Sarah Krouse at the WaBizJo reports that Metro authorities will meet on Thursday to discuss a 4 to 6 percent fare hike and other uncomfortable features associated with balancing the budget for fiscal year 2011. That discussion comes after a holiday weekend over which WMATA didn’t make any new friends. Metro authorities are defending their decision to close three critical Metro stations in Northern Virginia for the holiday weekend, saying that the decision was planned well in advance. Labor Day was slapped on the calendar in 1882, but never mind that. Premeditation only enhances the crime in the eyes of frustrated Metro users, would-be mall shoppers, and diverted travelers.
Choose your poison: Both #metrofail or #metrosucks have any number of 140-character harangues to offer on the Twitter. This is bread-and-butter material for Unsuck DC Metro, who’s compiled a best-of collection of complaints about We Must Aggravate Travelers Again.
With all that said: Is there some justification for Metro’s bold decision to close Crystal City, Pentagon City, and National Airport for the Labor Day weekend? Metro says that this Labor Day means staycation for District residents, so planning track work for this holiday weekend will disrupt fewer Metro users. However, fewer people leaving the D.C. area might very well mean more people shopping in the city — if they can reach shopping hubs like Crystal City and Pentagon City.
Metro says that if they didn’t have this three-day weekend to do the work, they would’ve had to slate four consecutive weekends of laborious single tracking. This second option sounds far, far more preferable. First of all, I walk into any given Metro station on any given weekend day expecting delays. I know I would hardly notice if there were four consecutive weekends of delays because I’m unlikely to travel by Metro over four consecutive weekends. Nevertheless, those people who do frequent the Metro on the weekend would probably agree that single tracking serves them better than closing the station entirely.
Further, people value their time more highly on a holiday weekend than they do over a regular weekend. Travelers make late and even last-minute decisions to fly — decisions they don’t clear beforehand the WMATA site for dramatic maintenance interruptions. And it’s not just people who appreciate holiday weekends. Cities take the time to plan holiday events — like the Arlington 9/11 Memorial 5K this evening — that aren’t easily rescheduled for a non-holiday weekend.
If Metro officials decide to kick up fares on Thursday, they might consider waiting a few weeks to announce the fact. Maybe at a time when hundreds of users don’t feel burned by a decision that seemed to come from nowhere. And someone should ask the question during the meeting: Why does Metro hate teh workers?
