Washington Metro expects to have a $154 million deficit next year. It hopes to cover half of that by cutting 313 jobs and “trimming other administrative expenses.” The rest will have to come from service cuts, so it is proposing to shut down the subways at 10 o’clock at night.
As someone named h gracy says in the comments on the Washington Post story, this is a classic Washington Monument strategy. As previously noted here, that strategy was named when the Park Service, facing budget cuts in 1968, closed the elevator to the Washington Monument and directed irate tourists to make the complaints to their local members of Congress.
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So, effectively, what Metro is saying is, “Give us more money or we will cut off your nightlife at 10 pm.” No doubt congressional staffers will respond to that!
This is what happens when “public servants” decide to blackmail the public to get the funding that they want. Much like unions.
On the other hand, the DC subways are fairly empty late at night except on weekends.
On the other hand, the DC subways are fairly empty late at night except on weekends
Exactly. If Metro wasn’t making any service cuts (or was planning to make cuts during the busiest times), the Antiplanner would criticize them for that as well.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
I’d just like an answer from the Antiplanner himself on what the Metro should do? Are you for/against budget cuts, and what would you personally cut yourself?
ws asked:
> I’d just like an answer from the Antiplanner himself on what the Metro should do?
> Are you for/against budget cuts, and what would you personally cut yourself?
I cannot (and will not) speak for the Antiplanner, but here’s my suggestion:
Through an open and competitive process, convert the entire Metrorail and Metrobus system
(with a few exceptions, such as the Metro Transit Police) to operation by the private
sector.
You can read a paper by the Montréal Economic Institute which discusses privatization of
urban mass transit operations (and the savings) here (.pdf, 223 KB).
Even though this is mostly oriented to savings to be had by privatizing STM
(the transit authority in Montréal), many of the conclusions are very relevant to the Metro
in Washington.
Subcontracting operations is a good idea.
http://www.veolia-transport.com/en/
ws,
If the Antiplanner were running WMATA, it wouldn’t have gotten in this situation in the first place.
The Antiplanner: “If the Antiplanner were running WMATA, it wouldn’t have gotten in this situation in the first place.”
ws: I didn’t mention anything about you running WMATA, and that’s not the hypothetical question that was posed. What would you recommend given WMATA’s current fiscal condition?
I don’t get it.
You hammer transit for not operating solely on it’s farebox…
and then you hammer them when they are forced to reconcile their funding with service levels.
What would you do instead?
do you want METRO to operate at an even bigger deficit?
What would you cut?
and no .. no gibberish about cutting waste and abuse or unions.. or whatever your favorite whipping boy is…
what would YOU cut?
how would YOU better fund METRO?
LarryG wrote:
> I don’t get it.
>
> You hammer transit for not operating solely on it’s farebox…
>
> and then you hammer them when they are forced to reconcile their funding with service levels.
>
> What would you do instead?
>
> do you want METRO to operate at an even bigger deficit?
>
> What would you cut?
>
> and no .. no gibberish about cutting waste and abuse or unions.. or whatever your favorite whipping boy is…
>
> what would YOU cut?
>
> how would YOU better fund METRO?
As I told ws above, I will not speak for the Antiplanner, but again, here’s my personal take.
I am assuming that the numbers in the Washington Post story are reasonably accurate.
It said Metro has about a $1.3 billion annual budget for operation of its rail and bus system.
The deficit to be made up is about $154 million, or about 12% of the the budget.
Savings of between 20% and 25% (with no cuts in service) have been realized by moving transit
operations to the private sector (through competitive bidding) in places as cities as
diverse as Denver, Colorado; London, England; Stockholm, Sweden; and Talinn, Estonia.
So to summarize:
(1) Convert to operation by the private sector by way of competitive bidding.
(2) No cuts in waste or abuse or busting the unions that represent Metro workers.
(3) No increase in operating subsidies.
(4) No increase in fares.
(5) As a bonus, I would contractually require the winning contractor(s) to provide working air conditioning
in all Metro vehicles carrying fare-paying customers between 1 May and 30 September; and not just on the
Metrorail system as is the case (scandalously and inexcusably) today.
I’d personally like to see some comparison data on the privatized operations – especially in the area of what percentage of the farebox covers operations.
Are these totally privatized operations or are they receiving a subsidy also?
With regard to METRO – there is one area to explore and that is how much they charge for parking.
Or to put this another way – how does providing station parking play into the finances?
Does it ATTRACT MORE riders than they’d have – without parking – in terms of money?
In other words, do they make money on each parking space or do they lose money on each parking space?
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