Massive cuts for mass transit
(FORTUNE Magazine) – The Reagan Administration is considering a 60% cut in federal spending for mass transit, from $3.7 billion this fiscal year to $1.5 billion in 1987. Congress has blunted past Administration attempts to cut mass transit funds sharply, but this year pressure to reduce the budget deficit may force lawmakers to listen more favorably. The result could transform urban mass transit in the U.S. ''I don't see how we will replace the $400 million to $500 million that will be taken from our capital budget,'' says Mortimer L. Downey, chief financial officer of New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. ''Our whole subway system needs to be rebuilt, and these cuts mean we will have to rethink the size of the system.'' The Administration's aim, according to Ralph L. Stanley, head of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, is to reduce Washington's role at the local level, ''especially in new projects where the city hasn't made efforts to fund the projects itself.'' Political battle lines are already being formed, for example, over a proposed expansion of Miami's recently completed $145-million downtown transit system. Miami wants to add two one-mile spur lines at a cost of $240 million, with Washington picking up 75% of the tab. ''We must have the lines because Miami is a major city in a growth area that needs facilities,'' says Congressman William Lehman, a Florida Democrat who is chairman of the House subcommittee on transportation appropriations. Not so, counters Stanley: ''Miami is just the kind of project we don't need: too many dollars for not enough people.'' |
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