Forgetting something key about dedicated funding streams for transit

They too are not inviolate. Tax receipts can go down. Typically, real estate transfer taxes and sales taxes are used to fund transit systems. The financial problems experienced by the Chicago Transit Authority "CTA president says specifics on cuts unknown" from the Chicago Tribune), the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ("The tax that fails the T" from the Boston Globe), and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the New York City region ("Why the MTA Is Broken" from the Indypendent) are all due to falling tax receipts.

(And note that unlike DC, which is funding Circulator routes some of which don't justify the expense, other transit systems are dropping service frequency on routes where it isn't justified, and adding service where it is in demand.)

Still, today's column in the Post by the new Metro columnist Robert McCartney, "Long-Unheeded Metro Pleas Must Be Heard ," about management and funding issues relating to the transit system is better than I expected after his first outing on Sunday, when he wrote that one of the biggest problems in the region is that DC and Maryland aren't building more freeway lanes:

Of course, traffic congestion is the top example of this problem. Political gridlock leads to the highway variety. Consider this: Starting in three years, parts of the Beltway and I-395 in Virginia will be widened with the opening of newfangled toll lanes where you pay more when traffic is heaviest. Maryland and the District, however, aren't yet planning to add similar lanes on their sides of the American Legion and 14th Street bridges. Sound like a recipe for more bottlenecks?

Despite Monday's tragedy, the solution to congestion is reducing the number of automobile trips, not increasing or encouraging more automobile trips. Transit is the way to go.