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By Tom Downs
For public transit in America, 2008 has produced a vivid “best” and “worst” of times scenario.
After 50 years of sagging ridership and lost stature, buses and transit trains are back in heavy demand. Nationwide ridership is 4.5 percent higher than 2007, with some cities experiencing growth of 10 to 15 percent.
The top reason’s clear: high gas prices. Highway vehicle miles of travel nationwide have taken a 4.5 percent dip in a year — an unprecedented decline even as our population increases.
But sadly, the nation’s transit operators have little chance to celebrate their systems’ new popularity.
Check Miami-Dade County. The county commissioners are in political agony trying to commit themselves to a 50-cent bus and rail fare increase. If they don’t, the financially strapped transit authority will be forced to fire 700 workers and eliminate 4.1 million miles of annual bus and rail service.
“The cuts would wreak havoc on the quality of service to major job centers, including hospitals, the airport and Seaport,” reports the Miami Herald’s Larry Liebowitz. Heaviest hit would be third-shift blue collar workers, seniors, students and transit-dependent domestics.
The Chicago Transit Authority, hit with surging ridership but short on the rail cars and buses it needs, is in a similar dilemma. Example: it’s removing all the seats from some of its rail cars, just to pack in more passengers.
Parallel stories have emerged nationwide — transit agencies increasing fares, reducing service, in the face of a demand surge that the industry has been waiting for a half century.
Why?
First, transit ridership does not cover the cost of providing the service. Transit provides immense benefits: reduced energy consumption, less crowded highways, mobility for people who can’t or don’t want to drive.
But still, fare box revenues provide only 25 to 50 percent of the cost of providing the service. New ridership does not cover its full cost from fares.
Second, fuel costs hit a bus system particularly hard. Most transit systems are as vulnerable to fuel price swings as the average motorist.
So what are local governments — the first-line funders of transit systems — to do? Their choices are all painful: raise fares, raise taxes, or accept service reductions and fare increases.
Last week, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters asked Congress to come up with an $8 billion infusion for the Highway Trust Fund, the federal account that helps states finance highway and bridge projects. The House has already passed such legislation. The nation’s governors are lobbying for it.
It’s understandable why the trust fund is short: the high cost of gas encourages people to buy less. Highway miles traveled have dipped 50 million in the last eight months. The federal gas tax level of 18.4 cents that hasn’t changed in 15 years, notwithstanding inflation. Small wonder the funds seem short.
But let’s think twice. Why respond to state highway departments anxious to keep funding roads and bridges, but ignore the compelling immediate needs of the local transit systems and their riders?
There ought to be a presidential request for an emergency appropriation to the transit account of the Federal Highway Trust Fund that would allow every transit system in the country to fund minor overhauls of bus fleets to increase their fleet’s fuel efficiency and reliability.
Sending enough funds to transit systems to repair buses that are damaged or sidelined for overhaul would put more buses on the street to meet the demand that they are now struggling to meet. Most bus manufacturers have a two-year backlog of orders, so new buses are not the answer in the short term.
Besides, better running maintenance would allow some systems to put more of their reserve fleets (which are often 30 or more buses) into regular service and at the same time reduce fuel expenses.
Another step would be the sponsorship of large cooperative fuel purchases, with some corporate or government security, would allow transit systems to act like Southwest Airlines does in hedging its fuel purchases, guaranteeing some cushion against the wild swings we have seen in fuel prices.
And the timing may be critical. Transit provides an energy-efficient and affordable option for a lot of Americans right now. If we respond to their need by cutting bus lines, packing transit cars to the gills and ordering steep fare increases, we will risk losing critical public support and ridership at a time when our transit systems have their best opportunity in 60 or more years to position themselves for long-term growth.
And we’ll be forfeiting a major opportunity nationally. In a century of looming deep energy shortages and the immense need to cut back carbon emissions to cope with global warming, our local bus and rail systems are a critical shared resource — not just for riders, but us all.
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