Ignoring entreaties by hundreds of passengers and even the head of its own Riders’ Advisory Council, the Metro Board plowed ahead last week with the highest fare hike in the transit agency’s history. The increase comes on the heels of Metro management’s failure to mount a credible effort to curb wasteful spending and eliminate management inefficiencies. So, once again, Metro riders are being forced to pay for Metro management’s familiar mistakes. Commuters will pay up to $10.75 more per week to park at Metro lots and ride the trains when the increases go into effect Jan. 6.
General Manager John Catoe told Metro Board members his only other option to close a projected $1.3 billion budget shortfall was to cut service. This was a classic Washington Monument ruse — federal bureaucrats faced with spending cuts always shut down the most popular attractions first instead of cutting waste and inefficiency in their own bloated budgets.
Similarly, Catoe said nothing about issues like the excessive overtime Metro continues to pay senior employees, as The Examiner’s expose earlier this year revealed. More than half of the top 200 hourly employees who racked up the most overtime in 2006 took home six-figure paychecks that equaled or exceeded the already generous salaries of Metro’s top managers. There’s something wrong when a bus driver makes more than an assistant general manager, or a Metro police officer is paid more than the director of emergency management.
In 2006, the number of Metro employees earning $100,000 or more increased as overtime payments rose 17 percent. The increase came despite two fatal accidents that involved Metro employees who had worked excessive overtime hours. Because overtime benefits are included in calculating pension benefits, Metro employees can get much fatter pensions than they would receive based solely on their salaries. Catoe should have addressed this outrageous situation before even whispering the words “fare hike.”
Metro Board chairman Dana Kauffman ended his 12-year tenure courageously casting the lone “No” vote on the latest fare and parking hikes. Kauffman also voted against extending Metrorail to Dulles International Airport. The Federal Transit Administration should take the new fare/parking fees into account in its Dulles Rail ridership projections.
Michael Snyder resigned as Riders’ Advisory Council chairman in disgust after telling the Metro Board that higher rail fares will force low-income people off the trains. True, but it’s also likely the far more numerous suburban rush-hour commuters will also bail from rail in greater numbers, especially because taking Metro is almost always slower than driving, even in traffic-congested Washington.
The fare and parking hikes give commuters another reason to abandon an aging transit system that becomes less safe and reliable — but more uncomfortable and expensive — with every passing year.
