Posts about WMATA Board

Many escalators around the world stop when they're not being used, and have more efficient motors than Metro's aging escalators. Solar panels or solar laminates could cover the roofs of Metro railyards, maintenance facilities, and garages.

Other transit agencies have trained operators to accelerate and brake more fuel-efficiently. Many have installed tire pressure gauges that actively and constantly communicate tire air pressure data to the maintenance facilities. That lets them keep buses at optimum tire pressure and fuel efficiency, which saves significant fuel. Fuel is a very large cost item in Metro's budget, especially with fuel prices rising.

WMATA already has set a standard to make new facilities LEED Silver, like the Shepherd's Parkway bus garage under construction. Its new buses are cleaner and more efficient than the old, and the 7000 series railcars use LED lights, regenerative braking to get energy back like hybrid cars do, better HVAC systems and a design that reduces the need for some polluting processes to clean them.

Sustainability faces obstacles

It's often difficult for transit agencies to energetically adopt sustainability programs. Some agency staff think of transit as intrinsically pro-sustainable, compared to other modes of travel, so they might not feel that sustainability is the higest priority. There can be resistance from the rank and file to newfangled, ivory tower ideas that don't recognize the rough reality of engineering and operations.

Transit agencies also, perhaps understandably, end up prioritizing the day-to-day crisis management over strategic programs. At the moment, WMATA's the overwhelming emphasis is on system safety and renewal capital projects. That means that "soft," "green" projects can find it hard to compete for the capital funds available, even when there's a powerful economic business case behind them.

Another obstacle is the relationship between labor and management. Many sustainability programs might involve changes to people's job responsibilities, which means that management has to negotiate for a change rather than simply establishing and implementing the program.

For example, if WMATA monitored the fuel efficiency performance of each bus driver to help them save fuel, would the union oppose this as another form of management breathing down workers' necks? Would WMATA be able to reward employees that saved the most fuel and money?

Even for non-union workers, transit agencies lack many of the tools private sector companies have to reward individual initiative. A private sector employee responsible for annual cost savings might get a bonus as a result, in a transit agency that same employee might simply get an employee appreciation mention in a weekly newsletter. Weighed against the possibility that any given sustainability initiative might "rock the boat" for bosses or colleagues, a public pat on the back doesn't offer enough to outweigh the possible headaches.

Sustainability initiatives that come from one department might create savings in another department. But the department that initiated the program might not benefit from the savings, reducing the incentive. Also, divisions within public or private sector organizations often covet the size of their respective budgets and the control that spending authority gives.

A department which saves money might view this as reducing "their budget" instead of looking at the benefit to the agency's bottom line. The affected department could well resent the sustainability initiative and the employees elsewhere in the organization who pushed the idea through.

Making sustainability happen takes leadership from the top

Despite all these barriers, it's more important than ever that WMATA take a strong leadership role in sustainability, backed up by strong management policy and action. In a budget season when the agency is asking for substantial fare and subsidy increases, the public needs to hear that WMATA is taking every possible action to provide transit services more cost-effectively (not to mention more safely and reliably).

WMATA is also entering negotiations with its labor unions for the next round of labor contracts. It's critical that the issues of efficiency and productivity be on the table in a central, pivotal way. It's not unreasonable for labor to ask for wage increases; it's completely unreasonable to ask for such increases without also committing to improving productivity and efficiency in quantifiable ways.

WMATA management could start most sustainability initiatives without any Board action. Richard Sarles and his management team could unilaterally adopt many measures and communicate the values described here. But, perhaps for many of the reasons listed above, Metro's management has not yet made sustainability the visible issue it could and should be. That means they need support, and pressure, from the region and the board.

To date, only 2 WMATA Board members have expressed much interest in sustainability: Tom Downs and Mary Hynes. They should both be commended for trying to make this issue a priority for the agency, and hopefully they will continue to do so. Their colleagues should join them in pressing for more sustainability, productivity, and efficiency.

Previously, Metro offered a few discounts for frequent riders: a 10% bonus fare for people who bought farecards of $20 or more, a weekly bus pass that cost about 8.5 trips, and the rail fast pass.

