This bill reauthorizes and rebrands the Reconnecting Communities Pilot as the Restoring Essential Public Access and Improving Resilient Infrastructure (REPAIR) Program and provides a five‑year authorization of $3 billion per year from the Highway Trust Fund (other than the Mass Transit Account) for fiscal years 2027–2031. The annual appropriation is allocated into $750 million for planning grants and $2.25 billion for capital construction grants, with funds treated and administered under title 23 procedures and—where relevant—allocated to Tribal governments.
Beyond reauthorization, the bill tightens award criteria and program mechanics: it adds specific equity, accessibility, anti‑displacement, and placemaking factors to how applications are scored; prohibits use of REPAIR grant funds to increase travel lanes on existing highways; allows applicants to document local land‑use policies (duplex/triplex/quadruplex and parking rules); and makes REPAIR‑eligible projects explicitly eligible across major Federal-aid programs (NHPP, STBG, HSIP, CMAQ, freight, rural and territorial funds) and eligible for prioritized use under the Carbon Reduction Program when certain emissions tests are met. These changes shift the program from a small pilot toward a permanent, multi‑program lever for reconnecting communities and shaping local land use around transportation investments.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill reauthorizes and renames the Reconnecting Communities Pilot as REPAIR and authorizes $3 billion annually for 2027–2031, split between planning and capital grants. It modifies selection criteria to require evidence of community engagement, anti‑displacement strategies, accessibility and placemaking, forbids using grant funds to add travel lanes, and lets applicants submit local land‑use measures as supporting data.
Who It Affects
State departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, local governments and Tribes that pursue planning or capital grants; community-based organizations and community development financial institutions that must partner with applicants; and FHWA as the administering agency. Freight operators and highway contractors are affected indirectly by eligibility changes and the prohibition on lane additions.
Why It Matters
By authorizing multi‑year, dedicated funding and weaving REPAIR eligibility into numerous Title 23 programs, the bill makes reconnecting and restorative projects a mainstream federal priority rather than a time‑limited pilot. The new scoring elements and land‑use signals change the kinds of projects that win funding and increase the importance of local policy alignment and community partnerships for grant success.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill takes the Reconnecting Communities Pilot created under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, renames it the REPAIR Infrastructure Program, and gives it a permanent budgetary posture with $3 billion available each year from 2027 through 2031. The money is explicitly carved into two buckets: planning grants and capital construction grants.
The statute directs that funds be treated and administered under the standard title 23 rules, while remaining available until spent, which removes the sunset uncertainty that limited earlier uptake.
On who wins awards, the bill layers detailed, outcome‑focused criteria into both planning and construction grant competitions. Applications must demonstrate community participation plans, formal partnerships backed with letters and budgets, approaches that address historic barriers to underserved areas, and oversight mechanisms such as community advisory groups or land trusts.
The agency must consider whether projects improve affordable, accessible transportation to economic centers, integrate safely with surrounding neighborhoods, spur walkable or transit‑oriented development, and include anti‑displacement measures like renter or small business assistance and preservation or expansion of affordable housing.The bill also changes what counts as eligible projects across Federal‑aid programs. It amends multiple sections of title 23 so that projects eligible for the REPAIR program become eligible for National Highway Performance Program, Surface Transportation Block Grants, Highway Safety Improvement Program (which the bill expands to include a defined category of “divisive roadway infrastructure”), CMAQ, National Highway Freight Program, rural grants, and territorial programs.
For the Carbon Reduction Program, it creates a certification trigger: if the Secretary certifies per‑capita and per‑unit‑of‑output emissions reductions, States must first direct those funds to REPAIR‑eligible projects and projects that received REPAIR planning grants.Two operational guardrails are notable. First, the bill bars use of REPAIR grant dollars to increase the number of travel lanes on an existing highway — a clear signal that rebuilds should not be thinly veiled lane expansions.
