The Manhattan Project
Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
This morning's Post features a roundup of Metro's financial talking points for the year ahead: most notably, that Metro -- unlike VRE and many other transit agencies around the country -- has "no plans for new fare and fee hikes" in the coming year. If Metro sticks to that claim, it will mean an almost two-year span between rate raises, no small feat for an agency constantly looking to rectify deficits.
The bad news? Well, according to the Post, "the portion of Metro's income from sources other than rides is not increasing." (This includes lots of different things: from the painfully obvious like parking fees, to the less so, like rates for fiber optic line and property rentals, which are sluggish due to the weakened economy.) So even though this year's combined projection of $762 million in revenue and $535 million of subsidies from government sources comes close to the $1.3 billion which Metro will cost to operate this year, WMATA still needs to make cuts to account for the toll of inflation and other such factors.
Oh, and Metro "did not anticipate the cost of inauguration service" in its budget for 2009. Sigh.
In the interest of pragmatism, the focus now shifts to where Metro can realistically make cuts in service. It appears as if Metrobus and MetroAccess are first in line:
The transit authority staff has not publicly proposed specific service reductions, although it seems probable that bus routes with too few passengers would be among the top targets. Catoe also is asking for a review of how well MetroAccess meets the standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act. It might be that the transit authority is exceeding standards.
As far as finances go, that's certainly not going to be sufficient enough to get them to where they need to go, although bus performance is a good place to start -- check our report from last September for some of the severly underperforming bus lines which Metro could stand to rid itself of.
Is there any part of Metro service that you'd be willing to part with for the greater good? Let us know in the comments.
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Keep service at current levels in the neighborhoods and eliminate all trips within a 10-block radius of the Capitol and the Mall.
Those who are most affected by the new arrangement might then begin to contemplate paying their fair, federal share.
Isn't that like cutting your balls off to spite your penis? Or something?
somegirl: i think i get your point (make the feds realize how important wmata is so they raise funding), but really, aren't the only people who would be truly screwed by such a cutback the people at the bottom of the totem pole? i get the feeling that all the higher-ups (yes, even the new fancy democrats in charge) are driving in from the hinterlands, and don't realize the importance of transit on a daily basis.
As for service cuts, changes to the bus system should have been instituted years ago. At current, the buses are inefficient, unreliable, and redundant. They only recoup about 30% of their operating costs in revenue, in comparison to rail which is at 84%. Now, I understand that public transportation is not meant to recoup all of its costs, but I think we can do a little better than 30%. The great thing about buses is that they're easy to fix. Creating trunk lines, finally implementing NextBus, and reducing service on under-utilized lines are all good options. I also feel like suburban bus lines need to be looked at for cuts in areas where buses travel long distances with few passengers and where Metrobus lines are largely redundant with local services such as RideOn.
Aside from reshaping the Metrobus system, we also need to look at maintenance as a way to help save money. The fact is that properly maintained trains, tracks, stations, and buses will cost less in the long-run. Additionally, something has to be done about Metro Access. The system is completely abused, mismanaged, and corrupt. WMATA keeps throwing money at this sub-contractor and service quality seems to continuously go down the drain. Metro budgets about $3 million for the service, but I wonder if they even bother taking into account the cost of the lawsuits filed against WMATA for ADA violations?
Alewis, the bus system feeds the rail network - the 30 v. 84 is a bit of a false comparison. Also, what happens to recovery ratios if you factor in capital costs? Bus networks have higher operating but lower capital costs than rail, and vice versa.
I know it seems small but they could consolidate bus stops at places where multiple stops exist - such as Eastern Market where there are several stops on every corner of 8th and Pennsylvania Ave.
A drive down East Capitol Street on the Hill will show a bus stop on nearly every corner.
You mention that WMATA is considering cutting service to "underperforming" bus lines, but linked to the story about buses that are having trouble arriving on time. But to WMATA, those are often the best bus lines because they are usually full of paying riders. In fact, popular lines like the 30s and the X2 are worse than average for reliability, while sparsely-ridden routes end up doing better than average for on-time performance.
Unfortunately for the riders, it looks like when WMATA starts thinking about cutting back "underperforming" bus lines, it's going to be the buses that have better on-time performances because it will be the ones that are less crowded. The underperforming lines are likely to be ones like the 24T, the E6, the 20s, the N8, the 3T, and C7/9 since they failed to meet three out of five metrobus performance criteria last year.
I did an article about this here.
Good grief! If Congress can bail out AIG, can't it throw a little moola to WMATA?
The COST of inauguration service?!
Ugh. With record-smashing ridership levels, oodles of parking, Pepsi ads, Obama Smarttrips, etc., I was hoping that they would have at least come close to breaking even on inauguration day. That was probably the biggest shot Metro ever had at cashing in. Maybe I'm naieve, but I was hoping they'd get a little boost from all the festivities. I guess not.
Any word on how far in the red they were for last Tuesday?
I second Gary on this. What are the numbers for Metro's inauguration service?
I always wondered if WMATA considers income when somebody purchases a farecard or adds value to a SmarTrip card--or when they actually spend it? I ask this because on Inauguration Day many stations downtown had open turnstiles to prevent overcrowding. I would think the former is the case because otherwise all of those people walking through without swiping on their way out would technically have a free ride.
