Total federal funding for public transportation in the U.S., by state 2022-2026

In November 2021, the U.S. Congress passed the new Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill with a five-year total authorized budget for public transit of more than 69 billion U.S. dollars for all the states and other jurisdictions. From 2022 to 2026, the state with the highest public funding for public transportation in the U.S. will be New York with an authorized budget of around 11.2 billion U.S. dollars, followed by California and New Jersey with a budget of 10.3 and 4.5 billion U.S. dollars respectively.

Buses dominate U.S. public transport

In 2021, the U.S. public transit network generated 53.1 billion U.S. dollars in operating revenue, marking a slight decline from the previous year. Buses remain the primary mode of public transport, making up nearly half of all trips in 2023, with heavy rail accounting for 36 percent of unlinked trips. By 2022, only about three percent of American workers used public transportation for their commute, a drop from roughly five percent in 2015.

New York’s public transportation system is leading in the United States 

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) runs the New York City metropolitan area public transportation system, and it is the largest transit authority in the United States. In 2023, New York's heavy rail transit system was the busiest in the United States, recording more than two billion passenger journeys annually. That year, the New York subway transported almost more than 15 times as many passengers as the second-largest network in the U.S. in Washington, D.C.