WMATA and MWCOG announce new joint transit initiative | Could a regional "transport association" be on the horizon, or just a transit bailout?

According to Twitter and other news sources ("WMATA and MWCOG announce new joint transit initiative," DC News Now) WMATA the operator of regional subway and bus services, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, are going to start working together.

The COG is the union of local governments and designated by the USDOT as the region's metropolitan planning organization for regional transportation planning and coordination.

From the article:

In a news release sent out Wednesday, officials said that the organizations’ Boards of Directors will meet on May 1 to start “months-long discussions about how to efficiently provide, fund, and govern public transit.”

Funny of course, because this is driven by the financial pressures faced by WMATA foremost ("Facing massive budget shortfall, Metro releases budget proposal that slashes service and increases fares") but also other area transit providers, who've lost lots of riders in response to work from home.

But the issue of base funding for WMATA has been discussed for decades, including by me.

-- "Getting WMATA out of crisis: a continuation of a multi-year problem that keeps getting worse, not better," 2015
-- "DC area transit commission board member thinks he has a brilliant idea on how to fund Metrorail: sales taxes," 2022

It's a shame that it had to reach the level of a super crisis to do anything.  15 years ago I first wrote that WMATA needed to rebuild the regional consensus about the value of transit:

-- "St. Louis regional transit planning process as a model for what needs to be done in the DC Metropolitan region" (2009)

DC area transit planning and operations is an extreme example of gaps.  Sorry to repeat ad infinitum but my joke is I might be a bad planner but I am great at gap analysis and I have been writing about this failure in transit and transportation planning coordination in the DC area for almost 20 years, with very specific suggestions on how to address it.

Concepts.  The concept of a multi-regional and multi-state transit network is outlined in "The meta-regional transit network" (2009).  I made a presentation about this at the University of Delaware public policy school in early 2010, "Metropolitan Mass Transit Planning presentation"  (link to presentation within).

My mobility shed/mobilityshed and transit shed entry dates to 2006, "Updating the mobilityshed / mobility shed concept."  

Another related concept is intra-district versus inter-district transit ("Making the case for intra-city (vs. inter-city) transit planning," 2011).  This concept eludes almost everyone who writes about transit.  It's about speed versus access.  Also see, "A thought about an intra-district transit network for Tysons," (2020).

And a more expanded concept of "sustainable mobility" as a platform dates to 2018 ("Further updates to the Sustainable Mobility Framework").

Other seeds include Steve Belmont's Cities in Full and his discussion about monocentric versus polycentric transit systems, Robert Cervero's coining of the term "commuter shed," the hierarchy of networks in the Arlington County Master Transportation Plan, the invention of transportation demand management planning in Victoria state, Australia (also see Engwicht's Reclaiming our cities and towns: better living through less traffic), mobility hubs, and the concept of high frequency transit sub-networks.

The 2018 entry, "Branding's not all you need for transit," states that there are three elements to transit systems:

• an integrated metropolitan/regional transit system through a transport association
• treating transit as a design product
• tying it all together with an integrated branding system

1.  I first understood the DC area transit planning gap in two dimensions.  By default, WMATA is the area transit planner, with no checks.  Second, when budget crisis hits services are cut.

-- "Without the right transportation planning framework, metropolitan areas are screwed, and that includes the DC area," 2011

2.  And financing. The area doesn't have a dedicated sales or payroll tax for transit (MTA and a couple other systems do have a payroll tax, it's standard in France). 

My point was to get one passed, do it when you're successful, not when you're desperate. Best would have been the early 1980s when the system was still bright and shiny and growing.

Plus WMATA's success in farebox revenue recovery (at one time, 80% for rail) was true but a chimera. It charges by mode, so bus + rail is two fares. Most transit agencies charge one fare. (2) There was a lot of use of the federal transit pass, so there was a lot of insulation from the high fares. (3) for a long time there were no real discounted transit passes, where other systems offer them to encourage transit use and discourage car use.

So in good times, revenue was high and this made the jurisdictions happy because it reduced their annual outlays.

Note in bad times, sales and payroll tax revenues tend to drop also.

