MetroNow Dispatch 8.2021
This month, we're celebrating WMATA's innovative service + fare updates; our new MetroNow members Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce and Tyson’s Partnership; our federal delegation, and more!
Happy Birthday To Us!
We launched the first issue of the MetroNow Dispatch in August, 2020. What a year it has been! Thank you to our #DayOnes for still being here, and for all who have joined along the way. Here’s a roundup of our most popular Dispatch editions of the last year, ranked by number of views.
Top 3 Dispatches by Readership:
March, 2021: Make Equity the Cornerstone of Transit Recovery
June, 2021: WMATA’s FY2022 Budget & The Regional Recovery
September, 2020: Why a Bus Network Redesign?
If you like our take on all things #BetterBus + #PublicTransit in the Greater Washington region, please tell a fellow human to subscribe.
Feds Fund WMATA
Thank you to the best Federal Delegation in the land for securing a $150 million WMATA funding reauthorization in the respective U.S. House and Senate Infrastructure bills that, once enacted, guarantees annual federal contributions for WMATA for at least an additional eight years. This will help WMATA continue to make the system safer and more reliable for riders.
Though all is on track, WMATA’s federal funding is not yet final. The House and Senate are still working through reconciliation and appropriations. If you haven’t yet, send a thank you to the delegation and ask for their continued fight for our transit system.
Read More:
Metrorail More Reliable Thanks to Regional Investment in Rehabilitation and Prevention Programs (WMATA, 8.6.21)
“Metro’s preventive maintenance program has cut the number of emergency track repairs in half since FY2018. Once a leading cause of smoke and fire incidents, not a single traction power cable fire was recorded last fiscal year (FY2021), thanks to three years of cable meggering work.”
New Regional Voices Join MetroNow
MetroNow is excited to announce the addition of the Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce and the Tysons Partnership to the MetroNow Coalition. David Harrington, President and CEO of the Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce, and Sol Glasner, CEO of the Tysons Partnership, bring their leadership and regional expertise to ensure the Washington metropolitan area has a world-class, well-funded, well-run, and innovative transit network.
Read More:
Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce and Tysons Partnership join the MetroNow Coalition (MetroNow, 8.24.21)
“As evidenced by the County’s commitment to scaling the Blue Line corridor, a robust transportation system is an essential component to the County’s economic viability,” said David Harrington, President and CEO of the Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce.
“Metrorail is one of the foundational elements in the Tysons’ Comprehensive Plan. Now more than ever, it is imperative we invest in the system and in its growth, particularly the completion and service start for the Silver Line Phase 2,” said Sol Glasner, President and CEO of the Tysons Partnership.
Transit’s Ready for Recovery
While the waves of the COVID pandemic can be seen forming weeks ahead of time, they always catch us by surprise. Though the Delta variant has added new uncertainty for post-Labor Day plans, we won’t despair-- we’re reminded that transit is so much more than the commute! Now’s a great time for everyone in the region to think about transit and multimodal connections for every trip.
Whether you’re headed to a concert, soccer game, dinner, or to visit friends— WMATA’s new service schedule, starting September 5th, will make trying transit easier than ever. Not only is WMATA continuing to maintain COVID safety protocol, and make trains and buses safer with better air filtration, they’re also rolling out new service and pricing incentives to lure riders back to the transit system after months of low ridership. Plus, if you go digital for your SmartTrip (trust us, it's incredible), you get 10 free capital bikeshare rides! We look forward to continued conversations around late night bus service improvements, bus transformation improvements, and the many ideas for making transit better serve all trips.
*Transit PSA: Remember this cool graphic from WMATA on air circulation and details on air filtration on Metro facilities? What this tells us is that a Metrorail car may have fresher air than our favorite bar, cubicle, or even our homes. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, and take transit (thank you NYC for this)!
