POLITICO
Nine transit leaders from major cities across the U.S. held a virtual press conference calling for assistance.
Customers use the New York City subway system on April 7, 2020. | AP Photo/John Minchillo
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Top transit officials from New York to San Francisco are making a final push for at least $32 billion in federal aid as Congress hammers out a potential Covid-19 relief bill in the waning days of the Trump administration.
Nine transit leaders from major cities across the United States held a virtual press conference calling for assistance, with many warning that they will be forced to move forward with service cuts and layoffs in the first quarter of next year without a stimulus.
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Greater Cleveland Regional Transportation Authority bus and train ridership had dropped to record-low levels in 2019. Those already low numbers were cut in half by the pandemic.
Congress is considering a COVID relief bill that would include about $16 billion in aid for public transit. Agencies from around the country, including Cleveland, say they need twice that amount, at least.
“That number was also a short-term and had some assumptions that with the epidemiology and the vaccines coming online and that the ridership would start to rebound a little bit and the economy would get going a little bit,” said Robert Powers, general manager of San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit, during a Wednesday press call with public transit officials from around the country.