Category Archives: Green Economy

Chicago Transit Authority has laid off 1,067 workers and has drastically cut service. Photo courtesy of Flickr user: TheeErin

Over the last several months, we've written occasionally about the need to solve the impending transit funding crisis. For longer than that, we've worked around the country, but especially in California and New York, to find new and innovative ways to advance transit service. Lately, we've also implored Congress to provide emergency funding to keep drivers employed as legislators have considered jobs bills. 

So far, our efforts as well as the work of our allies, to keep drivers driving, mechanics working, the transit system available—and ultimately keep some of the worst tailpipe emissions in check—have been frustratingly unsuccessful.   

New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and countless other metropolitan regions are facing a transit disaster. Grappling with huge budget deficits as a result of public funding cuts, transit agencies are slashing service, laying off workers, and raising fares.  

• In New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which operates the city's buses and subways, as well as suburban rail lines, bridges and tunnels, is facing an $800 million deficit as a result of cuts in state aid and low payroll tax revenues. They expect to layoff 1,130 employees (out of their 70,000 person staff), including 500 station agents. The MTA has ended free fares for students and has reduced salaries by 10%.
• In Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority has laid off 1,067 employees in order to balance a $300 million deficit.
• In San Francisco, the city expects to see a second fare increase in 4 months in order to balance a $12.1 million deficit, with additional service cuts. SFMTA plans to lay off 230 employees, 175 of which are bus and Muni metro drivers. 
• In Washington, D.C., where trains are bursting during rush hour, WMATA plans to lay off 60 employees and eliminate another 90 positions that are not filled. They also expect service cuts and fare increases to fill their $40 million budget gap.
• Just this weekend, in Sacramento, CA, the local newspaper reported that the regional transit agency is planning to put 300 workers on notice that they'll likely be laid off as the agency grapples with a two-year $25 million deficit. Service after 8pm and on weekends could be cut as well. This deficit has been made worse as a result of state policymakers’ decision last year to shift the state fuel tax, designated for transit operations, to other important state services, which have been jeopardized by the overall state budget crisis.

And here's an example of how these cuts add up, changing people’s commuting choices. Quoted from the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco resident MPR Howard, who has lived in San Francisco and ridden Muni for 28 years, will now be back behind the wheel:  

I will not be renewing my Muni disabled pass…. I will be putting my 45-year-old car (a 1965 Dodge Dart) back on the road. She may not be pretty or environmentally clean, but at least she gets me from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time. I've given up on Muni. 

Confirmed U.S. Public Transportation Industry Layoffs, 2009-2010

* = Transit Manufacturer

** = Rescinded after passage of 10% provision in supplemental appropriations bill

Projected Upcoming Layoffs

 Prepared by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Legislative Department. Updated March 1, 2010.  For more information, contact Jeff Rosenberg at jeffr@atu.org, courtesty of Scott Bogren at the Community Transportation Association of America (bogren@ctaa.org).   

Take transit and save money! Photo by Flickr user Steve Wampler.

What would you do if you were suddenly given $10,000?

I've been ruminating that question since last week's release of APTA’s monthly "The Transit Savings Report." The report figures that a transit rider living in Los Angeles could save $10,052 a year by avoiding the costs of parking, fuel, insurance and general auto operations. In New York, the annual savings amount to $13,765. Average savings are at $9,240.

I like round numbers, so I'd settle for just $10,000 in savings. I asked some of my co-workers how they'd spend the money. One responsible respondent said she'd pay off student loans or put the money toward a down payment on a house, and another chimed in about those student loans. One said he'd buy a bicycle (my favorite notion) and put the rest into the stock market. Two said they'd devote at least a portion of the money to travel and the other half to aid Haiti—you can see why I regard my co-workers as among the kindest folks on the planet.

One of the thriftiest among the group had a list of seven options, including paying those student loans (a common obligation around here), traveling, visiting family, and buying new clothes. One would pay a year's worth of rent, buy a season pass at Squaw Valley, and spend what's left on exotic—and presumably low-budget—travel. Another would fix his roof. Maybe he would have had a different answer if it wasn't raining.

