Metro warns of huge budget deficits and a death spiral

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

"My" transit? First of all, "your" roads are losing far more massive amounts of money, and second of all, you would not be happy on "your" roads if everyone who currently takes transit instead drove cars.

Everyone benefits when more people take transit. Nobody except the car industry benefits when more people drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

"My" transit? First of all, "your" roads are losing far more massive amounts of money, and second of all, you would not be happy on "your" roads if everyone who currently takes transit instead drove cars.

Everyone benefits when more people take transit. Nobody except the car industry benefits when more people drive.

We already discussed this up thread. No, the metro loses far more money than roads.

Just keep on dumping money into the metro because don’t you know! It’s a public service!


Yeah who needs accountability for anything. Just keep on throwing dollars at a problem that gets more bloated every year. Tell you what, I’ll agree to give the metro more money as soon as you demand they cut out ridiculous bloat, slash useless jobs, and reduce ridiculous union salaries and benefits. They’re the ones really choking the metro to death, yet your solution is to throw more money at the problem. Brilliant plan!


Or DC could, you know, collect the over $1B owed to it in tickets and use that to fund the metro if it cares about it so much:

https://jalopnik.com/drivers-owe-washington-dc-1-3-billion-traffic-tickets-1850404184


But let me guess, that wouldn’t be equitable, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We already discussed this up thread. No, the metro loses far more money than roads.

Just keep on dumping money into the metro because don’t you know! It’s a public service!

Yeah who needs accountability for anything. Just keep on throwing dollars at a problem that gets more bloated every year. Tell you what, I’ll agree to give the metro more money as soon as you demand they cut out ridiculous bloat, slash useless jobs, and reduce ridiculous union salaries and benefits. They’re the ones really choking the metro to death, yet your solution is to throw more money at the problem. Brilliant plan!

Or DC could, you know, collect the over $1B owed to it in tickets and use that to fund the metro if it cares about it so much:

https://jalopnik.com/drivers-owe-washington-dc-1-3-billion-traffic-tickets-1850404184

But let me guess, that wouldn’t be equitable, right?

Unless you're on the Metro board, or a state elected official, you're not making the decisions about Metro funding, and I don't care what you agree or don't agree to.

Yes, it would be great if the drivers who owe tickets to DC had to pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the reality of public transit:

https://www.wusa9.com/article/traffic/mission-metro/metro-warns-massive-service-cuts-death-spiral-transit-750-million-shortfall/65-9c0dc54f-8f65-46c4-8390-51e8108ac1a5


Where are the anti-car fascists now? Have fun going to work or doing things on the weekend. The anti-car crowd loves to give pie in the sky calculations that never account for human factors like crime, overrun costs, inefficiencies, and huge bloated salaries and benefits for the unionized workers bankrupting the system. So glad we are spending billions more on this black hole with the purple line. Watch, the only solution they’ll come up with is to increase taxes and to increase fares to outrageous prices. It has never dawned on them to start with common sense ideas like increasing safety and severely punishing fare evaders. Why should anyone pay of a huge portion of people ride for free already?

Cue idiot leftist in power calling for banning cars in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn’t the solution be to make federal workers come back into the office?

Good one. This made me LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

It's not primarily supposed to make money. It's not a business, it's public transit. Roads are also losing money. So are police departments and ambulances. I guess we should do away with them? The Pentagon loses trillions of dollars every year, let's maybe start cutting there, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

"My" transit? First of all, "your" roads are losing far more massive amounts of money, and second of all, you would not be happy on "your" roads if everyone who currently takes transit instead drove cars.

Everyone benefits when more people take transit. Nobody except the car industry benefits when more people drive.

We already discussed this up thread. No, the metro loses far more money than roads.

Just keep on dumping money into the metro because don’t you know! It’s a public service!


Yeah who needs accountability for anything. Just keep on throwing dollars at a problem that gets more bloated every year. Tell you what, I’ll agree to give the metro more money as soon as you demand they cut out ridiculous bloat, slash useless jobs, and reduce ridiculous union salaries and benefits. They’re the ones really choking the metro to death, yet your solution is to throw more money at the problem. Brilliant plan!


Or DC could, you know, collect the over $1B owed to it in tickets and use that to fund the metro if it cares about it so much:

https://jalopnik.com/drivers-owe-washington-dc-1-3-billion-traffic-tickets-1850404184


But let me guess, that wouldn’t be equitable, right?

Equity isn't actually the issue here: D.C. has very little ability to collect for non-moving violations from drivers licensed in Maryland and Virginia -- there's no agreement for reciprocity for tickets and fines. As of two years ago, Maryland and Virginia drivers had racked up 1.9 million automated tickets (like, photo tickets for speeding or running red lights), compared to 232,000 from D.C. drivers. Those are the types of fines your Jalopnik link is primarily discussing, as it notes if you click through.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/12/28/dc-virginia-maryland-ticket-reciprocity/

Besides that, D.C. isn't the only jurisdiction responsible for funding the Metro, but personally, I'd be all in favor of collecting all these fines and earmarking the money for public transit.

[Anonymous]

What about all the rampant fare evasion? Maybe Metro should first get serious about collecting fares again before blaming the budget shortfall on regular *paying* customers who are sick and tired of sitting in utter filth to get to work.

