Transit

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.

During the first stimulus debate, House Democrats and the White House famously sparred over how quickly infrastructure money could be spent -- with the data later proving that transit was just as "shovel-ready" as roads, if not more so.

As the Copenhagen climate talks reach a turning point, congressional negotiations over emissions cuts are taking a back seat to global debate. But some undeniably good news on the domestic front came late yesterday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The software developers and open data advocates at Front Seat, known more familiarly for their Walk Score rankings of the most walkable U.S. cities, have turned their focus on transit agencies that have resisted opening transit data to third-party, open-source developers. Their new website, City-Go-Round, is an effort to encourage agencies to release their schedules in Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), the standard for programmers. With the data, Front Seat expects software developers will continually improve the interface between operators and their riders.

Jarrett Walker at Human Transit provides useful ammunition in the battle of reasonable people against knee-jerk transit-bashers.

Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) was one of the prime movers behind the economically and environmentally misguided "cash for clunkers" program, but she is switching gears to help save transit in Lorain County, Ohio, where bus service could be canceled in 2010 after voters rejected a sales tax increase to raise operating funds.

After lengthy negotiations, the House and Senate agreed last night on a massive "omnibus" spending bill [PDF] that includes $2.5 billion for high-speed rail -- a compromise between the two chambers -- as well as $150 million for the Obama administration's sustainable communities effort and $150 million for the Washington D.C. Metro system.

President Obama today threw his weight behind significant new transportation spending as part of a broad jobs bill taking shape in Congress, with $50 billion slated for transit, roads, bridges, and ports and the administration endorsing "merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars."

Lawmakers on the House transportation committee today greeted details of the Obama administration's transit safety plan with approval, but some sounded skeptical notes about the costs of state compliance with new federal rules even as transit agencies cope with billions of dollars in maintenance and repair backlogs.