MTC proposes federal covid relief funds focus on stabilizing, restoring and reimagining service
MTC has just released draft principles for the allocation of the third round of emergency federal funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, approved by President Biden in March 2021, focusing on stabilizing agency budgets, restoring service, and improving customer experience.
The ARP funds are especially important to the recovery of transit in the Bay Area because they provide the opportunity to significantly increase capacity to reduce pass-ups, and restore transit service levels to anticipate the easing of coronavirus restrictions. As we begin traveling more, transit service needs to be available and convenient for people to return to it - if service is insufficient, many riders with other options may choose to stay away permanently.
MTC’s newly released staff report notes that the draft allocation principles are intended to “allow operators to plan for service increases over the coming months and refrain from budgeting for FY 2021-22 with an assumption of austerity.”
The first principle, “Stabilize and Sustain Transit Service”, indicates that funds should be allocated to the agencies with the greatest need, in particular to help avoid staff layoffs and furloughs, which would be detrimental to the restoration of pre-pandemic levels of transit service.
The second principle, “Restore and Reimagine Service,” emphasizes increasing service levels to meet demand and advancing equity. Specifically, the principles call on transit agencies to focus on eliminating ‘pass-ups’ - instances where a bus cannot pick up new passengers because it is at capacity given social-distancing guidelines. The principle also encourages operators to adapt service to changing travel patterns and behaviors as they restore service, recognizing that the impact of the pandemic on travel patterns has been uneven.
The third and final principle, “Improve Customer Experience,” recognizes the importance of investing in forward-thinking initiatives that will welcome riders back and provide a compelling alternative to other modes of travel. The principle indicates that funds should support the implementation of recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force, and “other creative, customer-oriented initiatives that support transit reliability and/or ridership recovery”.
Seamless Bay Area is encouraged by these principles, and supports the timely allocation of funds to enable transit agencies to plan for service restoration over the coming months.
Since the onset of the pandemic last March, two prior rounds of emergency federal funding have kept transit service in the Bay Area going, with $2.3 billion allocated to Bay Area transit between the CARES Act in March 2020 and the CRRSSA in December 2020. The ARP funds provide an additional $1.68 billion in transit funding to the Bay Area, and is larger than the previous two funding bills.