Transit Service Cuts Likely Coming to Your Town

Public transit systems around the country continue to struggle, with many facing service cuts without additional support.

As Amal Ahmed notes in Streetsblog USA, ridership is down while labor and operating costs are up, and pandemic-era federal funding is drying up. Service cuts lead to further ridership losses, creating a self-perpetuating “transit doom loop.” Ahmed explains, “Funding cuts — whether due to revenue losses from fares, sales taxes, or aid money — all lead to worse service. And the perception that buses are always late, or that empty trains are unsafe, can also feed into a reluctance to pay and ride for the service at all.”

On average, national transit rides are at about 74 percent of pre-pandemic levels, although that varies from region to region. In September 2023, the Department of Transportation found that only 15 urban areas of the nearly 500 that report data to the federal government had recovered entirely.

There are some bright spots: in Miami, transit ridership exceeded pre-pandemic levels last fall, and voters approved a referendum to increase transit funding. But overall, the 28 million Americans who depend on transit are seeing reduced frequencies and slower, less reliable systems. “Greater state or federal support will simply be necessary if transit systems will survive the loss of commuters who now work from home in an age of rising costs and the need to keep systems in a state of good repair.”