Hundreds of local residents are fighting Metro’s proposal to cut $13.6 million worth of service, saying the current economic crisis means more people than ever need to rely on the transit system.
Single moms, elected officials, high school students, union members and suit-clad suburbanites from Palisades to Fort Washington poured into public hearings last week to plead for their buses. In a picket line in front of Metro headquarters Friday night, about 20 people chanted: “They say cut back, we say fight back.”
They oppose Metro’s proposal to plug the coming fiscal gap by eliminating, rerouting or reducing about 70 routes. The system currently serves more than 400,000 bus riders each weekday.
Metro board members will hear even more input before they are slated to discuss the budget on April 30. Riders can send in written comments and petitions through April 20. A U.S. House oversight committee plans to hold a hearing April 29 on the implications of the proposed bus cuts.
“It’s one of those difficult situations where the people who testify are telling us things we agree with,” said Metro board member Peter Benjamin, who represents Maryland.
What has made the proposal so contentious, in part, is that the patchwork of cuts would not hit the region equally. Communities such as Fairfax County would be unaffected, while Maryland communities would bear about half the cuts.
Furthermore, the proposal would affect only Metrobus, not Metrorail. The bus system already provides less consistent service, with one of every four buses arriving late. Many of the routes already have truncated schedules, running only during rush hours on weekdays. Meanwhile, transit agency statistics show that Metrorail serves a higher proportion of higher-income and white riders.
“We are balancing the budget on the backs of the low income and people of color,” Craig Simpson testified on behalf of the system’s largest union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689.
But board members — and even the riders themselves — can’t agree on how to close the remaining budget shortfall without cutting service.
Some offered suggestions to help find money elsewhere: Put ads on SmarTrip cards, trim the agency’s administration or scale back service on holidays such as Veterans Day when many federal workers aren’t commuting.
Others want to use some of the $202 million federal stimulus money the agency is slated to receive. But some board members say tapping that one-time infusion will take away from needed maintenance of the aging system and create an even bigger problem next year.
Some are asking for a fare increase instead, saying more expensive service would be better than no service. But others counter that fares are already pinching workers during tight economic times. Metro raised fares in January 2008 and plans to do so again next year. Meanwhile, District board members already vetoed an earlier proposal for a 5-cent fare increase to close this year’s gap.
Metrobus supporters have also suggested local, state or even federal officials be asked to kick in more subsidies to avoid the trims.
But the coffers are low around the region, with many governments already weighing layoffs and major service cuts to their own local bus agencies.
If the cuts go through, some riders said, they would face longer, more expensive and even more dangerous commutes. Others say they will have to resort to driving, which will add to traffic in an already congested region.
“When they forgo public transportation, what will happen?” testified D.C. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh in a packed hearing of more than 100 people Friday night that lasted nearly four hours. “We will increase public costs in a different way.”
