Metro officials approved a $2.55 billion budget Thursday, shouldering a budget gap with extra taxpayer subsidies rather than any major cuts to rail service.
The budget, which starts July 1, includes $1.48 billion for day-to-day operations and $1.03 billion in capital dollars for maintaining the system’s buses, stations, tracks and trains.
Last year the agency passed a budget that required riders to pay the heftiest fare hikes in the agency’s history. Fare hikes were not on the table for the new budget, but the agency had looked at extending wait times for trains. Instead, the board opted to fill a $66 million hole with extra subsidies.
The agency was also able to pay back $30.1 million that it had borrowed last year from its long-term maintenance funds to balance its books. That money will help Metro buy 51 buses a year earlier than planned and devote $2 million extra to speed up escalator and elevator fixes, according to Metro.
Board member Mortimer Downey, who said he and other directors had “somewhat reluctantly” agreed to borrow the money last year, called it “extraordinarily good news at the end of a good year.”
The budget does eliminate the N8 and K1 bus routes and include a plan to change a discount for riders in Anacostia, which will require some bus riders to pay 50 to 70 cents more.
