WMATA finally showed some understanding of the law of demand and price elasticity.

I don’t have a problem with the pay structure or pensions. (If there’s abuse that’s really a management problem as they should know who is working where and when.)

The only one of these changes that really affects me is the 8 car train. I don’t see much crowding at the tail end of rush hour but there is massive crowding for about 45 minutes every day. Longer trains would help with that. The other big issue I see is maintenance—when there is a major delay it’s always because of a switch problem or arcing connector or something. The tracks are just in lousy shape and it slows everything down. If decreasing weekend costs increases revenue to help with maintenance, then that’s great.

I've emailed Mary Cheh upmteenth times about the insanity of Local 689's pension (which is the most generous in the nation given that it includes overtime pay). This outlandish pension is basically legalized theft from riders and taxpayers. Her latest reponse was the most disheartening yet...it seems the council has basically thrown up its hands and isn't even going to try anymore to negotiate for the 401K style that all the other public workers get.

I quote "But this benefit continues to be part of the contract with WMATA. Alas"

WHAT?? She's the head of the transportation committee...it's her job to help change the contract, not just accept the status quo we've had for the last forty years. I think the only option left is federal takeover of the system, so the employee's will be put under the GS system.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes to the 8 car train! How are they paying for this? I understand that was always the problem.

This is a great direction, but I confess I was hoping the policy change was about booting the lazy workers!

+1. WMATA doesn’t have an infrastructure problem. It doesn’t have a maintenance problem. It doesn’t have a financial problem. It has a severe personnel problem.

Breach the union contracts. Let them strike. They don’t do anything anyway.

I think the current changes are a good start, but I agree that a major problem is paid compensation. WMATA employees who have been working 20+ years make an unreasonable salary. It is unsustainable for a public transit system to be paying train operators more than many professional white-collar workers.

I agree that WMATA needs to breach the union contracts and force some sort of cap on salaries. The salaries are preventing WMATA from adequately funding necessary maintenance and updates to the system.

Really? What about airplane pilots and cops? Because after 20 years many in those professions make six-figure base pays with hefty overtime, or in airline cases - strikes, bonuses.

I think the person who is ferrying the equivalent of a 747-passenger list every half-hour should get the pay that would keep us safe. I do think WMATA needs to institute better safety policies (including the amount of hours/shifts a operator can handle without time off) and a complete transformation of all the line tracks and infrastructure.

But I don't think the hundreds of millions they'll need to tear up those miles of 50-year-old tracks will come from cutting a few dozen salaries. It needs a federal infrastructure mandate with $500 million given to each major qualifying city to bring us up to the base standards of say Japan...or South Korea. At this point I'd even take France.

PP, given the history of WMATA crashes, other disasters, and deaths, does paying shockingly high salaries seem to work for them now?

Does lowering salaries make any sense? No.

WMATA staff are very well compensated. The most recent package came with 4% annual raises and annual cost of living raises on top of that. Please find another industry dominated by people with high school degrees who can get that kind of money.

But WMATA's biggest problem is runaway overtime costs and out of control pension obligations. There was a series a few years ago in one of the local papers that uncovered that IIRC over 200 WMATA bus drivers were pulling 6 figure salaries because of overtime and there were even some drivers who hit the 200K mark! The series implied that there was probably widespread abuse going on and that alternately some of the hours drivers were billing for would make them a hazard if there were really drivers billing 60+ hours a week behind the wheel.

But the craziest thing is that the overtime pay factors into their pension calculations so there is a multiplier effect for the overtime costs and incredible incentives for staff to lie.