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tion funds and oversees highway planning, is separate from
the Federal Transit Administration, which distributes tran-
sit funds and oversees transit planning. Similar divisions
exist at the state and local level. That means that at no
level is there an incentive to do an objective analysis of
rail vs. bus vs. highway transportation.
The Federal Transit Administration seems to be devoted
to the New Urbanist goals of density, reduced auto usage,
and increased transit, especially rail transit. Rail's
expense gives the agency a bureaucratic reason to support
rail despite its failure to reduce congestion or pollution.
In a recent report sponsored by the Federal Transit Adminis-
tration, the separation of agencies is seen as a barrier,
not to more reasoned analysis, but to getting more funds for
rail transit.10
ISTEA earmarks billions of dollars for specific proj-
ects regardless of their efficiency or contribution to
transportation. To judge by the size of the House Transpor-
tation Committee and its Surface Transportation Subcommit-
tee, Congress appears eager to continue such earmarking in
the 1998 reauthorization.
Such earmarking, of course, ensures that much transpor-
tation spending is based on politics rather than reason or
need. That often allows a coalition of central city offi-
cials, New Urbanists, environmentalists, and the rail con-
struction industry to dominate over other urban interest
groups.
Supposed Subsidies to Autos
Proponents of ISTEA justify the diversion of highway
user fees to mass transit by the subsidies that society has
supposedly provided for automotive travel. Most auto crit-
ics reckon that those subsidies average $2 to $3 per gallon
of gasoline. But a critical review of their analyses re-
veals that most of the "subsidies" are imaginary.
For example, Getting There, by auto critic Stephen
Goddard, includes some estimate of subsidies to the automo-
bile (Table 1).11
On the basis of the estimate given in Table 1, and the
fact that Americans use about 133 billion gallons of fuel
per year, Goddard calculates that gasoline taxes would have
to be raised by at least $2.25 per gallon to end subsidies