The original objective of the present research was to examine and assess the reponses of selected state and local financial structures which support public transit and of the associated public transit systems to the phased with drawal of federal transit operating assistance .
While a phased withdrawal did not occur , the passage of the
Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 ( STAA ) did place
caps upon the amount of federal transit assistance which could be
used for operating subsidies and altered the method of
disbursement of federal transit capital assistance funds .
However , the full impacts of these changes in the federal transit
assistance program have not been realized by all the respondents
examined in this study . Additionally , the impacts of changes in the federal program are interwoven with effects of economic recession , tight state and local budgets and a variety of local phenomena which exist independently of a changing federal transit program .
The report addresses the impacts of the STAA in all cases where
those impacts have been examined by the respondent . STAA
induced changes are separated from changes which derive from other causes . Every effort has been made to associate particular
alterations in the financial structures and in the other factors
examined with a particular causative process .
This report examines , by in - depth personal interview , the
particulars of the financial structures supporting public transit in five states and the circumstances of six public transit providers located
in those states . The perspective taken in the study is that of a financial manager
confronting a set of laws , rules and regulations which direct and
confine the tasks of financing a public transit system . A high degree of attention is focused upon the state and local financial structures supporting public transit and the managerial parameters established by those structures
The study addresses four broad objectives of information provision and analysis : 1 .Examine the legal and organizational structures which direct
financial support to the case study systems ; 2 . Address transit financial managerial activities within the parameters of those structures ; 3 . Ascert the objectives and goals of those structures and evaluate the success of the structures in goal attainment ; and , 4 . Identify information of use to transit managers , state and local governmental decision makers and federal policy makers .