The 10% bonus fare was eliminated in 2003. The weekly bus pass discount was eliminated in 2010. Metro now charges 10 times the Smartrip fare for a pass.

For a regular commuter taking 10 trips per week which are long enough to hit the maximum fare, the rail fast pass currently offers about a 10% discount compared to 10 individual trips, as well as free trips after that. This proposal will eliminate the 10% discount and almost certainly drive customers away from using the rail fast pass.

More to follow after the Thursday board meeting.

Kissal also compared Metro to London's Tube, which has passes available in daily, weekly, monthly, and annual time periods. According to Kissal, the Tube gets a lot of tourists, while Metro has a larger proportion of commuters. She stated that there might be a place for passes but it might not be for the majority of riders.

As we have advocated before on Greater Greater Washington, the best "audience" for passes in the Metro fare system is front and center: daily peak commuters.

In our view, customers who pay for their regular, daily commute should get the rest of their trips included on a monthly pass. This is similar to many transit agencies around the country, including Portland's TriMet, Philadelphia's SEPTA, Chicago's CTA, and San Francisco's MUNI. Metro's time and distance based fares complicate the issue, but an innovation in Puget Sound makes monthly passes possible even with a variable fare system.

For most transit agencies, a monthly pass is typically a multiple of the single ride price. This multiple is usually around 38—40, which is the number of trips people typically take in a month to commute to a regular office job. Since most transit systems have only one adult fare, there is often only one monthly pass.

Metro's system has many possible fares. If Metro sold only one monthly pass that was valid for any trip, the price of the pass must be high enough to prevent a lot of revenue lost when people switch to passes from per-ride payment.

With Metro's proposed maximum fare of $5.75, this would make a monthly unlimited pass about $230 per month. However, most people spend far less than this per month and take much shorter trips, so a $230 pass would not be a sensible option for them. If Metro sold a monthly unlimited pass for only $150, a lot of revenue would be lost from commuters who are normally paying more than that today.

Puget Sound's innovative solution was to sell passes at varying prices via the PugetPass (Minneapolis/St. Paul's Metro Transit also has a flexible pass option). Logically, more expensive passes would be valid for more expensive trips, and less expensive passes would be valid for less expensive trips. Customers could choose a pass based on their typical trip and pay a reasonable amount for a month's worth of transit.

WMATA's finance committee has requested that the proposed public docket for board approval include a monthly pass. What kind of pass Metro offers will have a huge impact on how popular the pass is. If Metro only offers a $230 unlimited pass, few people outside of long-distance commuters will be interested. The unpopular pass will be discontinued, and the idea of monthly passes will be branded a failure.

Instead, Metro should offer a monthly pass good for unlimited short trips. For $120 a month, Metro could offer unlimited trips of $3 or less. Trips that cost more than $3 would be discounted so that you only pay the difference automatically from your SmarTrip balance.

When they requested a monthly pass option, board members cited various reasons for the request. Many pointed out that off-peak rail service has become full of delays and disruptions, and asking customers to pay more for poorer service didn't appeal to them.

Some pointed out that customers would like to chain their trips, performing errands such as shopping or picking up dry cleaning along the way. Others stated that customers might go out to eat at night or on weekends, and having a pass might entice them to take transit instead of drive. All of these uses would be met with a pass where the additional free trips are significantly cheaper than the maximum distance peak fare.

This pass would be an excellent start to a monthly pass system which offers a pass at every fare level. After a medium-value pass proves its worth to customers, Metro could start offering short trip passes for customers that live near the center of the city, and longer passes for customers that live further away and therefore take longer trips on average.

Eventually, a range of passes would be available, and all regular Metro riders could choose the pass that best suits them without being a big revenue loss for Metro.

Metro should take this opportunity to introduce a monthly pass that makes sense and prove that it's a good idea for our region.

In the case of Metrorail performance data, Schmitt sought the raw data used to calculate the summary metrics provided in the agency's Vital Signs Report, including on-time performance. The agency claimed that the data—about 40,000 records per day, or 29 million for the 24-month period covered by Vital Signs—were too voluminous for them to produce.

