Budget
Metro should start publicly discussing next year's budget now
Riders packed Friday's Metro hearing, urging Metro to consider other alternatives to bus service cuts. Unfortunately for riders, the Board pre-rejected most of the alternatives before involving the public at all, and compressed the period for public involvement into a single week of hearings and less than a month in all. Next year, Metro will face a similar or even larger gap, and will surely have to raise fares. We need a better process that lets riders participate earlier and debate more alternatives.
Image from GOOD magazine.
MetroRiders.org, a group of transit advocates in the Washington region, sent the Board a letter last week arguing these points. The letter doesn't try to address the upcoming fiscal year that begins this June, because Metro is out of options. The Board still could transfer stimulus capital dollars to close the budget gap, but that would also be a controversial move, potentially robbing the system of needed maintenance. Meanwhile, the Board only offered one option for public hearings, and it's too late in the year to still hold hearings on any other potential cuts.
In fact, we never even heard most of the options. The Joint Coordinating Committee, composed of staff of member jurisdictions, created a report listing possible service cuts and how much we'd save by each. But except for a leak to the Post's Lena Sun, we never got to see that report. The Board also rejected all other options before asking the riders what they thought. The DC delegation's veto of a 10 5-cent across-the-board fare increase was the most widely reported, but it wasn't the only option that never made it to hearings. Increasing rail headways, closing mezzanines off-peak on stations with multiple entrances, and market rate parking are also off the table.
The best option of all, greater contributions by the member jurisdictions, was ruled out even earlier (though DC and Virginia did ultimately come up with more). The MetroRiders.org letter says, "Months ago the Contributing Jurisdictions signaled to WMATA that they did not want to increase their FY'10 operating budget subsidy totals to WMATA above the FY'09 level ($535 million) and this decision (without public input) was included in the WMATA General Manager's proposed budget as a 'given.'"
Next year, Metro will inevitably have to raise fares. Riders are already unhappy with the process this year, when the vast majority of riders won't see any substantial effect. When every rider will be paying more next year, they'll be even more upset if the Board waits until the last minute and then presents only one option. We can't do that again.
As soon as Metro finalizes its budget for the upcoming year (starting June 2009), they should immediately begin soliciting input on the following year's budget. They should release the staff's latest budget projections, and estimate what types of fare increases and/or service adjustments could close that gap. Finally, MetroRiders.org recommends they hold three "town hall" meetings, spread throughout the year. Metro should make it a regular practice every year to begin budget discussions early and hold periodic town halls. That way, riders will be able to weigh in early, and lobby their local governments to increase their contributions and protect this transportation service that's so vital to our region's economic prosperity and greatness.
 | David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.   |
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by Michael Perkins on Apr 20, 2009 12:21 pm • link • report
Am I the only one that thinks that Metrobus fares are lower than they should be and that the poor in (choose one: SE east of the Anacostia/Mount Pleasant) seem to be the only ones of concern when fare hikes happen?
by Jason on Apr 20, 2009 12:50 pm • link • report
by MPC on Apr 20, 2009 1:04 pm • link • report
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1769
Metrobus fares have been on a long-term downtrend since the 90's. To keep up with inflation, they should be about $1.50 today.
by Michael Perkins on Apr 20, 2009 1:04 pm • link • report
by Bossi on Apr 20, 2009 1:12 pm • link • report
We need a better process that lets riders participate earlier and debate more alternatives.
* Do we really?
* Does WMATA listen to public input?
* Does the public come up with reasonable alternatives? It's easy to say: 'Don't cut my line', but it's quite a bit harder to come up with a way to keep the line, and get rid of the deficit.
* How do we make sure public input just doesn't slow down inevitable decision making?
* How do we make sure that advocacy and lobby groups don't shout out the regular public?
Don't get me wrong. In in ideal world, public organizations listen to the public. However, in an ideal world, public organizations don't need that input because they take the best decisions anyway.
Meanwhile, back here on earth, I see a lot of opportunities for the public to react to plans, but rarely do I see public input change a plan. The question is whether it's worth the trouble?
@ Jason: Fare increases hurt everybody. A nickle per ride doesn't seem much, but it's 10 cents a day, or about $2.20 a month (assuming 22 work days). Furthermore, despite what metro says, fares rarely increase by a mere nickle.
In 2001, when I came to DC, I could get a rush-hour metro ride for a buck a pop, due to the 10% discount on $20 fare cards. These days, it's $1.65 per ride in rush hour. That's not a nickle more, but 13 nickles more per ride, 26 per day, 572 nickles per month, $14.30 per month extra. In short, a 65% price increase. And that's on a short ride. On long rides, it's more.
