Source: Spending data are from American Public Transportation Association, 2008 Public Transportation Fact Book, Part 2: Historical Tables 34-36, June 2008.

Source: PMT data are from the APTA 2008 Public Transportation Factbook.

Another way to look at the federal share of transportation spending is in terms of capital spending only (i.e., excluding spending on maintenance and operations), since nearly all federal funding is for investment in capital projects. The federal share of total highway capital investment has ranged from 16 percent (in the first year of the HTF) to just over 50 percent in the mid-1980s. As illustrated in Exhibit 2-6, the federal contribution to highway capital spending was 44 percent in 2006, close to the long-term average of about 45 percent. Of the 56 percent non-federal share in 2006, about 34 percent represents state-level investment and about 24 percent represents capital spending by lo- cal governments.8

The federal share of transit capital investment grew rapidly from 1962 through the early 1980s, when federal funding accounted for much of the capital investment in mass transit. Federal funding for transit capital has declined since then, averaging close to half of total capital investment since the late 1980s, and was about 44 percent of the total in 2006.9