To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net
Thursday, November 12, 2015
America’s Top Transit Systems Face a $102 Billion Repair Backlog
Rising ridership plus aging infrastructure minus federal funding is a formula for crisis.
America’s highway are in terrible shape, but when it comes to this maintenance crisis
its aging transit systems can give U.S. roads a run for their money. A
run worth about $102 billion, to be precise. That’s the estimated repair
backlog facing nine of the country’s largest (and oldest) transit
providers, according to a new report by the Regional Plan Association.
RPA’s analysis considered rail and bus systems in nine major
metro areas (below) that altogether account for 27 percent of the
country’s GDP and 21 percent of its population on just 2 percent of its
land. Transit ridership has grown steadily in these areas for years.
Together they now capture more than three-quarters of all U.S. transit
rail trips, in particular. RPABut
even as usage for these systems has soared, investment in them has
lagged. All told their maintenance backlog for capital transit
assets—things like tracks, storage yards, power systems, stations, and
vehicles—comes to $102 billion by RPA’s calculations, plus another $13
billion a year for “normal replacement needs.” (Since these figures
don’t include New Jersey Transit, the true totals are actually much
higher.)
That’s a huge problem for the future; here’s RPA:
Decades, and in some cases more than a century, of heavy
use has caused significant wear-and-tear, in addition to the impact of
natural elements and other weather events. … Many of their assets are
now beyond their useful life and the agencies are approaching a tipping
point at which unfunded capital needs will overwhelm their ability and
capacity to operate high-quality transit service.
The prospects for righting the situation are equally bleak.
In 2013, for instance, the transit agencies represented in RPA’s
analysis only received about $7.3 billion in funding for capital
expenditures, with just $6 billion of it going to system preservation
instead of expansion. That’s just a fifth of the $30 million a year that
RPA thinks these systems need to get back on track (so to speak),
assuming a six-year funding bill. RPANeither
long-term surface transport plan being considered in Congress right now
comes anywhere close to this figure. The House bill calls for $55 billion in transit funding over six years; the Senate bill does slightly better, escalating toward $12 billion a year. (Not that there’s money to pay for such legislation.) RPA concludes with a reminder of what’s at stake:
Inadequate levels of federal funding for transit state of
good repair needs has significant consequences in terms of achieving our
national transportation, economic development and sustainability goals.
It also has negative impacts on the metropolitan regions where a large
proportion of U.S. companies do business, and residents and workers
live, including some of the most disadvantaged populations.