Posts by Michael Perkins

With Metro's 30-plus year old system and a long backlog of deferred maintenance needs, some problems are going to crop up, but many riders and the Riders' Advisory Council have repeatedly faulted inadequate communication during crises.

Meanwhile, while Metro has launched a detailed campaign to explain its need for maintenance work, it has been tight-lipped about more specifics, such as timelines and costs for various aspects. Riders frustrated by multiple overlapping outages of lines, escalators and more may well tire of just hearing entreaties to be patient for a period of years, with little more to reassure them that the delays are leading to actual change.

Were you stuck in either of yesterday's problems? Looking constructively, what level and type of communication do you think Metro needs to achieve?

Previously, Metro offered a few discounts for frequent riders: a 10% bonus fare for people who bought farecards of $20 or more, a weekly bus pass that cost about 8.5 trips, and the rail fast pass.

The 10% bonus fare was eliminated in 2003. The weekly bus pass discount was eliminated in 2010. Metro now charges 10 times the Smartrip fare for a pass.

For a regular commuter taking 10 trips per week which are long enough to hit the maximum fare, the rail fast pass currently offers about a 10% discount compared to 10 individual trips, as well as free trips after that. This proposal will eliminate the 10% discount and almost certainly drive customers away from using the rail fast pass.

More to follow after the Thursday board meeting.

Kissal also compared Metro to London's Tube, which has passes available in daily, weekly, monthly, and annual time periods. According to Kissal, the Tube gets a lot of tourists, while Metro has a larger proportion of commuters. She stated that there might be a place for passes but it might not be for the majority of riders.

As we have advocated before on Greater Greater Washington, the best "audience" for passes in the Metro fare system is front and center: daily peak commuters.

In our view, customers who pay for their regular, daily commute should get the rest of their trips included on a monthly pass. This is similar to many transit agencies around the country, including Portland's TriMet, Philadelphia's SEPTA, Chicago's CTA, and San Francisco's MUNI. Metro's time and distance based fares complicate the issue, but an innovation in Puget Sound makes monthly passes possible even with a variable fare system.

For most transit agencies, a monthly pass is typically a multiple of the single ride price. This multiple is usually around 38—40, which is the number of trips people typically take in a month to commute to a regular office job. Since most transit systems have only one adult fare, there is often only one monthly pass.

Metro's system has many possible fares. If Metro sold only one monthly pass that was valid for any trip, the price of the pass must be high enough to prevent a lot of revenue lost when people switch to passes from per-ride payment.

With Metro's proposed maximum fare of $5.75, this would make a monthly unlimited pass about $230 per month. However, most people spend far less than this per month and take much shorter trips, so a $230 pass would not be a sensible option for them. If Metro sold a monthly unlimited pass for only $150, a lot of revenue would be lost from commuters who are normally paying more than that today.

Puget Sound's innovative solution was to sell passes at varying prices via the PugetPass (Minneapolis/St. Paul's Metro Transit also has a flexible pass option). Logically, more expensive passes would be valid for more expensive trips, and less expensive passes would be valid for less expensive trips. Customers could choose a pass based on their typical trip and pay a reasonable amount for a month's worth of transit.

WMATA's finance committee has requested that the proposed public docket for board approval include a monthly pass. What kind of pass Metro offers will have a huge impact on how popular the pass is. If Metro only offers a $230 unlimited pass, few people outside of long-distance commuters will be interested. The unpopular pass will be discontinued, and the idea of monthly passes will be branded a failure.

Instead, Metro should offer a monthly pass good for unlimited short trips. For $120 a month, Metro could offer unlimited trips of $3 or less. Trips that cost more than $3 would be discounted so that you only pay the difference automatically from your SmarTrip balance.

When they requested a monthly pass option, board members cited various reasons for the request. Many pointed out that off-peak rail service has become full of delays and disruptions, and asking customers to pay more for poorer service didn't appeal to them.

Some pointed out that customers would like to chain their trips, performing errands such as shopping or picking up dry cleaning along the way. Others stated that customers might go out to eat at night or on weekends, and having a pass might entice them to take transit instead of drive. All of these uses would be met with a pass where the additional free trips are significantly cheaper than the maximum distance peak fare.