The Fairfax Connector recently upped it's pricing. I'll spare you the intricacies of their pricing scheme, but it suffices to say that in 2008, it cost me $1.35 per day (up and down with the bus), and now it's $2.00. Accidentally, that's 0.65 per day, or $14.30 per month extra for me. That's a 48% price increase.
And yes, I do notice that I need to refill my smartrip card faster. Remember metro has upped it'sp
Gas, in the mean time, has gone from roughly $1.50/gallon to $2.00/gallon, a 25% price increase.
Conclusion:
Despite metro's savings calculator, transit has lost the battle for money compared with driving a car.
by Jasper on Apr 20, 2009 1:35 pm • link • report
At the public hearing we attended, we were surprised to hear several people say they'd HAPPILY pay higher fares.
While we certainly agree with their motives, Metroriders.org needs to up their game. The last available survey is from 2005? Come on. We just tried to take the current survey and it errored out on us, as it has before.
by unsuckdcmetro on Apr 20, 2009 2:10 pm • link • report
Yes, fares may have risen at a faster rate than the price of gasoline, but that isn't the whole story. My girlfriend and I are selling our car because when I ride the train or the bus the cost is the fare and my time. When I drive the cost is gas, insurance, car payment, maintenance, registration and time. I can also use the time on the train or the bus constructively (I am a graduate student, so I read). That makes my time on the bus or train worth so much more than my time driving.
In short, fares vs. prices isn't even close to the whole story.
by Chris Seay on Apr 20, 2009 3:11 pm • link • report
Aside from that, I do believe that pricing does matter a lot for folks who are considering taking transit in stead of driving their cars. Increasing pricing does not help.
To get people to get out of their car, transit has to constantly show that it's faster, more convenient and hopefully cheaper.
It's not about convincing people who are already taking transit. It's the car folks you want to reach.
The disturbing thing is while people are getting out of their cars and into transit, transit organizations around the country are slashing service and increasing prices. This is incredibly stupid. I have no other word for it.
We (the people) need to convince our political leaders to increase transit funding so that it can maintain its growth.
by Jasper on Apr 20, 2009 3:43 pm • link • report
Why WMATA seems to be allergic to monthly passes amazes me...
@ Michael: In my ideal WMATA world, the fare would have been $1.50 last year. Most cities of Washington's size are at or above that figure. Baltimore's $1.60, Philadelphia's $2.00, NYC is probably going up to $2.50 soon. Even medium sized, low overall cost of living cities like Buffalo and Albany are at or above that mark.
I find it funny that my overall cost of transportation (largely bus with about $40-50 of Metrorail travel a month) is not that much higher than it would be if I stayed in the aforementioned Albany (monthly passes $65 after a recent mega-hike after 14 years of stable fares).
Given its nature, could a flat-fare Metro ever work?
by Jason on Apr 20, 2009 4:02 pm • link • report
I note that WMATA operations have run a $12 million surplus for FY 09 through February and WMATA projects a $9 million final surplus for FY 09. That $9 million could go a long way toward meeting that $13.6 million gap. See http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/board_of_directors/board_docs/040909_CompleteFebrurayReport.pdf
by kreeggo on Apr 20, 2009 5:07 pm • link • report
I think you have two problems: missing variables and simultaneity bias. The missing variables include access to transit, proximity to employment, shopping and other centers of interest, land prices, land use policies, etc.
The simultaneity problem occurs because many of these variables are jointly determined. For example, high land values (price) make intensive development (quantity) more profitable, while intensive development can affect land values in ways that depend on yet other variables.
Have you looked at the literature on this kind of problem?
by Chuck Coleman on Apr 20, 2009 8:43 pm • link • report
by Michael Perkins on Apr 21, 2009 1:01 pm • link • report
1. The system is really, really crowded, and increasing ridership only brings them the burden of having to deal with more passengers (rush hours only)
2. They constantly have to beg their funding jurisdictions for more money.
If anything, I forsee WMATA trying hard to get away from weekly/monthly passes (boo!) based on their cost. The only thing that's holding me back from getting a pass is the inconvenience. Once they're integrated with Smartrip, I expect a lot of people will get passes and WMATA will see a hit in revenue, forcing them to jack up the price of the pass to the point where it doesn't make financial sense anymore. That will essentially kill the pass, like they do with the day pass (it's only good on rail, after 9:30am, and it costs $7.80, which is a maximum distance afternoon ride plus two off-peak rides, hardly a good deal for most people).
by Michael Perkins on Apr 22, 2009 2:35 pm • link • report
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