Dan Stessel, the agency's spokesman, told the Examiner that WMATA objected to "mining 29 million data points", but sought to fulfill the request in other ways. Unfortunately, when it comes to computing on-time performance, there's no substitute for the raw arrival and departure data.

WMATA's fear of the volume of data also betrays a lack of good data management practices on their part; while 29 million rows might seem like a large quantity of data, in this era of "big data" and petabyte-scale databases, it sounds more like a smokescreen.

Schmitt also requested information about the Metrorail signaling system, its safety, and changes made in the wake of the 2009 Red Line crash. Here, WMATA denied the request due to the agency's involvement in ongoing litigation connected to the crash.

Yet, as Schmitt noted in a message to the RAC, a great deal of information on the subject has already been released to the public, through NTSB reports and other publications, and the agency's response is indicative of an unwillingness to sort out information which actually must be protected from disclosure from other information:

In the case of the ATC data, assuming for the sake of argument that a PARP exemption does apply, WMATA has a duty under its policy to segregate exempt from non-exempt information. WMATA has made no effort to fulfill its duty, and it is not credible to claim that every item of information regarding ATC and collision avoidance in WMATA's possession is subject to exemption. At the least, considerable information maintained by WMATA is already in the public domain, such as via NTSB reports. If information is publicly available, it cannot be withheld as exempt. Therefore, WMATA's position is unreasonable on its face.

Regardless of the reasons for the agency's denials, they are merely symptoms of a much larger, more serious problem: an ongoing lack of transparency and meaningful oversight at WMATA.

WMATA's board is unable to provide independent oversight, and, under the agency's "performance-based management" program, receives only summaries of performance data. The WMATA Office of Inspector General conducts audits, but the recommendations in their reports seem to go mostly unheeded. The Tri-State Oversight Committee, a group which became prominent only after the 2009 Red Line crash, is independent of WMATA, but lacks the staff and funding to conduct the most detailed of investigations; beyond that, their remit covers only safety issues.

After an accident, the National Transportation Safety Board has the jurisdiction to conduct an investigation and issue a report; their criticism of WMATA is routinely scathing, yet the accidents continue. The NTSB cannot compel compliance with their recommendations, and so the same recommendations to WMATA appear in NTSB report after report.

That leaves the Riders' Advisory Council, the group Schmitt sat on. The RAC lies somewhere between being merely a glorified focus group and an actual oversight body; they lack independence from WMATA and, in the wake of these events, apparently have no real investigative powers of their own.

In his resignation letter, Schmitt criticizes the RAC for having gotten too cozy with WMATA and for failing to press hard enough for real transparency. He's perfectly right to do so, and yet at the same time, there's no way that a group created by an act of the WMATA board, operated and funded by the agency, can ever have real independence. As Schmitt notes in his letter of resignation, however, the agency desperately needs independent oversight:

Taken together, the denial of the information requests, the resultant loss of the RAC's independence, and the unwillingness of the RAC to defend its own interests mean that there is no institution within Metro dedicated to transparency and aggressive pursuit of information that is of significant rider interest.

Despite some limited improvement, Metro remains a deeply troubled agency, rife with problems that demand accountability and transparency, and which are too numerous to enumerate here. I hope that in the future, a greater dedication to meaningful information access will develop. This would be a starting point for necessary reforms, as well as for establishing the RAC as an independent, robust voice on behalf of riders.

Given that the organizational structure of the RAC effectively precludes meaningful and independent oversight, transit riders in the region should consider forming a completely independent oversight and advocacy group akin to the Straphangers Campaign in New York City.

The campaign, a project of NYPIRG, independently advocates on behalf of New York City's transit riders. But more importantly, the Straphangers are able to conduct their own investigations, including a survey of announcements in the subway and a survey of payphones in the subway.

Though the Straphangers Campaign performs political advocacy, similarly to groups like the Action Committee for Transit and Greater Greater Washington do locally, it also has the ability to collect its own data and form its own judgments, rather than being limited to carefully-selected and carefully-screened presentations like those the RAC gets now.

This means that the campaign is able to independently assess the performance of the transit authority over time, rather than being dependent on the agency's own (potentially flawed) data.

