Our country’s mass transit systems are in serious trouble. New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington DC, Charlotte, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco.. the list goes on. Bus and rail lines everywhere are being forced to raise fares, lay off hundreds of employees and eliminate stops (sometimes even full lines).

But the truly worst part of it all is that more people than ever before are using public transit. That means that more people are relying on those buses and trains to get to work, and are now stranded. The demand is there – so why can’t public transit meet that demand?

The answer is that public transit fares only pay for a fraction (anywhere between 52% on the high end and 16% on the low end) of the service’s actual cost. The rest comes from state and local subsidies, which in turn come from things such as sales taxes – and since people aren’t buying much these days, sales tax revenue is slowing down to a trickle.

In short, what was once a fight to improve, refurbish and modernize public transit systems seems to have become a fundamental struggle to keep it alive, period. What are we to do?