By David Epstein

The St. Louis Metro, New York City's MTA, Atlanta's MARTA and Sacramento's SRTD are all facing budget deficits.

When the recession forced the strapped St. Louis Metro to cut her local bus route in March, Emma Perry's freedom went along with it.

Perry, 58, uses a wheelchair because of a rare neurological disease. For the last six years, the St. Louis Metro's Call-A-Ride program, which provides door-to-door transit for disabled citizens — so long as they are within three-quarters of a mile of a normal bus route — has granted Perry the independence to go to the library, the movie theater, her health center, the nursing home where she volunteered and the church where she taught and prayed 3 to 5 times a week.

With the nearest route gone, Perry lost her Call-A-Ride service. She's now largely homebound. "I've lost some of my independence," she says. "I'll never get used to it."

Federal stimulus funds have swooped in to prevent service cuts to healthcare and education, but no such remediation has been granted to public transit. Transit systems nationwide are getting billions for new buses and trains. According to the language of the stimulus bill, however, the money can't be spent to run them -- to pay for operating costs like wages and fuel. Although national mass-transit ridership is at a 50-year high [2], a recent survey [3] by the American Public Transportation Association found that 90 percent of transit agencies have cut service or raised fares.

"One of the difficulties is that capital funds are available," said Alane Masui, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento Regional Transit District, "but we need to operate the buses we purchase."

On Thursday, the Senate passed a $106 billion war-funding bill with a partial fix. The bill includes a provision allowing transit agencies to use up to 10 percent of their stimulus money for operating costs. The legislation will now go to President Obama for signing, even though the transit provision has drawn criticism as shortsighted.

"To use money that was supposed to go toward infrastructure investments for simply operating expenses is wrong," said Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, ranking member on the House subcommittee that controls transportation spending. “This is supposed to be a stimulus package for infrastructure, not a bailout for local government.”