Nashville joins lawsuit against Trump administration over transit funding

Metro has joined a federal lawsuit attempting to halt the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze on various community programs — which, for Nashville, puts $14 million in transit and infrastructure projects at risk.

Nashville is one of six cities, along with 11 nonprofits, represented in the legal challenge. Led by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Public Rights Project, the group filed suit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division.

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The challenge seeks to maintain a number of critical programs that rely on federal funding. These range from efforts like constructing energy-efficient affordable housing in South Carolina to air monitoring air quality in North Carolina to improving soil health on farms in Virginia. In Nashville, the specified federal funding has to do with transit and infrastructure.

The lawsuit specifies two projects, that, due to in-limbo federal grants, have been jeopardized.

Last summer, Nashville was awarded $4.7 million through the Charging for Fueling Infrastructure Grant program for the Electrify Music City project. This would expand public electric vehicle charging stations across the city. Nashville had already entered into a contract with a vendor to install the stations, and, as of right now, lacks the funds to complete the installations.

In January, the East Nashville Spokes project received a $9.3 million Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment grant. These dollars would fund the design and construction of new bikeways across East Nashville. The project was incorporated into last year’s transit referendum, and the city had planned to use the federal grant alongside local tax dollars to complete the effort.

Nashville has a number of other federal grants they are at risk of losing, though those are not named in the lawsuit. According to Mayor Freddie O’Connell, Metro Nashville Public Schools has around $100 million at stake, and the Office of Homeless Services could lose around $9 million.

In a release, Metro’s Law Director Wally Dietz said that, for the last two centuries, “local state, and federal governments have reliably worked together to implement programs that benefit people all over America.”

“Metro Nashville filed this suit because the constitutional separation of powers must be maintained,” Dietz said. “No President, much less a non-federal employee at a fictional agency, has the authority to freeze funds appropriated by Congress. This lawsuit asks that the federal grant funding approved by Congress and awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation for projects in Nashville to connect our residents, make moving through our city easier, and our roadways safer be delivered to Nashville, as promised.”