Transit Wins Big in $1.9 Trillion Relief Bill

The $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill passed by the House of Representatives last week would give public transit more money than any other form of transportation: $30 billion. Airports and airlines, which before the pandemic moved 14 times as many passenger miles as transit, would receive $23 billion if the bill is approved by the Senate.

Amtrak, which is even more trivial than transit, would get $1.8 billion, some of which would be dedicated to restoring long-distance trains to daily service and some of which is to pay for state-supported trains under the probably fallacious assumption that the states can’t afford to do so during the pandemic. In 2019, Amtrak carried about 10 percent as many passenger-miles as transit.

If the last few months of 2020 are an indication of what will happen in 2021, then the airlines will carry 450 billion fewer passenger-miles than in 2019; transit 34 billion fewer; and Amtrak 4.5 billion fewer. The subsidies per each passenger-mile they won’t be carrying amount to 5 cents for the airlines, 40 cents for Amtrak, and 88 cents for transit. Of course, subsidizing someone for not doing something is ridiculous, but only typical for Congress.

According to the section-by-section analysis of the bill, $1.25 billion of the $30 billion for transit is earmarked for wasteful capital improvement projects such as the completion of the BART extension to San Jose and some is for rural transit and a few other minor things. That leaves more than $26 billion to pay for urban transit operations. “Democrats argue the mass-transit funding is designed to offset revenue shortfalls so that transit systems can continue operating,” says the Washington Post.

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For what it’s worth, the bill doesn’t include any money for highways other than $1.5 million for a bridge between New York and Ontario to make up for lost tolls. Perhaps Congress understands that highways are more resilient than other forms of travel and can survive the pandemic without giant subsidies.

So once again, transit agencies are going to be rolling in dough even if transit ridership never rises above its current level of about 37 percent of 2019 numbers. Instead of reforming their systems to make them more useful in a post-pandemic world, transit agencies are learning that Congress will keep funding them no matter how poorly they serve the public.