Before Metrorail is extended to Dulles International Airport, Metro board members should find out the true cost of deferred maintenance on the existing 103-mile system. When The Examiner recently asked for that figure, a Metro representative told us: “We don’t have a number for that. It hasn’t been tracked and calculated that way.”
That’s funny. In November 2004, Metro budget director Richard Harcum noted on the Metro Matters Web site that the transit agency’s annual maintenance budget was only 1 percent of the total value of the infrastructure, instead of the 3 percent needed to keep the system in tip-top shape. How long maintenance has been seriously underfunded is anybody’s guess.
Harcum’s comment prompted Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance President Arthur Purves to ask for the cumulative cost of Metro’s deferred maintenance because he wanted to compare that figure with the cost of building Dulles Rail. “I suspect they are both about $5 billion. Is that correct?” Purves has asked repeatedly in e-mails to Harcum since 2004.
He’s still waiting for an answer. So are we.
Metro’s “Proposed FY08 Budget Executive Summary” states on Page 23: “In September 2006, Metro presented a framework for managing the capital improvement program to the Board of Directors that will reduce the funding shortfall identified within the capital program.”
However, the exact dollar amount of this “funding shortfall” is not included. If this figure has already been identified, why is Metro not disclosing it to the public? Is it because Metro has a history of overpaying employees and underinvesting in basic maintenance? Chronic breakdowns on Metrorail seem to suggest that’s been the case for a number of years.
Metro spends $252 million annually on salaries and benefits just for administrative and management staff and $35 million on advertising, and owns almost a half-million square feet of prime real estate, but it can’t seem to keep its buses, trains and escalators in running order. Splurging on nonessentials at the expense of the agency’s core mission is bad management. Expecting passengers to pay higher fares for anincreasingly unreliable — and unsafe — system that has not been properly maintained is simply unfair.
Without knowing the full scope of Metro’s deferred maintenance, it’s irresponsible to extend the system further. The proposed Dulles Rail project will impose significantly more maintenance burdens — not to mention $100 million in annual operating costs — that its backers are simply not addressing. Taxpayers and passengers have the right to know how much deeper Dulles Rail will put them in the red.
