This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 14th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Many city governments are clamoring for streetcars, the slow fixed route transit system that really isn't designed

for commuters. And they might not want it if it weren't for so many millions

promised by the feds to get those projects off the ground.

Randall O'Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, comments.

Well, in 2004, Congress passed a bill that offered cities up to $75 million to build small transit projects and the purpose of the bill was to promote streetcars.

However, the Bush administration said that cities could only get money for streetcars

if they were more cost effective than buses, which they aren't. They cost four times as

much as buses per passenger or per vehicle mile. So the Obama administration has proposed to change those

rules. So now city after city across the country is jumping on the streetcar

bandwagon trying to get their applications in order so that when the cost effectiveness rules are changed,

they can apply for $75 million to build streetcar lines, many of which are going to cost $200,

$250 million or more.

And that means it's going to impose huge costs

on local taxpayers as well as the federal taxpayers.

And they're not really going to do anybody any good except for the people to build them.

Now buses are highly modular.

You can move them into whatever routes you want.

They use regular streets.

Are streetcars different in that respect?

Well, the problem with streetcars is that the rails are so expensive that you end up building

...