Metro board chairman Jack Evans has announced that segments of Washington Metro may be shut down for up 6 months to do the necessary extended repairs. At a minimum some lines will be shut down for extended periods of time.
“The system right now, in order to do the maintenance that needs to be done, cannot be done on three hours a night and on weekends. It just can’t,” said Evans, who also is a D.C. Council member (D-Ward 2).
“So in order to do repairs that are necessary, it may come to the point where we have to close the entire Blue Line for six months. People will go crazy. But there are going to be hard decisions that have to be made in order to get this fixed,” Evans said.
Evans singled out the Blue Line several times but said any of the 6 lines may be closed for extended periods of time.
The New York Subway system was built over a hundred years ago has never had shut downs of 6 months. It was built by the private sector and not the government which may explain the difference between our system and their’s. The Federal government designed and built Washington’s Metro system with very expensive labor and cheap parts.
Who will pay for all this maintenance? You guessed it, the taxpayer! From the Post article,
Evans also said repeatedly that the District, Maryland and Virginia, as well as the federal government, need to contribute more money to support the system or see it deteriorate further.
He said the District, Maryland and Virginia should create a dedicated funding source, such as a regional sales tax, to provide an additional $1 billion a year to Metro for capital investment such as maintenance. The federal government should kick in $300 million a year for operations, he said.
13 comments
Why should people who live outside the metro area have to pay for it? The metro has major crime problems because it extended to areas that have crime problems. This is not my problem. All it will take is a terrorist attack to destroy it.
I ride the Silver Line every day to get to my job in McLean. I grew up in NYC and rode the subways every day. You are right, Jeanine, with your comparison between the system of NYC and that of DC. NYC subways are ugly, foul smelling, and they make a lot of noise, BUT they run on time, all the time, and they cost far less. HOWEVER, what is the choice we are facing here? Hundreds of thousands of us have to rely on Metro. Or would you rather we have to drive to work, clogging up the roads even further?
For the billions that must go into Metro, we could make the world’s best busing system and people could ride it for free. Busing has the advantage of routes that can be changed as a dynamic region grows.
Good point, David. I had not thought about that. Bussing is flexible, while Metro lines are rigid. But busses do get stuck in traffic as well. Busses also tend to invite – especially free busses as you advocate – very unsavory and dangerous characters.
That’s easily solved, charge money if you don’t want to see the riff raff on your bus.
They don’t actually have to be free and a nominal fee is a good idea, but for the billions of dollars Metro will take to “fix” you could buy an enormous fleet of busses and get them on the road in a couple of months. For each bus you take 20+ cars off the road. The buses leaving Loudoun are packed every day. You can put stops anywhere and, in an age of real-time data I foresee variable bus routes where people sign up on a daily basis. I could go on and on about better transportation solutions. But Metro isn’t a transportation solution. The point of expanding Metro is to raise the values of the property around the stations that developers bought years ago. We peons get stuck with the bill. Private profits. Public debt. Cronyism lives on. That’s the Metro way.
What David Dickinson says below is the answer. Buses are FAR cheaper, and offer much more flexibility and they’re easy to replace. As David says, with the billions thrown at metro, everyone could ride a bus for free.
Playing to the benefits of the bus scenario as well is the reality that the Metro has so many single-point/single-line failure potentials as you extend it outside the city. Then, you put an arrogant Chairman at the top, willing to (or feeling compelled to) shut down portions of the system for extended periods of time for maintenance–to an extent that no one will be able to “rely” on it to get to and from their place of employment. They will use other options (if available), move closer, or change jobs. There will never be enough subsidies to make it financially viable. We’re just continuing to throw good money after bad (and doubling-down on this folly via expansion).
You are exactly right. More money down the hole.
I repeat: we left Loudoun in part to get out ahead of the costs of this boondoggle. Good move, apparently. As I told the Supervisors on one of the comment evenings: “Saying no to Metro means never having to say you’re sorry.” Who’s sorry now?
Oh the memories! http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2012/04/loudouns-metro-marriage.html
The people of Loudoun know a little about their persistent suitor, but do they know enough? Metro appears to have serious character and money problems.
Around 2004, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) initiated a fund-raising campaign to address an unfunded $1.5-billion, six-year capital program. Today, according to WMATA’s 2012 budget, the Capital Needs Inventory — the stuff that needs to be replaced as it wears out — has soared to $13.3 billion projected through 2020. That is a total increase of $11.8 billion over 8 years — an addition of $1.5 billion per year. Where will these funds come from?
To add to Jeanine’s chorus, EVERYTHING the “opt-out” crowd warned Loudoun against is coming to pass. Loudoun should withdraw from the Funding Agreement right now. Once Metro fixes it problems then in 10 years or so then we should consider it again. I know that the real reason our Board voted into the Agreement so that we can develop a “Dulles City” around the Rt 606 Metro Station north of Dulles Airport (another abysmal tax sucking failure). That development is the reason it got pushed through…nothing to do with transportation and everything to do with the uber wealthy DC developers getting richer. But the financial black hole we are about to get sucked into is a real budget buster and will force more taxes. More analysts now are calling for abandoning the Metro system and going to Bus Rapid Transit and I agree. In the age of “Uber” it is only a matter of time until we can crowdsource mass transit. Metro is a relic of the 20th century and we shouldn’t spend another dime on it.
Of course its the Blue Line. That’s the most neglected line on the metro. It gets shorted cars, never on time, held back to let the other trains through…. It’s almost as if that line gets abused in order to coerce Virginia into giving more money for metro. Hmmm.