The Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) has announced that it is “taking swift actions” to “combat the omicron variant.” What are those actions? It is cutting weekday bus service to Saturday schedules. Plus it is keeping rail service on limited schedules.
A train of derailment-prone 7000-series railcars.
How will these actions combat the omicron variant? They won’t. But WMATA doesn’t want to admit that, as a contender for the title of worst-managed transit agency in America, it purchased a bunch of rail cars that are duds and keep falling off the tracks. Because those railcars make up more than half the agency’s fleet, service alerts (at the time I am writing this) urge rail riders to “expect delays and consider MetroBus alternatives.”
The problem with using the bus as an alternative is that WMATA, like many transit agencies, has a driver shortage, forcing it to reduce frequencies on many bus routes and even to suspend service on some routes. I’ve argued that transit agencies should respond to reduced pandemic ridership by cutting service, and while WMATA is cutting service, it’s because of its own ineptitude, not the pandemic.
Even that would be fine, but when it claims that it is making those cuts to “combat omicron,” it goes too far. Supposedly, transit agencies are maintaining service at pre-pandemic levels to allow riders to practice social distancing. Many Washington Metro riders won’t be able to do that thanks to the failure of the agency to keep its drivers happy and its railcar fleet in operable condition.
In October, my sister and her boyfriend got a car after 4 years of living in Bethesda without one. They had some uncanny timing.
The average salary in Washington, DC is $78,000….
So begs the question how a city with a workforce so rich (namely govt workers) can’t afford to take care of a system. Because they built more than even they could afford and when it began to dilapidate…their solution was regressive taxes on average income folks….. DC metrorail needs 20 billion dollars to repair itself. And they don’t have it……Metrorail has a farebox recovery ratio of 67.5%. Metrobus has a farebox recovery of 24.3%. Buses gave a greater loss ratio….they have far less money to lose. As antiplanner noted CAPITAL COSTS and refit aren’t factored into their math.
” I’ve argued that transit agencies should respond to reduced pandemic ridership by cutting service, and while WMATA is cutting service, it’s because of its own ineptitude, not the pandemic.”
So businesses all over the country and closing early and limiting hours because of staff shortages due to Omicron, school are going virtual due to staff shortages and teachers having to quarantine due to Omicron, US transit agencies are reducing service due to staff shortages due to Omicron but the Antiplanner thinks that WMATA is somehow immune to this uptick in Covid cases in the US and believes that the only logical reason WMATA is cutting service is solely due to their ineptitude.
I would love to know what WMATA is doing that’s special make this immune to being effected by the uptick in Covid cases in the US.