President Donald Trump's budget blueprint would eliminate the federal programs that have fueled the Portland area's transit expansion in recent years.
The spending plan calls for major investments in national defense and tax cuts offset by reductions to domestic programs. It includes a winding down of the Federal Transit Administrations' capital improvement program, a version of which has funded almost every MAX line (with the exception of the extension to Portland International Airport) and the Portland Streetcar's eastside expansion.
If the cut makes it into Congress' final budget, which at this point is far from certain, it could slam the brakes on two proposed transit lines from downtown Portland to Gresham and Tigard respectively, as well as eliminate a possible source of funding for future streetcar expansions.
TriMet is moving ahead with the proposed Division Street and Southwest Corridor transit projects.
"It's very early in the budget process, and too early to predict the future," spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said in an email. "Also, Congress holds the purse strings."
The federal grant program is funded through 2020, but Trump's proposal calls for cutting off new applications, sending payments only to those projects it's already agreed to fund. That would include TriMet's Orange Line, for which the agency expects to receive $100 million in fiscal year 2018.
TriMet planned to apply in August for a $100 million grant under the federal Small Starts program to build a new rapid-bus line along Southeast Division Street from downtown Portland to Gresham Transit Center.
The total project cost of $175 million would cover new boarding platforms, high-capacity buses and reconfigured traffic signals that would prioritize buses.
But it's unlikely the project would be approved for funding by the end of the fiscal year.
The much larger Southwest Corridor project, which would run a new light-rail line from downtown Portland to Bridgeport Village on the Tigard-Tualatin border, planned to tap the New Starts program for at least half of its $2.4 billion price tag.
But TriMet is still years away from a funding application for that project, which also would probably depend on a regional funding vote.
Conservative groups have long favored cutting New Starts and its sibling grant programs, saying they encourage local governments to overspend on big, flashy transit projects.
The Heritage Foundation, on whose work the Trump administration is said to have relied heavily in crafting its "skinny budget," said eliminating the $2 billion-a-year New Starts program should start the government on a path toward eliminating federal support for building out transit.
-- Elliot Njus
enjus@oregonian.com
503-294-5034
@enjus