Put this comment in the category of "a framing fact," not a "view".

Metro's revenues are about half its costs. If aggregate costs go up each year by 2-3% ... which they do, inclusive of labor agreements, energy costs, etc....then simple math tells you that revenues have to grow each year by twice that amount if what you want to do is keep jurisdictional subsidy levels constant.

The number resulting from this arithmetic is in the 10s of millions each year, and exists separate and apart from any added services, increasing paratransit costs, etc.

One point: Holding the line on subsidy contributions from the jurisdictions pushes all the burden of this dynamic onto fares and service reductions.

Two point: This is a long-term issue that requires a long-term operating funding understanding and agreement, not just a fix for this year or next year. The point only gets sharper as the region considers adding needed new transit services.

by bohemian on Feb 25, 2010 11:20 am  

I think it's a good idea to charge extra for the Bus to Dulles or BWI, but why doesn't Metro add a surcharge for using Metro Rail at Reagan National Aiport Metro station. That's what SF's BART does. Seems like a good way to way some extra cash on people who are using the extremely useful station.

by Dan on Feb 25, 2010 11:32 am  

@Dan
agreed on the airport. $6 is still quite a deal to get to the airport compared to other methods. Parking for just one day will cost you more then that.

However it is sad when 90 mil of service increases only cut your deficent in half. It is completly unfair and unacceptable in my opinion to both raise fairs, and at the same time provide less service.

by Matt R on Feb 25, 2010 11:39 am  

Thoughts on the National airport charge...what about the daily wage-workers who rely on metro to get there? How are they any different than the rest of us who use the system to get to work? It isn't fair to charge them extra $ because they happen to have a job at the airport.

by Matt Glazewski on Feb 25, 2010 11:57 am  

I fail to see how increasing the bicycle locker storage fee 186% is beneficial to Mr. Klein's move to decrease automobile traffic. Sure you can still utilize the free bicycle racks (running the risk that you'll return to part or all of your bicycle stolen), but this seems an absurd increase; more than twice that of any other increase on the board.

Is there actually that long of a waiting list for bicyclists waiting for a locker to open that WMATA can justify this fee increase while maintaining the same number of customers?

by Scott on Feb 25, 2010 12:00 pm  

Well, in the case of BWI, charging $6.10 for the B30 means that the Penn Line is now faster and cheaper, and slightly more reliable depending on parkway traffic and the average Penn line delay, depending on where you're coming from. I don't know if that's good or bad.

by Mike on Feb 25, 2010 12:01 pm  

@Matt: After BART hiked the SFO surcharges again, it came to the point that SFO began running employee shuttles from Millbrae after wage workers complained about the commute being too much. If DCA's going to be surcharged, do it within reason.

@Mike: I think hiking the B30 fare that much is near-suicide, especially on the weekdays (and since MARC seems to be allergic, and may be legally limited, to fare increases, it makes the matter worse). I'd say that $4.00 might be a happier medium rather than jacking it up that high for both BWI and Dulles.

by Jason on Feb 25, 2010 12:15 pm  

@ Scott Some stations have open lockers, and some having waiting lists. I don't see why they can't implement variable pricing. Charge more at stations with waiting lists.

I still don't get why parking is completely off the table. Outer lots fill up every day. An extra $.50 would generate much more revenue than the bike lockers.

by jcm on Feb 25, 2010 12:23 pm  

No wonder we're broke...you need to be an accountant to figure out that fare structure.

Simplify man.

by Redline SOS on Feb 25, 2010 12:25 pm  

I dunno that hiking B30's fare would be suicide ... there are still more B30 buses than Penn Line train departures (25 vs. 20), and MARC does not run ANY trains on weekends and holidays. Plus, Greenbelt has slightly less parking-area crime than New Carrollton, and for some of us, Greenbelt is just plain more convenient. (Remember, MARC does not run from Greenbelt to BWI.)

by Greenbelt Gal on Feb 25, 2010 12:33 pm  

Not sure you could fully compare BART's surcharge for SFO to Metro's lack of surcharge at National. For starters, SFO is a terminus point on weekdays...as such, BART can get away with adding a surcharge for those trains. Not so the case with National, where there are several Metro stations south of the airport.

by Froggie on Feb 25, 2010 12:35 pm  

Until the bicycle parking looks like this (http://www.processedworld.com/carlsson/nowtopian/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/valet-bike-parking_9515.jpg), a 186% increase in bicycle parking fees is unreasonable. I'm guessing the wait time for these full lockers will drop quickly.

