Photo by moworld

Metro fares are slated to go up 10 cents across the board (with the exception of senior fares, which will only go up 5 cents) starting this Sunday, Feb. 28, thanks to a recent board of directors vote. But that’s just the beginning. Come July, riders will almost surely be facing a much larger fare hike, thanks to a looming $189 million budget shortfall in FY2011.

Some combination of service reductions and large fare hikes appear to be inevitable, and the Examiner’s Kytja Weir has outlined what the current thinking looks like:

But the agency is proposing to permanently charge up to 60 cents more for rail during the busiest times, raise bus fares by 25 cents and nearly triple the fee for bike locker rentals starting in July.

Metro also is eyeing major service cuts totaling nearly $44 million on its rail, bus and disability access services. Many of the proposed cuts are the same ones that riders successfully fought earlier this year to fix the existing budget: no eight-car trains during peak times, closed station entrances, up to 30-minute waits for trains, plus scores of slashed bus lines.

They also call for closing three stations on weekends, and starting rail service 30 minutes later on weekdays and a full hour later on weekends, plus stopping late service on Fridays and Saturdays at 1 a.m., not 3.

With such severe changes on the table, the next round of public hearings on all this, currently set for April, promises to reach new levels of contentiousness. The board won’t vote on the final 2011 budget until June.