40 Maryland leaders speak against cuts to late-night Metro

Forty elected officials, primarily from Montgomery County, sent a letter criticizing Metro’s proposal to permanently end late-night service. But a few officials are conspicuously missing, like County Executive Ike Leggett and County Council transportation committee chair Roger Berliner.

During SafeTrack, Metro has suspended service after midnight. In July, WMATA General Manager Paul Wiedefeld announced that he would propose a permanent closing time of midnight Fridays and Saturdays and 10 pm on Sundays. He said this is necessary to free up more track time for maintenance on an ongoing basis. Right now, this is still just a proposal before the WMATA Board.

In the letter, these 40 leaders state for the record that they are “extremely concerned about the long-term effect of … service changes.”

Why the region needs late-night Metro

Just as many commuters use the system during rush hour, many shift workers — like Michelle Douglas, found by Washingtonian on a Green Line platform at 2 am — are dependent on Metrorail to catch a safe ride home at the end of their day’s work. The letter also points out that nightlife venues in DC are open later than neighboring jurisdictions, and “a reduction in hours may lead some to make less responsible choices.”

Jurisdictions in the region have increasingly invested in transit-oriented development to expand accessibility in our region through long-distance, intra-state rail service. Decades of planning and economic development effort have been tied irrevocably in the system, and the letter argues that “for these transit-oriented developments to reach their potential, the transit in TOD cannot just be a commuter system to get workers to and from office buildings for 9-5 jobs, but a ‘lifestyle system’ that allows for reliable transportation for recreation and non-traditional work hours.”

The letter further warns of a potential “death spiral” on the land use side of the equation if WMATA makes its service decision in a silo, because “we cannot expect people to fill the mixed use developments around Metro if it is no more convenient than living in other, less costly communities.” Long term, there are inevitable implications for Metrorail ridership as well.

No, Uber and Lyft are not an alternative for all

The cost of adapting to a world with no late-night Metrorail service is not distributed equally — far from it. Those who are harmed most can least afford to cope. The letter devotes its longest paragraph to debunking the idea that ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft can pick up the slack, as Montgomery County Councilmember Roger Berliner (whose district includes the Bethesda Metro station) asserted in July.

“The people that are going to Peter Chang’s are, in my judgment, people who can probably afford an Uber ride,” said Berliner, while acknowledging the negative impact for late-night workers. Berliner argued these impacts are outweighed by “concerns about the economic impacts of a system not operating as it must.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that Berliner is not a signatory to the letter. Neither are county councilmembers Sidney Katz, Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal, or Craig Rice, though all were offered the opportunity to sign on. County Executive Ike Leggett also declined.

Reached for comment, Floreen echoed Berliner’s concerns about the overwhelming need to prioritize maintenance, even after SafeTrack, over any other concern. More fundamentally, CM Floreen said that she “trusts WMATA to make decisions” after crunching the data to provide the best service possible within constraints, such as maintenance.

There are two issues at play. The first is whether there is truly no other way for WMATA to maintain the system but to end late-night service. We have questioned many common assumptions about Metrorail maintenance, and the Federal Transit Administration’s assessment of WMATA’s maintenance practices was, to say the least, not a basis to inspire confidence. Why do regional leaders like Berliner and Floreen accept this status quo as a foundation for service provision?

The second issue is how inequitable impacts are weighed in a decision-making process. Do we understand the impact of the end of late-night service on suburban TODs and late-night workers in economic terms? And how are those impacts weighed against other constraints on the system?

Berliner sees them as “equal.” I see a dystopian vision of the future for the region to assert that only those who can afford car service should be able to travel outside of peak hours. We need to take the time to have these conversations before any final decision is made about late-night service. While not a signatory to the letter, Floreen emphasized that “we need to evaluate fundamental assumptions.”

The future of regional transit hinges on whether our leadership can unite and advocate for a robust system. We’ve argued that late-night service is a part of this, and over 2,800 readers agreed strongly enough to take action through Greater Greater Washington to say so directly to their WMATA board representatives.

But until our leaders listen, and then speak with one voice, the state legislatures and governors that hold the keys to dedicated funding for Metro do not have to. The current funding is simply an accurate reflection of ambivalence from our own leaders about whether we really, actually, even need Metro all that much.

A note about comment from Prince George’s County officials: Outreach for the letter was limited to the state delegation — as a municipal elected official in the county, I have personally undertaken to organize a followup letter with outreach to our county executive, county council, and municipal officials.