I don't have any comparison numbers, but I'm sure a 50-cent auto parking fee increase, even in just one parking lot such as Greenbelt, would more than cover the cost of increase in bicycle locker fees.

by Scott on Feb 25, 2010 12:38 pm  

The peak period revenue boost is the big one. Rather than a 15% increase across the board, taking this to 20% peak should allow a substantial reduction in the off-peak and bus increases.

by James D on Feb 25, 2010 12:40 pm  

@Scott,
I tend to agree with you that parking fees for cars should be increased over bike parking.

However, Greenbelt is a bad example. The parking lot at Greenbelt does not fill up today. Neither do College Park or Prince George's Plaza. An increase in parking fees at Greenbelt would probably just shift riders to other stations. College Park, especially, is fairly accessible from Greenbelt Station via Kenilworth Avenue and Paint Branch Parkway.

by Matt Johnson on Feb 25, 2010 12:42 pm  

@bohemian; aggregate costs this year (and most years) are going up at a much higher rate. Heath care- 8%. Pension contributions -- up 24%. I can see why the insurance and liability for the Red Line accidents are one time events, and perhaps the pension contribution is also a one time (or rare event) depending on the stock market. But nobody is going to accept an 8% rate increase every year, which is much higher than measured rates of inflation (0% this year?)

@jcm; I am not sure the answer is increasing parking rates, but maybe building more parking lots so you can squeeze more customers on the trains.

I think we need to take a look at more radical solutions, such as closing down 90% of Metro buses and letting independent jurisdictions provide bus transit. We also need to kill this Metro Access boondoggle. $100 million to provide 2.1 million trips. $50 a trip. How many customers -- maybe no more than 10,000 a year? Better ways to serve the disabled.

by charlie on Feb 25, 2010 12:49 pm  

According to this page WMATA parks about 50K cars per day. An extra quarter per day parking should generate in excess of $50K per week. That's an order of magnitude more than the bike locker increase is going to generate.

by jcm on Feb 25, 2010 12:56 pm  

A better idea IMO would be to implement some sort of "performance parking" for the Metro station parking areas.

by Froggie on Feb 25, 2010 1:06 pm  

The sentement here seems to be to overcharge cars and not bikers. What makes the bike so much better then the car in this case? We should be happy that all those drives have infact chosen to drive to the metro rather then drive to work. They infact are doing the right thing here.

by Matt R on Feb 25, 2010 1:16 pm  

It is a horrible idea to charge $6.00 for the 5A. According to the latest numbers from Fairfax County, 64% of 5A users are commuters. The 5A is already one of the top three routes in terms of cost recovery (53% in 2007), meaning that these commuters will now be paying more than 100% of the cost of their transport, compared to 25% across the rest of the metrobus network. The 5A not just an airport bus, it is a vital transit route like many others in the area.

by Zach W on Feb 25, 2010 1:19 pm  

These days I usually take the Metro from College Park rather than Greenbelt, but when I used to go to Greenbelt, the parking lot was still pretty darn close to full most mornings. Hiking to and from the back corner of that huge lot, especially in lousy weather, got old pretty fast. (I switched to College Park when the garage opened there.) We'll get more parking pressure on those two Green Line stations when tourist season starts up again.

Incidentally, federal law REQUIRES Metro to provide the MetroAccess service, so we're stuck with that.

by Greenbelt Gal on Feb 25, 2010 1:21 pm  

@Greenbelt Gal
Federal law requires that Metro provide paratransit service to the service area. They only have to provide paratransit to a 3/4 mile radius from subway stations and bus stops during the span of service for a given route.

Instead, Metro provides Metro Access service for a much larger portion of the region.

by Matt Johnson on Feb 25, 2010 1:23 pm  

@Matt R Why is anything more than $5 "overcharging" cars. The lots are full, there's some elasticity, so why not charge more? Same for bikes - if the lockers are full and the demand is there, by all means raise the price.

I just don't understand why car parking isn't even in the discussion. I use a car at metro in winter, and a bike in summer, so they get me coming and going, and I'm not on some kind of anti-car jihad. I just don't get leaving millions of dollars off the table when everything else is open for debate.

by jcm on Feb 25, 2010 1:45 pm  

As daily rider of the 5A, I am concerned that WMATA and (several commenters on here) think that the route is only for air travelers to and from Dulles.  My current job assignment is at the airport and from my place in Arlington, the 5A is the only way to access it via public transportation.  Please be aware that this route was created ten years ago to give those in DC and inner suburbs access to jobs at Dulles and to not just be an airport shuttle.

