WMATA was discovered sitting on a vast heap of money and "social progressives" saw an opportunity to eviscerate the capital budget for social engineering purposes and did so. It paid off handsomely until the past due repair budget and the original planning horizon caught up with us.

The origins of our problem are neither unique, nor unanticipated. Having elected officials on the WMATA board, with minority veto power is colossally stupid ideal.

by ahk on Oct 26, 2011 10:31 am • link • report

@ahk

What exactly are you referring to?

Also, your comment doesn't relate to the question Metro's Board has to take up tomorrow, other than that you seem to think the Board as constituted won't be able to effectively address its challenges or make a coherent choice.

by jnb on Oct 26, 2011 10:43 am • link • report

Of course WMATA should be advocating for more lines. What entity is modest about its growth potential. Especially within the Beltway, but also outside, there is no more space for more roads. Metro and bus are the only way to keep people moving around the area. It's a no-brainer.

Which means that WMATA will probably chicken out.

by Jasper on Oct 26, 2011 10:43 am • link • report

What is ahk talking about now? That post made no sense.

by Terri on Oct 26, 2011 10:48 am • link • report

Virginia Arlington has the Columbia Pike Streetcar and the Crystal City-Potomac Yard transitway (and few transit projects farther out, thanks to a lack of vision from state officials).

Fixed. Yes, I know the CP streetcar has a short segment in Fairfax, and the CC-PY transitway has a segment in Alexandria City, but without Arlington's leadership those projects wouldn't have happened.

by Michael Perkins on Oct 26, 2011 10:51 am • link • report

"lack of vision from state officials"

Again, the jihad agaist McDonnel.

What is going to kill transit in Virginia is the cost of the Silver Line. $8 billion for a 20 mile rail line that you've already paid for the land. Insane.

I don't see state officals blowing this lead. It is Fairfax officals.

More to the point, what I don't see here is a coherent argument for WMATA leadership. If I was being snarky, I'd say WMATA could hire David to draw fantasy maps.

Should the job of posting uptopian transit visions be the job of WMATA? Politicans? Interest groups?

I'd rather see the WMATA board focus on cutting down MetroAccess, fixing the pension issue, and getting everyday maintainace and customer service to be the prime focus of the organization.

I beleive AHK is referring to WMATA hiring black people.

by charlie on Oct 26, 2011 11:03 am • link • report

Moscow, on the other hand, wants to build 150km of subways, revamp its tram system, and switch to an S-Bahn model of commuter rail.

Will it take a long-term crisis like the one there to make DC take the same bold steps?

by Neil Flanagan on Oct 26, 2011 11:03 am • link • report

I'm having issues opening up the fantasy map. I tried both IE and Firefox. Anyone else having problems?

by Nicoli on Oct 26, 2011 11:37 am • link • report

That's honestly what I've been saying needs to happen. We're still using the original WMATA plan as a framework for our regional transit and few lines have been proposed (outside of an extension to Woodbridge, etc).

Our core lines are at-or-nearing capacity. Certain stations are becoming dangerously crowded at rush hour because of the influx of riders. I'm almost afraid of plans to add more TOD because of the impact it might have on the system if core lines aren't expanded.

WMATA should just make a "desired" map and put it in stations. Have riders decide which lines they would like to see built and encourage them press officials to put in funding. If John Q. Public sees that he could take a rail line directly home some day instead of a train and two buses, he might be inclined to support WMATA more.

by John M on Oct 26, 2011 11:40 am • link • report

Nicoli: Oops, I've fixed the link.

by David Alpert on Oct 26, 2011 11:40 am • link • report

A shame Weese's plan was never considered. A Red Line that connected Northwest with Southeast would have been much more equitable and convenient, as would have been his crosstown route.

by Omar on Oct 26, 2011 12:07 pm • link • report

My very quick 2 cents- I'd think WMATA should actually be a bit more of an operator. However, I do believe regional planning needs to be strengthened- I'd definitely like to see the TPB/MWCOG the strengthened in otherwise much the same way described in this article. I think they're better suited to coordinate modes beyond just what is within WMATA's scope, but ensuring that WMATA has a pretty big seat at the table.

by Bossi on Oct 26, 2011 12:09 pm • link • report

@charlie: I really have to agree - I fault Fairfax County officials a lot for their narrowness of vision. How long has it been since plans for Fort Belvoir were announced? If they had pushed the issue nearly as much as they should have, we'd be a lot further along in the planning of: Metro to Woodbridge, maybe? Perhaps expanded VRE capacity? Both? Who knows? Instead we've been scrambling for the past year. Hell, look at how long it's taken to get any transit-friendly development into the Huntington area. It's quite depressing, actually, to think that the whole neighborhood could have been redeveloped a lot sooner than it was.

