It’s raining in Washington. While inconvenient, you wouldn’t think this would affect metro users very much, because, after all, the majority of the lines run underground. Which is why commuters taking the train from Virginia into D.C. got a surprise when they discovered that it was raining inside the platform the other day. The water cascading from the ceiling of the underground platform, as shown in this video, was perturbing to say the least.
Heavy downpours inside Franconia-Springfield station. Bring your umbrella. @unsuckdcmetro pic.twitter.com/tsXEy7U667— Chris Duncan (@CTDPIX) February 16, 2016
The video was tweeted to @unsuckdcmetro, an account dedicated to publicizing user complaints about the capital region’s public transportation service. It’s just the latest in a long string of metro flubs, including long waits during rush hour, broken escalators, and trains waiting on the tracks and unexpectedly going out of service or being cancelled mid-trip, disgorging passengers onto already overcrowded platforms.
World class #Metro service at #unionstation. #SafetyFirst @unsuckdcmetro @WMATARU pic.twitter.com/VAeTqC2hEj
— Christian Fuchs (@cpfuchs) February 11, 2016
Understandably, ridership numbers are down by 5 percent in the last year alone. The latest data show that numbers have fallen to 2004 levels, as people opt to take taxis, Lyft, or Uber, or bike, drive, or walk to work—anything to avoid having to deal with the increasingly unreliable train.
Most businesses would react to falling product demand by looking for ways to improve their service. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which oversees the Metro, is taking a different track.
In preparation for a budget meeting at the end of the month, the agency released its proposed FY2017 budget. The budget “includes no fare increases and no service reductions,” mercifully avoiding charging riders even more for less.
Still, the Metro wants to hire an additional 59 people and raise its operating budget. Its proposed budget further seeks to boost rider numbers by heavily subsidizing rides by students from the University of Maryland and American University. It is left unexplained how offering “each student…a semester of annual UPass that offers unlimited rides on Metro” will help the system turn a profit, or even less of a loss.
In the short term, the answer seems to be to beg taxpayers for more money. WMATA still hopes to collect $845 million dollars in subsidies to keep moving. It’s all part of the long, slow decline.