Second, applicants may provide optional, local land‑use metrics (percentages of land allowing duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes, and areas without minimum parking) so reviewers can weight the project’s potential to limit displacement and support denser, multimodal development.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill authorizes $3.0 billion annually from the Highway Trust Fund for fiscal years 2027–2031, split into $750 million for planning grants and $2.25 billion for capital construction grants under the REPAIR program.
Grant funds under REPAIR may not be used to increase the number of travel lanes on an existing highway.
The selection criteria for planning and capital grants are expanded to require or prioritize robust community participation plans, formal community partnerships (with commitment letters and budgets), anti‑displacement measures, creative placemaking, and measurable accessibility/connectivity outcomes.
REPAIR‑eligible projects become explicitly eligible across multiple Title 23 programs (NHPP, STBG, HSIP with a new ‘divisive roadway infrastructure’ category, CMAQ, National Highway Freight, rural and territorial programs), increasing funding pathway options.
Under the Carbon Reduction Program, if the Secretary certifies specified emissions reductions, States must first use apportioned funds for REPAIR‑eligible projects (including those that received REPAIR planning grants) before other uses.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Authorization, appropriation source, and funding split
This clause authorizes the $3 billion per year appropriation to be drawn from the Highway Trust Fund excluding the Mass Transit Account and requires the $750M/$2.25B split between planning and construction. It also instructs that those funds be available for obligation under title 23 procedures and remain available until expended—an important budgeting detail that extends practical flexibility for multi‑year capital projects and reduces pressure from annual obligation ceilings.
Program name change and timing
The bill amends section 11509 of the IIJA to replace the term ‘pilot’ with a permanent program title (REPAIR) and shifts the covered fiscal period to 2027–2031. This is a cosmetic but consequential change: replacing pilot language signals a policy intent for ongoing programmatic use and supports larger scale planning by states and localities.
New, prioritized evaluation factors (equity, partnerships, anti‑displacement, placemaking, land‑use data)
Congress inserts granular scoring factors into both the planning and capital grant reviews. Reviewers must weigh proposals’ potential to expand affordable, accessible mobility, community engagement plans, signed local partnerships and budgets, mechanisms that redress historical harms, representative oversight structures, and concrete anti‑displacement strategies (tenant/homeowner support, preservation/expansion of affordable housing, mixed‑use/commercial affordability, and community wealth activities). The capital criteria add explicit requirements to disclose partner funding commitments and to demonstrate how the project could catalyze private and public investment near transit and walkable corridors. Applicants may also optionally provide local land‑use metrics — percentages of residential land that allow duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes, or have no minimum parking — to help scoring reflect local zoning context.
Prohibition on lane additions
The statute inserts a straightforward restriction: REPAIR grant dollars cannot be used on projects that increase the number of travel lanes on an existing highway. This changes the scope of acceptable capital work and narrows projects toward redesign, removal, cap, or multimodal conversion rather than traditional highway widening.
Cross‑program eligibility and new HSIP definitions
The bill amends multiple Title 23 programs to include REPAIR‑eligible projects among allowable uses: National Highway Performance Program, Surface Transportation Block Grant, Highway Safety Improvement Program (adding a definition of ‘divisive roadway infrastructure’ and flagging REPAIR projects as eligible), CMAQ, territorial highway funds, National Highway Freight Program, and the Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program. Functionally, this creates multiple avenues for States and localities to pair REPAIR projects with other Federal funds and aligns safety and climate programs with reconnection goals. The HSIP edits also require evaluation of divisive roadway impacts, bringing safety‑centric data into reconnection decisions.
Carbon Reduction prioritization and State flexibility
For the Carbon Reduction Program the bill creates a conditional priority: if the Secretary certifies the State has reduced transportation emissions on a per‑capita and per‑unit‑of‑output basis, the State must first use those funds for REPAIR‑eligible projects (including projects with prior REPAIR planning grants). If funds remain, the State can then use them for other eligible CMAQ‑type projects. This ties emissions performance to prioritization of reconnection investments and offers a lever to align climate goals with community restoration.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Infrastructure across all five countries.