As an agency formed by interstate compact, WMATA is subject to even less scrutiny than the average transit authority in this country. While an independent riders' group would be no more able to compel action than the RAC is now, they would have the advantage of being able to conduct their own investigation and advocacy work, independent of WMATA and its constituent jurisdictions.

Christopher Schmitt sought for the RAC to become "an independent, robust voice on behalf of riders," but riders may be better off finding their own voice.

What riders want is shorter names. Assistant General Manager for Communications Barbara Richardson said, "Our customers want one name. They want one, common name. They want these to be short."

Few people refer to "West Falls Church Vee Tea You Vee Eh" or "Van Ness You Dee See." Instead, they say they're going to West Falls Church or Van Ness. With a few exceptions like "Franconia-Springfield" and "Stadium-Armory," which really are truly compound names, other station names have a main portion, like "U Street" or "Grosvenor," and then sometimes additional points of interest.

Metro staff got that from their focus groups, and our surveys backed it up. People told Metro that long station names was their biggest complaint about the map. It's annoying and confusing for riders.

Richardson presented the staff recommendations after playing an amusing song, "The Metro Song." It parodies Johnny Cash's "I've been everywhere" to name 46 of the stations in the Metro system:

The staff suggest:

• Navy Yard Ballpark
  
• New York Ave Florida Ave-Gallaudet U
  
• Smithsonian (no National Mall)
  
• Waterfront (no Arena Stage)
  
• Forest Glen (no Holy Cross Hospital, but with an H logo denoting a hospital)
  
• King Street Old Town

Montgomery County alternate member Kathy Porter defended the county's request to add Holy Cross Hospital, or at least "Holy Cross" along with an H symbol, to Forest Glen.

Porter lamented that the county hadn't pushed for the change earlier, since it would have qualified under the previous policy, and suggested the board let Montgomery "grandfather" in the name. However, Fairfax's Jeff McKay pointed out that the reason they're changing the policy is because there have been problems with overly long station names in the past.

Porter noted that the hospital runs a shuttle to the station and there is Ride On service to the station. But in WMATA's focus groups, many members expressed a feeling that anything attached to a station name ought to be within a short walk, not a bus or car ride away.

DC Councilmember Muriel Bowser also wanted to grandfather a non-subtitle, Georgia Ave-Petworth. On this one, there's some good argument either way. I've heard many people call this "Georgia Ave Petworth" or "Georgia Petworth." Several commenters recommended actually making it Petworth, since Georgia Avenue is very long and Forest Glen, Wheaton, and Glenmont are also on Georgia Avenue.

Or, perhaps it could follow the pattern WMATA recommends for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and make the station Georgia Ave Petworth?

Bowser also took the position held by Gallaudet management and students for keeping that university in the primary name instead of a subtitle, endorsing NoMa-Gallaudet U New York Avenue. She pointed out that no other DC university is slated to become part of a subtitle. We've advocated instead for actually putting all universities and other points of interest in subtitles, and 83% of you agreed.

There seemed to be some interest on the board for this option. Mary Hynes of Arlington noted that they have many universities around their Metro stations, and that perhaps it's not feasible to expect to put all universities in primary names or even station names in general. McKay recommended holding off on any change concerning Gallaudet until this broader question is resolved.

Artis Hampshire-Cowen, though, seemed to be wearing her hat as an executive for Howard University rather than necessarily representing riders of Prince George's County. She argued against moving universities into subtitles, using Howard as a specific example.

Bowser also asked for the ballpark to be part of a main station name, Navy Yard-Ballpark, instead of the staff-recommended Navy Yard Ballpark.

The curly W seems completely dead, though that may be a very recent change. Last week, I'd heard that the Nationals only wanted to pay if the station could be named Navy Yard-, not just for "Ballpark." Today, however, DDOT told WMATA that DC would pay for any change, and Bowser told the board that DC expects the Nationals would cover those costs.

Under WMATA's policy, the jurisdiction has to pay for the station name itself. Another entity can reimburse the jurisdiction, but it has to guarantee the funding to WMATA. WMATA won't enter into a side agreement with a separate organization to collect the funds directly.

McKay asked what would happen if the ballpark gets a corporate name at some point. Would they want to, and would Metro feel any pressure to, rename the station? Members agreed that the staff should further flesh out the no corporate naming policy.

