USDOT Giving Out $250,000 Prize For Architects To Make Infrastructure Beautiful Again

Despite barely being able to keep commercial air travel functioning and trying to hold the country's most important rail infrastructure project hostage to pressure Senator Chuck Schumer, the Trump Administration apparently cares about how it all looks. The U.S. Department of Transportation is now accepting submissions for the Beautifying Transportation Infrastructure Challenge. The competition is imploring entrants to design concepts that can "uplift and beautify public transportation spaces."

The DOT has pulled together a $650,000 prize pool for the competition, with $250,000 going to the winner in the category for professional design firms. The agency was absurdly broad in the structure eligible for the contest. Everything from bridges and overpasses to plazas and intermodal connections. According to The Architect's Newspaper, the challenge listed Cincinnati Union Terminal and the Golden Gate Bridge as illustrative examples. Each entry will be judged on seven criteria, none of which is potential cost.

The challenge brief copied phrasing nearly verbatim from President Donald Trump's executive order that mandated classical architecture be "the preferred and default architecture" for federal public buildings last year. The "Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again" order was intended to replace brutalist and modernist buildings constructed by the federal government in the 1960s. For example, FBI Director Kash Patel announced last year that the law enforcement agency was moving out of the iconic J. Edgar Hoover Building, which would be permanently closed.

It's unclear whether the Trump Administration would actually build any of the winning concepts. I highly doubt the federal government will start spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build austere Amtrak stations and monumental bridges. The DOT is pouring billions into the "Brand New Air Traffic Control System" to update the country's aging aviation safety infrastructure. Trump's second term began with desperate slashing to reduce the federal budget. A year later, the White House is burning money at home and waging a military conflict against Iran.