There's a trend here. Saving money by riding transit can stimulate the economy. A car that spends most of its time parked (and eating fuel when it’s rolling), can really strain a personal budget. It can prevent us from doing what we think is most important.

Not everyone has access to good transit, and lately, with transit cuts spreading across the country, access to good transit is in danger. But imagine what a difference it would make if the Senate passed a jobs bill that put a lot of new money into keeping buses and light rail running, and bus and rail drivers employed? Jobs would be saved; transit riders could continue to depend on transit; people could think about spending on things other than parking and fuel. They could replenish student loan banks, jumpstart the housing market, and help the people of an island nation that's been devastated by an earthquake.

They could do all these things and go about their everyday travel in a way that reduces air pollution from transportation. Under perfect conditions, a full conventional bus could displace 30 to 40 carbon-fueled car trips.

The Senate hasn't released its version of the jobs bill yet, but the House version falls short of ideal in the transportation funding area. It provides about $6 billion to urban transit, and of that, only 10 percent, or about $600 million, is available for operations. I say only because $600 million is less than one year's worth of operations funding cut by the state legislature and governor in California during the last few years of disappointing budget deals. That's just one state.

If Congress wants to save jobs, it needs to give a bigger share of the transportation pie to transit and allow more of it to be spent keeping transit drivers at work. Then the rest of us can start putting our annual transportation savings to work and get the economy rolling again, even as we reduce pollution.

Yesterday, President Obama became the latest among a growing number of D.C. policy leaders to promise a jobs bill that includes transportation funding. While the day-to-day details of when a bill will emerge, how it will be funded, and what it will include are all still developing, a jobs bill seems more certain than ever.

This brings us to one place where we think jobs funding should be targeted: transit operations. A jobs bill that directs a one-time slug of cash to fund transit drivers and mechanics could save some important jobs.

Service cuts affect riders and transit operators.

These are jobs that ultimately help protect air quality and reduce greenhouse gases by providing people real choices in transportation.

Transit agencies across the U.S. are hurting. This past Saturday,dozens of San Francisco Muni riders were stranded at the station. In response to a $129 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2009-2010, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) cut more than half of Muni's bus routes and one rail line. And while San Francisco has been hit the worst of any American city in terms of fare increases, and is second behind Atlanta's MARTA in terms of projected deficit as a percentage of operating budget, transit cuts and lay offs are widespread and not confined to urban areas.

These transit service cuts and fare increases also impact transit employees. Transit operators and maintenance crews have lost their jobs. AC Transit, which serves California's Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, has cut almost 190 bus driver and maintenance positions. In Colorado Springs, CO., state and local budget cuts have eliminated an entire bus service–and more jobs.

Over the years, the federal government has helped pay for buses and rail, but not the drivers and mechanics to keep those services operating. That funding responsibility is left to states and local governments. With the economic crisis, state and local budget cuts have hit transit operations hard. Federal help for operations in a jobs bill is sorely needed.

Transit operating jobs are exactly the kinds of jobs that a stimulus ought to fund—good jobs that provide hardworking men and women with a living wage while providing a needed public service.  In San Francisco, Muni bus drivers earn between $36,000 and $58,000 per year, depending on seniority, and these drivers and their families rely on this income. A federal jobs bill that includes transit operations funding would immediately put drivers and maintenance staff back to work.

It's not just driver jobs that are at stake. Transit is critical for riders who use it to get to work. The number of employed workers who need it is growing as gas prices and general cost of living increases. Since 1995, public transportation trends have done nothing but increase. In 2008, Americans took 10.7 billion public transportation trips, the highest number since 1956. In the same year, as transit ridership increased nationally by 4 percent, vehicle miles traveled actually reduced by 3.6 percent.

A jobs bill with Federal funding for transit operations would help staunch the bleeding away of good transit jobs. It would buy time while states, counties and cities figure out other ways to close their budget gaps and develop sustainable funding for transit drivers and mechanics. It would keep the buses and trains rolling at a time when America needs them the most.