More money for WMATA?

Today's Examiner has an article, "More taxpayer funds sought for Metro," about WMATA General Manager John Catoe suggesting that the federal government provide a dedicated stream of funding to the WMATA subway system outside of the other proposal floating around now, to provide $150 million/year of federal funds in return for the jurisdictions providing dedicated funding AND two Board seats to the federal government. (The latter was discussed in this blog entry: "Will the Federal Government muck up the WMATA Board of Directors?")

Note that I can't seem to locate the Examiner article online, it appears on page 9 of the Virginia edition.

The Metro system is 31 years old and it is showing its age... but it can still spend money better, even though it needs more... Steve Eldridge's column includes a complaint by a Richard (not me) about a lot of WMATA staff standing around on platforms on the 4th of July. One of the reasons they overstaff on days like the 4th is because many of the riders of the system don't know how to use it. But they can still probably cut back some.

My pet peeve is that WMATA will run all of the escalators such as on the weekends, when station usage doesn't justify it. For example, is there any reason, other than a demonstration, to run two up escalators at the Capitol South station on a Saturday or a Sunday? I see this done all over the system. You'd think station managers and their overseers would be more conscious of this kind of waste.

Note that I can't seem to locate today's Examiner Eldridge column via an online search today either.

So, while WMATA might not be perfect, neither is the information technology department of the Examiner, which happens to be owned by a guy who owned/owns a big chunk of some railroads out west...