When the Antiplanner published data about the Federal Transit Administration’s 2017 New Starts recommendations a few days ago, I assumed that projects that had no projections of future transit riders were still in the early planning stages. That may have been true for some, but at least for some there are no projections because the FTA doesn’t care how many people will ride the new transit lines that it funds.
When Congress created the New Starts program in 1991, it specified that funded projects must be cost-effective at improving transit and mobility. Initially, the FTA asked transit agencies to estimate the cost per new transit rider attracted by the projects. Later, it asked that they estimate the cost of saving travelers one hour of time through faster transit and congestion relief.
The Obama administration, however, discarded all of those measures and instead wrote a cost-effectiveness rule that essentially said, if you can measure the cost, your project is cost-effective. The FTA New Starts grant application form still requires agencies to calculate the cost per hour of time saved.
