Summary

This document presents selected results of GAO's Web-based survey of 215 project sponsors to obtain information on the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) funding of transit projects nationwide. The questions in our survey were posed to obtain information on project sponsors' completed, ongoing, and planned transit projects and also their experiences with the New Starts and Small Starts programs. The survey was e-mailed to projects sponsors (including transit agencies, city transportation offices, and metropolitan planning organizations, among others) in urbanized areas with populations of over 200,000 and that have an annual ridership on their transit systems of over 1 million. Of the 215 project sponsors, 168 project sponsors responded to the survey, for a survey response rate of 78 percent. We do not include responses for all survey questions. Specifically, this document does not include narrative responses that we received. A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is contained in our report, "Public Transportation: Future Demand Is Likely for New Starts and Small Starts Programs, but Improvements Needed to the Small Starts Application Process" (GAO-07-917) (Washington D.C.: July 27, 2007). We administered the survey from February 2007 to May 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.