New subways and light-rail systems whoosh off drawing boards
Near dawn one nippy day last November, several dozen sleepy citizens of Baltimore gathered at the new Reisterstown Plaza station just northwest of downtown. After seven years of jackhammered streets and more than a quarter-century of discussion and planning, they were eager to board the city's gleaming new subway for its first passenger run. Just past 5 a.m., the shiny silver-and-blue Metro cars, built at a cost of $600,000 each, whooshed into view. Marveled Mark Miller, a radio announcer who had risen at 3:30 to catch the inaugural trip: "It was a dream come true."
Mass transit is on the move. Baltimore's sparkling Metro is just the most recent result of a boom in urban rail-system construction. "There is more development going on now than in the past 100 years," exults Jack Gilstrap, executive vice president of the American Public Transit Association (A.P.T.A.). Since 1972, when San Francisco cut the ribbon on its high-tech headache, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), six other U.S. cities have opened new rail systems. Six cities currently have lines under construction. Thirteen other systems either have been proposed or are on the drawing boards.
Part of the allure of these new networks is, simply, prestige. "I call it the Hyatt Regency mentality," says David Prosperi, assistant professor of planning at the University of Cincinnati. "Many cities think they have to have a rail system to be a first-class city." Underneath the arriviste attitude, however, lies a persistent conviction, not always well placed, that mass transit can reduce congestion in traffic-choked downtowns, spark commercial growth and control pollution. Says A.P.T.A.'S Gilstrap: "When businesses decide where to locate, they look for a city that works well. Good mass transit is both evidence and a symbol of that."
Much of the present flurry has its origins in the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which persuaded many motorists to flee long gas lines for less frustrating subways and buses. The mounting energy crisis also spurred the Federal Government to provide up to 50% of transit systems' operating costs. Until then, money had been available only for capital and planning assistance. One result of this increased federal largesse was an investment spree in capital-intensive projects such as subways and electrified rail. There were some less benign results: fares well under the actual cost of service, leading inevitably to big operating deficits, and growing dependence on Washington for mass-transit support. In 1975, the first fiscal year in which operating subsidies were available, capital grants totaled $1.28 billion and operating grants totaled $142.5 million. By 1981 those figures had ballooned to $2.94 billion and $1.13 billion respectively. "From a local standpoint, federal mass-transit aid is cheap," says Gerald Miller, acting director of the transportation program at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.—based think tank. "You can put up a couple of hundred million dollars and get billions back."