Metro warns of huge budget deficits and a death spiral

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the reality of cars.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/one-driver-with-186k-in-unpaid-tickets-what-dc-ticket-data-shows/3339753/
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019
https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highways

-An "anti-car fascist", probably, who knows that the Purple Line we've been waiting 40 years for is not a WMATA project

The intent of the purple line is to connect it to the metro, duh. Yeah, let’s piss away billions of dollars on a project connecting people to a system they don’t even use and is already going to go bankrupt and possibly cease operations.


Common sense is not your strong suit. Let the adults run the conversation, kiddo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the reality of cars.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/one-driver-with-186k-in-unpaid-tickets-what-dc-ticket-data-shows/3339753/
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019
https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highways

-An "anti-car fascist", probably, who knows that the Purple Line we've been waiting 40 years for is not a WMATA project

But at least in this reality people can actually get from point A to point B in a timely and affordable manner. How will they do that when the metro has to double their fare prices in order to stay solvent and they’re cutting service to the bone so much people have to wait 30+ minutes between trains or there is no service after 930 PM, which makes it impossible to do a lot of weekend activities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Federal agencies have been moving to the suburbs for years (because GSA is so cheap). The suburb people are all back in the office, but the DC people don't want to. Can't imagine why.

True. My GSA office is absolutely horrible. For political reasons we have to continue with GSA instead of leasing. My former agency’s leased office space was fantastic in terms of location and amenities.

When I was in a GSA owned building, it was the worst. I had coworkers out with mold in their lungs, active leaks, non potable water in the building (yeah- I want to metro to work carrying all the water I'll drink all day!), insects and rats. A tourist threw a rock through my window and GSA fought with us for almost a year before someone finally fixed my window.

I moved out to a leased building in the suburbs and it's like night and day. I even get trash pickup in my office! Imagine that.

[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?

I am not anti-car but I take the metro and the bus a ton and think that we are comparing apples and oranges here. Roads for drivers are completely subsidized by taxes without user fees (at least within DC). Gas taxes don't even come close to paying for road construction and maintenance. Yet when the state or city needs money for roads, we budget money for it in the council, legislature, etc. We don't say that the use of roads is in a "budget deficit death spiral" because they aren't paid for by the users. Let's do the same with public transportation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Federal agencies have been moving to the suburbs for years (because GSA is so cheap). The suburb people are all back in the office, but the DC people don't want to. Can't imagine why.

True. My GSA office is absolutely horrible. For political reasons we have to continue with GSA instead of leasing. My former agency’s leased office space was fantastic in terms of location and amenities.

When I was in a GSA owned building, it was the worst. I had coworkers out with mold in their lungs, active leaks, non potable water in the building (yeah- I want to metro to work carrying all the water I'll drink all day!), insects and rats. A tourist threw a rock through my window and GSA fought with us for almost a year before someone finally fixed my window.

I moved out to a leased building in the suburbs and it's like night and day. I even get trash pickup in my office! Imagine that.

Lol, there are even government offices that are superfund sites. Imagine demanding govt workers go back to the office so the metro remains viable even though workers would be forced to work at a super fund site and drink the water there. How about you go to a superfund site and use the water for your lunch and morning tea?

[Anonymous]

Doesn't metro say this every year in order to secure federal funding? And then they always do

[Anonymous]

I go to the office 3x a wk. I need my 2 TW days to actually get work done bc my GSA building has weak internet, outdated software/hardware and I spend 2 hours commuting there and back to work below half speed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the reality of cars.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/one-driver-with-186k-in-unpaid-tickets-what-dc-ticket-data-shows/3339753/
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019
https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highways

-An "anti-car fascist", probably, who knows that the Purple Line we've been waiting 40 years for is not a WMATA project

But at least in this reality people can actually get from point A to point B in a timely and affordable manner. How will they do that when the metro has to double their fare prices in order to stay solvent and they’re cutting service to the bone so much people have to wait 30+ minutes between trains or there is no service after 930 PM, which makes it impossible to do a lot of weekend activities?

Agreed. The region needs a well-functioning public transit system. This must be a funding priority for all of the local jurisdictions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Federal agencies have been moving to the suburbs for years (because GSA is so cheap). The suburb people are all back in the office, but the DC people don't want to. Can't imagine why.

True. My GSA office is absolutely horrible. For political reasons we have to continue with GSA instead of leasing. My former agency’s leased office space was fantastic in terms of location and amenities.

When I was in a GSA owned building, it was the worst. I had coworkers out with mold in their lungs, active leaks, non potable water in the building (yeah- I want to metro to work carrying all the water I'll drink all day!), insects and rats. A tourist threw a rock through my window and GSA fought with us for almost a year before someone finally fixed my window.

I moved out to a leased building in the suburbs and it's like night and day. I even get trash pickup in my office! Imagine that.

Right??? My leased building had nightly cleaning, coffee service, a reasonably priced cafeteria with surprisingly good food … and it wasn’t even in the burbs.

[Anonymous]

OP is a troll.

Metros and subways have had these sorts of problems in every large city of the western world. I lived in Paris for years, and they had the same problems. Every morning I'd see teens jumping the fare gate, even with the gate blockers.

Guess what? The metro never dies. Never. It can be stinky, overcrowded, chronically underfunded, occasionally dangerous, and rarely given to fatal accidents...

But it will always be there, because it fills a critical need for large cities.

So you can stamp your feet all you want, OP. The Metro is not going away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

This is the reality of cars.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/one-driver-with-186k-in-unpaid-tickets-what-dc-ticket-data-shows/3339753/
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019
https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highways

-An "anti-car fascist", probably, who knows that the Purple Line we've been waiting 40 years for is not a WMATA project

The intent of the purple line is to connect it to the metro, duh. Yeah, let’s piss away billions of dollars on a project connecting people to a system they don’t even use and is already going to go bankrupt and possibly cease operations.


Common sense is not your strong suit. Let the adults run the conversation, kiddo.

The intent of the Purple Line is to provide direct suburb-to-suburb transit in a corridor with multiple job centers and many population centers. It also connects both arms of the Metro Red Line, the Metro Green and Yellow lines, the Metro Orange Line, all three MARC lines, and two Amtrak lines.

[Anonymous]

Metro crying poor?

Is it Groundhog Day already?

[Anonymous]

I mean, maybe if the service they provided was better in the first place, I would use it more. I go into work 3 days per week, but always drive at least one of them. There are metro delays, it is crowded, and it is dirty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, maybe if the service they provided was better in the first place, I would use it more. I go into work 3 days per week, but always drive at least one of them. There are metro delays, it is crowded, and it is dirty.

How can it be crowded? OP assures us nobody is taking it!

But yes, what you're pointing to is the "death spiral." Funding shortfall, service cuts, less ridership, funding shortfall, service cuts, less ridership...

I answered a ridership survey a month or two ago (Maryland MTA, not WMATA), which asked how I would get to work if there were no transit. If there were no transit, I would be unable to get to work. It's as simple as that.

[Anonymous]

I was surprised when I moved here that the trains aren't automated and that they actually had drivers. Surely they could be automated 100% or controlled remotely.