FORMULA FOR ALLOCATION OF WMATA METRORAIL SUBSIDY REQUIREMENT

Many major U.S. metropolitan areas struggle with the problem of how to distribute the cost of providing government services among participating political jurisdictions. Because transit service is provided by local or state governments, quasipublic authorities, and private operators, it has increasingly required direct financial assistance in order to meet its operating costs in the past decade. This subsidy requirement has given rise to the same sharing problem that characterizes other regional activities. An obvious way to determine a jurisdiction's share of total transit subsidy is to examine the difference between the passenger revenue collected in that jurisdiction and the operating cost incurred in the same jurisdiction. Experience indicates, however, that this approach, while equitable, is fraught with practical problems. An alternative approach, adopted by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for application to the Metrorail system, has combined simplicity and stability with ease of administration to produce a formula that distributes only the system subsidy, not costs and revenues. This formula relies on measurements of relative benefits derived from operation of the rail transit system, focusing on jurisdictional population and density, number of stations in each jurisdiction, and number of riders from each jurisdiction. The technique has been successfully applied in each of the past four years, a noteworthy accomplishment given the widely divergent fiscal policies of the District of Columbia, the two states, the four counties, and the three municipalities that constitute the Washington, D.C., transit zone. The technique is transferable to other locations and may be applicable to other government activities.

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1982/877/877-002.pdf
• Summary URL:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=FORMULA+FOR+ALLOCATION+OF+WMATA+METRORAIL+SUBSIDY+REQUIREMENT&author=R.+Thompson&author=R.+Pickett&publication_year=1982
• Availability:
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• Supplemental Notes:
  • Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on Public Transportation Planning and Development. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
• Authors:
  • Thompson, R Wayne
  • Pickett, Robert A
• Publication Date: 1982

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; Illustrations; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 5-12
• Monograph Title: Urban public transportation planning issues
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 877
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cost allocation; Local government; Public transit; Rapid transit; State government; Subsidies
• Identifier Terms: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
• Old TRIS Terms: Allocations
• Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00372408
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309034655
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 29 1983 12:00AM