Transportation For America » CNN finds out just how much transit cuts are hurting communities across the U.S.

CNN finds out just how much transit cuts are hurting communities across the U.S.

April 1, 2009
By Andrew Bielak

As painful transit cuts cripple more and more agencies across the country, major national networks are gradually tuning in to the story and seeing just how bad things are. CNN is the latest to cover the transit cuts phenomenon that’s wreaking havoc on the largest and smallest of our public transportation systems.

In a four-minute segment last week, CNN used Transportation for America’s handy map — which we created to document the 85 communities that are being forced to either cut service, increase fares, or lay off workers due to budget crises at the local and state level — and took an in-depth look at some of the impacts of cutting back public transportation at a time when Americans are riding transit in record numbers.

In case you hadn’t heard recently about the story at a local level, check out what’s going on in places like New York and San Francisco, where officials are desperately searching for ways to avoid massive fare increases or eliminations of entire routes, or in cities like St. Louis, which had already suspended service to 2,300 bus stops as of March 30.

If you are being affected by these cuts, know anyone who is, or simply want to push for a more affordable and more effective transportations system, urge Congress to make sure that the next six years of transportation spending charts a course for a bold new direction.

Filed under: Campaign Blog
Tags: cnn, fare increases, featured, service cuts, st. louis, transit cutbacks

http://www.tastemakercommunications.com Reid Davis

This just in — Atlanta’s MARTA, having failed to get financial flexibility it desperately needed from Georgia’s state legislature, now must shut down one day a week (likely Fridays) simply to make ends meet. (The agency is legally hamstrung by rules that force it to spend a certain amount of revenue on capital, whether it needs to or not.)

I can tell that locals are utterly unprepared for the work absences and traffic apocalypse that is most certainly coming. A very sad day, and an unfortunate comment on the cluelessness of Georgia leadership.