Should the Public Pay for Unprofitable Transit Routes?

This much is clear: America's transit systems are in trouble. As fellow contributor Matthew Yglesias pointed out earlier this week, cities across the country are struggling to fund public transportation. In support he cited proposed cuts to bus service in Milwaukee that could make roughly 13,500 jobs in the metro area inaccessible. Conditions are no better in bigger cities. The Long Island Bus system, recently privatized because the MTA couldn't afford to maintain it, faces certain fare hikes and service cuts. The MTA at large has an awful budget crisis on its hands, and it gets money from 8.5 million riders a day. The phrase "Only in New York" has become a parody of itself, as this old Onion headline suggests, but when it comes to U.S. transit systems, "Not Even in New York" shouldn't be taken lightly.

Far less clear is what to do about the problem. At its root is the fact that very few public transportation systems in the United States profit on their own. This dilemma recently led David Levinson, a civil engineering professor at the University of Minnesota, to propose a bold solution to America's transit troubles. Writing at his blog, The Transportationist, Levinson explained that while some transit routes do make money, those that don't drag down the budgets of entire systems. Levinson's solution is two-fold: first, keep profitable lines intact, and with them certain feeder routes considered critical to their success; second, let politicians decide whether or not to fund the routes that lose money — the "welfare" routes, as Levinson considers them — from the general public revenue.