That would have the FRA, an agency tasked with oversight in regards to safety, assuming part of the role of the legislative branch, directing funding from the federal government to state agencies. It would make no sense to restructure the FRA away from the enforcement of safety regulations. Who then would be in charge of safety oversight? Perhaps the, admittedly dysfunctional and hyper-politicized, transit agencies could police themselves?
One of the most important roles of the federal government, unless your political beliefs are dictated by talk radio hosts, is the oversight of safety regulations.
Forget F Line's (very correct) invocation of "Regulation 101"...this is perhaps just Common Sense 101 as applied to matters as varied as the "simple" task of raising a child all the way up to the operation of an agency charged with the safe transport and passage of hundreds of thousands of people a day...anyone who wants to see rules followed will disincentivize bad behavior. As the FRA can't send NJ Transit to a timeout...or arrest someone at the agency as F Line just wrote, I think they're stuck with fining them.
Now, perhaps there is something to be said for the idea of directing the agency towards the right resources, but every state transportation agency in our nation has people whose job it is to know these programs, apply for their benefits, lobby on behalf their application, and then apply the benefits of those programs to their agency. When such people in state transit agencies exist, it would seem pointless, redundant and, again if your beliefs are best reflected by the rantings of angry folks shouting into radio microphones, a form of over-reach by an ever-expanding federal government to not only supply taxpayer funded safety programs but also to then task and staff an entire agency whose role is to inspect, determine points of failure, and then direct scarce federal monies to those points of failure.
Again, I am not trying to be overly negative when it comes to your opinion, but it just doesn't make any sense. The safety oversight portion of the system is, despite occassional failures, working as it should.
Rather than stifle an intelligent discussion, however, I would like to ask you who you think should be in charge of a state commuter railroad's adherence to safety regulations? What would cause this agency to want to follow rules that can be quite expensive to adhere? Is there any punishment levied when a failure (accident) occurs and the cause is a broken safety rule? Would a state transit agency, staffed and restaffed at upper levels every 4 years when administrations change be capable of self policing when it comes to safety? As safety regulations are wickedly expensive to adhere to, wouldn't the politicized state agency try to defer maintenance until the Governor who appointed them left office, thus helping his or her budget while dumping the backlogged costs onto an administration they have no loyalty to? Does every transit agency, even the ones who fail to live up to safety regulations, get a trophy so they feel good about themselves?
Aside form the last question, your answers would perhaps either help you realize the shortcomings in your plan to retask the FRA or help me understand what it is I am missing.
As I imagine some of the answers to those question demonstrate quite aptly, this is the point of federal oversight. If state transit agencies policed themselves, if there were no issuance of fines when safety rules were broken, safety related maintenance would be deferred and deferred and deferred, and the "saved" funds would be spent on more plitically popular items, right up until the costs could be passed on to the next administration. There is not a politician on the planet who wouldn't pass the cost to his/her successor if they thought they could get away with it. Would you trust Governor Christie to not do this? Or any Governor of any state?
Long rant short: Without federal safety oversight, systems would break down and, without a moment's worth of hyperbole whatsoever, good people would die.
Be well. Do good work.
Semperfidelis