The coronavirus has made it essential that every transit supporter use the word “essential” in their discussions, as in how essential it is that transit carry essential workers to their essential jobs. Ridership may be down by more than 80 percent, but the remaining 19 percent of riders are really essential, so that makes it essential that we keep giving more subsidies to essential transit agencies.
Transit Is Essential is, in fact, the name of a new paper from the California Transit Association. The paper skips over the whole messy part about why transit is so essential and instead goes immediately to demanding more subsidies. “Another round of emergency funding is critical to preventing significant and permanent reductions in transit services.” In other words, subsidies aren’t just essential, they are critical.
According to the New York-based TransitCenter, “an estimated 2.8 million American workers in essential industries commute[d] to work on transit” in 2018. That doesn’t say how they are commuting to work now, in the midst of the pandemic. But let’s say it is still 2.8 million: for less than the cost of the annual subsidy to transit in a normal year ($54 billion in 2018), we could give every one of those people a brand-new car, which the CDC says is safer than transit during the pandemic. So, tell me again, why is transit so essential? Continue reading