@Neil Flanagan: See also Saint Petersburg - and their metro's deeper than ours, if I recall correctly, due to unstable ground.

by Ser Amantio di Nicolao on Oct 26, 2011 12:23 pm • link • report

What I believe we need most is a seperated line in the city's core.

It will help local DC commuters acess important areas of the city quickly and safely, while getting more cars off the road.

MD and VA commuters benefit by releasing the pressure off of the other lines during rush hour (however, due to induced demand, the extra capacity will not last forever).

It will also help WMATA perform more regular maintence when there are other lines that still get you where you need to go.

But will MD and VA taxpayers be willing to foot the bill for a new line just within DC borders? I have little faith.

by cmc on Oct 26, 2011 12:29 pm • link • report

The board should choose to make their agency a leader,

To the extent that management time and other resources are constrained, forcing a tradeoff between WMATA being more of a "leader" or an "operator, I would rather see WMATA as a better operator.

Sure, being a "leader" is a lot more sexy than being an "operator" but sometimes better focus on the basics is what wins the game.

by Falls Church on Oct 26, 2011 1:01 pm • link • report

Btw, I don't mean to say that leadership is not needed on coordinating regional transit, rather that WMATA has its hands full with getting the trains to run on time. Perhaps there are other regional organizations that have the bandwith to take the leadership role.

by Falls Church on Oct 26, 2011 1:05 pm • link • report

D.C. needs at least one possibly more cross-city lines but is very unlikely to get them in the near future as spending of all types is being scuttled by the bad economy and spending on public transit is being demonized as big government socialism (their words, not mine).

In the mean time, lets concentrate on more immediately realizable goals like the streetcar lines and expansion of CaBi.

by Andrew on Oct 26, 2011 1:23 pm • link • report

>>> and few transit projects farther out, thanks to a lack of vision from state officials <<<

These constant attacks on Virginia officials is irritating. Virginia has shown both innovation and restraint in equal measures it seems to me. Urban planners love to spend other people's money on transit projects that don't self-support. Virginia voters are smarter and have what they want to date. For, it is up to them in the end. GGW seems to forget that attacks on Virginia are an attack on all who live here.

Arlington, Fairfax, Norfolk & Richmond all have innovation in their planning for transportation...these places all happen to be in Virginia.

by Pelham1861 on Oct 26, 2011 3:09 pm • link • report

Sometimes David 'courage' as you put it...is to do nothing new but look at what you've got and make it better.

by Pelham1861 on Oct 26, 2011 3:11 pm • link • report

@Pelham1861

Considering it takes 20 years for major transit plans (really major transportation plans in general) to come to fruition we must always be thinking about what our future needs will be and how we can address those needs.

You can do that AND improve what you've got at the same time. But if you do nothing you'll wake up in 20 years with your transportation system packed to the gills and no way of dealing with it.

by MLD on Oct 26, 2011 3:47 pm • link • report

Sure, being a "leader" is a lot more sexy than being an "operator" but sometimes better focus on the basics is what wins the game.

I think that one can follow the other.

Take, for instance, the planning and construction of the Silver Line. Back when it was planned, public confidence in WMATA was completely shot, and MWAA were selected to build the line instead.

In the meantime, WMATA have seriously cleaned up their image (and although things suck at the moment, that's primarily due to the fact that they actually *are* working through the maintenance backlog), and it's becoming increasingly obvious that it was a big mistake to allow another agency to lead the project.

And, in fact, WMATA did show a bit of leadership by demanding changes to the Silver Line that would make it easier/cheaper to operate, maintain, and expand in the long run, despite some up-front costs at first (concrete railties being the biggest no-brainer). Sadly, we're still building the signaling system below the standards of what was used throughout the rest of the system, and minimum headways will be quite a bit longer.

Things like the Plan It Metro blog show that WMATA do indeed have planners with a vision and ambition to plan for the future. Unfortunately, I don't see Metro's leadership coordinating or publicly supporting these efforts.

by andrew on Oct 26, 2011 4:22 pm • link • report

In Germany public transportation is typically planned for a region by a transportation organizing agency often known as the Verkehrsverbund. They are responsible for planning schedules, fares, capital investment in new lines, etc. They do not, however, run the lines - rather they contract these out to companies (some of which are partially or totally government owned ).

This structure allows the Verkehrsverbund to put market pressure on the individual operators, without sacrificing the value of the a co-ordinated regional system. In Stuttgart, for example, the VVS contracts out with the German national railway to run the commuter rail and s-bahn lines, with the Stuttgarter Strassenbahnen to run the light-rail (former tram) system and many of the busses, and with many legacy small bus companies to run various bus lines (41 in all). They all accept the same tickets and have a coordinated schedule. It is to the VVS to which government subsidies flow and to which the income from tickets flows.

