Myth 8: Transit subsidies exceed automobile subsidies or free market competition and privately operated transit is better

The irony of this argument is that the highway advocates, having driven privately owned, tax paying rail transit out of business with massive subsidies to highway construction, now complain that transit needs subsidies to compete. Free market competition for transportation is a good idea in theory, but in order for it to work in practice, several things would have to happen.

First, transit would have to be compensated retroactively for the unfair advantage that highways have enjoyed since the 1920s that destroyed privately owned transit in the first place. Second, a free market demands a level playing field. In the world of transportation, the field could hardly be more uneven. Some local transit critics have claimed that transit has cannibalized highway funding and now accounts for the majority of federal transportation spending. That could not be further from the truth. The table below shows federal transportation expenditures by mode. By far the greatest amount goes to air travel, but you don’t hear the opponents of transit spending arguing against federal spending on air travel. Spending on highways in 2006 was 23 times greater than spending on transit. Clearly, subsidies for roads far outweigh those for transit.
If we really want transit and cars compete fairly, each should have the same subsidy, or no subsidy at all. In the world as it is, with automobiles receiving heavy subsidies in a myriad of ways, transit, to compete, will have to be subsidized as well.

And that's it! We're done (for now).

Heroically yours,

Mobility Mike and Commuter Carly

Check the facts:
U. S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Government Transportation Financial Statistics 2008, available at http://www.bts.gov/publications/government_transportation_financial_statistics/
Weyrich and Lind, Twelve Anti-Transit Myths: A Conservative Critique The Free Congress Foundation, 2001