WMATA aims to eliminate Riders Advisory Council

Once upon a time in the DC Metropolitan area.

Who needs feedback, loss of ridership is all the feedback we need.  While I have always thought that the Riders Advisory Council for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) had structural issues called "boundary spanning" in terms of social psychology of organizations in that it was both insider and outsider and had limited support and no real means to do inquiries or research, getting rid of it, as is planned with a board vote on Thursday ("Metro scraps rider panel that offers suggestions for improvements," WTOP Radio) is a bad idea.

WMATA's alternative is that WMATA can be informed through customer surveys and doesn't need a committee that can raise uncomfortable questions.

Montgomery County, Maryland sdisagrees, calling for retention of the group as an official ridership body advising the transit agency ("Montgomery Couny Council urges Metro to keep rider advocacy group," Washington Post).

Bad optics.  Given the decline in ridership, this doesn't look very good.  Ideally, energy would be put into making the RAC better and more effective, not eliminating it.  It's got a tough mission.  Plus, it's difficult to get a consensus within the group, because people appointed have such a range of approaches and either a willingness or not to be "confrontational" even in a measured way.

(E.g., for me, while I am a hard a** writing-wise, I'd argue I'm reasonable in person and in meetings and hearings, unless people are saying such b.s. that I can't contain myself--my b.s. meter stays quiescent up til about 70%.)

Not much of a base of research-infused advocacy in the DC area.  Despite the city being the headquarter for national advocacy groups like Public Citizen, Common Cause, and Ralph Nader's Center for the Study of Responsive Law, it's not a place with a rich set of advocacy groups focused on local matters.

Protest by the local transit union in response to WMATA's privatization of the operation of some Virginia bus facilities.

Or advocacy on transit more generally, outside of blogs like this one and the transit unions.

A plethora of best practice models exist elsewhere.  By contrast, NYC has a plethora of such groups.  In transportation, they include the Regional Plan Association on land use and transportation planning, the Straphangers Campaign on transit, and Transportation Alternatives, primarily on biking and walking, but also they do address transit and sustainable mobility more generally. 

Straphangers Campaign does an annual report of customer satisfaction, according to transit line, called State of the Subways.  But it's based on data collected by NYC Transit.   (To its credit, DC's Sierra Club has been conducting a bus survey at its booths at street festivals, like the recent H Street Festival.)

Members of the Straphangers Campaign (that isn't Fidel at center, just a man in a Halloween outfit) demonstrate against proposed fare hikes at Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters in lower Manhattan. (Photo by Mike Albans/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

In Boston, the Conservation Law Foundation has an active transit advocacy program.  In many cities, there is a main group, like the Bus Riders Union in Los Angeles. 

In Chicago, the formerly bike exclusive group repositioned and reorganized as the Active Transportation Alliance, adding walking and transit matters to their mission.

Of course, other organizations like Feet First in Seattle, WalkDenver and WalkBoston, and Starkville (Mississippi) in Motion are important examples of successful local advocacy.  As are the ward/borough programs the complement the city-wide programs for London (UK) Cyclist Campaign and in Toronto.

I like the idea of a hybrid that is based in research and technical knowledge, married with advocacy.

In NYC, the Independent Budget Office is a city agency funded by the City Council to provide independent analysis of the Executive Branch developed budget.  They do analysis, publish reports, testify, etc.

In the UK, the Campaign for Better Transport was created by labor and environmental groups, and conducts rider surveys, develops reports and analysis, provides support to local groups, and advocates for more support for sustainable modes.

The Public Transport Users Association in Victoria State, Australia functions similarly in terms of agenda, but is all volunteer, with no paid staff.

The US-based Rail Passengers Association (formerly National Assn. of Rail Passengers) advocates for train service, especially Amtrak, but has many affiliates across the country, mostly at the state level.

In some places like Greater New York and New Jersey, there are affiliates organized around specific commuter lines like the Lackawanna Coalition which focuses on the NJ Transit .Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton lines.

Note that one of my complaints about a transport advocacy group in Maryland, the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition was that it originally excluded probably by omission not by design -- railroad passenger groups. I see that in the time since I brought that up, they've expanded their membership.

Could the three jurisdictions jointly fund an "ombudsperson" advocacy group on transit matters? Ideally, the three jurisdictions could fund a kind of advocacy group, thought of in terms of like being an "ombudsperson" with a strong analysis component, giving it the ability to conduct independent ridership customer satisfaction surveys, but also comparison/best practice research.

Baring that, such a group needs to be created and funded.  It's probably best that it be funded independently of the "government" because that would create boundary spanning issues pretty similar to the current situation.

Recommendation

While clearly the Riders Advisory Committee for WMATA can be improved, junking it with no attempt at improvement, especially in the face of massive ridership decline as a result of a decline in service reliability and frequency, is a mistake.

Keep the RAC.

Aim to create something better.

What I would do.

1.  Create the Sustainable Mobility Advocacy Campaign
2.  As an independent organization.  But with designation from local jurisdictions that it has standing to represent its citizens.
3.  Give it a metropolitan-regional mission.
4.  With sub-committees for jurisdictions so that "local" issues such as with RideOn in Montgomery County or the DC Circulator, etc., aren't missed.
5.  Fundraise hard.  Maybe a foundation like Princes or Surdna could give it startup funding.
6.  Although ideally, it could be a unit of the Council of Governments, and funded by it, but given a fair amount of independence.
7.  Give the organization enough budget to conduct regular ridership surveys independent of WMATA.