Federal funding for new rail transit lines has led to an inequitable distribution of funds among urban areas. This can be shown by downloading the historic time series data for capital funds from the National Transit Database. These numbers extend from 1991–which, coincidentally, is the year Congress created the New Starts program–to 2013.
Gross domestic product price deflators can be used to adjust all dollars to 2013 values. Finally, the National Transit Database’s historic time series for service data gives transit ridership for the same years. The time series show which urban area each transit agency primarily serves, so I added up the capital funds and ridership numbers by urban area.
The detailed results for 488 urban areas can be downloaded in this spreadsheet, while the basic results for the nation’s 50 largest urban areas are in the table below. Though there are a few surprises, the results mostly confirm my hypothesis that the best way for an urban area to get lots of federal transit funds is to build new rail lines.
Federal Transit Capital Funds and Trips in Millions, 1991-2013
| Urban Area | Pop. Rank | Federal Capital Dollars | Trips | $/Trip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salt Lake City | 42 | 1,572 | 724 | 2.17 |
| Dallas-Ft. Worth | 6 | 2,820 | 1,688 | 1.67 |
| Virginia Beach | 34 | 407 | 274 | 1.48 |
| Charlotte | 38 | 589 | 406 | 1.45 |
| Phoenix | 12 | 1,507 | 1,104 | 1.36 |
| Jacksonville | 40 | 300 | 237 | 1.27 |
| Hartford | 47 | 511 | 412 | 1.24 |
| Houston | 7 | 2,391 | 2,003 | 1.19 |
| St. Louis | 20 | 1,348 | 1,163 | 1.16 |
| Baltimore | 19 | 2,854 | 2,531 | 1.13 |
| Memphis | 41 | 314 | 281 | 1.12 |
| Denver | 18 | 2,035 | 1,842 | 1.10 |
| Portland | 24 | 2,548 | 2,311 | 1.10 |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul | 16 | 1,910 | 1,794 | 1.06 |
| Pittsburgh | 27 | 1,776 | 1,672 | 1.06 |
| San Jose | 29 | 1,144 | 1,094 | 1.05 |
| Seattle | 14 | 3,674 | 3,627 | 1.01 |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg | 17 | 510 | 522 | 0.98 |
| Providence | 39 | 400 | 422 | 0.95 |
| Sacramento | 28 | 653 | 692 | 0.94 |
| Orlando | 32 | 450 | 489 | 0.92 |
| Washington | 8 | 8,713 | 9,686 | 0.90 |
| Riverside-San Bernardino | 22 | 445 | 526 | 0.85 |
| Nashville | 44 | 150 | 185 | 0.81 |
| Bridgeport-Stamford | 48 | 197 | 250 | 0.79 |
| Cleveland | 25 | 1,071 | 1,362 | 0.79 |
| Oklahoma City | 51 | 66 | 87 | 0.76 |
| Columbus | 36 | 300 | 398 | 0.75 |
| Kansas City | 31 | 279 | 379 | 0.74 |
| Miami | 4 | 2,289 | 3,113 | 0.74 |
| Las Vegas | 23 | 559 | 784 | 0.71 |
| Chicago | 3 | 9,701 | 13,890 | 0.70 |
| Philadelphia | 5 | 5,350 | 7,958 | 0.67 |
| San Francisco-Oakland | 13 | 6,294 | 9,675 | 0.65 |
| New Orleans | 49 | 659 | 1,084 | 0.61 |
| Raleigh | 50 | 70 | 121 | 0.58 |
| Atlanta | 9 | 2,041 | 3,540 | 0.58 |
| Boston | 10 | 4,786 | 8,569 | 0.56 |
| Indianapolis | 33 | 152 | 273 | 0.56 |
| San Diego | 15 | 1,141 | 2,092 | 0.55 |
| Cincinnati | 30 | 339 | 656 | 0.52 |
| Buffalo | 46 | 319 | 634 | 0.50 |
| New York | 1 | 37,489 | 76,937 | 0.49 |
| Richmond | 45 | 301 | 663 | 0.45 |
| Louisville | 43 | 182 | 403 | 0.45 |
| Detroit | 11 | 584 | 1,370 | 0.43 |
| Los Angeles | 2 | 5,637 | 13,971 | 0.40 |
| San Antonio | 26 | 383 | 1,021 | 0.38 |
| Austin | 37 | 272 | 735 | 0.37 |
| Milwaukee | 35 | 343 | 1,321 | 0.26 |
During the 23-year-period, the feds gave transit agencies capital funds equal to an average of 65 cents per transit trip. That’s for all 488 urban areas; for the top 50, it was slightly more than 64 cents. So urban area size provides no guarantee of getting more funds.
Salt Lake City managed to get the most capital fund per trip at $2.17, which is eight times the 26 cents Milwaukee got. Also at the top end of the scale, Dallas-Ft.Worth, Virginia Beach, Charlotte, and Phoenix are all big winners, collecting more than $1.35 per transit trip. Houston, St. Louis, Baltimore, Denver, Portland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Pittsburgh, San Jose, and Seattle also did very well, collecting more than $1.00 per trip.
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The correlation between new rail and lots of capital funding is high but not perfect. A few areas that didn’t build new rail lines during these years managed to collect above-average shares of federal funds, including Hartford, Memphis, Tampa, and Providence. It is likely that transit agencies in some of these areas did well per transit trip simply because they carry so few transit trips. Perhaps the Antiplanner’s readers from those areas have some insights as to how they scored so much money without building new rail lines.
