Obama administration to states: Get ready for more transit oversight

By Keith Laing - 08/31/12 12:16 PM ET

President Obama’s administration is telling states with public transportation systems to get ready for more oversight from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Transit Authority (FTA) Administrator Peter Rogoff wrote a letter to the governors of 26 states that have public transportation systems operating in them explaining new authority given to the federal government to regulate transit agencies by the recently approved $105 billion surface transportation bill.

“Under MAP-21, we’re ushering in a new era for transit safety, and we are committed to working with our state leaders to strengthen and help fund robust state safety oversight agencies to carry out this vitally important mission,” LaHood wrote. “Public transit remains one of the safest ways to travel in the U.S., and we intend to keep it that way.”

The change LaHood was touting gives the federal government power, for the first time, to do more than tie safety requirements for public transportation systems in the United States to future funding. Previously, transit systems were primarily overseen by the local and state governments that appropriated their money for them.

Rogoff said having a national set of standards would make public transportation more safe for riders across the country.

“We are closing a loophole in how transit safety oversight is regulated and enforced that is long overdue,” Rogoff said. “For the first time FTA will be able to establish basic safety standards to better ensure the safety of tens of millions of passengers that ride public transportation each day.”

The increase in federal regulation of public transportation has particularly been sought by members of Congress who represent jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia that are served by the metro Washington, D.C.’s area’s Metrorail system.

A crash on the Metrorail system in 2009 killed nine people and greatly increased the attention paid in Congress to the lack of national regulation of public transportation.