Maryland moves slightly on operating funds, but plans more bus cuts for Prince George's

Budget

Maryland moves slightly on operating funds, but plans more bus cuts for Prince George's

by Craig Simpson • April 26, 2010 10:38 am

Maryland's WMATA board members announced April 22 that the state would meet its proposed contribution requirement of $13.9 million in GM Richard Sarles proposed budget through a combination of increased funds, possible local revenue and likely bus service reductions within Maryland.

PRISCM rally for transit at Addison Road Metro.

The announcement at the WMATA board meeting followed a rally last Tuesday at Addison Road Metro station that drew nearly 200 people from churches, labor unions and transit advocacy groups. Speakers, songs and prayers called for Gov. Martin O'Malley to provide funds to stop service cuts and excessive fare increases. Elected officials and candidates from throughout Prince George's County also attended.

Both WMATA board members Peter Benjamin and Elizabeth Hewlett couched their words carefully when they spoke at the Board meeting. They said there were no final figures or plan, and stressed that no local funds had yet been committed. Maryland has $3.5 million budgeted for WMATA beyond what former GM John Catoe had requested, leaving about $10.4 million still to find in the budget.

Currently, the state government pays all of Maryland's share of WMATA bus service. Having ny funds for Metrobus service come from Prince George's County would represent at least a temporary shift of some costs to the county.

The WMATA jurisdictional coordinating committee has a documents listing Maryland's preferences on cutting bus service to meet subsidy needs. The state has identified about $3.8 million in subsidy reduction as a result of potential bus cuts, ranking them in priority order of 1-4. Since some of the cuts couldn't go into effect until September or later, the maximum possible subsidy savings would be appreciably less than the full $3.8 million.

Priority	Line	Change	Rush?	Day	When	Annual Savings
1	A12	Widen AM rush and convert 3 late weekday trips to Friday only.	Rush	Wk	June	$120,267
1	B24	Eliminate trip leaving Bowie P&R for New Carrollton at 7:54 pm.	Non	Wk	Sept	$12,800
1	C11	Eliminate trip leaving Branch Ave for Clinton at 7:15 pm.	Rush	Wk	June	$16,358
1	C22/26	Eliminate 2 late trips.	Non	Wk	Sept	$39,167
1	C4	Change trip leaving Twinbrook for PG Plaza at 12:49 am to Friday only.	Rush	Wk	June	$13,017
1	D12,D14	Eliminate 3 early and 1 late trips.	Rush	Wk, Sa	June	$25,613
1	F12	Eliminate 3 late trips.	Non	Wk	Sept	$39,679
1	F13	Eliminate trip leaving New Carrollton for Wash. Business Park at 7:57 pm.	Non	Wk	Sept	$0
1	F2	Eliminate 1 early and 1 late trip.	Rush	Wk, Sa	June	$19,873
1	H12,13	Eliminate 3 late trips.	Rush	Wk	June	$26,639
1	J1,2	Convert 1 J2 trip to Friday only. Eliminate 7 late J2 trips.	Rush	Wk, Sa, Su	Sept	$40,095
1	J11,12	Widen rush. Eliminate 4 late trips.	Non	Wk, Sa, Su	Sept	$82,941
1	J4	Eliminate trip leaving College Park for Bethesda at 6:37 pm.	Rush	Wk	June	$12,680
1	K11/12/13	Eliminate 3 early trips and 2 late trips.	Rush	Wk, Su	June	$37,860
1	K6	Convert 2 late weekday trips to Friday only. Eliminate 2 late trips.	Rush	Wk, Su	Sept	$32,116
1	P12	Eliminate trip leaving Eastover for Addison Rd at 12:10 am.	Rush	Wk	June	$25,786
1	R2	Eliminate 2 early trips.	Rush	Sa, Su	June	$4,197
1	R4	Eliminate 3 early trips and 2 late trips.	Non	Wk, Sa, Su	Sept	$13,046
1	T2	Eliminate trip leaving Friendship Hts. for Rockville at 10:51 PM.	Non	Wk	June	$12,850
2	V12	Eliminate 1 early and 1 late trip.	Rush	Wk, Su	June	$19,869
2	V14/15	Eliminate 3 early and 3 late trips.	Non	Wk, Sa, Su	Sept	$34,048
2	Y9	Eliminate 4 late trips.	Rush	Su	June	$12,508
3	C12,C14	Eliminate all service. Divert H11/12 via Carriage Hill.	Rush	Wk, Sa	Sept	$872,391
4	P17/18/19; W13/14	Reroute to Southern Ave. or Branch Ave.	Rush	Wk	Later	$742,428
4	B27	Eliminate all service.	Non	Wk	Later	$348,665
4	B29,B31	Eliminate all service.	Non	Wk	Sept	$323,321
4	C4, C2, J5	Eliminate C4 and late-night C2 trips Wheaton to Twinbrook, reroute J5.	Rush	Wk, Sa, Su	Later	$1,007,566
Total:						$3,815,513

These proposed cuts are mainly concentrated in Prince George's County. Only the J1/2, T2, Y9 and the C4 reductions are solely within Montgomery County. The rest are either bi-county or Prince George's only. Some of the potential cuts are on major bus lines such as the A12, C2, C4, C22/26, D12/14, J1/2, K6, P12, R2, Y9. Some proposals cut bus lines altogether for some communities like the B27, B29/31 or truncate the line in the case of the P17/18/19. Seventeen of twenty-nine proposed cuts are targeted at regional routes.

