Knock down the barriers that keep our communities from growing and moving
For decades, America’s ability to move people and goods has been held back not by a lack of talent or ingenuity, but by structural barriers, political neglect, and outdated assumptions about how Americans should travel. Breaking those bottlenecks requires more than patchwork fixes. It demands enforcing the laws we already have, mobilizing national resources where the need is greatest, and clearing away ideological distractions that have warped federal transportation policy.
Project 2029’s plans call for a coherent push to rebuild a transportation system that is faster, fairer, more environmentally sustainable, and capable of supporting the growth communities have been denied for far too long, including:
Directing the Attorney General to rigorously enforce the Amtrak Priority Access Law. Amtrak's statutory preference, or the "priority access" law, requires freight railroads to give preference to Amtrak passenger trains over freight trains on their tracks to ensure passenger rail services are not unduly delayed by slower freight traffic. Yet the Department of Justice has neglected to enforce this statute for decades, resulting in nearly 700 days' worth of passenger delays annually. When freight railroad leadership decides to dispatch Amtrak trains according to the law, on-time performance has improved, and there is no evidence of negative impacts to the fluidity of America’s rail network, on which Amtrak trains account for only about 4% of train miles. This law must be rigorously enforced to help keep Americans moving by improving intercity rail travel times nationwide.
Declaring a National Transportation Emergency to mobilize federal authority and resources toward large-scale rail and transit investment. The National Emergencies Act and related statutes must be invoked to redirect funding, accelerate project delivery, and treat the nation’s overreliance on cars, fossil fuels, and deteriorating infrastructure as threats to economic stability, national security, and climate resilience. Using legal tools such as the Defense Production Act for rail components, Section 2808 of Title 10 for dual-use rail corridors, the Stafford Act for climate-driven disruptions, and strategic reprogramming within the Department of Transportation, Amtrak, and the Army Corps of Engineers, a future administration can justify and fast-track a nationwide build-out of electrified, resilient rail infrastructure comparable to past defense-driven mobilizations like the Interstate Highway System.
Rescinding politically motivated aviation directives that undermine workforce integrity and divert attention from real safety issues. This must include reversing both the “Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation” action and the “Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety” presidential memorandum, which wrongly suggest that FAA employees hired under diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations, or those with disabilities, are inherently unqualified to work in the aviation field. These directives unnecessarily sow distrust in a highly trained workforce and shift focus away from the technical, operational, and staffing challenges that actually affect aviation safety. The elimination of these actions must be paired with the restoration of evidence-based oversight, the protection of qualified personnel from discriminatory removal, and ensuring federal safety policy is anchored in data rather than ideology.
