WMATA fare hikes and service cuts (and RideOn service cuts): hearing on Wednesday

The public hearing that WMATA is holding to take public comments on the various options that it is considering to deal with a midyear revenue reduction will be this Wednesday, January 27th, at 7pm, at the WMATA headquarters.

Sign up now by emailing your name, address, telephone number and organization affiliation, if any to public-hearing-testimony@wmata.com. If you can't attend, you can also email comments to public-hearing-testimony@wmata.com.

This is a legal proceeding (governed by various federal regulations) and if your comments are not received by the end of the hearing, they will not be entered into the record. So send them before 7pm Wednesday, to not have to worry...

I can't testify live (a planning process I am managing launches the same night) but I will be submitting comments, including extended comments about pricing, LOS and LOQ, and network planning for LOS, LOQ, and robustness vs. transit operations planning, which is more micro focused and ends up being about cuts and fares, not service quality.
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The Sunday Post Dr. Gridlock feature, "Before Metro budget hearing, brush up on financing options" discusses the various options that WMATA is considering. (Virtually all transit systems across the country have experienced loss of ridership and loss of farebox revenues and reductions in other sources of funding, ranging from government appropriations to sales tax and a variety of other taxes or fees, such as real estate recordation taxes.)

The Examiner has the ominous cover headline and stories today "Transit riders pinched amid budget crunch" and "Metro hearing lets public consider increases, cuts, delaying fixes," and a sidebar "Want to have a say?" listing the details on speaking at the hearing, as well as about signing up to speak on Montgomery County's RideOn bus service and its proposed cuts, and their public hearing, scheduled for Monday February 1st, in Rockville.

Greater Greater Washington, in "Support option 4 on Wednesday" suggests supporting option 4, and I probably agree that it is the least hurtful of the various options. I favor more service rather than reduced service, so I would rather see fare increases than significant service cuts. The discussion in the GGW entry lists a variety of other tweaks that could be instituted to operations that would result in savings without significantly impacting service in negative ways.

Image from Greater Greater Washington.

Generally, I don't favor cuts in service. Even lightly used buses are important to the people using them, and in the context of an entire transit network, often these routes are significant in the overall service framework.

Like most everybody else, I don't want to pay more money than I have to for transit service. But when it comes to no service, I'd rather pay more. And I'd rather pay more so that the entire transit network benefits, not just me. I am willing to sacrifice some for the greater good so to speak. But a higher fare increase was taken off the table by the refusal to consider such an option by DC's representatives to the WMATA Board of Directors.

I don't think that the subway service is really priced as the premium service that it is. Irrespective of all the recent problems and manual operation, it is more reliable and depending on how smooth the ride is (some operators suck in manual mode) far far better than a bus ride.

But it isn't priced at premium rates. Probably the base fare should be $1.75--even though that would screw people like me a lot, because my off peak fares are typically $1.35.

But I'd rather pay that and have more frequent service, than be faced with significantly longer headways and smaller trainsets (4 or 6 car trains minimized to save money, instead of 6 or 8 car trains, in response to real service demands) with very packed cars.

I'd price bus service at $1.50, or maybe $1.40 with a $1.50 price during rush hour.

While these are not options before WMATA now, I will include this type of discussion in my testimony, perhaps in an appendix, to get it into the record and on the radar of WMATA planners and the board.