state-assistance
Program Planners Study on Federal Operating Assistance
- NYCTA received 7.5% of operating budget from federal aid ($127mil of $1.7bil) versus 17.6% for LA [1]
- Study by Program Planners Inc and Jack Bigel (yes, the one from union talks)
- Reagan was proposing ending federal operating assistance for mass transit in 1985
- Studied cities with 1000 or more revenue vehicles
- LA, Philadephia, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, San Francisco, NY
- Federal operating assistance formula revised in 1978 to give weight to cities with greater than 750k people and rail systems
- Federal operating assistance totaled $1.0939bil in 1980, 30.2% of government aid
- State assistance was $820.4mil, local assistance was $1.7039bil
- Ravitch says fares cover 55% of MTA's $2.5bil operating budget (all modes)
- Local and state subsidies cover 37%
- Local taxes, which have increases with lowering of federal assistance, are "much less progressive than the Federal income tax"
- New York's fare was 75 cents at the time
- Source: Peter Kihss, "CITY SAID TO TRAIL IN U.S. TRANSIT AID," The New York Times, June 6, 1982. link
- Tags: bigel city-assistance federal-assistance mta ravitch report state-assistance