Adopting such a structure for the Washington area would be like dividing up WMATA into a planning agency (that holds the purse strings and plans the transportation) and an operating agency (that runs the trains and buses pays the drivers etc.).

by egk on Oct 26, 2011 4:40 pm • link • report

FWIW, while I think that WMATA should be progressive and a leader, at the same time the MPO should be the primary transportation planner for the metropolitan area.

As an operator, WMATA will always satisfice network breadth and depth for budgetary reasons. And anyway the focus should be on the best service, regardless of mode. For obvious reasons, WMATA's focus is on heavy rail and buses, and maybe as a contract operator of light rail and streetcars.

In theory that's what the MPO needs, and you need to write an entry calling for all of what you wrote here about leadership for them and the MWCOG.

I have a presentation on the subject which I gave at the U of Delaware a couple years ago, although it needs some expansion-extension with regard to high frequency networks as a subnetwork concept.

- http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2011/01/without-right-transportation-planning.html

There is no question that WMATA needs to be much more forthcoming in terms of its public personae and planning operation--which has been eviscerated over the years with repeated budget cuts, but still does some pretty good work regardless.

A couple years ago I wrote this particular entry on that issue:

- http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2009/11/st-louis-regional-transit-planning.html

by Richard Layman on Oct 26, 2011 4:48 pm • link • report

Fairfax County DOT has been working on transit planning for years to take advantage of bus, rail and TOD. The County realizes that WMATA is one of the most incompetent and expensive agencies in the nation. After all, no one objected when MWAA was asked to construct Dulles Rail, rather than WMATA. Fairfax County is more likely to get a good result working on its own and with nearby Virginia jurisdictions (e.g., Arlington and Loudoun Counties) than by working through WMATA.

by tmtfairfax on Oct 26, 2011 5:58 pm • link • report

@tmtfairfax;

WMATA no longer has the in house engineering and construction staff to design and manage a project of this size. As construction on the originally planned 101 system wound down WMATA virtually gutted that staff from the agency to cut costs.

There also is the issues of the fact that this project was conceived, planned and executed under the Virginia Public Private Transportation Act.

by Sand Box John on Oct 27, 2011 10:00 am • link • report

re Sand Box John's comment. Yep, in 2003 WMATA gutted the engineering and construction staff, and expansion ideas (such as the separated blue line) and responsibility for expansion planning was devolved to the separate jurisdictions. This is problematic because the jurisdictions, working separately, don't plan for the impact of expansions on the entire system. The Silver Line is a perfect example. It should have been used to jumpstart the separated blue line to and in DC but this wasn't done, because it's not VA's responsibility in the new planning regime.

-- "Coming to a Curve: Region's Subway System Begins to Show Its Age, Limits" By Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post, March 25, 2001; Page A01

--"Crowds Could Derail Decades of Progress," By Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post, March 26, 2001; Page A01

-- "Metro Construction Projects Creak to Halt; Economic, Political Changes Cancel Expansion Plans, Spur Job Cuts, Early Retirements," Lyndsey Layton. Washington Post, July 13, 2003. pg. C.01

by Richard Layman on Oct 27, 2011 11:51 am • link • report

@MLD:
It takes 20 years for major transportation plans... except for when it doesn't. Shanghai's Metro was planned in 1990, opened first service in 1995, and is today the largest subway system in the world.

The US used to be known for engineering projects with audacity. That was our thing. I find it disturbing that despite a ten-fold increase in construction productivity since that age, we've developed this sense of bureaucratic fatalism about engineering projects. We went to the moon in less time. We've built a city in Iraq while *under mortar fire* in the time it allegedly takes us to draft plans for a subway station.

by Squalish on Oct 27, 2011 12:05 pm • link • report

Squalish: Too much ability for small groups of people to stop projects today, maybe? Today a few determined people can tie up a project for years in the courts. Maybe too much economic isolation. Too much of the tax base has fled the inner cities, and suburbanites don't really see what's in it for them to foot the bill. In most of the world, the tax base is still in the cities, in the U.S., it's largely in the 'burbs, where the car is king. That wasn't the case back in the first half of the 20th century when cities like Boston and NYC were building their subways.

by Sandy on Oct 27, 2011 12:29 pm • link • report

Squalish,: Everything I have read suggests that the US construction industry really hasn't made much progress in terms of productivity. Is there something else you're referring too?

