Metro’s board of directors approved on Thursday a 10-cent fare surcharge on buses and trains through the end of June after hundreds of riders sounded off on a slate of proposals to close a $40 million emergency budget gap.
The board voted unanimously to cut administrative costs further rather than tap into capital money reserved for maintenance, having heard riders’ concerns that the faltering system could not afford to put off any more work on the aging system.
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A total of 684 people submitted public comments on the proposals, with 88 of them testifying in person Wednesday night in three packed rooms at Metro’s headquarters. Of those, 55 percent opposed cutting service, while 56 percent generally supported a fare increase.
Although riders had bemoaned the limited options put before them, some 21 percent said they supported a 10-cent fare increase and tapping a smaller amount of capital money, more support than for any other category. But newly sworn in federal appointee Mortimer Downey called tapping into capital money ‘a slippery slope’ that he saw in an agency he worked at previously.
“To me it’s like getting into a bathtub and slitting your wrists,” he said. It doesn’t hurt but you’re dead when it’s finished.”
Virginia representative Christopher Zimmerman on Thursday proposed the 10-cent fare increase but changed the presented option to increase administrative cuts by about $6 million, rather than tapping into capital money for maintenance or cutting service as the agency proposed.
The agency had been prepared to cut about $2 million administratively, which included cutting 150 jobs, some 60 of them filled. It was not immediately made public Thursday how the agency would cut the new amount.
The fare increase is slated to begin in March and run until June 30, when the budget year ends.
The increases won’t be the only pinch riders will face. The agency said Thursday it is now expecting an $189 million shortfall in the next budget that begins July 1, up from earlier projections of $175 million. Additional fare increases are likely starting July 1.
