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Old Posted Sep 11, 2019, 5:41 PM
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bobdreamz bobdreamz is offline
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Location: Miami/Orlando, FL.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yankeegreat94 View Post
From the largest city in America, New York City, the NYC suburbs of Long Island, New Jersey (NJ Transit is the worst in the nation), etc.

Why is public transportation in America so poorly funded?

Yes, I know America is very car-centric and we have been since the 1950s, but why in the 2010s heading into the 2020s, is it so poorly-funded?
It's mostly partisan politics.
This is what President Reagan said about Miami's new $1 Billion dollar Metrorail system back in 1985 :

The cars are clean, air-conditioned and safe, and there are always plenty of seats. Unfortunately, as President Reagan noted earlier this month, the 10-month-old system has too many empty seats.

''In Miami,'' the President told a conference of county officials meeting in Washington, ''the $1 billion subsidy helped build a system that serves less than 10,000 daily riders. That comes to $100,000 per passenger.
It would have been a lot cheaper to buy everyone a limousine.''


Miami is not alone in its problems with financing a rapid transit system. Los Angeles has been planning a $3 billion subway system that has been put in jeopardy by the Reagan budget-cutting efforts.

''The position in the budget is that we can't afford the Los Angeles plan,'' Ralph L. Stanley, Administator of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration.

''The issue for the nation is that the Federal Government cannot afford to pay the share of mass transit costs it has carried in the past,'' he added. ''We can't underwrite it all, and there are going to be winners and losers.''

Plans for transit systems in many Sun Belt systems, which are heavily dependent on the automobile, have come under a new scrutiny, Mr. Stanley said, and many have retreated from original costly heavy rail systems that paralleled existing urban highway routes. He mentioned Houston, Orlando, Fla., and Jacksonville, Fla., as cities that have been forced to reconsider mass transit plans.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/29/u...py-future.html

Conservatives have never been fond of funding mass transit.
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