By Ron Thaniel
December 20, 2010

With the surface transportation bill viewed as bipartisan legislation, and good for the economy, momentum is building for a reauthorization in the new Congress with the release in November of two major infrastructure reports.

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, entitled "Public Transportation: Transit Agencies- Action to Address Increased Ridership Demand and Options to Help Meet Future Demand," finds that from 1998 through 2008, the growth in public transportation ridership exceeded overall population growth and outpaced the growth of vehicle miles traveled on the nation's highways.

This report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs highlights that transit ridership for heavy rail (subway and commuter rail), light rail, and bus services grew more than 28 percent. However, during the same period, transit service did not meet the increasing demand, which led to overcrowded systems. Increases in ridership and service during this period, according to the GAO, were accompanied by increases in overall costs to provide transit service. Specifically, the total costs increased by about 46 percent. While both capital and operating expenses grew, capital expenses grew at a faster rate than operating expenses for agencies during this period. Capital expenses grew by about 68 percent while operating expenses increased by over 36 percent.

Another key capital finding is that in 1998 the federal government was the largest source of capital investment in transit, but by 2008 this was no longer the case. Instead, local government, according to the GAO, replaced the federal government as the largest source. From 1998 through 2008, as a percentage of capital funding, the contribution of the federal government fell from about 50 percent to 40 percent. The contribution of state governments remained stable at about 12 percent. Meanwhile, and this is a key argument for The U.S. Conference of Mayors in the surface transportation reauthorization, local government funding increased from 39 percent to 47 percent. And, to this point, the priority of the Conference of Mayors in the next transportation bill is a significant increase at the federal level in investments in transit capital projects to begin meeting the escalating demand for transit and mitigate decades of underinvestment.

According to the GAO study, in 2008, Americans took an estimated 10.4 billion transit trips, the highest ridership in over 50 years. Looking forward, population growth and other factors are likely to increase future ridership demand, but cost increases and fiscal uncertainties could limit transit agencies- ability to meet this demand. Transit agency officials expressed concern about meeting future increases in ridership due to increased costs of expanding transit systems and maintaining aging infrastructure. Also, according to GAO, transit agencies- funding has been strained since 2008, as state and local funding has decreased with the economic downturn. This is significant because, as the report details, transit agencies previously relied on increases in state and local funding shares to offset decreases in other sources. While challenges mount for transit, a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report entitled "Public Spending on Transportation and Water Infrastructure," state that highways claim by far the largest amount of total public spending on transportation and have done so for years. In constant dollars, spending on highways reached $155 billion in 2007 while spending for aviation, mass transit, and rail combined total $84 billion.

Given the difficult fiscal environment facing the nation, little support for raising the gas tax to increase the overall funding available from the transportation trust fund, roughly one-third of the nation's transit assets in either marginal or poor condition, energy and climate concerns, and increasing a metropolitan nation, this is why The U.S. Conference of Mayors has made recommendations to the Obama Administration and Congress to realign federal transportation policies, and reallocate funding, in the reauthorization to help transit agencies meet growing ridership and bring transit infrastructure to a state of good repair. The GAO report is at www.gao.gov. The CBO report is atwww.cbo.gov.