D.C. Metro Crash Highlights Underfunded Transit Systems

More than one-third of assets in the nation's seven largest rail transit agencies, including the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), are in marginal or poor condition, according to an April report by the Federal Transit Administration. These include public rail systems in New York, Chicago, Boston, New Jersey, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Together, these systems account for more than 3 billion passenger trips a year. A fix for the backlog would cost $50 billion; maintaining good repair thereafter, another $5.9 billion annually. But the actual level of investment in rehabilitation, replacement, and improvement of existing transit assets in these systems was $5.4 billion in 2006, the latest year reported in the study.