Transit

The claim to a link between economic growth and vehicle mileage -- that, in other words, auto travel is essential to keeping U.S. productivity high -- remains controversial and much-debated in transportation policy circles.

Despite continued cash flow crunches facing nearly every transit operator in the state, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said absolutely nothing about transportation or fixing transit's woes in his State of the State address today. Transit operators are still bracing for the expected budget proposal this Friday that would thwart the state Supreme Court's ruling declaring the governor's raids on transit funds to fill general fund coffers illegal.

In case it wasn't clear before, this week's MTA Board meeting eliminated any doubt that solving the agency's $45.1 million mid-year budget deficit - not to mention future budget deficits - won't be pretty. After close to an hour of testimony Tuesday from SEIU employees concerned about broad cuts to their ranks, several MTA Board members asked whether they couldn't delay a vote on the cuts, only to be reminded that the layoff notices already went out in November, and that a $22 million shortfall remains even after the sweeping layoffs. Once again, the specter of service cuts also flared up as a near certainty in light of the agency's progressively worsening finances.

In a surprising one-two punch, Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan (ND) and Chris Dodd (CT) have let slip their plans to leave Congress at the end of this year.

With national data transparency efforts like President Obama's Open Data Initiative and municipal projects like New York City's Big Apps or San Francisco's Data SF, government agencies across the country have been opening their raw data sets, some more reluctantly than others. With the debut of City-Go-Round and media coverage generated about transit data transparency, many transit operators have taken steps to release their schedule and route information to third party developers, who in turn use the data to develop an array of applications to improve rider experience.

That's the implication buried in a roundup of dismal news from urban transit agencies that ran in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. After noting the overall ridership decreases tallied by APTA and the specter of punitive service cuts in many cities, the newspaper noted:

With California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger poised to raid transit funds yet again, and the MTA facing a mid-year budget in the tens of millions, it's looking increasingly likely that the December 2009 service changes will soon look relatively benign compared to what lies ahead.

Despite California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's pledge to be a good steward of his state's environment, the governor is expected to release a budget proposal this week that would gut transit funding and contravene both a state Supreme Court ruling and numerous public referendums mandating secure transit funding, a slap in the face to a proven green transportation strategy, say transit operators.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) got the mainstream media's attention during the holiday season after reporting that the dismal economy had helped push transit ridership down by 3.8 percent during the first three-quarters of 2009, when compared with the previous year.