I hadn't noticed Streets Blog before looking into this, but it's a great publication.

Urban planning, energy, racial and social justice, and war'n peace issues are embeedded in every transportation decision made all over the country.

Rep. DeFazio's complaint that the authors of the stimulus were over-consulting the outgoing Bush USDOT crew bears keeping in mind in this regard.

"For urbanized areas with populations of 200,000 or more, operating assistance is not an eligible expense."

http://www.fta.dot.gov/funding/grants/grants_financing_3561.html

Since the vast majority of bus service is provided in urban areas --- as defined by the census, usually an MPO or TMA, this amounts to no operating assistance for all but a handful of bus riders, those lucky few in small towns and rural areas.

With the amendment adding $1.5 billion to formula capital grants, known as FTA Section 5307, the total amount available to buses is about $7.5 billion, which is more than double the amount that currently flows to about 99% buses through the FTA Section 5307 program. As far as I can tell from the stimulus legislation, there are actually few restrictions on using some of the new money on operations, but you need to understand exactly what the rules are.

There are two ways that operating funds can be obtained from Section 5307.

(1) For bus systems serving urbanized areas of less than 200,000 people (defined by the U.S. Census in 2000), up to 50% of the net transit operating deficit can be funded from Section 5307. In a lot of cases, bus systems in these areas don't have enough 5307 funding from the formulas to cover this, and still finance also necessary vehicle replacements and other capital needs. Now they will have substantially more funding for both operations and capital, assuming the stimulus gets through the Senate intact.

(2) For bus systems serving urbanized areas over 200,000 population, Section 5307 formula funding can be used for "preventative maintenance" of vehicles and facilities. How much this actually is depends on how each region's Metropolitan Planning Agencies (MPOs) have set policies. I do know that the MPO in the San Francisco Bay Area, has historically frowned on using larger percentages of FTA Section 5307 funding on preventative maintenance, leading to major operating budget crunches for our large urban bus operations, e.g., AC Transit, San Francisco Muni, Samtrans, and Santa Clara's VTA, as well as a number of smaller systems. Hopefully the infusion of new money will correct this MTC shortsightedness.

To change this engrained Congressional thinking when the bill comes up in the Senate will require addressing both of these issues head-on.

Ditching Medicaid and having a choice of Medicare or an equal amount (adjusted for age and condition) of federal funding for private insurance would solve that problem, by taking the decisions out of NY state lobbyists and legislators' greedy hands.

That's why Local 1199 fought universal health care under Clinton.

If the federal government picked up that cost (and retiree health care), I'd gladly see the city left to fund transit on its own.

Unfortunately, Governing Magazine has already called my idea of preventing the collapse of public services by having the Feds pick up the retirees a "fantasy."

http://www.governing.com/articles/0901gmillere.htm

I say the idea that we will have public services otherwise is a fantasy.

Look at the bright side.

People move from state to state, that means more generous states can attract poor and sick people seeking services while less generous states can save money by shifting people elsewhere, which happens in Medicaid big time on our dime.

And businesses and rich, while needing an educated workforce overall, tend to oppose investments in education locally? Why? You can always attract educated workers from elsewhere if your schools stink (a factor that has kept NYC's economy alive).

There is a strong case to be make for having the federal government take over unemployment insurance as well, since a geographically concentrated recession can devestate a state's trust fund and some irresponsible states (ahem) tend not to fund trust funds properly to begin with.

So a shift to federal funding for services direct to people is a good thing, in my view.

On the other hand, transportation, other infrastructure, housing, parks, etc. tends NOT to move. The benefits are local, and so is the incentive to invest. The fact that my priorities in these categories are not shared by many elsewhere in the country is a good reason NOT to throw the money in a federal pot and then have to beg for some back.

Money saved by having the federal government pick up Medicaid can be used for buses.

This formulation is generally biased against buses, which are cheap to buy but relatively costly to operate.

And that is another reason why BRT is not "just like rail but cheaper."