FRAME for Mobility
A surface transportation act for the 21st century.
We built a from-scratch rewrite of the federal surface transportation law. Fix what we have first. Pay for performance. Pay for the system honestly. Not a patch on the old law — a clean foundation. Now we take it to the next level.
A project supported by the Institute for Civic Service
Why
Why we built it: the system stopped working.
The mid-20th-century settlement — expand the highways, pay for them from the gas tax, and let the rest follow — has collapsed on every measure at once. Congestion, transit, safety, repair, and finance all moved the wrong way together. That is the case for change, in the presentation deck's own numbers.
+142%
Growth in annual traffic delays since 1990 — from 26 to 63 hours lost per commuter, nearly eight full workdays. Congestion now costs a record $269 billion a year in wasted time and fuel.
Texas A&M Transportation Institute, 2025 Urban Mobility Report
−34%
Transit ridership's fall from its 2014 peak of 10.8 billion trips, to about 7.1 billion — down 24% since 2000, even as transit service increased 18% over the same period.
American Public Transportation Association, 2024 Fact Book
+57%
The rise in pedestrian deaths since 2000, from 4,763 to 7,500 a year, while total roadway deaths plateaued at roughly 40,000 a year.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Governors Highway Safety Association
$176B
The transit state-of-good-repair backlog, up 125% in real terms since 2000, from $78 billion — while 43% of the national roadway network remains in poor or mediocre condition.
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
$275B
In General Fund bailouts since the Highway Trust Fund was exhausted in 2008, ending its 52-year run as a self-sustaining program. Its main revenue source, the gas tax, has not been adjusted since 1993 and has lost over half its purchasing power since 2000.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
A settlement failing on every measure cannot be patched. So we built the FRAME Act — a clean foundation, written and ready. Now we take it to the next level.
Part II · The architecture of reform
Three grants. One foundation.
The current model rewards expansion over stewardship. FRAME repeals the tangle of legacy programs and consolidates formula funding into three block grants — flexible money, under strict performance targets.
Section 203
State of Good Repair & Resiliency
Maintenance and rehabilitation of existing pavement, bridges, tunnels, and transit assets — declared the highest national priority, with resiliency retrofits against extreme weather.
Section 207
National Commerce & Freight
The efficiency of the national supply chain: freight bottlenecks relieved, and surface connections to ports and intermodal facilities improved.
Section 211
Community Access & Mobility
Connecting people to jobs and services: public transportation operations, active transportation, and on-demand microtransit.
The variable federal cost-share
The old 80/20 split paid the same share for everything. FRAME pays for what the nation actually wants (Sec. 106).
90%
Maintenance premium. Federal share for projects that bring existing assets into a state of good repair.
Section 106
100%
Safety and innovation bonus. Full federal cost for proven safety countermeasures and qualified digital infrastructure.
Section 106
50%
Capacity penalty. Reduced federal share for new general-purpose lanes on the National Highway System.
Section 106
Section 303
Strategic Infrastructure Investment Program
For the projects too large for formula funding — new high-capacity transit systems, nationally significant bridge replacements — funded on their merits.
Section 107
Technology is infrastructure
Software, data systems, and digital twins are legally construed as infrastructure. In a modern mobility economy, bits are as essential as bricks.
Part III · Performance over pavement
Pay for results, not for promises.
FRAME turns the Department of Transportation from a check-writing entity into a performance-driven steward. Federal funding becomes an investment in measurable outcomes, not an entitlement based on historic formulas.
Sections 401–402
Pay for Performance
Every state sets data-driven targets for its own system — safety, infrastructure condition, congestion reduction, system reliability — coordinated with metropolitan planning organizations and transit providers, and approved by the Secretary.
Section 105
The bonus pool
States that significantly exceed their targets draw from a performance bonus pool of five percent of total block grant funds. Lead, and the money follows.
Section 403
The safety forfeiture
Fail to make significant progress on safety for three consecutive years, and one percent of formula funds is forfeited. It does not return to the Treasury: it is reinvested as competitive grants to local safety projects in that same state.
Every dollar, in public
A new social contract for mobility: transparency in place of opacity.
Section 407
Infrastructure Health Report Card
Section 408
Carbon & VMT Scorecard
Section 409
National Transportation Data Standard
Section 410
National Infrastructure Data Portal
Part V · The fiscal honesty
Say what the road costs.
For decades the nation has engaged in fiscal theater over how it pays for roads and rails. The gas tax has not been raised since 1993. The Highway Trust Fund has been effectively dead since 2008. FRAME ends the theater.
Section 702
Steel pays for steel
Revenue from tariffs and duties on imported steel and iron flows directly into the Highway Trust Fund — a direct link between the materials that build the system and the money that maintains it.
Sections 704–705
Fair Share for Fair Roads
As the fleet electrifies, the link between using the road and buying fuel is severed. A transitional fee on battery electric vehicles bridges the gap — subject to an Equity Cap, so no EV owner pays more than the average gas-tax contribution of a comparable gasoline vehicle.
Sections 708–709
The American VMT Choice
A five-year nationwide pilot of a fee on vehicle miles traveled. Two choices: a privacy-first Simple Odometer System at a flat rate, or an opt-in Smart VMT System with variable rates. Congestion surcharge revenue returns to the metro area that generated it.
Section 710 · Privacy as a prerequisite
Pilot data is barred from law enforcement or surveillance use without a court-ordered warrant. Data minimization, encryption, and anonymization are mandated.
Section 711 · The destination
The pilot ends in a report to Congress with a legislative framework for conversion: from a tax on consumption to a fee for access.
Part IV · The innovation frontier
Innovation is a structure, not a gadget.
True innovation is the structural ability of an agency to adapt, deliver, and modernize its service to meet the actual needs of the public. FRAME treats it as a mandate, not a luxury.
Sections 501–502
End the time tax
Years are lost to bureaucratic inertia and repetitive reviews. The Environmental Review Assignment Program becomes permanent, so states with the capacity can assume federal review responsibilities — cutting timelines by years in some cases, without compromising rigor. Capacity-Building Grants help every state DOT hire the experts to carry that responsibility.
Sections 601–604
Paratransit, modernized
For riders with disabilities, the status quo means day-ahead booking and long, unpredictable waits. The Paratransit Modernization Pilot offers waivers to agencies that commit to a quantifiably superior service under a binding performance contract: shorter waits, on-demand dispatching, wider service areas, higher reliability.
Section 607
AV-ready infrastructure
Vehicles are becoming connected and autonomous; the infrastructure is still dumb. AV-Ready standards require machine-readable pavement markings, digitally readable traffic control devices, and digital twins of the highway system.
Section 608
Vehicles that talk
A national Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) deployment strategy puts roadside units on the network so cars can see around blind corners and talk to traffic signals. The paper cites the potential of V2X to eliminate up to 80% of road accidents caused by human error.
Part VI · A legacy of mobility
Stop managing decline. Start engineering progress.
Our greatest assets are the ones we have already built. FRAME centers national policy on a state of good repair and the Safe System Approach, replaces anecdotal planning with radical transparency, and refuses to look away from the fiscal cliff.
The question is one of legacy: a landscape of crumbling overpasses and rising fatalities, or a mobility economy that is resilient, equitable, and technologically sophisticated. FRAME provides the legal architecture, the fiscal tools, and the moral clarity to build the second.
A project supported by
The Institute for Civic Service