The number of major new rail and bus projects on track for federal funding dropped from 48 in 2001 to 17 in 2007, even as transit ridership hit a 50-year high last year and demand for new service is soaring.

And for the record, those numbers are before the FTA went on a project-killing spree early in 2008 that knocked off the Silver line and Miami’s North corridor, among others. It’s all you really need to know about the Bush administration’s transportation ideology, which is ostensibly market-based. If you really want to delve deeper though, check out the rest of today’s Post article on the subject, then compare it with the article about a Transportation Planning Board study detailing a potential future of tolls on existing highways.

The TPB’s vision: Balance transportation by making drivers pay user fees and sinking the toll profits into expanding transit.

Bush’s vision: Reduce highway congestion by selling roads to private businesses who will toll highly enough to discourage use. Toll profits go to private businesses. Users who are discouraged from using the highways… are somebody else’s problem.