While I find the "soak the tourists" attitude disturbing, may I suggest a compromise?  How about setting the cash fare at $5 or $6 while keeping the SmartTrip fare at standard express bus rate?  This way regular riders wouldn't see their costs double.

by Ollie on Feb 25, 2010 2:13 pm  

So the second biggest impact to ridership is the reduction of the free bus transfer from 3 to 2 hours? This doesn't sound right to me.

by Steven Yates on Feb 25, 2010 2:32 pm  

Is parking really not part of the discussion? That's absurd. My parking proposal is as follows: parking at each station is handled separately. Suppose there are N reserved parking spots at a given station. Accept bids for the appropriate time interval then rank them in order of the bid. The top N bids win, and all pay the Nth highest bid price. (This is what eBay's "Dutch auctions" do.) If there are fewer bids than spots, then all bidders get their reserved spots for free. Then set the daily price for the unreserved spots to something like 5% more than the reserved spot.

by thm on Feb 25, 2010 2:36 pm  

Hmmm ... let's look at some numbers using the proposed increased fare rates.

Say a family of four is coming into town to see a Wizards' game, and they intend to park their vehicle in the parking garage at the Vienna Metro Station and travel by Metrorail.

$19.00 (4 x $4.75; Metrorail [regular fare], Vienna to Gallery Place)
10.40 (4 x $2.60; Metrorail [reduced fare], Gallery Place to Vienna)
4.00 (Parking, 4 hours x $1/hour)

$33.40 Total

Yup. That's certainly going to induce folks to park their cars and ride the rails.

by Anonymous on Feb 25, 2010 2:51 pm  

@Anonymous: It's already a wash for the wife and I to ride from East Falls Church. Off-peak, it's about $4 round trip, each, total $8. Parking on the weekend can be found for free or meters for $2 an hour. Plus, we don't have to deal with BS headways like 15 minutes, and single tracking for maintenance. We already own a car and fuel costs are around 10 cents per mile, or around $2.00 for a round trip to DC.

Passes on smartrip will make those trips free, since they're in addition to my normal commute.

by Michael Perkins on Feb 25, 2010 3:07 pm  

Why is anything more than $5 "overcharging" cars. The lots are full, there's some elasticity, so why not charge more?

Because it's already almost a wash for someone driving from outer MD suburbia to park at a Metro station versus driving door-to-door downtown and parking at a garage. There's less eslasticity than you'd think at many stations, especially in PG County.

by Answer Guy on Feb 27, 2010 3:46 pm  

The lots in PG county aren't as full as the ones in Montgomery County or Fairfax. If Metro follows our advice, the rates wouldn't go up in PG county because most lots don't fill up.

If the lots fill up at $5.00, at $5.25, at $5.50, there's obviously enough demand to fill the lot. Don't know why it's worth it to people to pay $5.00 to park and then $7 round trip to ride Metro, maybe they can't get a space downtown at any price, maybe they don't like driving in the city, maybe the roads to the city are slower than taking Metro.

If they don't fill up at $4.50, then they won't fill up at $4.75 and raising the rates wouldn't be smart.

We don't have to figure out why people are willing to pay so much to park and ride metro, we just have to measure how many people are parking and adjust the prices accordingly.

by Michael Perkins on Feb 27, 2010 5:03 pm  

I'll start by saying I rarely post anything but this drives me absolutely insane.

I try to take the metro daily from Vienna to Farragut West (I work near Dupont Circle). In previous years you could get to Vienna before 8:30 and find a spot but that has been decreasing year after year. In the past couple months unless you get to the lot before 8:15 you're out of luck. Tens, if not hundreds, of cars can be seen going into the lot and coming back out. Or if they're running late they won't even bother to check. That's thousands of dollars a day down the tube for Metro (multiply by other full lots).

There are huge empty spaces behind the South lot that could be developed for parking. It costs me roughly $13/day to park and ride on Metro or $13/day just to park in my building downtown. Add that onto gas, car wear-and-tear, and the headache of driving all the way in (and constantly trying to watch 66's HOV restrictions to avoid nasty fines).

Develop the lots, make more money, make people happier. Seems simple to me.

by Alex T on Mar 9, 2010 11:17 pm  

The increase to the express busses of 20% wouldn't be so bad if they had not increased the fares by more than double about a year ago. It feels unfair that one segment of the populations should be squeezed so much.

I understand that fuel rates may contribute to the sharper increase for busses over rail, but it's really hard for the indivisual. I am lucky because my employer participates in smart trip, but for many on this route, that is not the case.

In discussions I have found that many on the J9 route work for employers who subsidize parking but not public transportation. A lot of those riders will take to the road once the fares go up. It will only add to the congestion and chaos of driving 270 during rush hour.

I realize that all services need revenue, but perhaps the burden could be more equally divided.

by Jseven on Jun 21, 2010 11:51 am