This pass would be an excellent start to a monthly pass system which offers a pass at every fare level. After a medium-value pass proves its worth to customers, Metro could start offering short trip passes for customers that live near the center of the city, and longer passes for customers that live further away and therefore take longer trips on average.

Eventually, a range of passes would be available, and all regular Metro riders could choose the pass that best suits them without being a big revenue loss for Metro.

Metro should take this opportunity to introduce a monthly pass that makes sense and prove that it's a good idea for our region.

She chaired the the Housing Commission, where she helped co-author Arlington's inclusionary zoning law, one of the first in the region. When on the Clarendon Sector Task Force, she worked to bring smart growth and sustainability to the area.

She worked as housing director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth for 3 years, where she pushed to integrate affordable housing into mixed-use development. She has also coordinated federal housing policy for Smart Growth America and led the regional Think Twice Before You Slice campaign for the Nonprofit Roundtable for Greater Washington, where she educated people on the impacts of budget proposals on low-income and vulnerable populations.

Her experience in Arlington includes dozens of site plan projects, zoning issues, and long range plans. Bondi is qualified for the County Board because she has already been working on the County Board's business for years.

Discussing the "Arlington Way," Bondi pointed out a generational shift in how citizen interact with their leaders. Traditionally, people in Arlington have engaged leaders, county staff and fellow citizens at frequent, in-person meetings. But as Bondi noted, people now want to engage with civic affairs though blogs like Greater Greater Washington, social media, and other methods.

Bondi wants the county to put extra effort into involving the public in policy decisions early, and recognizing when citizens want to communicate in ways besides meetings. She'd like the county to participate more in blog discussions, providing important information about issues citizens are discussing.

Community leaders hail her ability to coordinate among varied interests and ability to listen to ideas from stakeholders. Bondi has won the endorsement of former board member and current Clerk of Court Paul Ferguson, current board members Walter Tejada and Chris Zimmerman, school board member James Lander, and Delegate Alfonso Lopez. Bondi has the instincts of a great board member who can listen to input from citizens and other stakeholders and reach compromises that benefit everyone.

Melissa Bondi is the strongest supporter of the Columbia Pike streetcar among the candidates. She understands its role in broadening Arlington's high-quality transit network and the challenges that it can present to existing residents in the area. She understands the streetcar's financial situation, and believes the county must better communicate the reasons for increased cost as well as the benefits to the corridor and the county as a whole.

Other candidates have taken more negative positions on the streetcar, and on urban redesign like in Crystal City. A flyer put out by opponent Libby Garvey stated, "I won't let runaway development take away what we love most about Arlington."

In our opinion, the areas in Arlington that have seen development (Clarendon, Court House, Ballston, Shirlington, Columbia Pike) are prime examples of good transportation-oriented development and urban design. Development has more often than not brought what we love most about Arlington rather than taken it away.

Several tax controversies have emerged around Bondi. One involved an IRS tax lien that was unknown to her until it was published on a local Arlington watchdog blog, and another concerns late payments for personal property (car) tax.

Bondi is acting responsibly by working with the IRS to resolve the tax lien, and has properly paid property tax on the car she owned, including penalties for her tardiness. Since these personal finance issues did not involve any public funds or positions of public trust, we feel that Bondi should receive the nomination based on her qualifications and experience.

We encourage Arlington County Democrats to vote for Melissa Bondi in the primary on Thursday evening or Saturday.

With a SmarTrip card, rail fares will range from $1.70 to $3.50 off-peak and from $2.10 to $5.75 during rush hours. Regular local bus fares will rise from $1.60 to $1.70 for SmarTrip customers, while customers paying in cash will have their fares rounded to the nearest dollar.

Since use of SmarTrip by visitors and non-regular riders is expected to increase, SmarTrip vending machines will be installed at more all stations.

With the elimination of the peak-of-the-peak fare, station fare tables will go back to having just two columns. But riders shouldn't expect to save a whole lot, since the "regular" fare has been increased enough to cover the difference. With the peak-of-the-peak surcharge, the current maximum fare is $5.20. It will rise to $5.75 under the proposal.

Parking at Metro lots and garages will increase by 25¢ per day, about a 5% increase. Bike locker fees will be cut from $200 per year to $120 per year, something we argued for based on low demand for lockers.

