House Democrats have proposed a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill that includes $15.75 billion for transit, $15.0 billion for highways, as well as more for Amtrak. Normally, Congress gives about $12.5 billion to transit agencies; this year, it has already tripled that and this bill would more than quadruple it.
I understand that some transit agencies are hurting because the local tax revenues they depend on have declined. But most of them have also cut service, which should have cut their costs. Everyone in the private sector is in financial pain; why should transit be exempt?
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Democrats say this bill is needed to deal with the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression. But, unlike in the Depression, all of this unemployment is self-inflicted and it’s not going to be fixed by handing out funny money. The Democrats’ real goals appear to be to reward the public employee unions that support them even as they punish the private sector by keeping the economy shut down long enough to make it completely dependent on the government.
What exactly is this money for? I can’t find anything stating if there are any strings attached.
Also, didn’t Congress just hand over $30billion to transit a few weeks ago?
And APTA is saying that this isn’t enough.
Question –> What’s the total operating budgets for all of these agencies? Seems like $30B would be enough to cover their operating shortfalls twice over.
CTA’s total budget is $1.5B. MARTA $1.1B. MN’s Metro Transit is 1/2 a billion. Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority ( Cincy ) is $100M.
prk166,
Yes, this is on top of the $25 billion transit agencies already received, which was on top of the $12.9 billion transit agencies had already received. APTA asked for $23 billion more. There were no strings attached to the $25 billion and presumably would be no strings attached to the $12.75 billion.
All of the transit agencies in the country spend about $70 billion a year of which about $12.9 billion normally comes from the federal government.
While I agree with the Antiplanners position on the additional money for public transit, I don’t agree that democrats are keeping the economy shut down to make people more dependent on government. All evidence I have seen is that health officials are strongly recommending the economy be kept shut down until new cases plateau and decline, then open up gradually. This should prevent out health services from being overwhelmed. I personally know a couple who tested positive for Covid-19. He recovered well with “only” bad flu like symptoms. She was in intensive care on oxygen for 10 days and three of the six women in her section died. If the medical system is overwhelmed than the lack of intensive care and oxygen might well have killed her. Hence a careful shutdown is prudent.
I do agree that those work out ways to conduct their work while being able to maintain adequate social distance and other health guidelines should be able to continue.
Dear Paul,
As a member of homo sapiens, you possess the most advanced psychological apparatus on the planet, which exists ostensibly to understand and control your environment – both physical and social – in order to increase the chance that your genetic material is propagated through future generations.
Despite hundreds of thousands of years of interacting with other members of your species through your ancestors, and then presumably decades of interacting with them in your present incarnation, for some reason your mind REFUSES to fathom the possibility that other members of your species are practicing duplicity by saying one thing but secretly believing a second, or perhaps more simply, that other members of your species can have multiple motivations in pursuing a goal.
One possible explanation for this is that a Saint-like innocence constitutes your very core, making it impossible for you to see that evil lines the soul of every other member of humanity. Much more likely is that you rarely, if ever, engage in meaningful reflection, nor can even begin to question the narrative programmed into you by CNN et al.
My point is simple: Democrats stand to benefit politically from a continued shutdown, both immediately, in the upcoming election, as well as long-term, if the extent of government welfare is increased, so their calls to delay reopening should be scrutinized. (Conversely, the GOP stands to benefit less from a rushed and botched reopening, but of course I do not advocate letting them get their way without scrutiny, either).
Your anecdote, while touching, serves only to illustrate to the reader that you are not thinking logically about the statistics of the disease. If one person hypothetically dies from Corona, it means that somewhere between 200 and 1000 got the disease and continued living their lives more or less normally. Plague and disease are a historical fact, regularly sweeping through populations. Only these most recent generations narcissistically believe they should be immune to natural law.
Furthermore, the readers of Antiplanner’s blog understand the importance of flattening the curve, and do not require your condescending explanation of not swamping hospital resources. These gentlemen are likely the last people on earth that would want bureaucratic hospital, insurance, and government administrators decided ventilator access. Even in the death camp known as NYC, the demand for ventilators did not reach the level of the supply, despite the incessant fearmongering that it would.
No one was going to live forever – do not plan your life as if you were.
Since there are no specifications as to how the money must be used, the best guess is that it will go to:
1. Cover the pension shortfalls (this is like manna from heaven)
2. increase or maintain bloated salaries for transit heads.
You know it will not be used to address years of ignored maintenance.
The fresh infusion of money. Isn’t gonna do much to solve the financial ineptitude that made transit agencies so in crisis as they are now. It’s another subsidy to an industry that already get’s 70% of it’s operating expenses covered at public expense anyway. Business as usual
Also question for Antiplanner: as a new biker, are those bicycle jersey’s and riding clothes comfortable to wear day to day?
LazyReader,
Bike jerseys and shorts or tights are much more comfortable for cycling than street clothes as they stretch and don’t have seams in the wrong places. But the shorts aren’t comfortable for walking around because they are designed to be worn bent over.
I went for years without wearing special bike clothes, then tried them and now won’t ride without them. This applies to road biking; mountain bikers sit more upright and don’t need the shorts. The jerseys are useful for both because most use fabrics that wick away moisture and bright colors to alert motorists.