Making public transit more affordable and accessible by supporting fare-free programs and expanding service in communities that need it most... Expanding and modernizing passenger rail by investing in electrification, infrastructure upgrades, and workforce development.
Work to make public transit more affordable, expand service, and modernize passenger rail.
Occurrences
Evidence
Markey led 15 Senate Democrats in a letter urging Senate leaders to carry forward IIJA progress in the next surface transportation bill and to prioritize a historic investment in transit, walking, biking, EV charging, and passenger rail.
Assessments
Markey has materially advanced this promise but has not fully delivered it. As a sitting senator, he co-led fare-free transit legislation, kept pressing transit-affordability and passenger-rail priorities in 2026, and helped pass and implement the bipartisan infrastructure law, which his office ties to increased funding for public transit and passenger rail in Massachusetts, including major MBTA and West-East rail awards. Those are real outcomes on service expansion and rail modernization. But the affordability piece was not fully achieved at the federal level, broader service expansion remains incremental, and passenger rail modernization is still underway rather than complete. Under the federal credit rules, that is more than an attempted failure but short of full delivery.