Most disappointing to me is that discussion of implementing some sort of flexible monthly pass has stopped for this budget cycle, meaning that Metro customers will likely have to wait at least two more years to have the flexibility of paying for their commute and getting their off-peak trips for free. The topic of monthly passes was briefly discussed during an October meeting of the finance committee, but by November had disappeared from the discussion.

The fare increases are expected to raise about half of Metro's $120 million shortfall for the coming fiscal year, with local jurisdictions expected to chip in the other half of the shortfall in order to balance the budget. Metro's finance committee will discuss the fare increase along with the rest of the budget on Thursday morning.

If the pricing spread continues to widen, parking on some blocks in San Francisco will be a considerable bargain compared to spaces even one block away. One particular block in the Civic Center area is $0.75/hr while the next block is $3.25/hr until noon, and then $3.75/hr from noon until 3pm.

At Fisherman's Wharf, parking can range from $1.50/hr to $2.75/hr within a few blocks as proximity to the tourist attractions in the North increases. In the Marina area, a one-block difference could mean paying $1.50 more for an hour of parking.

Even these steep price differences don't seem to be causing the cheaper blocks to fill up. Blocks in the program that end up below their target occupancy will again have their prices reduced during the next round of adjustments.

San Francisco is collecting data about congestion relief in the areas targeted in the SFPark program. It appears we've learned several lessons already.

This performance parking experiment is demonstrating that on high-demand blocks, drivers are very insensitive to price increases. The experiment is also showing that parking demand is highly localized, with price differences of as much as 100% continuing even through two adjustment cycles.

On the other hand, there's still more to learn.

Even if blocks are missing their target occupancy, performance parking could still be having a positive effect. Are the prices leading to a higher turnover in available spaces? And if so, are the available spaces leading to a reduction in drivers hunting for parking, as the theory suggests?

Are there other factors that could be influencing the success of the program at changing parking demand, such as the size of the pilot zones or their proximity to non-pilot zone areas? Or do city administrators and performance parking advocates need to fundamentally reexamine assumptions about performance parking systems?

According to project advisor Donald Shoup, the project report will answer these questions later next year. The things planners learn in San Francisco could have a big impact on the way we think about and design parking and parking policy.

Revenues

Since Metro's ridership is in a slow decline due in part to both high fares and a weak economy, it can't count on increases in fare revenue (without raising fares) to help balance the budget. Additionally, WMATA can't assume that local jurisdictions will increase their contributions, so the budget process presumes the same support as last year.

In combination, this expense and revenue mix almost guarantees that WMATA will report a deficit to start out the new fiscal year. This coming year's reported deficit is different, because nearly half of the shortfall is considered discretionary.

Carol Kissal, WMATA Chief Finance Officer, made that point last Thursday, and suggested that the board develop a fare increase to cover the higher costs of existing service, while the jurisdictions should be expected to provide funding for various initiatives meant to improve service.

WMATA proposed various service improvements:

More police on buses

The bus system has experienced some high-profile shootings recently, and the system also has some issues with fare evasion and driver assaults. For $2 million per year, the agency could provide an additional 32 police officers for its buses. This might improve rates of fare evasion and encourage people to ride the bus if crimes and assaults decrease.

Preventive maintenance for escalators and elevators

Earlier in the year, Metro stated that it doesn't have the staff available to complete all preventive maintenance items on time. $8 million per year would increase the number of maintenance staff and improve elevator and escalator availability.

Bus priority corridors

For $5 million, Metro can provide additional buses and supervision on key routes, which would alleviate crowding and improve service. WMATA said this initiative would require some capital improvement as well as coordination with the local jurisdictions.

Maintenance of capital investments

An increase of $2.5 million is needed for ongoing maintenance of capital assets.

Increase staff to reduce overtime

This would cost $11.2 million per year, but might improve safety since fewer fatigued workers would be on the job. Additionally, more alert workers would make fewer mistakes, leading to less rework to fix problems.

Engineering maintenance

$1.9 million is needed to increase maintenance performed on the fleet of buses and trains.

Rail grinding

Worn-out rails have speed restrictions and increase the likelihood of wheel or rail failures. An additional $2.7 million would improve fleet reliability and on-time performance.

Radio maintenance

Metro has had some public failures of its radio system, and $1.4 million is needed to improve the radio reception throughout the system.

