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A woman rides a Los Angeles city bus in 1977, after pro-car policies had transformed mass transit from a municipal moneymaker to an underfunded service.  

A woman rides a Los Angeles city bus in 1977, after pro-car policies had transformed mass transit from a municipal moneymaker to an underfunded service.  

Photographer: Bromberger Hoover Photography/Archive Photos via Getty Images

CityLab
Transportation

Anatomy of an ‘American Transit Disaster’

In his new book, historian Nicholas Dagen Bloom chronicles the collapse of public transportation in US cities — and explains who really deserves the blame. 

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American transit agencies are standing on the brink of a devastating fiscal cliff. Covid-era emergency dollars are dwindling, and revenues remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Without new funding, transit leaders could be forced to close budget gaps by cutting service or raising fares – and likely both.

Dire though the present situation is, this is hardly the first time that transit officials have been locked in a Sisyphean struggle to maintain service levels with shrinking funding and ridership. As Nicholas Dagen Bloom, a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College, describes in his new book, The Great American Transit Disaster, US public transportation has lurched from one crisis to the next throughout the past century.

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