Photo by philliefan99

It looks like national politics junkies who are also transit nerds will be able to avoid making the tough choice tonight between watching the State of the Union address, or showing up for WMATA’s big public hearing on the emergency budget options currently before the Metro board. The Metro hearing begins tonight at 5:30 p.m. (at Metro Headquarters, 600 Fifth Street NW), and God willing, it won’t go on past 9 p.m., when the president’s speech is set to start.

If you plan to show up to tonight’s Metro hearing, you should definitely read through all the options the transit agency has presented to the board. There are roughly four categories of proposals under consideration, and the board appears set to vote on which course of action they’ll take as early as tomorrow, so the input they receive tonight should be fresh in their minds when they decide.

Metro has decided already to implement other cost-saving measures to help close the existing $40 million budget gap for FY2010, including trimming $2.2 million from its administrative budget, spending $6 million of the insurance money it received from the June 22 Red Line accident, dipping into a $5.6 million reserve fund, and using as much as $10 million in stimulus funds. To make up the rest, the board is being asked to consider a variety of emergency options.

1. Reduce Metrorail and Metrobus service to save $4 million, and take $12 million from the capital budget. The full account of proposed service reductions are listed in this document, but they include fairly unpleasant options like increasing intervals between trains, reducing the hours of Metrorail service, closing one station entrance at stations with multiple entrances on evenings and weekends, and reducing rush hour service by operating only six-car trains.
2. Take $16 million from the capital budget. This option means no service cuts or fare hikes, but it also means we’ll just have to tack on that much more to next year’s budget shortfall.
3. Increase fares by 5 cents across the board. This would generate an estimated $4.8 million, and so we’d still have to take $11.2 million from the capital budget.
4. Increase fares by 10 cents across the board. This would generate an estimated $9.6 million, so $6.4 million would still be needed from the capital budget.

If you didn’t already register to speak at tonight’s hearing, you can still email your thoughts to be part of the record to public-hearing-testimony@wmata.com. And Metro’s plan for tonight’s meeting will also include a public vote, of sorts. The transit agency will be handing out stickers to everyone who shows up, and asking them to stick them on a big board in order to more graphically indicate their preference.