Add three Montgomery County Council members to those against another Metro fare increase.
Roger Berliner, Nancy Floreen and Tom Hucker — the members who make up the Council’s Transportation Committee — on Tuesday urged the WMATA Board of Directors to ditch the idea of a 10-cent fare increase and service reductions.
The Board of Directors is set to meet Thursday to consider putting the fare increase up for public comment. The Board won’t decide until May whether to go through with the increase, which would start in July. It would be the second straight year Metro imposed a fare increase. It typically tries to avoid increasing fares two years in a row.
“Our region needs to do everything in its power to get people out of their cars, not give them good excuses to get in them,” wrote Berliner, Floreen and Hucker. “Regrettably, we believe that at the staff budget proposal threatens to create a ‘death spiral.’ If fares increase even further and service deteriorates, fewer people will opt to ride Metro. Lower ridership in turn will inevitably translate into further service cuts, fare increases and even lower ridership. This is most assuredly not a sustainable path forward.”
The Council members suggest WMATA should lean more heavily on dedicated funding from Maryland, Virginia and D.C. They cited Metro’s 66 percent farebox recovery rate, the highest in the country.
“As a result of this firebox recover rate, fares are already too high and budgets are extremely sensitive to corresponding dips in ridership.”
The Council members referred to the L’Enfant Plaza arcing insulator incident and broken down railcars as reasons why asking for more state and local governments funding now may not work. But they also blamed WMATA for “lapses in financial accountability” for the authority’s current financial troubles.
They proposed the Board of Directors pursue an independent “top-to-bottom thorough assessment of the organization” as a way to perhaps better sell the idea of getting more money from state and local governments.
“Bottom line: there are three fundamental truths at work simultaneously — (1) Our region needs Metrorail to be successful; (2) Metrorail needs more financial support and less reliance on farebox recovery; and (3) WMATA, as an organization, must commit to serious reforms and performance metrics,” the Council members wrote. “We urge you to oppose the current proposal, and instead work for a more sustainable fiscal and operational future for the system.”
PDF: Letter to WMATA Board
