Distribution of Federal Transportation Subsidies

Abstract

This article estimates the spatial distribution of federal transit and highway subsidies in the United States under past and current federal transportation programs and explores possible causes of these distributions. Calculations are made for 26 selected cities, for all states, and for all census regions. Distributions under past and current programs are compared with distributions that would result from various hypothetical revisions that have been proposed. The main finding is that rural states and regions benefit from much larger federal highway subsidies per capita than do urban states and regions, and that these highway subsidies more than offset the relatively larger per capita transit subsidies that urbanized states and regions receive. The article concludes by analyzing the implications of these and other estimated distributional impacts for federal transportation policy.