But more is needed. “A recent independent, economic analysis conducted by EBP US Inc. for APTA found that public transit agencies face a projected shortfall of $39.3 billion,” Skoutelas said. “While initial rounds of emergency funding provided transit agencies across the nation with relief, public transit funding needs continue to grow due to ongoing losses of ridership, fare revenue, and state and local tax revenue. The $30 billion of emergency funding included in the Budget Reconciliation Title is essential to providing the public transportation industry with long-term certainty critical to the nation’s economic recovery.”
Here are breakdown highlights of the Budget Reconciliation Title:
How $30 Billion in Stimulus Funding Would Change the Equation for Transit Agencies
The funding in the draft stimulus funding package making its way through Congress falls short of the total requested by the American Public Transportation Association, but would go a long way to helping transit agencies weather the pandemic. February 10, 2021, 12pm PST | James Brasuell |
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has wasted no time spreading his message that under the Biden administration, everything about urban transportation will change, especially the way people think about it. In the new world of urban transportation, equity and concern for the interests of people other than drivers will take precedence. But this view goes up against a century of thinking that has catered to cars to the exclusion of everyone else, and changing those entrenched habits will prove difficult. For evidence, we offer stories from Houston, where the Texas Department of Transportation gave itself the go-ahead to widen a Houston freeway to ten lanes, and Minnesota, where civic leaders in both of the Twin Cities are trying to push the Minnesota Department of Transportation to get serious about “reimagining” a freeway that cut a historically Black St. Paul neighborhood in two.