The Federal Role in Urban Mass Transportation

Abstract

This book presents a comprehensive survey and analysis of federal policies and programs for urban mass transit. The author shows how mass transportation was a principal force in the evolution of the nation's cities from the 1880s and how, by 1900, it was one of America's major industries. The industry's decline, beginning in the 1920s, is then examined. The author then focuses on how cities developed in relationship to transportation, particularly mass transportation, and looks at the first steps in the evolution of a federal transit policy, which began in the late 1950s with the growing concern over the problems of urban transportation and traffic congestion. The complex way in which that policy grew in subsequent decades is a major focus of this book. The author also notes how other well-intentioned and popular federal programs helped to thwart the effectiveness of federal mass transportation policy. He concludes with suggestions for how urban mass transportation could be a useful tool in improving circulation in urban and metropolitan areas and, in general, create a more appealing urban environment. The text is divided into the following 14 chapters: (1) Federal Mass Transportation Policy: Transit in Transition; (2) Urban Mass Transit in the Mid-1980s; (3) The Environment of Transit Policy: Cities in an Age of Change; (4) The Rise and Fall of Mass Transit; (5) The Advent of Federal Transit Policy; (6) A Program Develops: The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 and the 1966 Amendments; (7) Major Growth in the Mass Transit Program: The Acts of 1970 and 1973; (8) The National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974; (9) The Surface Transportation Act of 1978; (10) A Troubled Coalition: The Transit Act That Never Was; (11) Federal Mass Transit Policy in the Age of Reagan, 1981-1982; (12) The Urban Mass Transportation Act at 20; (13) The Federal Mass Transit Programs, 1984-1987; and (14) The Once and Future Program of Federal Mass Transit Policy.

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