» Less wealthy regions may be more likely to spend less on transit, leaving the poor there with higher transportation expenses.

One of the unique features of the American transit funding system is that the federal government chips in significant sums each year for capital expenses, such as for the purchase of new buses or the construction of new rail lines, but the law forbids significant involvement in subsidizing operating expenses. This means that local and state governments must find the means to pay for service day-in and day-out.

This could offer the benefit of a considerable range of local political decision-making: Some

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» Why do we subsidize transit? Is skewing the market acceptable?

People are armed with powerful tools that often determine quite directly the future of our society: Their wallets. With the flick of a credit card or the passing over of a wad of cash, an individual aids the society as a whole in determining which products are most desired and which services are most needed. This is an incredible tool of the market economy which — though seriously skewed by the influence of powerful economic interests whose primary goal is increasing personal wealth accumulation — allows for the modern world to

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» Are public transportation operations too much of a redistributive function to be funded by local governments?

Since 1998, Congress has banned the use of federal funds to pay for public transportation operations in communities of more than 200,000 people, effectively requiring transit agencies to pay for all of their salary, electricity, and fuel costs using local or state revenues. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has continued to sponsor a majority of costs for capital expenses, including the construction of expensive new fixed-guideway bus and rail lines.

This split in funding has resulted in a number of particularities in the American transportation

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