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A crucial chunk of funding for the decade-in-the-making realignment of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Allston is under threat following the passage of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which eliminates the source of a $335 million grant to the project.
But civic leaders in Massachusetts are now also grappling with the fact that the loss of funding could have been avoided — if they had only moved faster.
The revocation only applies to federal grant funds that the state has not yet committed to a specific use, meaning if the state had obligated more funds sooner, more money might have been protected.
Anthony D’Isidoro, a member of the I-90 project task force, said that the state “would have avoided this unfortunate situation” if the project’s leaders had moved with “a greater sense of urgency.”
“The reconciliation bill was so predictable. It was as predictable as the sun is going to rise in the east,” Jim Aloisi, former secretary for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, said.
The I-90 project, in planning since 2013, seeks to reroute a section of the Mass Pike through Allston away from the Charles River, reconnecting the neighborhood and adding significant new train and bus infrastructure in the process.
But the infrastructure project has proved a massive undertaking — the largest in the state since the Big Dig, according to Allston’s Boston City Council representative — and taken a decade already to wind through environmental reviews, design processes, and coordination across multiple levels of governments and state agencies.
The loss of hundreds of millions in federal funding has revived advocates’ long-running consternation at the realignment project’s slow progress. The Big Beautiful Bill only revokes unobligated funds — that is, funds received from the government which have not yet been approved for a specific use within the project.
So far, MassDOT has obligated just $8 million of the $335 million in funding it received from a federal grant program in 2024. That program was created as part of former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Officials in state and city transit agencies warned publicly that the project’s funding would be in danger as early as last November, when Trump first won the presidential election. And leaders understood well before then the risks of waiting too long to commit funds.
Thomas P. Glynn, former general manager of the MBTA who previously managed Harvard’s land holdings in Allston, said that the I-90 project already seemed “the kind of project that might get reviewed by a Trump administration” after he was elected in November.
“There was always a fear when we applied — even in the Biden era when we got turned down the first time — there was always a fear that if the election didn’t go well, that these funds would be exposed,” D’Isidoro said.
Because the Federal Highway Administration issues funding through reimbursements, Massachusetts will not receive federal funds for the I-90 until a project is approved and executed. But construction on the highway has yet to begin, though original plans scheduled its completion as early as 2021.
“I’m certainly frustrated we’re in this position,” fellow I-90 task force member Jessica Robertson said.
“I think it could have been better managed, and we could have been more ready,” Robertson added.
Multiple task force members, including Robertson, have pointed out that the state has gone long periods — at one point up to 10 months — without convening them.
“If we had managed the process better, we could have gotten funded the first year, and we would have been a year further along in the process,” Robertson said.
The Federal Highway Administration did not respond to a request to confirm the rescission. In a statement, Amelia S. Aubourg, a spokesperson for MassDOT, said that the agency has “developed a contingency plan in case the grant funds are rescinded.”
In such an event, Aubourg said MassDOT plans to conduct a financial analysis “to ensure that we have confirmed all our projected costs and available resources, and identified potential gaps” and employ an engineering consultant to advise them on how to move forward.
Still unclear, however, is whether the state expects to seek to replace the funds from other sources, or to cut down the scale of the project. D’Isidoro said it was unlikely the state would be able to fill in the massive new gap in the budget from the project’s other funders.
Other major sources of funding for the project are already suffering from other cuts from the federal government, including Harvard and BU, who together have donated over a hundred million. (The I-90 realignment is set to occur entirely on Harvard-owned land.)
Since Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law this month, many local transit advocates and politicians have spoken up against cutting funding to the I-90 construction project.
“I think not doing it is devastating. It's devastating for anyone who lives along the I-90 corridor, because it really degrades their ability to access opportunities and jobs in metro Cambridge and Boston,” Aloisi said.
—Staff writer Angelina J. Parker can be reached at angelina.parker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinajparker.