There’s a popular belief that the federal government began subsidizing public transit and Amtrak to protect the environment and help provide mobility to low-income people. In fact, while energy and poverty later became excuses for continuing subsidies that had already begun, neither of these issues were on Congress’ collective mind when it began subsidizing transit in 1964 and created Amtrak in 1970. Instead, both of these programs are little more than accidents of history.
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Transit: Saving Big-City Downtowns
The environment wasn’t even an issue when Congress created the Urban Mass Transit Administration and started giving federal grants to local transit agencies in 1964. Nor was helping poor people a major concern. Instead, the primary goal of federal transit funding was to protect the value of downtown properties in a few big cities. Continue reading
