Congress should approve Trump’s effort to stop funding local transit boondoggles
President Trump has proposed to stop funding new New Starts projects. New Starts, along with its subsidiary program Small Starts, is a multi-billion-dollar fund created by Congress, and funneled through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), that gives cities incentives to build the most expensive transit systems possible so they can get “their share” of the “free” federal dollars.
The Transit Overtime Scandal
The Oregonian reports that drivers for TriMet, Portland’s transit agency, are taking so much overtime that many get little sleep. Paying for overtime costs taxpayers a lot of money and the lack of sleep creates hazardous situations. This TriMet light-rail train crashed into the bumpers at the end of the line because, investigators found, the […]
San Jose Transit Is Still Near the Top
That is, near the top of the list of the nation’s worst transit systems, says the San Jose Mercury-New. “The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley,” says the paper, “and that the Valley Transportation Authority’s […]
Private Transit in Detroit
The Detroit Bus Company, a private operator, is offering $5 door-to-door service in inner Detroit. So far, the service only operated from 6:00 pm to 2:00 am on Fridays and Saturday nights, but if this is successful, it will no doubt expand. Service area for Detroit Bus’ door-to-door operation. Within a certain operating area, the […]
Private Buses or Public Boondoggles
A team of graphics artists has attempted to map the private buses that carry workers from San Francisco to Silicon Valley, reports the Wall Street Journal. At least six employers–Apple, ebay, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo–offer such services, but they are very secretive about where they go and how many people they carry. Click […]
“Just One-Seventh of Capacity”
The San Francisco Chronicle is aghast that new 140-seat ferry boats between South San Francisco and Oakland/Alameda are filling an average of just 20 of their seats (scroll down to “On the line”). The service, which cost $42 million to start up, was expensive enough at projected ridership rates, but actual ridership so far is […]
Privatize or Contract Out?
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) spends $50 million more than its peers on employee benefits, says KPMG in an audit of the agency. Reducing benefits to national average levels (easier said than done) and contracting out some services such as cleaning would allow MARTA to erase a $33 million deficit in its annual […]
Join a Transit Agency; See the World
Taxpayers have paid for the “mostly advisory” CEO of the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) to travel to more than ten countries and seventeen American cities in the last eighteen months. John Inglish was UTA’s general manager until two years ago, when he was replaced and kicked upstairs to a newly created position “as severance.” “Nice […]
Transit Score Not Believable
The Oregonian brags that Portland is “the 10th best city” for transit in the United States. But a close look at the web site doing the ranking reveals this may not be true. First, they only counted the nation’s 25 largest cities for which they had data. This means cities such as Honolulu and Oakland, […]
The Non-Story Story
Nearly two years ago, the Federal Transit Administration released a report saying the transit industry has a $77 billion maintenance backlog. So why is the Associated Press making a big deal of this report now? “Americans are turning to trains and buses to get around in greater numbers than ever before,” says the AP. “The […]
The Future of New Starts
Should federal transportation funds be distributed to states and cities based on fixed criteria, such as population and land area, or should they be handed out based on the political whims of whoever is in power at the moment? While Republicans in Congress are moving in the former direction, the Obama administration is moving towards […]
Another Year, Another Set of Transit Lies
“For the average American driver, the time wasted in traffic jams has more than doubled in 30 years,” reports Eleanor Randolph in the New York Times. “The best way of easing that gridlock — not to mention saving gas, curbing pollution and finally finishing that novel — is public transit.” Two simple sentences; two complicated […]
