Metro should release more budget-closing options

Later this month, Metro will release a specific suggestion for service reductions and fare increases to close its $175 million budget gap.

That will include $32.9 million in service cuts, $92.5 million in fare increases, and additional cuts in MetroAccess cost growth, staffing, and maintenance. That might be the best balance among the various components, but Metro shouldn’t simply come up with a single proposal. As riders and advocates have been requesting throughout the initial budget discussions, Metro should create a variety of proposals to balance the budget comprising different mixes of service cuts and fare increases.

Last night, the Riders’ Advisory Council (RAC) approved a letter asking Metro to propose multiple alternatives for closing the budget gap. The letter will come out as soon as some grammatical edits get in, but it asks staff to create, and the WMATA Board of Directors to approve for public hearings, different options. For example, riders might decide that they’re rather pay more in fare hikes than have cleaning cut so much that railcars and buses become regularly dirty. Or, they might prefer to tolerate the dirt to save money on fares.

A fare increase of 11-20% is painful, but what fare increase would be necessary to avoid service cuts altogether? How many service cuts would be necessary to avoid a fare increase beyond the regular cost of living increase? What mix of fare increases and service cuts would avoid deferring further maintenance, which just digs a deeper hole for the future? Just trading off among service cuts, how much worse would headways have to get to avoid completely eliminating bus service for anyone?

It’s terrific that Metro is considering the “peak of the peak” fare surcharge for the busiest times. There are additional fare possibilities that RAC members, advocates, and GGW contributors have raised. Whether the WMATA Board ultimately decides to adopt them or not, it would be valuable to know the potential revenue impact of each change. These include:

• Establish a SmarTrip discount on Metrorail. In effect this would mean a higher base fare for the paper cards, but a lower fare (though still higher than today) for SmarTrips. Since visitors mainly use the paper cards, this would give regular commuters and residents a slightly lower fare burden compared to others.
• Set the reserved parking fee to the level necessary to eliminate the waiting list. Carol Kissal said that fewer people are paying for reserved parking, which gives them a guaranteed premium space before 10 am, but some garages still have waiting lists for this service. If there’s a list, Metro should increase the price of this premium service; if there’s no list, they should lower the price.
• Add a peak period bus fare for particularly high ridership bus lines, similar to the peak fare on Metrorail.
• Increase the “peak of the peak” fare beyond 10¢ As commenter mccxiii noted, the 10¢ proposed by staff probably won’t spread ridership out much. It’d be helpful to have a projection of the revenue and ridership shift from various levels. On the other hand, we might have no way to know the effect on ridership, and Metro may simply have to experiment.

As happened last year, some of the initial suggestions for fare increases or service cuts may disappear during the process as Metro finds more expense cuts or other revenue sources. Sometimes the budget has some slack or generous estimates that leave wiggle room; for example, at this morning’s meeting, Graham challenged the $29 million projection for the decline in advertising revenue. If Metro gets more revenue than anticipated from its next advertising contract, that loss could decrease (or, if they get less, it could increase).

If the budget does get a little bit rosier, the Board should not use the opportunity to take a fare increase or service cut off the table entirely. Instead, they should let riders weigh in through public hearings about which cuts or fare increases to keep and which to reduce or eliminate.

Ultimately, the theme is simple. Give riders options. Staff presumably started with a large set of ideas, estimated their impact, then picked a set to recommend to the Board. Last year, the Board then further whittled the list before releasing the smallest possible set for public hearings. Riders and advocates are asking instead to reverse that process. Get public input on the broadest possible list, listen to rider opinions, then start cutting the list to pick the least painful and most equitable route to closing a historic budget gap.