National Highway Freight Program

Department of Transportation

This program offers states funding to improve the efficient movement of freight on the National Highway Freight Network. The money can go toward projects that contribute to the efficient movement of freight on the National Highway Freight Network and freight intermodal or freight rail projects. Learn more at www.fhwa.dot.gov.

Geographic Share

Where Is Funding Distributed?

Compare funding distribution by state

Total Funding

$1,401,411,169

Recent funding

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Funding Type

Formula

Competitive

Equity measures

How equitably were funds distributed?

To explore how programs distribute funding compared with community characteristics, we developed several equity measures:

A concentration measure, which shows how much of a program’s funding is distributed to jurisdictions with the greatest share of a selected community characteristic. Scores range from −1 to 3.

Distribution measures

A variability measure, which demonstrates how evenly a program’s funding is distributed across the country on a per capita basis. We only display this score, which starts at 0, for state-level, formula-funded programs.

A disadvantage measure, which shows the share of funding a program allocates to counties that experience disproportionate environmental or socioeconomic burden.

A persistent poverty measure, which shows the share of funding a program allocates to counties with a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher for three decades.

Select an equity measure

Concentration measure

indicator	Equity score
Population share who are people of color	-0.09
Poverty rate	0.15
Median household income	0.04
Population density	-0.17
Miles of freight railroad	0.31
Miles of highway	0.23
Fatal accident frequency	0.12
Transportation and trade jobs	-0.04
Transportation staff capacity	-0.05

Community comparison

How Is Funding Distributed by Community Characteristic?

For each program, we’ve analyzed how funding is distributed along different community characteristics. For counties, we show these distributions of funding by quintiles, and for states, we show these distributions by quartiles.

Population share who are people of color

Funding is on average lower for states with a higher population share who are people of color than for states with a lower population share who are people of color compared with the national average.

Average program funding per 1,000 residents

Population share who are people of color by state

About

Update: This tool was updated on March 13, 2025 to include data from fiscal year 2023, additional federal infrastructure programs, and new funding distribution measures. The title was also changed to "Are Federal Infrastructure Funds Meeting Your Community’s Needs" to make it clear that the tool tracks funding by a variety of characteristics, including geography, race, income level, and indicators of local need. This tool was originally named "Is Federal Infrastructure Spending Advancing Racial and Economic Equity?”

For this tool, we analyzed 85 grant programs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 9 grant programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, 2 programs funded by annual appropriations to the Department of Transportation, and 14 housing programs that use annual HUD appropriations. The data presented here are limited to fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023. We collected program data from federal departmental announcements and project fact sheets. Demographic and need indicator data are sourced from approximately two dozen publicly available sources, including the 2016–20 American Community Survey five-year estimates from the US Census Bureau and data produced by other federal agencies.

To learn more about how to use this tool, see our user guide. To review the complete list of data sources and methods used in this work, see our full report.

Project Credits

This data tool was funded by a grant from the Melville Charitable Trust as part of the Partnership for Equitable and Resilient Communities Initiative. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. More information on our funding principles is available here. Read our terms of service here.

research Yonah Freemark, Amanda Hermans, Gabe Samuels, Tomi Rajninger, Sam Lieberman, Teddy Maginn, Mel Langness, and David Blount
Design Brittney Spinner
Data visualization and development Mitchell Thorson
Editing Lauren Lastowka
Writing Wesley Jenkins

View the project on Github