Memphis Area Transit Authority officials gave an earful Thursday to a deputy U.S. Transportation secretary on the challenges of public transit and lagging efforts to create light-rail corridors.

John Porcari, deputy to Department of Transportation chief Ray LaHood, urged MATA and other Greater Memphis constituents to band together to attract more federal support for transportation.

“The regions that are succeeding are the areas that have their act together and act as a region,” Porcari told MATA and local government officials gathered at Central Station.

Hisments came after MATA board member John Vergos lamented that Memphis and MATA lack sufficient political clout on the Memphis Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which controls federal dollars for transportation projects.

“MATA always seems to go to the back of the line,” Vergos said. “We continue to build roads into the suburbs, big roads.”

While MPO leaders say they’re for sustainability, “it’s still dominated by small towns, and small towns want big roads,” Vergos added.

Porcari visited Memphis as part of an assessment by the Obama administration to identifymunities to participate in a White House pilot project. Details aren’t clear, but it’s apparently designed to forge partnerships between federal agencies and selectedmunities.

Mary Cashiola, spokeswoman for Mayor A C Wharton, said the city is vying for the pilot project, but officials weren’t able to discuss it.

In response to a question from MATA board member Karl Birkholz, Porcari said the pilot program wouldn’t mean an infusion of federal dollars. “Think of it as a laboratory for directing a federal partnership with local and regional governments,” Porcari said.

MATA general manager Will Hudson told Porcari that budget shortfalls have the transit authority struggling to maintain service levels, rather than making substantial investments in better ways of moving people around the city.

Said Hudson: “We’re not growing. We’re cutting. We’re at a time when people need transportation more than any time in the past, and we tell them, ‘No, you can’t have it.’”

Porcari said President Barack Obama’s budget request for next fiscal year includes a 128 percent increase in transit fundingpared to a 48 percent increase in highway funding.

Obama wants transportation used as a tool to connect people with jobs and spur economic development, but lawmakers are focused on reining in debt.

“We’re not making the foundational investments in America’s future that we need to,” Porcari said. “We want to use transportation to build a better future.”

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