Only City and State Subsidies Will Save Transit Now

American mass transit is in freefall. Transit ridership was already falling before the pandemic thanks to cheap gas, a deeply subsidized highway network, sprawling suburbs, and “easy money” car loans. But the decline has turned into a rout thanks to the pandemic.

Today’s transit crash is rivaled only by the massive loss in transit customers nationally from 1945 to 1960. During that time of suburban exuberance, most transit systems lost half or more of their traditional ridership to automobiles. Most American voters and city leaders, just like today, were either hostile to transit or turned a blind eye.

It was wrong then to bankrupt transit; it would be an even bigger mistake today. Adequately supported transit is a fast track to carbon reduction, traffic reduction, more livable cities, and greater social equity. But only if enough quality service remains to retain and attract riders.

My new book, The Great American Transit Disaster (Chicago, 2023), devotes attention to the financial decisions that defined transit service in twentieth-century America. It was easier for the media and city leaders to finger-point at a bad manager than to acknowledge a hard truth: transit operators had to somehow provide a high-cost, complex public service with minimal or zero public support.

Agencies in constant financial distress rarely make good short-term decisions. For instance, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA, 1947) replaced its unparalleled streetcar network with buses by the end of the fifties to meet unrealistic standards about "pay as you go" fare-based operations. However, bus routes quickly ended up on the chopping block, too. The shrinking CTA bus network alienated riders and reduced its effectiveness as a feeder system for the city's rapid transit lines. When CTA subsidies finally arrived in about 1970, they were too late to save many bus lines (or the streetcars). The new subsidies also proved inadequate to stave off future service reductions. Chicago's austerity budgeting was typical.

Conversely, city leaders in Boston and San Francisco (often aided by state officials) created comparatively reliable annual taxes to support their public transit companies. Ridership declined in these cities too, and many streetcar lines were replaced with cheaper buses, but transit service quality edged down more slowly thanks to tax support. When transit was rediscovered in the 1960s and 1970s as a valuable public service, there was more ridership, service, and infrastructure to build on than in a typical American city.

History seems poised to repeat itself for most transit services in the United States. When the current federal covid support for transit operations runs out in the next year or two, absent a miraculous change in federal policy, we should again expect significant fare increases and service reductions.

Only city and state support of transit, therefore, can save operations at a level that will attract a new generation of riders. Many "tried and true" options exist for local and state support: local or regional property taxes, sales taxes, general fund support, various fees (i.e. for parking), and car and truck tolls. The key is to get these subsidies approved fast enough and of sufficient size to make a difference.

Please call your local and state leaders.