There’s no question about it, this is bad news. Apparently, the administration wanted a total stimulus bill under $850 billion, and it wanted tax cuts, so some spending had to go. And what went, by and large, was transit.

There are multiple things wrong with this. One is that there are plenty of very good economists out there arguing that the bill could stand to be a good bit larger, so that there was no economic need to take out something to make room for tax cuts. Another is that, as we’ve seen, shovel-readiness was not an issue, so if infrastructure needed to be tossed, officials could have tossed counterproductive projects like highways. And yet another is that, as Matt points out, plenty of other measures, like fare subsidies or operational grants to reduce service cuts, could have been taken to boost transit and the economy immediately, but weren’t.

This is bad, bad, bad. We are missing an opportunity here. And get this: vehicle miles traveled continue to fall. Despite the fact that gas prices in November were well below summer highs (and well below levels in November of 2007) Americans drove nearly 13 billion fewer miles in November of 2008 than they did in November of 2007 — a decline of 5.3%. Transit ridership remains high, on new systems and old, and yet around the country service is being curtailed because local budgets are getting hammered by the recession. This is inexcusable. If we can’t take basic steps to help working families and support the economy while laying the groundwork for long-run environmental sustainability, then we may as well hang it up.