Findings

Congress finds the following: (1)According to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, approximately 80 percent of the population of the United States lives in metropolitan areas, with over 60 percent of the population living in areas with at least 1,000,000 individuals. (2)Over 85 percent of the critical transportation infrastructure of the United States is in metropolitan areas. (3)Metropolitan areas are most often comprised of several counties, cities, suburbs, and towns with commuting ties to an urban core. (4)According to the United States census, almost 50 percent of the 100 largest cities in the United States have predominantly minority populations, while suburbs are comprised of predominately Caucasian populations. (5)Throughout the United States, public transportation users are disproportionately minorities with low to moderate incomes. Overall, public transit users are 45 percent Caucasian, 31 percent African-American, and 18 percent Latino. (6)In urban areas, African-Americans and Latinos comprise 54 percent of public transportation users, including 62 percent of bus users, 35 percent of subway users, and 29 percent of commuter rail users. (7)Just 7 percent of Caucasian households do not own a car, while 24 percent of African-American households, 17 percent of Latino households, and 13 percent of Asian-American households do not own a car. (8)Public transit provides affordable transportation choices and has the demonstrated ability to reduce out-of-pocket housing and transportation expenses for a household with access to transportation choices within .5 miles of the household. (9)The main criteria used by the Federal Transit Administration to make determinations with respect to providing Federal New Starts funding for a public transit project, known as the cost-effectiveness index, has major limitations, including limitations that negatively impact the ability of transit projects serving minorities in urban areas to effectively compete for funding. (10)The primary calculation of the cost-effectiveness index attempts to quantify the dollar value of a single benefit to users of Federal New Starts projects, travel time saved compared to a baseline project, while ignoring other important benefits. (11)The cost-effectiveness index relies solely on travel demand models oriented toward highway commuter trips. The models fail to accurately capture transit ridership by non-commuters and by individuals making non-highway oriented trips, including trips made by pedestrians and cyclists. Because minority, low-income, and urban residents make up a larger share of non-commuter and non-highway oriented trips, the cost-effectiveness index undercounts these individuals and places a reduced value on the time saved by the non-highway and non-commuter trips of these individuals. (12)The bias against urban transit users has caused some minority communities to file lawsuits against the Federal Transit Administration. (13)The Federal Transit Administration should end its reliance on the cost-effectiveness index because of the disproportionate negative impact of the index on minority and urban communities.