Alexandria mayor Bill Euille pushed for King Street-Old Town, their original request, instead of King Street Old Town, the staff recommendation (and one you overwhelmingly supported).

Marcel Acosta stood up for holding to the policy that the board had just adopted. He noted that the shorter names make things easier for customers, and "we need to temper" the impulse to accommodate local organization requests.

Alvin Nichols, alternate for Prince George's, asked about a request by Mount Rainier to add their name to West Hyattsville. However, Maryland has not officially requested this change, so it's not on the table at this time.

The board adjourned their discussion until next Thursday, November 3, where they will hold a public comment session followed immediately by a full board meeting to vote on changes. It's clear that some members are not paying much heed to rider concerns, or at least the comments of those who participated in the focus groups or filled out our survey (while others very much are).

Maybe if riders come to the public comment session, it will help those members start thinking about the interests of the riders instead of the interests of their universities, hospitals and sports teams.

More recently, WMATA has moved into the role of just operating their existing rail system, plus the buses and paratransit that were later added. Local jurisdictions lead the way for any expansions. The Silver Line was a Virginia initiative, paid for by the state and federal government. Congressman Gerry Connolly is pushing for planning for Yellow, Blue, and/or Orange extensions to Prince William.

Non-heavy rail projects are also planned and potentially built by each jurisdiction. Maryland has the Purple Line, Corridor Cities Transitway, Montgomery BRT, and maybe rail or bus to Waldorf. Virginia 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). Meanwhile, DC has its streetcar system which doesn't plan to connect to Maryland even though many of the lines once did just that.

Many of these projects are excellent and may be just the right mode for their respective corridors. But do we really want to spend the next 30, 50, or 100 years building piecemeal rail lines and busways which don't really harmonize? Wouldn't it be better to have a regional plan which accommodates the various needs, desires and circumstances of each jurisdiction but also looks at the regional benefits of each and tries to interconnect them?

This is the question the WMATA Board will consider at tomorrow's strategic planning session. For each of 9 goals, the board will discuss what role the agency should plan. Should it be an operator, just running a service at the command of the constituent jurisdictions? A convener, bringing together different stakeholders for a conversion? An advocate, encouraging jurisdictions to take steps that benefit regional priorities? Or a leader, actually working to set and execute on priorities with the consensus of the jurisdictions?

It's time to choose leadership

The board should choose the role of leader or at least advocate. The fact is that the region needs leadership that's looking beyond local needs. Without it, we'll look back decades from now and wonder why our investments were so shortsighted.

Nobody else is doing this. The Transportation Planning Board and its director, Ron Kirby, has thus far decisively chosen the role of "convener." That board is no more than a "stapler," assembling the priority lists of the 3 state DOTs and squeezing them into an air quality conformance model.

Whatever frustrations we might have with Metro's operational and maintenance issues, which are moving decisively in the right direction, its planning department is widely considered to be first class, and the only one in a position to look regionally.

The board doesn't have to choose the same role for each of its 9 goals. It could choose a stronger leadership role for some of the goals than others. Maybe they want Metro to be a stronger leader on core capacity than connecting activity centers, or actually want jurisdictions to lead on deciding where the money comes from. However, even transportation plans in counties Metro doesn't serve ultimately will help people travel to and from WMATA jurisdictions, and we need to look at regional mobility holistically, not piecemeal.

WMATA plans can give riders something to advocate for

Board members may be hesitant to take a bold role, fearful of stepping on the sovereignty of their home jurisdictions or giving the other states even a small say in their decisions. They needn't be. WMATA will always rely on those jurisdictions for its funding, and its board members will always come from those localities. Each "state" has a veto on any plan or policy. It's hard enough to build a transportation project; nothing will ever get built without broad consensus.

But by letting WMATA lead, we can get the best ideas out into the public marketplace. Metro can conceive a regional transportation vision that's both realistic and exciting enough to start advocating for. Right now, a big obstacle for transit advocates is that there's little to rally around. "Complete the Silver Line and build the Purple Line and all the streetcars" just isn't quite that energizing.

