Boston filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to force the restoration of a $20 million grant for street safety and transit upgrades along three of Roxbury's busiest and most dangerous corridors. The city says the U.S. Department of Transportation pulled the funding last year over a small slice of the project involving electric vehicle chargers, even after officials offered to strip those chargers out entirely.
City Says It Tried To Compromise First
According to The Boston Globe, the grant was originally awarded to Boston in 2022 to fund the Roxbury Resilient Corridor project, covering improvements to Melnea Cass Boulevard, Malcolm X Boulevard, and Warren Street. The U.S. Department of Transportation revoked the money in September 2025, with the city's lawsuit alleging the agency did so because the project included electric vehicle chargers, a component that represented roughly one percent of the total project cost, per the Globe's reporting. Before suing, Boston offered to completely remove the proposed EV chargers from the design altogether, but USDOT refused to restore the award, according to Universal Hub.
That refusal, city officials argue, shows the cancellation was never really about the chargers at all. The lawsuit, City of Boston v. Duffy, was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts with pro bono legal help from the nonprofit Public Rights Project, according to a statement from U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley's office. Mayor Michelle Wu said Boston earned the competitive grant to meet community needs and address long-needed infrastructure upgrades, and she urged the court to reverse the Trump administration's actions and restore the funds for Roxbury.
Why These Roxbury Streets Matter
Melnea Cass Boulevard, Malcolm X Boulevard, and Warren Street rank in the top 3% of all Boston thoroughfares for concentrations of traffic-related injuries and fatalities, per reporting from The Guardian. The wide, vehicle-centric layouts of those roads trace back to 1960s urban renewal block clearances and eminent domain actions in Roxbury, according to the City of Boston.
The planned upgrades specifically target a 1.3-mile stretch of Warren Street between Grove Hall and Nubian Square, with center-running dedicated bus lanes and green stormwater infrastructure among the design elements, per StreetsblogMASS. The Roxbury Resilient Corridors project carries a total estimated price tag of nearly $34 million, and the federal cancellation has placed $14 million in committed local matching funds on hold, according to the New Bedford Guide.
Legal Arguments And Federal Pushback
Boston's complaint alleges that USDOT violated the Administrative Procedure Act by acting in an arbitrary manner, exceeded its statutory authority, and breached constitutional separation of powers principles, the New Bedford Guide reports. Pressley said the lawsuit was a critical step in defending the project, and she said the cancellation of the grant was evidence of Sean Duffy and Donald Trump's contempt for the people they serve. “Public transit is a public good,” Pressley said.
Federal officials aren't backing down. Following the lawsuit's announcement, Federal Transit Administration Regional Administrator Peter Butler stated that the status of the Roxbury Resilient Corridor project remains unchanged and canceled, per the same Universal Hub report.
Part Of A Broader Pattern
Boston isn't alone in taking the fight to court. USDOT sent similar grant cancellation notices citing EV and environmental components to other local governments across the country, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, which also filed a federal lawsuit, according to the New Bedford Guide.
The Roxbury grant revocation also follows a September 2025 decision by the Trump administration to cancel $327 million previously awarded to Massachusetts for Mass Turnpike upgrades and an Allston transit hub, as reported by GBH News. For now, the fate of the Roxbury project rests with the federal courts, as the city presses its case that the $20 million award was pulled without legal justification.
