As part of its efforts to promote public transit as a worthy recipient of federal stimulus dollars, Transportation for America produced an interactive map documenting transit systems across the country that are either contemplating or have already enacted service cuts, fare increases or layoffs as a result of inadequate funding for day-to-day operations. The data doesn't purport to account for all such threats (updates to the map are appearing daily). Still, of the 53 transit systems cited as of January 29, 15 are located in California. Most of the California data included in the map was provided by the California Transit Association, and reflects member responses to our recent survey regarding the ill effects of proposed cuts to the State Transit Assistance (STA) Program.

Attempts to include operations funding in the federal stimulus package passed this week by the U.S. House of Representatives came up short, as an amendment by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) that proposed $2 billion for transit operations fell victim to parliamentary procedures in the House Rules Committee. The final package did include an amendment by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) that boosted funding for transit capital projects by $3 billion (from $9 billion to $12 billion). Transit advocates maintain hope that operations funding can be included as part of Senate deliberations over the plan.

The operations funding crisis in California is magnified by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's insistence on eliminating the STA beginning in Fiscal Year 2009-10. STA is the only ongoing source of state funding for day-to-day transit operations and accounts for as much as 68 percent of some state transit systems' entire budgets.