Raising fares while cutting service is a proven way to send mass transit passengers back to their cars. But that’s apparently what Metro General Manager John Catoe has in mind as a way to solve the transit agency’s chronic funding problems.
At Metro’s board meeting next Thursday, Catoe is expected to ask for a series of fare hikes tied to an index such as consumer prices. The higher fares would be used to cover shortfalls in Metro’s operating budget, including rising fuel and payroll costs. A $1.5 billion federal bailout under consideration on Capitol Hill would pay for needed capital improvements.
If Catoe’s proposal is approved, Metro riders, who already pay the second-highest fares in the nation for increasingly unreliable service, could be hit with steadily escalating charges just as popular late-night weekend train service is curtailed. Under such a scenario,a significant loss of ridership is practically guaranteed.
Metro board members should reject fare increases and instead demand that the transit agency substantially reduce its bloated bureaucracy and demonstrate far more fiscal responsibility than it has exhibited in the past. An excellent place to start would be with the overtime abuse and triple-digit pensions for already well-compensated Metro employees, which The Examiner exposed earlier this year. Metro passengers should not be expected to underwrite fiscal irresponsibility like paying bus drivers six-figure salaries.
Such abuses make clear that the current financial crisis, which Catoe cites as justification for a fare hike, is largely of Metro’s own making. Speaking of excessive Metro compensation abuses, readers should know transit officials are balking at The Examiner’s request for updated Metro salary and overtime data. The Examiner posted this data for last year on its Web site and seeks to provide the latest available information so the public can see how Metro spends most of its funds.
And let’s not forget that a Metro-appointed task force sharply criticized the transit agency’s failure to maximize development opportunities on many acres of excess land it owns at dozens of stations, as The Washington Post recently reported. Land not needed for bus and rail operations should have been sold to the highest bidder long ago, with the proceeds invested in system upgrades.
Catoe is still relatively new on his job and is certainly not to blame for the history of Metro abuses and mismanagement that led to the present state of affairs. But it’s his job to steer a new course for Metro, and it’s disappointing that he seems stuck on the same track as his predecessors.