All of these choices are improvements compared to the baseline service Metro offers today, so $55 million of the $121 million shortfall shouldn't factor in as a "deficit," but rather as the cost of improvements that staff are looking at recommending.

The next step in for WMATA's General Manager, Richard Sarles, to propose a new budget in January, and some of these improvements could be funded by local jurisdictions or fare increases. The actual deficit for the current service is $66 million, which could be covered by a modest increase in fares in the new budget, similar to the rate of inflation since the last fare increase.

Raising rail fares

There were two fairly standard increases proposed for Metrorail fares. The first is a fairly familiar increase where peak fares increase by the rate of inflation, which would be about 10 cents for the base fare and increases in the distance-based fares. The new maximum fare for peak of the peak with a paper farecard would be $6, up from $5.45 today.

As part of this option, Metro is proposing increasing off-peak fares by about 50%, setting them to 75% of the equivalent peak fare instead of the current three-tier system. This option would raise about $57 million and might reduce ridership by about 3 million trips per year, about 1.3%.

Another option for adjusting rail fares would be to increase only the off-peak fares. In this option, the off-peak fare would increase to 90% of the peak rail fare, and the peak fares would be kept the same.

Some board members expressed some concern that by reducing the difference in fares, customers would no longer be driven by price to avoid the busiest peak times. One board member pointed out that the revenue increases might be reduced by the cost increase of increased congestion during peak times.

Another drawback with this option is that it eliminates the long-standing Metro policy of selling less crowded off-peak service at a discount in an effort to spur ridership and promote transit use even when the roads are not as crowded. This option would raise about $48 million and might reduce ridership by 1.6 million trips per year.

Parking fees

Metro addressed parking fees by proposing an across-the-board $0.25 increase, as well as demand-based adjustments to reserved parking permit fees. For lots that have low usage, Metro would reduce the reserved permit fee. For high usage lots, Metro would be allowed to increase the number of reserved permits from about 15% of spaces to about 30% of spaces. Part of this option would be to reduce the fee for bicycle lockers to $120 based on low demand for lockers. This option estimates $3.4 million in revenue and 100,000 lost riders.

Two-zone farecard system

The last option is the most interesting, and is the largest change from existing policy. The peak of the peak fare would be eliminated, though it's not clear whether this means a 20 cent reduction in peak of peak fares, or a 20 cent increase in peak fares.

Possible core zone. Image from WMATA.

For paper farecards, the existing time-based and three-tier distance based fare would be replaced with a simplified and expensive two zone system, where riders would pay $3 for trips within a central zone and all other trips would be $6. It's not clear whether trips completely outside the zone would also be $6, which would be strange for some short trips like East Falls Church to Clarendon.

Board Members Jeff McKay of Fairfax County and Mary Hynes of Arlington voiced some apprehension about this plan, pointing out that many visitors to the area stay in hotels just outside of the central zone boundary, and especially that Arlington would likely oppose a plan where almost all Arlington riders would pay $6 with a paper farecard for trips that are about $2 today.

The fare ideas kick off a process that will see an official proposal by the General Manager in January. The next step will be the board's decision to send fare increase proposals to public hearings in the Spring. Final approval of a fare increase would probably come in late June.

Currently, the paper rail passes are not very popular because they are inconvenient to purchase and cannot be used to pay for parking or bus trips. The paper rail passes are about 1-2% of Metrorail transactions. By making the passes more convenient, more customers may take advantage of this discount.

The passes will only work for rail trips, and do not allow customers to receive a discount on transfers to or from the region's bus systems, including Metrobus. The Smart Pass proposal would change the pass to monthly, allow customers to choose how much to pay for their pass, and would work on bus or rail flexibly. The amount the customer pays for a Smart Pass would determine what kinds of trips the pass will cover.

Metro recently rolled out to all riders the ability to add value to a SmarTrip card online. Another upgrade still in the works is "autoload," where a rider can put a credit card into the system and have it automatically charged each time the SmarTrip value gets low, like you can with E-ZPass.

Are there places you know that could use more bike parking? Maybe a “Rack Attack” could come to your neighborhood soon. DDOT installs about 250 bike racks a year and takes requests from the business community for possible locations. Post your suggestions in the comments and we'll get the nominations to DDOT.

Check out the full set of photos provided by DDOT.