You won’t find “not enough Metro employees” on the long list of legitimate public criticism directed at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority since the fatal 2009 Red Line crash. Passengers have loudly voiced their frustration with broken-down escalators, unsafe and malfunctioning equipment, schedule-shredding delays, rising crime and declining levels of service. That’s because for years, Metro has diverted funds that should have paid for maintenance to its already bloated payroll, which remains the key obstacle to turning the struggling transit system around. So it’s incredible that General Manager Richard Sarles has included a 9 percent payroll increase — the largest employee expansion in Metro history — in his proposed budget for the next fiscal year. Sarles wants to add 1,013 positions (at an average cost of $108,375 each) even though Metro predicts ridership will decline by 3 percent next year. He proposes to pay for this unwarranted hiring blitz by raising fares for 68 percent of Metro riders during peak commuting times. SmartCard users would take a 5 percent hit, but the fare increase would be much higher for the 17 percent of riders who still use paper farecards — including most visitors to the nation’s capital. Sarles wants to phase-out the popular one-day passes and replace them with a flat fee of $4 to $6 per trip that will likely drive hordes of tourists from Metro into taxicabs.
The timing couldn’t be worse. Agonizingly long delays caused by long-neglected maintenance have forced even Metro-friendly commuters off the rails. Federal pre-tax transit benefits have been cut in half while parking benefits have been increased. Even Metro acknowledges that higher fares — which won’t even cover $88 million in higher labor costs associated with the new hires — will result in another 3 percent dip in transit ridership on top of the 3 percent already predicted.
A fourth fare increase since 2008 might be tolerated if it was to be spent on needed repairs. It won’t. It will only keep Metro’s current fleet of buses and trains running at the same unacceptably low levels. Meanwhile, the salaries and benefits of all those new employees will be spread out over the agency’s $2.5 billion operating and capital budgets, making it difficult to determine the true cost of adding 1,000 more employees to the 11,319 Metro already has on the payroll. More employees is the last thing Metro needs.
