About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (March 31, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govelcw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: \Congressional ____ ~ Research Service Biden Administration Proposes Temporary Operating Assistance Authority for Larger Transit Agencies March 31, 2023 In the FY2024 budget, the Biden Administration proposes allowing larger public transportation agencies greater flexibility in the use of Urbanized Area Formula funds to cope with the larger operating deficits caused by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Currently, agencies in urbanized areas with populations above 200,000 can use federal funds only for capital expenses or maintenance, unless they operate 100 buses or fewer. This excludes the main operating expenses of labor and fuel. Small bus agencies along with public transportation providers in small urbanized areas and rural areas are already permitted to use federal funding for all types of operating expenses. The Administration's proposal includes a few other elements: it would exempt operating expenses from inclusion in transportation plans; it would allow federal highway program funding transferred (flexed) to the public transportation program to be used for operating expenses; and it would also require a maintenance-of-effort for state and local funding. Maintenance-of-effort requirements typically attempt to address the possibility that federal dollars would replace state and local dollars. The FY2024 budget does not propose changing the minimum non-federal matching share for operating costs, which at 50% is higher than the 20% non-federal minimum for capital costs. However, current law generally allows flexed highway funds to be used with a non-federal matching share of 20%. Background COVID-19 had an unprecedented effect on public transportation ridership, operating revenues, and public transportation agency budgets. Taxes and tolls dedicated to public transportation agencies recovered relatively quickly from the disruptions, but ridership and fare revenue have been slower to bounce back. Ridership in 2020 was about half of what it had been pre-pandemic. Consequently, fares collected in 2020 amounted to $9 billion, down from $16 billion in 2019, and total operating revenue was $11 billion in 2020, down from $19 billion in 2019. Ridership remained at about 50% of its pre-pandemic level in 2021, rising to 62% in 2022. Subway and commuter rail ridership declined more than bus ridership due to COVID-19, particularly early in the pandemic (Figure 1). Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN12135 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most