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What happened to the ABQ Rail Trail? The Rail Trail was pitched as a 7-mile loop linking downtown, Old Town and the Rail Yards with public art and architecture telling Albuquerque’s story. Now the project faces its biggest setback.
The Trump administration pulled $11.5 million in promised funding last week, leaving city officials scrambling to find another way to pay for it.
Three years ago, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Mayor Tim Keller celebrated $25 million in state and federal funding for the Rail Trail, saying it could “unlock $220 million in redevelopment potential.” That partnership is now gone. The Trump administration’s Transportation Department says it is shifting money toward “car-focused” projects instead.
In a blunt letter dated Sept. 9, the U.S. Department of Transportation told the city it was “withdrawing selection” of the 2022 RAISE grant “effective immediately.” The letter, obtained by CityDesk, said multimodal programs should focus “primarily on projects that promote vehicular travel” instead of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure like the Rail Trail.
The funding cut threatens nearly 30% of the Rail Trail’s $39.5 million budget. Terry Brunner, chief of staff and director of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency, said the lost money “was just for the section from Lomas to the Rail Yards, excluding the central crossing,” the downtown stretch meant to spark redevelopment.
“We were promised this money to build one of the best trail systems in the nation,” said Jennifer Turner, director of the city’s Department of Municipal Development, in a city press release.
Keller said the city will challenge the decision in court. “We are going to stand up for Albuquerque and prevent the Trump Administration from pulling money from a project the people of Albuquerque want,” he said in the release. “We will see you in court.”
Construction is moving forward on other sections, including the Sawmill portion, set to open this fall, and Central Crossing, scheduled for 2026.
The Albuquerque cut follows a national trend. This month, the Trump DOT pulled more than $37 million in grants from similar pedestrian and bicycle projects in Connecticut, Illinois and Boston. The grants were originally awarded under the Biden administration’s infrastructure law.
In an unexpected twist, Brunner told CityDesk that losing federal oversight might actually speed things up.
“The actual exiting of the federal government could speed up the process slightly,” he said, noting that federal bureaucratic delays had been slowing progress on the affected section, which remains in the planning stages.
The city is now turning to the state to replace the lost federal funding.
“We’re certainly going to ask the state to assist and replenish those funds,” Brunner said.
Lujan Grisham has called a special legislative session where Rail Trail funding could be addressed. Sen. Martin Heinrich, who helped secure the original grant, condemned the decision.
“I worked hard alongside a lot of folks to secure funding for Albuquerque’s Rail Trail Project, and now Donald Trump is taking it away,” Heinrich said in a statement. “With a single letter, the Trump Administration is revoking its funding commitment, jeopardizing local jobs, hindering economic development in downtown Albuquerque and making it harder for us to make our community safer.”
Heinrich’s statement also cited support from local bicycle safety advocates BikeABQ, who said the decision “to kneecap the project by removing previously-allocated federal funding is one more outrageous page in a long history from this Administration of failing to protect cyclists or value the economic and health benefits bicycles bring to broader society.”
