking, biking and transit improvements. So you might assume I was delighted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s recent announcement of a “$5.3 billion investment in rail safety upgrades” and “new Amtrak train sets” to support Midwestern passenger rail.

That is, in fact, good news. But the press release heralding this as the start of a “Golden Age of Rail” delivered by President Donald Trump and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy certainly raised my eyebrows.

First of all, Duffy’s retrograde track record during his 18 months on the job makes Trump’s previous transportation chief, Elaine Chao, a conservative married to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, look like livable-streets activist Jane Jacobs.

Like Trump, an ex-reality TV star, Duffy has caused infuriating setbacks for countless sustainable transportation projects and agencies. This approach seems to be largely an effort to troll blue cities, and the mayhem he’s caused at the CTA is a great example.

Last October, the secretary announced his department was freezing over $3 billion in already-approved federal funds for Chicago transit projects, including the Red Line extension and the Red and Purple Modernization project. Duffy’s paradoxical reasoning was that the CTA’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise policies were “discriminatory” and “unconstitutional,” even though federal guidelines mandate equitable contracting for DOT-funded projects. Thankfully in March, a judge forced the feds to cough up the cash.

Similarly, last December, the DOT-controlled Federal Transit Administration demanded that the CTA develop and implement a plan to reduce crime in the system or else face a $50 million cut in operations funding. While the FTA cited the horrific recent case of a woman being set on fire on the Blue Line, once again it appeared Duffy’s main motive was owning the libs. After the feds rejected Chicago’s initial proposal for more policing as “materially deficient,” in March the CTA submitted a revised plan. The FTA acknowledged receipt and hasn’t bothered the transit agency since then. 

Here are a few other recent examples of Duffy’s questionable behavior as DOT boss:

• Last month, he took bike lanes, road diets or lane reductions, speed cameras and other potentially lifesaving strategies off the Federal Highway Administration Proven Safety Countermeasures list, and called bikeways “DEI,” short for diversity, equity and inclusion. Former top New York City Transportation Department official Jon Orcutt called this “Duffy’s intentional infusion of stupidity into U.S. DOT policy.”

• Earlier this month, a Los Angeles Times columnist blasted Duffy’s new TV program “The Great American Road Trip” as “Trump-era spectacle, wrapped in a reality show.”

• On Aug. 26, Duffy tweeted a video of a truck with a thunderously loud tailpipe, writing, “Thanks to U.S. DOT, our trucks can go back to sounding like this.” Transit consultant Jarrett Walker responded, “The top transportation official in the U.S. wishes to remind you that trucks are not really for transportation. They are a tool for forcing others to suffer for your fragile masculinity.”

But enough about Duffy’s dubious conduct. Let’s analyze the press release’s claims about the new Amtrak funding.

“Roughly $2 billion of this grant package is funding Secretary Duffy saved the American people by canceling Gavin Newsom’s disastrous high-speed train to nowhere,” it states. “His California boondoggle has exploded in projected costs with estimates as high as $231 billion — nearly seven times higher than its initial cost.”

The DOT is celebrating the abandonment of grants it had already awarded but not paid to California high-speed rail. It’s a similar situation as Duffy’s failed attempt to defund Red Line initiatives.

The Republican-led department is making a big deal about the high-speed rail project’s cost increases. But the truth is that two of the biggest reasons the price tag is now greater than the original estimates are that California officials, when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor, badly lowballed the costs, and the construction timeline keeps getting disrupted by changing levels of government support for the project.

Duffy’s recent actions exemplify that.

Meanwhile, High Speed Rail Alliance Executive Director Rick Harnish said Duffy and Trump shouldn’t be patting themselves on the back for the Amtrak funding.

“The money for that Midwest Amtrak stuff actually came from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed in November 2021 under Joe Biden and (then-USDOT chief) Pete Buttiegieg,” he told me. “So that was Biden’s money, and at the same time, Trump is trying to eliminate that program in 2027.”

“The other thing is, this is not a transformative investment,” Harnish added. “This is ‘state of good repair’ work. It’s a fraction of what’s needed to get more people on trains. So if we want a ‘Golden Age of Rail’ like Trump and Duffy say they do, we really need to step up investment in the program.”

This whole debacle makes me long for the good old days when a center-left Democrat such as Barack Obama could appoint a center-right Republican such as Ray LaHood as DOT secretary, and they’d actually do a great job of running the department.

John Greenfield is the editor of Streetsblog Chicago.

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