This blog really got started with a series of "fantasy maps" showing a possible region-wide network of transit projects. While it's not really feasible to actually build all of this in the current funding climate, it got a lot of people excited to dream about the possibilities of transit. Someone needs to take this kind of thing, and all the other ideas, and actually run them through models to figure out which ones will improve mobility and sustainability and the quality of communities.

Tomorrow, the WMATA Board will have the opportunity to move the region toward having big visions that take Greater Washington forward, or to keep our best hope for good planning in the back seat. Let's hope they choose to have courage.

For the map, based on survey results, WMATA staff and designer Lance Wyman decided to color the Dulles line Silver, use dashed yellow and orange lines at the ends to denote rush hour-only service, and add hours of operation to the map. Different symbols for short turn stations confused riders and are gone from this version.

The recommendation would add Old Town as a subtitle to King Street, and Ballpark to Navy Yard once DC commits funding. Further, they recommend changing Waterfront-SEU to just Waterfront, not adding Arena Stage as requested. Suggested changes to Smithsonian, New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U, and Forest Glen are also on the table, but staff are not endorsing those changes.

Instead of adding Holy Cross Hospital to Forest Glen, as Montgomery County requested, staff and Wyman devised a clever solution. Just as all stations with parking will have a P in a square next to their names, stations with hospitals will get an H in a square. That includes Forest Glen as well as Foggy Bottom, Shaw, and Medical Center.

The Board will also review the recommendation to use subtitles for 12 long station names. Staff dropped Grosvenor-Strathmore from their recommended list at the request of Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett; the board could still use a subtitle for this or even all stations with points of interest like universities.

What do you think? Below are more details about all the proposed changes. As you read, you can click the radio buttons to indicate which suggestions you agree with. At the end, you can submit your recommendations to the WMATA Board.

Station renaming proposals

Metro stations can be renamed if a local jurisdiction requests a change, agrees to pay for the cost of changing signs, and the WMATA Board approves the change.

The station naming policy, adopted earlier this year, says that station names should:

• Convey a sense of place
• Use up to 19 characters, or 13 for transfer stations
• Potentially contain subtitles, but count the subtitle against the station name length
• Only mention landmarks within a short walk, if any
• Not be sold to commercial entities

Navy Yard

• The ANC endorsed: Navy Yard-
  
• DC requested: Navy Yard-Ballpark, which the ANC also endorsed as its 2nd choice option.
  
• WMATA staff note that this meets the character limit. DC has not committed to pay for the change, but the Washington Nationals are willing to fund it. The focus group felt favorably about this potential change.
  
• They recommend accepting this change, but making it a subtitle: Navy YardBallpark
  
• This would happen if and when DC is willing to make a commitment to pay for the change. That's because the policy requires the individual jurisdiction to pay directly; WMATA won't enter into an agreement directly with a third party. DC would have to commit its own money and form its own agreement with the Nationals to reimburse taxpayers.
  
• The board also has the option of keeping the current name: Navy Yard

New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet U

• The ANC endorsed: NoMa/Gallaudet U
  
• DC requested: New York Ave-NoMaGallaudet U
  
• WMATA staff note that DDOT's recommendation exceeds the character limit, at 28 characters, but is shorter than the current name (the ANC recommendation meets the limit). DC has not promised funds to change the name, but the NoMa BID is willing to pay for it. Focus group participants didn't love the NoMa name; as we saw in our comment discussion last time, feelings about this name for the neighborhood are very divided.
  
• They recommend keeping the name, but converting most of it to a subtitle: New York AveFlorida Ave-Gallaudet U
  
• The board could also choose the ANC's suggested name but make the second part into a subtitle: NoMaGallaudet U
  
• Or, they could leave the name as is: New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U

Smithsonian

• DC requested: SmithsonianThe National Mall
  
• WMATA staff note that this exceeds the character limit, at 28 characters. DC has not committed to pay for the change, but the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall are willing to fund it. The focus group felt favorably about this potential change.
  
• They recommend keeping the current name: Smithsonian

Waterfront-SEU

• This station name has to change because Southeastern University has closed.
  
• DC requested: Waterfront-Arena Stage
  
• WMATA staff note that this exceeds the character limit, at 22 characters. DC has not committed to pay for the change, but Arena Stage is willing to fund it. The focus group had mixed opinions about this potential change.
  