The amounts of money that will be generated in FY11 from implementing some or all of these proposed bus cuts would be fairly small in the bigger picture. If all the cuts were made to a tune of $3.8 million in annual subsidy savings, only about $2.5 million could be realized in FY11. Maryland should find a way to fund its subsidy without cutting bus service that is vital to many throughout the region.

15 comments

Tags: buses, Maryland, Prince George's, service cuts, WMATA, WMATA budget

Prince George's residents speak out against bus cuts (Mar 31, 2010)
'Metrospeak' camouflages bus cuts (May 13, 2010)
WMATA budget deep dive, part 2: Bus service cuts (Feb 24, 2010)
WMATA budget deep dive, part 1: Metrorail service cuts (Feb 23, 2010)
Montgomery, Prince George's officials endorse Fair Share (Apr 5, 2010)

Craig Simpson is currently working as a representative for Progressive Maryland. He has in the past worked for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 and the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO. He has a degree in Labor Studies from the National Labor College.

Comments
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Sigh.

by Jasper on Apr 26, 2010 10:51 am • link • report

Dear God. I suppose its not too bad, as I'll still have service.

by Mike on Apr 26, 2010 11:01 am • link • report

This is amazing. I remember when they tried to kill the C12/14 recently, and the uproar that ensued. It seems the roar is not strong enough.

by Matt Glazewski on Apr 26, 2010 11:03 am • link • report

Hooray! Proposed cuts that don't save any money! (See F13, above)

by Michael Perkins on Apr 26, 2010 11:17 am • link • report

Eliminating J1 and J2 trips? This is the future Purple Line. I avoid the J1 and J2 now whenever possible because traffic on E?W Highway is a nightmare. We need dedicated bus lanes on this route, not cuts in service.

by Redline SOS on Apr 26, 2010 11:35 am • link • report

+1 to Redline's comment, I once took the J1/J2 from Bethesda to Silver Spring on a weekend evening (late-ish)and it was so packed that a bunch of people were left behind because there was no more room for them to get on the bus. The riders seemed to be a mix of younger folk and what I'm guessing were restaurant workers getting off after the final dinner shift. What are they thinking?

by DC_Chica on Apr 26, 2010 11:42 am • link • report

lol @Michael P - I didn't catch that one!

@Redline & @DC_Chica - ditto on J2. When I lived in Montgomery Co, I took the J2 to the NOAA campus in Silver Spring, and it was always busy, even in the late rush hour times. I can't believe they are going to cut this, too.

by Matt Glazewski on Apr 26, 2010 12:23 pm • link • report

I posted this too late on another thread, after the comments' flames turned to conflagration... so I'll repost this thought here: what if the jurisdictions created a background license plate for WMATA, where the additional fees were sent straight to them? Or perhaps a general transit plate, with MWCOG distributing funds between all the various transit agencies in the area?

by Bossi on Apr 26, 2010 12:55 pm • link • report

@bossi I saw this comment on the other thread and i think its a great idea!

by Bianchi on Apr 26, 2010 12:58 pm • link • report

@Bossi:
The problem, at least as far as Maryland is concerned, is that we already rely too much on cars. The single largest reason for the decrease in the revenues that go into the pot from which we subsidize transit is that Marylanders aren't buying cars anymore, so the car title tax has dropped.

That means the best thing for transit right now, paradoxically, would be for everyone to go out and buy a car. But then, we wouldn't need transit anymore, would we?

by Matt Johnson on Apr 26, 2010 12:59 pm • link • report

@Matt-
Yeah, I also share your concern with the paradoxical logic... I'll admit I haven't given too much thought to pros/cons from such a scheme, but I do know that as a transit-loving car owner, I'd be more than happy to turn my car into a paradox.

by Bossi on Apr 26, 2010 1:03 pm • link • report

paradox-me too. My car (and me) already exhibits the paradox of sporting a "treasure the Chesapeak" plate while polluting the air and water while relying on paved surfaces and fossil fuels that spill and kill wildlife (Gulf of Mexico). It's the same for the 'save our farms' plates.

by Bianchi on Apr 26, 2010 1:12 pm • link • report

I can't speak for the PG cuts, but I agree that the J1 and J2 are two very highly-trafficked lines in MoCo. Folks use them extensively to avoid the mess that is that stretch of 495 and East-West, not to mention to provide links to the Silver Spring and Bethesda metros. Personally I walk the mile or so to Metro every day so it's not a huge inconvenience for me, but there are tons of people who rely on that line to get them to and from work and school on time and the busses are already SRO at best. I can personally think of a dozen or so lines that should get cut first.

by hugo on Apr 26, 2010 1:12 pm • link • report

Okay, so the J1/J2 cuts are completely nonsensical. And what's that last entry about the C2/C4/J5 about? Are they seriously proposing eliminating all service between Wheaton and Twinbrook? Have they noticed the buses at or over capacity all day long on these routes? The people who make the decisions need to go out there and check out the conditions on that line before making these horrendous proposals.

by Justin..... on Apr 26, 2010 7:00 pm • link • report

So these cuts would be on top of the Maryland-specific cuts already in Sarles' budget: elimination of the R3 with only partial replacement by other Hyattsville-area routes; the Greenbelt "restructuring" which removes bus service from a densely populated street in Greenbelt, removes mid-evening service from much of Greenbelt, removes no-transfer connections to College Park and New Carrollton from much of Greenbelt, etc.

by John Stith on Apr 28, 2010 12:23 pm • link • report