The facts
The City of Boston sued the Trump administration on Monday, September 28, in federal court in Massachusetts, seeking to restore a $20 million grant the Department of Transportation canceled over electric vehicle chargers. The case is City of Boston v. Duffy, named for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
DOT awarded the money in 2022 through its RAISE program, funded by the 2021 infrastructure law, for the Roxbury Resilient Corridors project on Melnea Cass Boulevard, Malcolm X Boulevard and Warren Street. The nearly $34 million project includes dedicated bus lanes, safer sidewalks and crossings, bike facilities, stormwater upgrades, trees and accessible ramps on streets the city says have high injury rates and heavy bus use.
According to the lawsuit, EV charging made up less than 1% of the project's cost. Federal officials wrote in September 2025 that the chargers were "inconsistent" with the administration's priority of promoting "traditional forms of energy and natural resources." The city says DOT had encouraged it to include the chargers in the first place. The suit says Boston then offered to remove all of them, and a regional Federal Transit Administration official replied that "the project remains cancelled."
Boston argues the cancellation violated the Administrative Procedure Act, exceeded the department's authority and breached the separation of powers. Mayor Michelle Wu said the city "will continue to fight back against lawless federal attacks." A DOT spokesperson said the department is reviewing the suit. Albuquerque has filed a similar lawsuit over a canceled grant.
Our take
Here is the whole negotiation, according to Boston's lawsuit. DOT: we're killing your $20 million because of the EV chargers. Boston: fine, rip out the chargers. DOT: no.
Anyone who has dated a psycho knows this move. He says he's mad about the dog. You get rid of the dog. He keys your car anyway, because the dog was never the problem. The dog was the excuse.
The chargers were less than 1% of the money. The other 99% was bus lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks and wheelchair ramps on streets the city says keep putting people in the hospital. Duffy's department looked at a plan to stop Roxbury pedestrians from getting flattened and decided the real menace was a fucking plug.
And read the reason in the letter. The chargers clashed with promoting "traditional forms of energy." Nobody was going to run the bus lane off a coal furnace. A sidewalk does not burn gasoline. A curb ramp has no position on fossil fuels. The Department of Transportation has apparently become the Department of Making Sure Nobody Near a Curb Thinks About a Tesla.
The best detail is the origin story. Boston says DOT is the one that encouraged the chargers in the first place. So the feds suggested the thing, approved the thing, canceled the money over the thing, and then refused the deal when Boston offered to delete the thing. Somewhere in that building, a bureaucrat is getting paid to argue with himself and still losing.
The chargers were never the problem. They were the alibi, and Roxbury's sidewalks are still cracked.
