Progressive Dreams for Public Transit

This February, a user-made map depicting an expanded Atlanta transit system went viral on social media.

The image stirred strong reactions from Atlantans. Comments like “They should’ve done this 25 years ago” and “let’s get this idea in the hands of the politicians ASAP” flooded in. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority quickly distanced itself, reminding the public that pursuing such projects would take billions in additional funding.

Maps like this go viral all the time.

“I’m glad that people are starting to dream and have these big ideas of what the system should look like,” transit organizer Bakari Height told Inequality.org in a recent interview.

A decade ago, Height co-founded MARTA Army, a grassroots action group committed to improving public transit. He currently works in Baltimore as the Labor Network for Sustainability’s Transit Equity Organizer.

“I don’t think Atlanta has really capitalized on the fact that they’re one of the only Southern cities with heavy rail,” explains Height.

The second-largest metropolitan area of the Southeast United States, Atlanta has 48 miles of rail. European metro areas with comparable populations — like Berlin and Madrid — have roughly four times more. What matters more is the number of stations: Berlin and Madrid have roughly 300 stations, Atlanta has 38.

With the Atlanta metro region projecting “dramatic growth” in coming decades, transit expansion is becoming more urgent. In a 2023 Atlanta Regional Commision Survey, 90 percent of respondents saw an improved public transit system as important to metro Atlanta’s future. An additional 46 percent said they’d pay higher taxes to fund such improvements.

But the public’s progressive dreams remain far from becoming policy. MARTA’s growth has stagnated. The agency has indefinitely delayed about half the projects that it planned to build in 2016 with proceeds from a voter-approved sales tax.

A disconnect that drives inequality

Most Americans want more public transportation. Yet car-centric infrastructure remains a top government priority. This disconnect in U.S. transportation policy is driving greater inequality.

In a 2023 nationwide survey of registered voters, 71 percent of respondents agreed that we should be shifting funding from highways to public transit and 70 percent believed doing so would be “better for our health, safety, and economy.” Only 18 percent believed that building more lanes or highways could reduce traffic.

This broad consensus shouldn’t surprise us. Public transportation has always driven economic opportunity and health equity — helping alleviate the inequality and pollution that have come to characterize U.S. cities.

U.S. public transit annually saves 37 million metric tons of CO2, a savings equivalent to the combined household electricity emissions of New York City, Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

Car-centric infrastructure, by contrast, drives inequality. In 2022, low-income households with at least one vehicle spent 38 percent of their income on transportation. Cutting costs by going car-less often only makes matters worse. Doing so can double commuting times.

A 2015 Harvard study found that commute time has become the most important factor in determining whether an American kid can escape poverty. The exception? Kids born in New York — the only U.S. city where a majority of residents ride public transit.

A Reagan-era relic prevents progress

Another unsurprising survey finding: 58 percent of registered voters distrust how their state government spends money.

But the problem goes far beyond state-level spending. For every $4 allocated to car-centric infrastructure, Congress has typically only allocated $1 to public transit. A Reagan-era relic, this legislative trend came to be known as the “80-20 rule.”

After four decades, this 80-20 rule remains a stubborn fixture of transportation policy. The federal-aid highway program received $68.9 billion in 2023, over four times more than the $16.9 billion the Federal Transit Administration received.

To put things in perspective, before the pandemic the federal government only funded 7.2 percent of U.S. transit operating costs.

Insufficient funding creates a negative feedback loop that prevents public transit from becoming a viable option. Transit networks lack the funds for frequent and comprehensive routes, weakening public trust and scaring off potential riders.

The result? An underutilized system and a perfect pretext to prevent progress: If “no one uses public transit,” why fund it? Low ridership and disinvestment regularly reinforce each other.

Where we, as advocates and voters, come in

Things don’t have to be this way. During the pandemic, the federal government broke precedent and ramped up funding to keep U.S. transit systems afloat.

With the pandemic lockdown behind us, transit aid dollars have mostly dried up. But ridership’s still rising, reaching 77 percent of pre-pandemic levels in December 2023. As the American Public Transportation Association reported in a policy brief, transit’s recovery has depended on its ability to deliver reliable service.

People are “waking up and seeing” transit as “really valuable, something that they want to utilize,” notes Transit Equity Organizer Bakari Height. If we continue building up the transit infrastructure, he believes, more riders will come.

But only ongoing transit advocacy can keep that building up going. Height’s organization, MARTA Army — formed after basic voter distrust killed a massive regional transit bill — offers a prime example.

“A lot of this was figuring out how we get the public to understand the benefits, so that when they get to the voting booth they vote yes for transit,” explains Height, reflecting on the group’s early formation. “We focused a lot on tactical urbanism.”