• They recommend keeping the current name, but without SEU: Waterfront
  
• The board also has the option to accept DC's request but use a subtitle instead: WaterfrontArena Stage

Forest Glen

• Montgomery County requested: Forest Glen-Holy Cross Hospital
  
• WMATA staff note that this exceeds the character limit, at 31 characters. Montgomery County has not committed to pay for the change, but the hospital is willing to fund it. The focus group had mixed views about this potential change.
  
• They recommend keeping the current name: Forest Glen. In addition, on the latest version of the map, they suggest using an H symbol for stations that are near hospitals, including Forest Glen as well as Shaw, Foggy Bottom and Medical Center.
  
• The board also has the option to accept Montgomery's request but use a subtitle instead: Forest GlenHoly Cross Hospital

King Street

• The City of Alexandria requested: King St-Old Town
  
• WMATA staff note that this request meets the character limits, and Alexandria has committed the funds as well as consulted the community. It got mixed reviews from the focus group.
  
• They recommend accepting this change, but making it a subtitle: King StreetOld Town
  
• The board also has the option to keep the current name: King Street

Other subtitles

In addition, WMATA staff recommend that the board agree to start using subtitles for 12 long station names:

Proposed with subtitles	Current names
Addison RoadSeat Pleasant	Addison Road-Seat Pleasant
ArchivesNavy Mem'l-Penn Quarter	Archives-Navy Mem'l-Penn Quarter
Dunn LoringMerrifield	Dunn Loring-Merrifield
Gallery PlaceChinatown	Gallery Pl-Chinatown
Georgia AvePetworth	Georgia Ave-Petworth
Mt. Vernon Sq7th Street-Convention Center	Mt. Vernon Sq/7th St-Convention Center
Ronald Reagan WashingtonNational Airport	Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
U StreetAfrican-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo	U St/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo
ViennaFairfax-GMU	Vienna/Fairfax-GMU
West Falls ChurchVT/UVA	West Falls Church-VT/UVA
Woodley ParkZoo/Adams Morgan	Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan

One subtitle has been dropped from the original proposal, at the request of Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett. This station's name has 20 characters, one more than the limit under the policy:

Potential with subtitle	Current name
GrosvenorStrathmore	Grosvenor-Strathmore

8 stations meet the name length rules, but have points of interest such as universities as part of their names. WMATA staff are not currently recommending moving those points of interest into subtitles, but the WMATA Board could consider doing so. That would make all points of interest consistently part of subtitles as opposed to only doing that for the long station names.

Potential with subtitles	Current names
BallstonMU	Ballston-MU
BrooklandCUA	Brookland-CUA
College ParkU of Md	College Park-U of Md
Foggy BottomGWU	Foggy Bottom-GWU
ShawHoward U	Shaw-Howard U
TenleytownAU	Tenleytown-AU
Van NessUDC	Van Ness-UDC
Virginia SqGMU	Virginia Sq-GMU

What do you think? Choose one or more of the options above. Then, enter your name and email address to send your opinions to the WMATA Board. (Your email address will not be shared with anyone else except WMATA.)

Name:
Email:
City & state:
Other comments:
	Also post my vote and comments (but not my email address) as a comment on this post.

Update: WMATA sent over a slightly revised version this morning that moves the 2 Farragut stations closer together, adds the parking icon to Forest Glen, and moves the U Street label. I've passed on the comments people made about other errors, such as "No Litering," "Ronald Regan," missing railroad icons and the dots on the Largo branch which should go between Orange and Blue.

According to the Examiner, a state proposal would require local transportation boards to allow Virginia to appoint one member if the board receives state money. Many local boards have agreed to the proposal, though Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington and the NVTC have so far refused. It isn't clear whether Virginia has actually exercised the appointing privilege for other boards.

It's also unclear exactly where the money at stake is coming from. It could be from the special Northern Virginia gas tax, or it could be from Virginia's annual match to the federal government's $150 million contribution to WMATA, or it could be from another source.

In any case, this is more evidence of the strained relationship between the Commonwealth government and the local governments that provide the majority of Metro's funding and riders.