Explore Infrastructure in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Residents in communities divided by high‑speed or grade‑separated roadways — The bill prioritizes projects that reconnect neighborhoods, improve safe multimodal access to jobs and services, and fund anti‑displacement measures that aim to protect legacy residents.
- Tribal governments and Tribal communities — Title 23 administration and explicit allocation language permit Tribal applicants to access the program and receive funds administered under chapter 2 allocations where appropriate.
- Community‑based organizations and community development financial institutions (CDFIs) — The scoring incentives reward formal partnerships, signed commitments, and community oversight mechanisms, increasing the likelihood these organizations will be funded as project partners.
- Local governments and redevelopment agencies pursuing placemaking and mixed‑use projects — Planning and capital dollars targeted to creative placemaking, affordable housing preservation/expansion, and commercial affordability make integrated redevelopment feasible.
- States and MPOs seeking climate‑oriented investments — The Carbon Reduction priority and expanded eligibility across multiple programs gives planners new pathways to fund multimodal, low‑carbon reconnection projects.
Who Bears the Cost
- State departments of transportation and local governments — They must prepare stronger community participation plans, secure partner commitments (financial and in‑kind), and in many cases provide matching or leverage to win capital grants; they also lose funding flexibility because REPAIR funds cannot be used to add travel lanes.
- FHWA and administering agencies — The agency will face increased administrative complexity from expanded selection criteria, new land‑use data handling, cross‑program coordination, and additional Tribal allocation mechanics.
- Freight and commuter interests that favor capacity expansion — The prohibition on lane additions and prioritization of reconnection projects could limit projects intended primarily to expand vehicle throughput, forcing reconciliation between freight routing needs and community restoration goals.
- Local housing developers and jurisdictions resisting zoning change — The optional land‑use metrics create pressure (via scoring) for zoning reforms to allow duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes or reduce parking minimums; jurisdictions that do not reform risk reduced competitiveness for funds.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is balancing restorative, community‑centered outcomes (connectivity, anti‑displacement, placemaking) against traditional transportation priorities (vehicle throughput, freight efficiency, and local land‑use control). The bill advances one set of priorities by restricting lane expansion and rewarding anti‑displacement and land‑use alignment, but doing so forces tradeoffs where highway capacity and local zoning politics push back — and it leaves FHWA and States to decide which objectives prevail in any given project.
The bill pushes federal transportation grantmaking away from pure roadway capacity projects toward restorative, multimodal, and community‑centered investments. That recalibration raises hard implementation questions.
First, the new selection criteria are necessarily qualitative: terms like “meaningfully redresses historic economic and physical barriers” or “economically thriving communities” require FHWA to build scoring rubrics and evidentiary standards, which will shape which applicants succeed. Without detailed regulatory guidance, the competitive process may become inconsistent across regions or invite litigation from unsuccessful applicants who argue scoring was arbitrary.
Second, the prohibition on using REPAIR funds to increase travel lanes is clear on its face but raises tradeoffs where existing highways still carry essential freight or regionally critical traffic. Project sponsors and States must reconcile local mobility and freight‑movement needs with community reconnection objectives, potentially requiring parallel investments (e.g., freight routing, rail investments) that the bill does not fund.
Third, the bill nudges local land‑use change by allowing applicants to submit zoning metrics and by favoring transit‑oriented investment outcomes; this creates tension with local land‑use authority and political resistance to densification. Finally, while drawing REPAIR eligibility into many Title 23 programs creates financing flexibility, it also complicates accounting, program reporting, and prioritization across competing federal objectives (safety, freight, climate, and local economic development).
FHWA and States will need clear inter‑program guidance and likely additional staff capacity to operationalize these cross‑cutting priorities.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.