Commonwealth land transport funding operates under the National Land Transport Act 2014, delivered through the Infrastructure Investment Program and governed by the Federation Funding Agreement Schedule on Land Transport Infrastructure Projects 2024-2029, in effect since 11 August 2024.

The scale is not small. Australian Government funding across the program reached $84 billion over 81 projects, with megaprojects growing to 32 in Budget 2025-26 from 26 the year before. In 2026-27 the Commonwealth will provide $13.5 billion to states and territories, primarily through the program.

The structural fact this database records is what the program does not contain. It funds building a railway, a busway, a station, a road. It funds none of the cost of operating a service on any of them. That is a coherent division of responsibility with a long constitutional history, and it means the only Commonwealth instrument available to a government that wants better urban public transport is one that can only buy structures.

And the composition follows. Of nine new projects added in Budget 2025-26, seven were road and two were rail. One year's additions are not a trend, and they are consistent with a program whose road component is described as delivering most of the Australian Government's investment in road infrastructure. See The only Commonwealth instrument for urban public transport can buy concrete and nothing else.