Richard and others: Does anyone feel like 9/11 killed the separated blue line plans? I recall it being one of the big topics (along with Chandra Levy) right before the attacks.

by Neil Flanagan on Oct 27, 2011 12:55 pm • link • report

Please don't overlook the critical importance of the $2 billion dollar, 14.5 mile Red Line in Baltimore. In addition to the other worthy projects you mention, Baltimore's new light rail project has the potential to amplify connectivity across the city, county, and, ultimately, our entire Baltimore-Washington metro region. Absolutely yes, we do need more courageous, more visionary regional transportation leadership, in order to get the most benefit from all of these projects. Now is the time to think big. We might not have an opportunity this ripe for another generation.

by Robbyn Lewis at Red Line Now PAC on Oct 27, 2011 1:27 pm • link • report

@ Sand Box John
Thanks for the information. The downsizing slipped my mind. However, there is great dissatisfaction with WMATA's management controls among many Fairfax County officials. I still think MWAA would have gotten the job to build the Silver Line had WMATA still had the staff.
Fairfax County DOT is heads and shoulders above WMATA any day.

@ Richard Layman
I don't see further expansion of Metrorail in NoVA beyond the completion of the Silver Line to Dulles because of the high cost and relatively low modal splits expected from that line. I expect Loudoun County to bail on the extension beyond the Airport. The Silver Line stations themselves will be bare bones, e.g., the chicken wire sides covered walkways. People, including the Tysons landowners, hate the elevated line. It's going to take a long time before the Silver Line is loved.

by tmtfairfax on Oct 27, 2011 2:30 pm • link • report

Neal -- interesting point. If anything, 9/11 should have increased the desire for the separated blue line, because if anything, 9/11 proved the necessity of having back up ("redundancy") transit services downtown, especially because it's a two track system. What do you do if Metro Center goes down?

But what relative newcomers do forget, so I would argue that 9/11 did make a difference but for different reasons, is that the post 9/11 drop in international tourism in the region crushed the local economies for about 3 years or so (not for the homeland security sector, which mostly benefits Virginia).

This impacted local funding for WMATA, and led in all likelihood, to the budget reductions, elimination (mostly) of the engineering and construction dept., and the devolving of expansion responsibility to the jurisdictions.

tmtfairfax -- your point is all the more reason for having metropolitan transportation-transit planning as opposed to WMATA-led transit planning (see my first comment above, which unintentionally echoes egk's post about Germany, which I didn't know about, but is the kind of planning regime that I advocate_).

by Richard Layman on Oct 27, 2011 5:39 pm • link • report

@ Richard Layman. I see your argument for a different transit planner than WMATA.
Virginia's 527 Traffic Impact Analysis, which considers transit and TDM, as well as roads, demonstrates the importance of coordinating all of these elements. The law is forcing better decision making than local governments would prefer to make. The law makes it much harder to give the developers whatever they want and then blame VDOT for traffic problems.
The biggest problem with Dulles Rail is that it stopped being about transportation many years ago. It was hijacked to become just a means for granting massive increases in density to the Tysons landowners. The 527 TIA process and some hard work by a number of people and organizations forced (and Gerry Connolly's election to Congress) forced Fairfax County to make sensible land use decisions for Tysons. The remaining problem is that Dulles Rail remains incredibly expensive with no good ways to pay for it. The public is starting to realize the impact of rail on DTR tolls and is rebelling. The costs of necessary and related road improvements and other bus transit will soon pass $2 billion. Tysons and Dulles Rail show the importance of keeping transportation projects about moving people and goods efficiently and safely and not about some landowners' get rich scheme. I sense the CTB's approval of the Tri-County Parkway as a similar scheme - helping landowners make money, rather than a key transportation project.

by tmtfairfax on Oct 27, 2011 5:54 pm • link • report

i'll look into it. Sounds interesting. Thanks.

e.g., this, http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/resources/527presentation02-07-08.pdf

- http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/chapter527/default.asp

by Richard Layman on Oct 27, 2011 6:59 pm • link • report

The remaining problem is that Dulles Rail remains incredibly expensive with no good ways to pay for it. The public is starting to realize the impact of rail on DTR tolls and is rebelling.

That's only because the General Assembly thought they could get "something for nothing" by shifting the project from the state to MWAA. If you want to blame someone, look no further than your state delegate/senator.

by Froggie on Oct 31, 2011 1:09 pm • link • report

Besides all the problems Metro has been unable to address with the rail system one has to ask how closely the current Metro rail system resembles what was approved and planned in the 1960s. The original system was to be highly automated so that trains would literally stop on a dime and longer trains could use the whole platform. As the region becomes denser and ridership increases decade to decade it does not seem possible that the system can continue to operate manually and with short trains. The stations were designed to be long so long trains could be used. Metro would begin to build confidence again if all Metro planning, contract, and spending documents were freely accessible to the public with security information excluded of course. For some time the system has not appeared to be meeting the planner's goals.

by Alex on Jan 27, 2012 7:35 am • link • report