Read More:
Big Changes coming to D.C.’s Transit to Boost Ridership (Governing, 8.20.21) “In determining how to make changes, Metro policymakers studied where ridership remained strongest even during the pandemic’s worst. They saw that low-income riders and those without access to a car continued to use public transit heavily, as did many essential workers in the health-care and government fields. As vaccinations spread, and restaurants began to recover, they also saw increased demand at night from food service workers.” **special shout out to MetroNow’s own Jane Lyons for her quotes in this article**
Metro, Capital Bikeshare want to lure back riders: Sign up for mobile SmarTrip and get free bike rides (Washington Post, 8.3.21) “As our region continues to reopen, it is more important than ever to ensure our residents have access to convenient and affordable transit options,” Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks said in a statement. The partnership between Metro and Capital Bikeshare, she said, should “get more transit users in the County and across the region to ride bicycles, while making it more convenient for them to pay their transit fares through mobile pay.”
Transit Champion of the Month: Nina Albert
As Nina Albert transitions into her new role as the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service for the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), we want to thank her for her service as the Vice President of Real Estate and Parking at the WMATA. Nina helped WMATA reprioritize and streamline processes around transit-oriented development and joint development at WMATA Metrorail stations. If you haven’t been to New Carrollton lately or read the recent news regarding TOD development at Falls Church, you can thank Nina for more cranes in the sky helping to build a more sustainable region and a more financially sustainable WMATA. We wish Nina the best of luck in her new role at the GSA and with her leadership we expect the GSA will understand the power and benefits of the federal government leasing and building near our transit stations.
Read More:
Metro announces agreement for joint development and approval of Comprehensive Plan amendment at West Falls Church (8.12.21)
“On July 13, The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved an amendment to its Comprehensive Plan to support development of both the Metro site and the adjoining Virginia Tech site, with mixed-use development emphasizing safe and convenient bicycle and pedestrian enhancements connecting to the Metro station.”
Final Sign Off from Sophie and Qian, our summer interns
Hi Dispatch readers!
We sincerely appreciated the opportunity to intern with the MetroNow Coalition this summer and to advance its mission for more safe, smart, and sustainable transit in the Capital Region.
We began by developing our transit knowledge through surveying academic literature on the economic impact of transit, including various academic reports and TransitCenter’s Equity Dashboard. We wrote a literature review that focused on accessibility to job opportunities and strategic land use. Our research presentation highlighted critical issues and offered recommendations to the coalition, which strengthened its thinking around the transportation and land use connection.
We then turned our attention to current issues, such as recent service and fare improvements to the Metro, the future of commutes, and equitable transit-oriented development.
We included these ideas in the July Dispatch to support the newsletter’s continued mission of bringing informative ideas, timely, and forward looking actions that can provide world class transit options for our region.
Most recently, we tracked bus service improvements based on the 2018 Bus Transformation Project, which included a regional Strategy and Action Plan to enhance bus service. We have been measuring regional bus agencies’ implementation of the Action Plan by tabulating over 100 recommendations. We look forward to MetroNow’s final Bus Transformation Project Progress Report this fall (BREAKING NEWS: look out for our BTP progress report this fall!), which will highlight progress and encourage transit agencies to further actions to prioritize and transform the regional bus network.
We thank the MetroNow Coalition and the Dispatch readers for the opportunity, and we look forward to seeing MetroNow’s work in the future!
Sophie Danish, intern at Greater Washington Partnership, MetroNow Coalition member; LinkedIn
Qianyin Wu, intern at Federal City Council, MetroNow Coalition member; LinkedIn
Thanks to our summer interns, and all summer interns for your incredible and important contributions -- we miss you flocking to the region in the summer, but are so excited to have you back in person next year! Xoxo MetroNow Coalition.
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The MetroNow Coalition is made up of regional leaders from the business, non-profit, and advocacy communities who believe that transit is designed to bring us together —at work, school, and play. Today, we believe our collective advocacy for better transit for the Washington DC region is more important than ever.
We launched the MetroNow Dispatch to bring residents, leaders, and transit agencies together to think about how we can make better transit today, during the pandemic, and “tomorrow,” as we look beyond recovery to how we can build a more equitable, sustainable, and accessible transportation system for our region.