Metro is planning to spend $851 million in next year’s capital budget to pay for big-ticket items such as buses and new rail cars. But smaller, less high-profile items are on the list, such as $2 million worth of track fasteners. “We really have to replace things critical to our system to make it safer,” Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. “It doesn’t sound exciting to riders but it is important.”
These are the items that make the trains run smoothly on the track bed, and the parts that help operate the wheelchair lifts on buses, keep the trains cool in summer or just keeps the buses from breaking down.
But the costs also include $766,000 to buy and install two vertical storage units for parts and to reconfigure the storage area at another Metro storeroom, according to the budget.
The budget includes $5.5 million for about 120 nonrevenue service and emergency vehicles, which amounts to nearly $46,000 per vehicle.
The agency also plans to spend $4.8 million to rehab the heating and air conditioning systems on its Rohr 1000 series rail cars over the next three years, even though it plans to spend $701 million to replace all of those cars within the next seven years.
Much of the high-profile costs for new rail cars and escalator repair won’t occur next year, in fact.
Although the agency plans to spend $931 million on new rail cars by the 2017 budget, only $20 million is slated for the next budget cycle. Meanwhile, $123.9 million is slated for elevator and escalator repairs, but only $18.4 million of those costs are scheduled for the next budget year.- Kytja Weir
