Metro riders may need to wait longer for trains on weekends or could lose out on some discounted bus trips in the District starting this fall. But they won’t be asked to pay more for overall Metro service or face other substantial cuts to their buses and trains, under a plan approved by Metro’s board of directors on Thursday.
Metro’s board approved a slate of options on ways to close a $72.5 million budget gap that it will present to riders in a series of public hearings next month. The board likely won’t finalize the proposed $1.47 billion operating budget until late June and the changes wouldn’t take place until September. But in choosing the limited list, they took the important step this week of closing the door on other major cuts.
| Possible Metro service cuts |
| Metro plans to hold two public hearings each in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia from May 16-20 on the 2012 fiscal year budget. The board will be asking for input on the following service changes to close a portion of the $72.5 million budget gap: |
| Metrorail = $ 6 million savings |
| • Increasing the wait times for weekend trains to 18 minutes during the day on Saturday and 20 minutes on Sundays, plus 25 minutes after 9:30 p.m. on both days |
| D.C. bus service = $1.27 million savings |
| • K1: Eliminate the line from Takoma Metro station to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. |
| • N8: Eliminate the line from Tenleytown to Glover Park. |
| • E6 and M4: Consolidate the two lines that serve the D.C. portion of Chevy Chase near the Friendship Heights Metro and Nebraska Avenue to Tenleytown and into Palisades. |
| • The District also wants to restructure the 70/71 route to create a new route 74 and change some V7 trips to V8 line. |
| • Modify the “Anacostia Buyback” program: Only bus riders who transfer at the Anacostia Metro station would receive the discount, under the D.C. proposal, instead of all Anacostia bus riders. That means riders on the 94, A2, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, M8, M9, W2, W3, W6 and W8, and southbound 90, B2, P1, P2, P6, and U2 stops at or south of Good Hope Road would lose the existing 50-cent discount. |
They rejected a plan requested by local advocacy group Transit First! to increase parking fees by $1 where lots fill up daily instead of other service cuts.
Last week, they threw out proposed bus cuts in Virginia and Maryland.
And earlier they had backed away from any major fare increases or cutting the popular late-night train service on weekends.
Even a separate plan to charge a nickel extra to riders passing through Union Station to pay for future construction there was pushed aside on Thursday. The District had sought the surcharge initially but backed down this week.
New member Mike Barnes also tried to remove the proposed rail service cuts, which would extend the wait between trains. “I am concerned the service on weekends is already about as inconvenient in terms of headways [wait times] as we want to have it,” Barnes said.
But his push was voted down as board members said they wanted to have some options left.
The items left on the table (see box) cover only a small fraction — about $7.27 million — of the budget gap, though. That means that local jurisdictions would have to cough up the remaining $64 million or rely on some one-time options the board has already bemoaned such as borrowing from the construction and maintenance budget.
“We better have a lot of hope that the jurisdictions are sending us the message that they’re intending to fill the gap,” said federal member Mortimer Downey. Arlington County has said it is ready to increase its share of the subsidy. Maryland has hinted that it could pay more as well. But the other Virginia localities and the District haven’t said yet how much more they can subsidize the system.