Some places also take a percentage of the real estate transfer tax.  It's easier though when all the participating jurisdictions are within one state, not three.  For example, Virginia Governor Ralph Youngkin has vetoed more money for WMATA out of pique on losing another issue ("Youngkin Dumps Metro Subsidy on F.C., N. Va.," Falls Church News-Press).

-- "Metrolinx Toronto: 25 potential tools to fund transit-transportation infrastructure," 2013

Metro (WMATA) Owner's Manual: Your Metro...How to Use It, cover.  Advertising supplement to the Washington Star, 1975.

3.  My recommendation was to split planning from service..  That the planning function should define network breadth -- the broad area in which services are to be provided and network depth -- level of service standards and other requirements for service.

If the budget didn't match the network breadth and depth requirements, rather than cut service, first the transit operators should make their case for more money.  If it wasn't forthcoming, only then cut service.

4.  Combine the commuter railroads, make it a 24/7 service.  A variant is that starting in 2006 I also wrote that the area's railroad passenger services should integrate into what I later called RACER, Railroad Authority of the Chesapeake Region.  But the idea wasn't unique to me, it started a few years before that by Dan Malouff of BeyondDC.

This map is a concept, it didn't include Southern Maryland because at the time, Maryland MTA was planning light rail for the US-301 corridor.  I'd say there should be a line between Baltimore and Frederick, etc.

-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," 2019

-- "DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project ," 2021

In 2017, I wrote "A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines," about how to jumpstart the railroad merger.  I note that GGW just wrote about this this week...

5.  Hamburg's transport association is the model.  In 2014, I visited Hamburg, Germany which has an amazingly integrated transit system with multiple modes--train, subway, bus, ferry--reaching hundreds of miles into two adjoining states.  

I learned that it was led by the City of Hamburg, which often holds ownership stakes in the various services, but services were delivered, including bus, by more than two dozen operators.

Hamburg "invented" the German transport association form, where all the transit operators in a region are coordinated as a group, that planning is separate, that schedules and fares are integrated.*

This came about because Hamburg realized in the early 1960s that if they wanted people to use transit, it had to be easier to use.  It took them 5 years to get everyone together, and to create a coordinated schedule and fare system. 

Later the method was adopted by Germany as a whole, as well as Austria and Switzerland.

-- HVV, Hamburg Transport Association
-- "HVV Celebrated 50 Year Anniversary, City of Hamburg
--"Verkehrsverbund: The evolution and spread of fully integrated regional public transport in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland," Ralph Buehler, John Pucher & Oliver Dümmler, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (2018)
-- Transport Alliances - – Promoting Cooperation and Integration to offer a more attractive and efficient Public Transport, VDV, the trade association for German transport associations.  

* note that one "problem" with the VV model is it isn't expansive enough, you need private services like taxi and bike share and at times, the highway people, at the table too

A good model for coordination and presentation of modes is laid out on a website is for the Manchester, UK system.  Transport for London and SF MUNI also.

6.  Gaps don't abate.  While continuing to write often about discoordination in transit planning in the DC area, with multiple different BRT systems, and the railroads, etc.

-- "Silver Line Metro expansion a classic example of the need to have true regional transportation planning," 2011
-- "One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example" 2015
-- Will buses ever be cool? Boston versus the Raleigh-Durham's GoTransit Model," 2017
-- "Route 7 BRT proposal communicates the reality that the DC area doesn't adequately conduct transportation planning at the metropolitan-scale," 2016
-- "Reviving DC area bus service: and a counterpoint to the recent Washington City Paper article," 2019

7.  German VV as the model for DC.  It took me until 2017 to write an entry specifically mentioning the German VV as the way forward for the DC area, in an organization I suggested could be called the DMVTA.  That's 7 years ago in March.

-- "The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority association"

Conclusion.  But I imagine the impetus for this initiative is WMATA's massive budget shortfall, not better transportation planning, coordination, and integration in the DC metropolitan area.

Note the area does some best practice things.  Like a common fare media card system, which even works in Baltimore.  

But otherwise, there are multiple different transit "stores," systems and liveries for BRT, lack of one integrated call center, failure to integrate railroad services into the fare card system, lack of coordinated planning, etc.

I guess I'll send this to them.