WASHINGTON _ Twenty-five of the 30 states President Donald Trump won in 2016 have received bigger shares of funding from a federal transportation program that has shifted to favoring rural projects over urban, according to a McClatchy analysis of Department of Transportation data.
The Trump administration is also giving roads a bigger chunk of the award money since President Barack Obama left office.
Grant recipients are getting nearly everything they sought _ more than 90% of what they requested _ in the Trump administration awards. During the Obama years, grant winners got about half of what they requested.
The grant program, now called Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD, was created in 2009, the first year of Obama's presidency. So far more than $7 billion has been awarded to 554 projects.
During the Obama administration, when the program was known as TIGER for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, nearly 80% of the money went to urban projects. During the two Trump years funded so far, nearly 70% of the dollars have gone to rural initiatives.
The Trump administration insists that the generous tilt toward rural projects was done to compensate for an Obama-era preference for urban grants.
Critics, however, say the Trump program has too often focused on its own version of the Three Rs: Rural, Republicans and Roads.
They say the current program is too heavy on paying for roads, while the mission to find innovative ways to move people and goods has been virtually forgotten.
"We see a problem in the direction these grants are going," said Rep. David Price, a North Carolina Democrat who chairs the House appropriations transportation subcommittee. Congress approved a plan to split the rural-urban money 50-50 this year.
