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How do you see the stimulus package impacting transit?

Article Excerpt
Oakland, Calif.

As the transit agency for more than 230,000 people a day, and the employer of more than 2,100 bus drivers, mechanics and other personnel, AC Transit is a vital component in the San Francisco Bay Area's transportation network. But with a projected deficit of $57 million by 2010 and more immediately impending service cuts and layoffs, we are now confronted with a huge challenge to maintain routine operations.

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The decline in consumer spending brought on by the souring economy has severely reduced sales tax revenues and, consequently, the subsidies that normally flow to transit agencies like ours. In addition, we have been hit with across-the-board cost increases, most notably for employees' medical insurance and pensions.

But the lion's share of the blame for the financial stew we're in can be directly attributed to a catastrophic diversion of transit funds by state officials. This year AC Transit was entitled to receive $26 million in State Transit Assistance funds. Instead we got only $3.4 million and the ominous promise that for the next five years there will be no state transit funding at all.

So, when word came that our region would get about $500 million in federal stimulus funding for public transit, we at AC Transit breathed at least a small sigh of relief. Based on a regional formula used by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (the regional agency that distributes the funds) AC Transit's share was figured to be nearly $26 million.

Given our dire financial forecast and our immediate needs, we are spending the federal stimulus dollars on preventive maintenance. It was clear that we need to do so to avoid or at least delay deep service cuts and layoffs of critical personnel.

Rick Fernandez

General Manager

Alameda Contra-Costa Transit (AC Transit)

Phoenix, Ariz.

Like the entire country, the financial climate for Phoenix has been severe recently. With the housing starts and building development boom officially bust for us, the Phoenix Public Transit Department is working to provide service in a time when one of our primary sources of revenue, the citywide voter-approved Transit 2000 sales tax, is being battered by the economy. The sales tax has served us well, bringing more than $884 million in operational and capital revenue into Phoenix's transit system nine...

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