Reported by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
A subcommittee within the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure recently held a hearing to review the nation’s transit policies and programs – especially their impact on rural parts of the country – as Congress begins work on the next multiyear surface transportation reauthorization bill.
Held by the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit on April 9, that hearing elicited insights from five witnesses: Nathaniel Ford Sr., CEO of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) on behalf of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA); Barbara Cline, executive director of Prairie Hills Transit (PHT) on behalf of the Community Transportation Association of America; Matthew Booterbaugh, CEO of RATP Dev USA on behalf of the North American Transit Alliance; Baruch Feigenbaum, senior managing director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation; and Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department at the AFL-CIO.
“Ensuring that transit services reflect the needs of the communities served, while providing such services efficiently and safely, is a goal that I believe all lawmakers share,” noted Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC), the subcommittee’s chair, in his opening statement at the hearing.
“We have an opportunity in the next surface bill to ensure that public transportation systems have the flexibilities they need to deliver high quality services,” he said. “Each community is unique in its ridership needs and its delivery of services. And while some systems have reduced or eliminated fares in hopes of increasing their ridership rates, others have pursued innovative strategies to increase efficiency, such as reorienting services and routes, employing microtransit, or expanding use of contracted services.”
JTA’s Ford stressed in his testimony that transit ridership across the U.S. continues to recover for them significant declines suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic and is poised to continue providing critical transportation services for a wide swath of communities across the country.
“Americans continue to demonstrate the need for public transportation,” he said. “Our industry has seen ridership steadily increase after falling to 20 percent of 2019 levels in April 2020. Since then, public transit ridership has reached more than 80 percent of 2019 levels, and it continues to grow. For instance, in 2023, ridership increased 16 percent. In 2024, ridership increased by more than 490 million trips, or 7 percent.”
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