Does the Transit Industry Still Need Rescuing?

No matter how you may feel about vaccinations, the story of the COVID vaccine is pretty amazing. COVID was first publicly reported on December 31, 2019. Within two weeks, scientists had published the DNA sequence for the virus. Barely a month later, a vaccine had been designed and manufactured. After nine months of clinical trials, the vaccine was authorized by the Food & Drug Administration and millions of doses were made available.

MTA officials attempt to pass out masks to customers who appear totally disinterested in this great photo op. Photo by Marc Hermann, MTA.

Meanwhile, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan in March 2021, the third of three COVID relief bills. The plan included $30.5 billion for public transit, most of which was to be distributed using the same formulas that were used to distribute other federal transit funds.

Last week, the Federal Transit Administration announced that it was distributing $9.37 billion of those funds to various transit agencies. The bulk of the funds went to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which carries close to 40 percent of all transit riders in the country.
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If we can develop vaccines in less than two months after identifying new diseases, why does it take ten months to allocate funds designed to “rescue” supposedly important segments of our economy? Such a rescue might have been vital in April 2020, when Congress passed the first COVID relief bill. It may still have been important in March 2021 when it passed the third bill. But if it was so important, why did the bureaucracy take so long to deliver it? Now that it is finally being delivered, is it still needed?

In accordance with Betteridge’s Law, the answer to the last question is most likely “no.” As the Economist declared last month, “the new normal is already here.” If it’s not omicron, it’s going to be something else, and things are never going to go back to the way they were in 2019.

That means it’s time to stop “rescuing” obsolete industries and instead let them adjust to the new normal. For transit, such adjustments mean reductions in service, replacement of high-capacity train and bus vehicles with ones of lower capacity that cost less to operate, and recognition that people who have alternatives simply aren’t going to go back to riding transit to and from work every day.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

4 Responses to Does the Transit Industry Still Need Rescuing?

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Gm2AokZRQ

    Here’s the difference: Americans traveled an average of 15,000 miles a year by car and 2,300 miles by domestic airline in 2019. Data aren’t available for the Netherlands, but residents of France traveled an average of 935 miles by rail in 2019; Germany 740 miles; Spain 380 miles. American airlines earned a profit in 2019; European passenger trains almost all lost money. What’s virtuous about losing money funding a transport system that doesn’t do much work?

  2. Ted says:

    “No matter how you may feel about vaccinations, the story of the COVID vaccine is pretty amazing. COVID was first publicly reported on December 31, 2019. Within two weeks, scientists had published the DNA sequence for the virus. Barely a month later, a vaccine had been designed and manufactured. After nine months of clinical trials, the vaccine was authorized by the Food & Drug Administration and millions of doses were made available.”

    Yep. I’d say darn near impossible (unless someone knew this was coming) since vaccines take a decade or longer to develop, test, and bring to market. Then consider a vaccine for a coronavirus had never before been developed for humans. All very suspicious, really.

    And then consider that these “vaccines” have a terrible side-effect profile, and has likely killed thousands if not tens of thousands. Then consider these “vaccines” have shown themselves to be pretty much ineffective against new “variants.”

    Finally, consider that Pfizer, which received the largest criminal fine in US history, is rolling in the dough–although now that the real efficacy data is out, Wall Street has taken note, and their stock has tanked.

  3. Ted says:

    “After nine months of clinical trials, the vaccine was authorized by the Food & Drug Administration and millions of doses were made available.”

    Authorized for emergency use. Note that those trials were not real trials.

    The FDA told Pfizer and Moderna to follow at least half the people who had received the second mRNA dose in their clinical trials for 60 days, meaning that fewer than 20,000 people who received mRNA vaccines would be tracked for two months or more–for vaccines that have now been given more than one billion people worldwide.

    So, yeah, please tell me more about these “trials.”

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