Now and then, I like to see what’s happening in transit systems outside of New York City. Often, I’ll turn to Washington, D.C., for a glimpse at what an efficient — and much smaller — transit system looks like. The lessons from D.C. can be illuminating as we watch the MTA carom from one ill-fated project to another.

Earlier this week, the Washington Metro’s board announced that WMATA passengers would enjoy in-tunnel cell service by the fall of 2012. Lena H. Sun, a staff writer for the Washington Post, reports:

Metro officials said the agency and a consortium of wireless carriers are on track to install equipment so riders can receive and make cellphone calls on all carriers at the 20 busiest Metrorail stations by mid-October. Only Verizon and Sprint roaming customers can use their phones on the Metro now, and coverage is often spotty…

But don’t expect to stay connected between stations. That won’t happen until the consortium finishes installing cable and other equipment underground, a process that is likely to take until October 2012.

Under an agreement announced in February, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, AT&T and T-Mobile will be allowed to install equipment in the tunnels over the next four years. The agreement will provide the cash-strapped transit agency with nearly $25 million over the first 15 years. The estimated $2.4 million in expenses will also be paid by the wireless carriers.

Now, we can debate for hours whether or not cell phone service underground is a positive development. Every day, I see the impact of cell service on a subway ride. As my Manhattan-bound Q or B train snakes across the Manhattan Bridge and as my Brooklyn-bound trip heads off into the heart of Brooklyn every day, I see passengers scramble for their phones and being their furtive five-minute calls. Most are respectful as they try to keep their conversation to a minimum, but others are screamers, intent on informing the entire car what their significant other has at home for dinner that night.

As those trains head back underground, cell service is lost until the trenched, open-air tracks arrive at the Prospect Park stop. It may be silent, but it’s also a technological blackhole.

In Washington, Metro riders have enjoyed cell phone service for the better part of this decade. It’s not perfect, but it’s there. Furthermore, the WMATA has negotiated a contract that’s beneficial to all. The agency earns millions of dollars, and the cell companies get access to a new network of customers. Everyone — except those looking for a quiet ride — wins.

Meanwhile, in the Big Apple, the MTA keeps promising to find some company intent on writing the system at a price too low to believe, and time after time, the project stalls. Outside of the luxury of an underground cell network, the MTA’s system doesn’t have the capacity for proper emergency communications, and it just isn’t a modern system. At some point the technological modernization of the New York City subways will begin. We could do far worse than look to our neighbors to the south for inspiration.

Every now and then, I like to check in on how the MTA’s competitors in other cities are doing. Today, we journey down I-95 — or is that Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor? — to our Nation’s Capital where the WMATA is facing its very own funding crisis.

For the last ten days, we’ve watched in New York as the state Assembly dealt a blow to the MTA’s financial situation, and we’ve seen the agency begun a fund-searching review in order to meet goals for its next five-year capital plan. Things could be worse.

In Washington, the WMATA is in the unenvious position of receving one-third of its funds from the Federal Government, and one of the Senators who holds the purse strings — Sen. Tom Coburn, a hard-line Republican from the car-happy state of Oklahoma — is threatening to block a $1.5 billion federal grant for Metro.

Now, this isn’t just chump change for the Metro. It’s money the WMATA needs to bring their old and decaying system up to a state of good repair. Considering that environmental movements are all the rage, the government — both in New York and in DC — is strangely hesitant to help out the greenest of green options: public transportation. WTOP Radio’s Adam Tuss has more from DC:

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., has authored a bill which would provide $1.5 billion for Metro over the next 10 years. If the bill passes, Virginia, Maryland and D.C. have agreed they will match the $1.5 billion. The funds would go a long way for Metro, which is the only major transportation system in the nation that lacks a dedicated source of funding.

But the Davis bill, as it is currently constructed, will likely never make its way past Coburn. “I’m happy to be a roadblock to that bill,” Coburn tells WTOP. “It’s $1.5 billion they want, we (the government) don’t have the money to pay for it, so where are we going to get the money?”

Coburn doesn’t think one penny of funding for Metro should come from American taxpayers. “How dare us say we are going to steal opportunity from our children so that we can have a ride on the Metro. I think the vast majority of Americans would disagree with that.”

Isn’t it cute that all of a sudden a Republican in the Senate is concerned about spending? And where, oh, where could the government find the meager sum of $1.5 billion for a transportation network that has a ridership of millions of federal workers and tourists? Considering that we’ve spent trillions of dollars on overseas wars — and, yes, Coburn supports those efforts without noting any effect whatsoever on our children — I’d think $1.5 billion wouldn’t be tough to find.

Coburn, ignoring that self-sustaining public transit would be too expensive to attract any ridership, wants the Metro riders to pay. “My position is, if you want to ride the Metro, pay what it costs to ride the Metro,” he said. “Riders will pay for the upkeep and the capital improvements that are needed.”

Coburn’s opponents on both sides of the aisle are ready to fight him for these funds, and I’d have to believe that Metro will get its money. But yet again, politicians are doing all they can to obstruct funding for mass transit. One day, maybe mass transit will get the respect it deserves as a major driver of urban economics. One day, politicians might be willing to go out on a limb to fund it.

But as we’ve learned in New York and as we see in DC right now, mass transit proponents are fighting and losing an uphill battle right now. We’ll just have to keep on trekking ahead as the cars continue to win.