Who's Getting Formula Money?

FTA releases preliminary information about how much transit systems will benefit from the stimulus bill

The Federal Transit Administration has released its preliminary calculations of how much each of the nation’s transit systems will receive from the overall stimulus bill, based on already established formulas used to fund public transportation systems. The table at the end of this post shows all systems receiving fixed guideway improvement money ($742.5 million, not including administrative costs), and lists all capital assistance funds to urban areas ($5.97 billion) receiving more than $10 million. I have not included information on non-urban transit assistance.

This information simply represents the FTA’s calculations based on existing formulas, so there’s nothing “surprising” about the information in the table below.

Here’s a briefer on the two types of formula allocations:

Fixed Guideway Infrastructure Investment: Funds are distributed according to a seven-tier system, only the first four of which will be used for the distribution of stimulus funds.

• Tier 1 – $497.7 million; goes to 11 metro areas based on amounts established in the 1997 Transportation Bill. (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New Orleans, New York, NE New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and SW Connecticut.)
• Tier 2 – $70 million; 50% goes to Tier 1 areas, 50% goes to other areas with fixed guideways in operation for at least 7 years, appropriated based on the fixed guideway formula used for transit capital assistance (described below)
• Tier 3 – $5.7 million; 61.76% goes to Pittsburgh, 10.73% goes to Cleveland, 5.79% goes to New Orleans; 21.72% goes to the other areas mentioned in Tier 2
• Tier 4 – $186.6 million; goes to all areas based on fixed guideway formula used for transit capital assistance (described below)
• Tier 5 (not applicable to the stimulus bill) – $70 million.
• Tier 6 (not applicable to the stimulus bill) – $50 million.
• Tier 7 (not applicable to the stimulus bill) – Remaining.

Transit Capital Assistance – Urbanized Areas: Funds for urban areas of above 200,000 in population (representing 90.68% of total funds) are divided up in terms of fixed guideways (generally rail) and bus service. These funds go directly to metropolitan planning organizations in each federally-designated urban area, which then sets its own priorities for funding.

• 33.29% to fixed guideways:
  • 95.61% based on 60% revenue vehicle miles and 40% route miles; with at least .75% of this going to each urban area with rail and population of 750,000 or greater
  • 4.39% based on passenger miles x passenger miles / operating cost (“incentive” portion); with at least .75% of this going to each urban area with rail and population of 750,000 or greater
• 66.71% to bus service:
  • 66.6% for urban areas with 1,000,000 or more people; based on 50% bus revenue miles, 25% population, 25% population x population density
  • 24.2% for urban areas with less than 1,000,000 people; based on 50% bus revenue miles, 25% population, 25% population x population density
  • 9.2% based on passenger miles x passenger miles / operating cost (“incentive” portion)

The other 9.32% of funds for transit capital assistance go to urban areas with populations of 50,000 to 199,999, based on 50% population and 50% population x population density. These funds go to governors.

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* While I have included all appropriations to fixed guideway programs in the table above, I have only included the appropriations for transit capital assistance to urban areas receiving more than $10 million from the program. As a result, the total $5.97 billion going to urban areas includes many smaller areas not listed here, receiving less than $10 million.