From the WMATA website:
Metro sets new record for highest ridership day of all time
For immediate release: January 21, 2009
1,544,000 trips taken on Inauguration Day
On Inauguration Day, Metro provided about 1,120,000 rail trips, 423,000 bus trips and 1,721 MetroAccess trips for a total of 1,544,721 trips, the highest ridership day ever in the transit authority’s history.
With hundreds of thousands of people in town for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, Metrorail set a new record for the transit agency’s highest ridership on Tuesday, Jan. 20. when rail rides alone accounted for 1,120,000 trips surpassing the previous Metrorail high of 866,681 trips, which occurred the previous day, on Monday, Jan. 19.
On Metrobus, of the 423,000 trips taken, 228,000 were on the 23 “Presidential” bus corridors; 3,000 were on supplemental service to park and ride lots in Maryland and Virginia (outside the beltway); 177,000 were on regular route service; and 15,000 were on special shuttles put into place at locations to supplement crowding in the rail system.
“Our Metro system wasn’t designed to transport this many people in such a short time, but we did it,” said Metro General manager John Catoe. “Months and months of planning paid off. Throughout Inauguration Weekend, we effectively dealt with record-breaking crowds. On Sunday, we moved 616,324 people on rail beating our previous Sunday rail ridership record by 75,000. On Monday (Jan. 19) we set a short-lived weekday record of 866,681 trips. Then on Inauguration Day itself, our rail ridership surpassed the one million mark. The 10,000 employees of Metro stepped up, and today we feel a glowing sense of pride in knowing the important role we played in making the Inauguration a success.”
Between Sunday, Jan. 18, and Tuesday, Jan. 20, Metro ran 60 hours of rail service out of 72 hours during those days. Metro we set three rail ridership records--a Sunday record and back-to-back weekday records. Between Sunday and Tuesday Metrorail carried an estimated 2.6 million trips on rail.
I think part of the problem is that the inauguration numbers are going to be somewhat unreliable; it seems several stations just opened up the faregates to let people out (and possibly in?) when there were such huge crowds. They counted about 1.1 million rail trips, so if they let another 10% through free, that's easily a quarter-million dollars lost. Not to mention whatever they lost on the buses that day (somehow I doubt the drivers were checking too carefully whether someone was tapping a metrocard that had no value on it).
From the WMATA website:
Metro sets new record for highest ridership day of all time
For immediate release: January 21, 2009
1,544,000 trips taken on Inauguration Day
On Inauguration Day, Metro provided about 1,120,000 rail trips, 423,000 bus trips and 1,721 MetroAccess trips for a total of 1,544,721 trips, the highest ridership day ever in the transit authority’s history.
With hundreds of thousands of people in town for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, Metrorail set a new record for the transit agency’s highest ridership on Tuesday, Jan. 20. when rail rides alone accounted for 1,120,000 trips surpassing the previous Metrorail high of 866,681 trips, which occurred the previous day, on Monday, Jan. 19.
On Metrobus, of the 423,000 trips taken, 228,000 were on the 23 “Presidential” bus corridors; 3,000 were on supplemental service to park and ride lots in Maryland and Virginia (outside the beltway); 177,000 were on regular route service; and 15,000 were on special shuttles put into place at locations to supplement crowding in the rail system.
“Our Metro system wasn’t designed to transport this many people in such a short time, but we did it,” said Metro General manager John Catoe. “Months and months of planning paid off. Throughout Inauguration Weekend, we effectively dealt with record-breaking crowds. On Sunday, we moved 616,324 people on rail beating our previous Sunday rail ridership record by 75,000. On Monday (Jan. 19) we set a short-lived weekday record of 866,681 trips. Then on Inauguration Day itself, our rail ridership surpassed the one million mark. The 10,000 employees of Metro stepped up, and today we feel a glowing sense of pride in knowing the important role we played in making the Inauguration a success.”
Between Sunday, Jan. 18, and Tuesday, Jan. 20, Metro ran 60 hours of rail service out of 72 hours during those days. Metro we set three rail ridership records--a Sunday record and back-to-back weekday records. Between Sunday and Tuesday Metrorail carried an estimated 2.6 million trips on rail.
I swear im so sick of bitchin about Metro. I've made complaints for a few years about the on-time performance of busses on the 16 line in the Columbia Pike corridor in Arlington. But my concerns go unheard so I gave up. So maybe this cash crunch will finally make metro management give up those lines that have far too few riders to be profitable.
Now is not the time to go cheap on Metro. The system is in serious trouble with a decaying fleet of buses, rail cars, and track; delayed maintenance will only exacerbate on-time performance and other public matters. Trying to run a cheap Metro is going to piss off everybody and send a lot of commuters back to their cars.
Unfortunately, fare increases only account for a small portion of revenue, and certainly cannot be relied upon to tide the agency over the crunch. The system needs real money, not an extra quarter from each ride.
I don't hold out much hope that Congress will come to its senses and realise a healthy Metro is required for a healthy local economy, since the feds are in the Mergers and Acqusitions business for private institutions, and a Congressperson can't make much hay out of it back in Peoria.
Forget Fairfax and Montgomery; both are discussing raising property tax rates this year to close budget gaps, and in the Fairfax County Chairmanship race, both parties are in agreement on the issue.
So the states are going to have to step up (Richmond and Annapolis, I'm looking at you).
On another note, why is this site so goddamned slow?