While CNN continues to scratch its head and declines to even mention mass transit as a possibility for alleviation of the cost of oil spike afflicting this nation, others are noticing the solution, and the problem.

Let us be clear. People are increasingly using mass transit, when it is an option.

When it is an option.

ABC News reports,

Only about 5 percent of the American public uses public transportation to commute regularly. In part, that’s because only about 20 percent have easy access to trains, subways, and buses. Most of those people are located in the densely populated Northeast and in other urban areas. There, the infrastructure exists, but the ability to expand to cope with increases is somewhat limited.

And even when it is an option, you still have to get to the metro. And that is no easy feat.

The Baltimore Sun reports,

But even after a recent addition of 428 spaces, parking at Halethorpe station is at capacity by the time Conners’ train rumbles in, and commuters’ parked cars snake down Southwestern Boulevard. One recent morning, the former Sun editor couldn’t find a clearly legal space within a half-mile. She took her chances and found a $27 ticket on her windshield that evening.

How many people are discouraged from using mass transit because of experiences like this?

In a state with widely dispersed development, Kay said, public transit will never be a “door-to-door experience.”

Well, it needs to be, and that takes a rush-hour bus/van system that feeds into the metro system of each city.

But even as more and more Americans are turning to mass transit, regional systems are not only unable to grow accordingly, some are actually cutting service because of lack of necessary funds.

Almost 40 percent say they were forced to delay or cancel planned service increases, and the same portion had to transfer funds from their capital budgets to their operating expenses. Almost 20 percent even had to cut service, despite the increase in demand.

The Cleveland area is an example. Last year, the transit agency spent $12 million on fuel. This year, it’s expecting fuel to cost as much as $20 million. At the beginning of the year, it cut bus service lines by 5 percent.

Why is this happening?

The Washington Post today explained the economic reasons for the budget crunch of mass transit systems in its editorial “Screeching to a Halt.”

The rush to mass transit is accentuating what has been plain for years — that America’s investment in its public transportation infrastructure is glaringly, perilously inadequate. The gasoline tax, which provides the main source of transportation and transit revenue, has not been increased since 1993. As a funding source it is being dangerously eroded by inflation and Americans’ decreased driving mileage.

The good news is that both parties are to blame, so at least we have that ever elusive bi-partisan initiative when it comes to doing bubkes.

Washington’s inattention to public transportation is bipartisan and longstanding. Congress and the Bush administration have done little to fix it. In the omnibus transportation bill signed in 2005 (covering the period from 2003 to 2008), annual funding for mass transit is targeted at around $10 billion, of which about $7 billion goes to capital infrastructure projects. Add that to state and local funding, and the nation’s total capital spending on transit amounts to roughly $13 billion annually. But even by the administration’s conservative estimates, the minimum need is closer to $20 billion. And the American Public Transportation Association reckons $45 billion to $60 billion annually would be optimal to replace and modernize aging buses, facilities, subways and rail systems. That’s quite a gap.

And the nation is led by a president who is concurrently an oil company mogul.

Meanwhile, the administration has slashed spending on new mass transit projects while toughening approval criteria and insisting that states and localities pony up greater shares of such projects, often up to half.

The Washington Post does not mince words.

Last year, a bipartisan commission recommended sharply higher levels of funding for transportation of all kinds, including mass transit. The panel’s recommendations included raising the gas tax. Although Transportation Secretary Mary Peters was on the commission, she declined to endorse its findings. Her head-in-the-sand posture neatly captured the administration’s abdication of responsibility.

And by the way, inflationary pressures due to the skyrocketing cost of oil are affecting corporate profits and producing inflationary pressures far outside the cost of transport itself. True, it hasn’t translated into a dramatic rise in the cost of durable goods…but just give it time.

We’re in for a rough ride.