I hope Antiplanner and similar organizations are commenting on the MAP-21 fiasco as well. If urban cities want to rebuild their inner core and attract transit investments then they can collect their own taxes for such purposes – draining the trust fund to pay for LOCAL projects is why bridges collapse and there are critical safety deficiencies on Interstates. If rebuilding inner cities is such a National priority then why hasn’t congress developed a way to pay for it without raiding the gas tax for new starts program? Continually diverting “interstate commerce” related funding to a select group of cities is not fiscally sustainable and some would argue it is out of the scope of the Federal governments taxing authority. Explain to me how a modern street car has any impact on interstate commerce?

Likewise, Denver area Republicans were not the ones pushing for FasTracks. That was the brainchild of former Denver mayor Federico Pena (a Democrat), Clinton’s transportation secretary. In order to buy the support of suburban legislators for his light rail agenda, Pena threw a few pork hocks to them in exchange for allowing the sales tax to be collected in their district.

Well, that isn’t what I said at all. I said other older city systems are like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago. NYC has never had trouble getting lots of FedBucks could not qualify under the program.

Nor have any of the other cities you mentioned. The reason they don’t get a lot of New Starts projects is because, well, there aren’t a lot of “new starts” to be had there. The systems in those cities are already pretty well built out, and the only new projects that are being considered are insanely expensive pipe dreams like the 2nd Ave. Subway.

Though we already know O’Toole is a fraud.

Albuquerque’s Rail Runner did not receive New Start funds.

Metro Minneapolis (Northstar – Michele Bachman’s district), Metro Salt Lake (Front Runner – Ogden to Provo), Metro Denver (FasTracks – Tom Tancredo’s district), and Metro Orlando (SunRail – John Mica!), etc. are all Republican leaning suburban areas and these systems were heavily pushed by then in power Republican office holders. I agree the central cities are not, but the systems built with New Starts recently are mostly suburban commuter rail and light rail.

I also question whether NYC is really getting short-changed

Well, that isn’t what I said at all. I said other older city systems are like Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago. NYC has never had trouble getting lots of FedBucks could not qualify under the program.

bennett:

I was going to mention the “republican leaning” thing but MJ beat me to it. Denver republican leaning?!?!?!?

The missteps of the Republican party since 2005 have cost them dearly in many of those areas, but at the time the programs were being started and approved shortly after the Bush Administration changed the funding rules, they were generally more Republican than they are now. CO-07, for example (part of suburban Denver) was represented by Bob Beauprez and CO-06 (south suburban Denver) is still a Republican district. Same goes for AZ-05 Confusion over the political leanings of areas due to the result of the 2006 and 2008 elections should not cloud the original politics behind the decisions.

As for “Republican-leaning areas” receiving special treatment, the states that those cities are in might be right-leaning (I question whether Colorado and Minnesota fit that description), but the cities where those projects are located are not. The reality is that the current rules are written so as to be permissive enough to allow just about any project to get funded without being subject to any serious economic analysis.

I also question whether NYC is really getting short-changed. New York MTA alone received over $3 billion in federal capital funds in 2010. Adding in the LIRR and Metro-North railroads pushes this number to about $4 billion.

We have the same thin with Choo Choo in California, the project is barely hanging on, the politicians are very redfaced, and to keep the thing, California will have to lay off bunches of teachers. We are in the boondogle collapse period, when fakery and face saving result in any old rubbish being written as law. Few of these projects will ever see the finish line.

I think the results speak for themselves as to the non-objectivity of the rules that are being scrapped.