Nevertheless, it is clear that in general the best way regions can gain federal transit dollars is to aggressively build new rail lines, as Salt Lake City and Dallas have done. Of course, you actually have to apply for federal grants; Austin built a rail line during these years, but its transit agency’s managers were so incompetent that they failed to get federal funds for it.
As Antiplanner readers know, transit agencies that use federal funds to build rail lines impose huge obligations on state & local taxpayers. In most cases, the federal government pays only half the cost of construction, none of finance charges for debt issued to help pay local costs, none of the maintenance costs, and none of the cost overruns after the FTA signs the final grant agreement.
Meanwhile, all this spending doesn’t particularly help transit riders. In 2000, 3.6 percent of Salt Lake City-area residents took transit to work; by 2010, it was 3.5 percent. In the same period, Dallas-Ft. Worth’s transit share declined from 2.2 percent to 1.7 percent, while Charlotte’s went from 2.3 to 2.1 percent.
Taxpayers in New York and Boston should be particularly outraged by these numbers. While their regions support very high transit ridership, they are short changed by the fact that their rail systems are pretty much built out. At the same time, they and other cities with older rail systems are desperate for money for maintenance. Since the FTA includes maintenance with capital funds, these numbers show they aren’t getting the support they need from the federal government. (Whether the federal government is the appropriate place to get that support is another question.)
The Antiplanner’s solution is to distribute all federal transit funds using a formula based largely on the fares collected by each transit agency, then let the agencies spend the money as they see fit. (It could be based on ridership except those numbers are too easy to fake.) Basing funding on fares will give agencies an incentive to boost fare revenues, meaning they will have to cost-effectively provide the services that transit riders want the most. That would be good for transit, good for transportation, and good for taxpayers.
In Hartford, are you including TRS ID 1102? Is that just where CDOT is based? What commuter rail service is in Hartford? Amtrak? Or is that some purchased Metro North service that doesn’t even go to Hartford? Isn’t that most of the capital funds, and mostly before 1996?
Don’t Memphis and Tampa have new build streetcars?
“The Antiplanner’s solution is to distribute all federal transit funds using a formula based largely on the fares collected by each transit agency, then let the agencies spend the money as they see fit.”
Not a very libertarian solution IMO.
Interestingly, the feds don’t give large urban operating assistance. That’s one reason they tend to ignore capitol costs per tip calculations. They see trips in the purview of operating costs. On the flip side small urban and rural transit services get up to 50% of their operating costs covered by the feds.
The Hartford area is building a dedicated bus highway – so maybe that is what the funds represent?
While there are a lot of questions as to the need or viability of the bus project, at least it is a lot cheaper and more flexible than light rail.
John1000 reasonably commented:
The Hartford area is building a dedicated bus highway – so maybe that is what the funds represent?
While there are a lot of questions as to the need or viability of the bus project, at least it is a lot cheaper and more flexible than light rail.
No, this may seem like hair-splitting, but that busway isn’t less expensive than a comparable light rail line, costing somewhere between $60 million and $70 million per mile…e.g., comparable to new LRT lines in Phoenix, Norfolk and Charlotte.
I don’t think you can fairly compare the cost of BRT in one location to that of LRT in another. The question really is, what would LRT in the same location cost? It’s hard to believe that BRT, essentially a roadway with a fleet of buses, would not cost substantially less than LRT, with its tracks, power infrastructure, and rail cars.
@ kens
“It’s hard to believe that BRT, essentially a roadway with a fleet of buses, would not cost substantially less than LRT, with its tracks, power infrastructure, and rail cars.”
The cost depends on so many factors.
If BRT is essentially a posh bus lane, the cost should be low. If it’s a separate road, particularly if it is elevated, the cost will go up sharply. Equally, if the LRT uses a lot of existing rail track, as the light rail scheme in Croydon did, then the cost of light rail is low.
As for the vehicles, light rail vehicles are very expensive. On the other hand, trolleybuses are very expensive, as they have the same substations and wiring as a light rail system. A regular bus in the UK is something like £150K, a diesel-electric is £200K, and a trolleybus can cost £1 million. I like trolleybuses, but I think Transport for London is right, when they say that diesel-electric hybrid buses are the sweet spot, combining low emissions with a nice price tag.
but that busway isn’t less expensive than a comparable light rail line
60-70 million a mile is still less than the 200 million a mile the utterly useless PMLR costs, yet I don’t see msetty opposing that boondoggle. And it will soon be the rare LRT boondoggle that costs less than 100 million a mile to build.
For every city subsidized by the feds, either the feds are taxing other cities to pay the subsidy, or taxing the city receiving the subsidy and shuffling the money in a circle.
The first is unjust, and both are expensively stupid.
Fred Z’s solution is much different from the Antiplanner’s. I would seize all federal transit funds for myself, spend the money on on armed gang bangers and Islamic terrorists whom I would use to kidnap all civil servants and politicos involved in these travesties. I would tattoo them pink all over so they would forever be recognized as vile felons, banish them naked to forced labor camps on the north part of the Yukon-Alaska border for 5 years and forfeit all of their assets, especially their bloated and ill-gotten pensions.
Any surplus funds and the entirety of the forfeit assets I would spend on hookers, illicit adult refreshing intoxicants and nation wide parties for the long suffering taxpayer.
Well, if one city doesn’t have rail, none of them should have it. It’s only fair. And as a libertarian, I believe everyone should have exactly the same amount of wealth as everyone else.
And as a libertarian, I believe everyone should have exactly the same amount of wealth as everyone else.
You’re confusing “libertarian” with “progressive”, it appears.