[Anonymous]

The people complaining about metro are living in an alternate reality. I have taken metro almost daily for 20 years. I’ve never seen a real crime. Never seen anyone masturbating. Stinkiness is rare (more common in the summer afternoon/evening—I do wish male workers would wear more reasonable clothes for DC summers). Loud music only once or twice in twenty minutes years. Have seen mentally ill people doing something troublesome a few times in twenty years.
I don’t know what Mad Max scenario these metro critics are envisioning but it does not match my experience. And it is still cheaper than downtown parking.
Fwiw, I’m a middle aged white lady from the suburbs and probably more crime averse than average. I wouldn’t ride around the city by msyself at midnight but commuting is totally fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people complaining about metro are living in an alternate reality. I have taken metro almost daily for 20 years. I’ve never seen a real crime. Never seen anyone masturbating. Stinkiness is rare (more common in the summer afternoon/evening—I do wish male workers would wear more reasonable clothes for DC summers). Loud music only once or twice in twenty minutes years. Have seen mentally ill people doing something troublesome a few times in twenty years.
I don’t know what Mad Max scenario these metro critics are envisioning but it does not match my experience. And it is still cheaper than downtown parking.
Fwiw, I’m a middle aged white lady from the suburbs and probably more crime averse than average. I wouldn’t ride around the city by msyself at midnight but commuting is totally fine.

So just because you personally never saw anything on your 11am commute from Rockville to Shady Grove, your experience must necessarily be the same for everyone else. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

It's not primarily supposed to make money. It's not a business, it's public transit. Roads are also losing money. So are police departments and ambulances. I guess we should do away with them? The Pentagon loses trillions of dollars every year, let's maybe start cutting there, too.

So keep on throwing money into a black hole with no accountability whatsoever. We don’t need to figure out why the metro loses billions over years, just give them money whenever they demand it. Just let them raise their salaries and benefits to whatever they want and ignore the costs. Taxpayers have infinite amounts of money don’t you know!

Because police, fire, and roads lose money is your explanation for why we should throw even more money at an even bigger money loser? That’s really amazing logic right there. What it really means is that the state sucks a providing services. Billions upon billions in bloat, pork, excessive salaries, excessive benefits while service and safety deteriorate. Yet the solution is MOR MONEYZ!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about all the rampant fare evasion? Maybe Metro should first get serious about collecting fares again before blaming the budget shortfall on regular *paying* customers who are sick and tired of sitting in utter filth to get to work.

It’s not equitable, in fact, there’s a shockingly high proportion of individuals who think the metro for be 100% free for everyone all the time. Because who needs money when taxpayers have infinitely deep pockets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows that driving is just a much better experience, even if it costs more and takes longer. Fewer random delays, no smell of pot everywhere, no body odor smells, no people coughing and sneezing all over you, no people blasting their music. It would be nice if metro addressed issues relating to the pleasantness of the ride, but as is the case with things generally in DC, there seems to be a move toward focusing less on quality of life issues in the pursuit of some vague "equity" objective.

I guess I’m not part of everyone? I give metro a better experience — not having to deal with unexpected accidents/construction, no crazy people trying to kill me so they can get where they’re going five minutes faster, no parking, I can focus on work or a book while I ride rather than having to pay attention to the road, no wear and tear on my car, …

For people who have genuinely short car commutes or don’t have a convenient metro station I can understand why it’s preferable to just drive your car in but I’m surprised at least one person thinks suffering through the traffic in a car is pleasanter than an equivalent cost/time ride on a train.

I’d rather be in traffic than dealing with very violent gangs of teenagers on the subway hurting and killing people, or being subjected to men on the subway masturbating out in public. Yes, these happen on the metro.

If you'd rather drive, then drive. Nobody is stopping you from driving.

Just don’t expect taxpayers to keep funding your transit that is losing massive amounts of money.

It's not primarily supposed to make money. It's not a business, it's public transit. Roads are also losing money. So are police departments and ambulances. I guess we should do away with them? The Pentagon loses trillions of dollars every year, let's maybe start cutting there, too.

So keep on throwing money into a black hole with no accountability whatsoever. We don’t need to figure out why the metro loses billions over years, just give them money whenever they demand it. Just let them raise their salaries and benefits to whatever they want and ignore the costs. Taxpayers have infinite amounts of money don’t you know!

Because police, fire, and roads lose money is your explanation for why we should throw even more money at an even bigger money loser? That’s really amazing logic right there. What it really means is that the state sucks a providing services. Billions upon billions in bloat, pork, excessive salaries, excessive benefits while service and safety deteriorate. Yet the solution is MOR MONEYZ!

Well, PP is obviously very upset. Primarily about paying taxes, I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about all the rampant fare evasion? Maybe Metro should first get serious about collecting fares again before blaming the budget shortfall on regular *paying* customers who are sick and tired of sitting in utter filth to get to work.

It’s not equitable, in fact, there’s a shockingly high proportion of individuals who think the metro for be 100% free for everyone all the time. Because who needs money when taxpayers have infinitely deep pockets.

Hey, just like roads! And sidewalks! Stupid freeloading pedestrians.