MetroNow Dispatch 9.2022
This month, we highlight challenges facing the transit workforce, provide an updated WMATA ridership snapshot, wonder what’s up with the 7K series, and celebrate news about the Bus Network Redesign.
Webinar: Building a Regional Transit Workforce, September 21
Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 21 from noon to 1pm, the Federal City Council and Greater Washington Partnership will host a conversation about the transit workforce with special guests from Chris Van Eyken from Transit Center, Brian Wivell from Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) 689, and Semia Hackett from Prince George’s County. The conversation will be moderated by Stephanie Gidigbi Jenkins and Joe McAndrew. Join these experts as they discuss the current state and future of America’s transit workforce, including the challenges facing front-line workers and agencies seeking to grow and retain the transit workforce. The one-hour webinar is free. Register now! Tell your friends!
Missed our last webinar? Watch the recording of our June 30 conversation with speakers from DDOT, Dominion Energy and Transit Workforce Center!
Read More:
Bus Operators Are In Crisis. Here’s How Agencies Can Turn Things Around. (Transit Center 7.22)
To tackle operator shortfalls, “Bus Operators in Crisis” makes the case that the transit industry must make driving a bus a good job, a job with dignity, a job that is respected, well compensated, and rewarding.
Move! That! 🚨Bus Network Redesign🚨!
Ridership and Revenue
WMATA and its commuter rail compatriots, MARC and VRE, are continuing to contend with different ridership patterns from pre-COVID times, especially decreased peak demand ridership. This change in customer preferences presents a significant challenge for all transit agencies, but WMATA’s are particularly pronounced on Metrorail. On the other hand, Metrobus is approaching pre-COVID ridership levels.
WMATA’s FY2024 budget deficit, which starts July 1, 2023, has shrunk from an estimated $500 million gap, projected at the beginning of the year, to $185 million according to the FY 2024 Budget Outlook presentation for WMATA’s Finance and Capital Committee Meeting on September 22. While WMATA expects to be able to achieve a balanced budget for FY2024, the anticipated budget gap for the following year, FY2025, is $738 million. To quote the Post’s Editorial Board:
Now, the region’s post-pandemic revival depends critically on Metro’s own return to good health. For that to happen, Maryland, Virginia and D.C. will have to open their wallets. Strategizing about how to do that must begin now.
While agencies across the country begin rethinking how their service patterns can evolve to meet customers’ changing needs, WMATA and the region should take note of the resilience of Metrobus ridership throughout the pandemic as we deliberate on options to close the FY2024 budget gap and prepare for FY2025.
Bus Network Redesign
At MetroNow, we have advocated for years for bus transformation and the need to launch a regional bus network redesign. Well… lo and behold, this Thursday’s WMATA Board of Directors meeting includes an agenda item to approve the Guiding Principles for Better Bus Service Redesign Project which casually mentions that, “[the] Better Bus: Network Redesign is underway and will fully incorporate the service and network of Metrobus, Prince George’s TheBus and City of Fairfax CUE systems, while building on other local bus existing services to enhance and align transit service in the region.” BRB, we might faint.
This is a huge deal for the region! While we wish the list of local transit operators officially participating in the redesign was a little more extensive, we look forward to engaging and supporting this process as it envisions a more comprehensive regional bus network that can better serve riders and the region.
Read More:
Metro’s financial projects not as grim as first projected (WaPo 9.19.22)
“Transit officials say riders likely will not see significant service reductions or station closures in the fiscal year that begins in July, although that ultimately will be up to Metro’s board.”D.C.-area transit commuting collapsed three-fold compared to pre-pandemic weekdays, new survey finds (WBJ 9.12.22)
“But one pre-pandemic pattern still holds true in 2022: workers who live in the regional core, which COG defines as D.C., Arlington and Alexandria, use transit to get to work more than workers living in the rest of Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland. But all areas still saw declines in transit use.”
Metrorail ridership survey underway through November (WMATA 8.26.22)
“Metro staff in yellow vests will be handing surveys out at various stations across the system, and they will be collected from drop boxes at stations through the end of November. Surveys can also be completed online via a web address or QR code on the printed surveys.”
Where’s my 7000 series?
WMATA continued to make incremental gains in it’s almost year-long effort to return the 7000-series railcars to active service. This month the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission (WMSC) approved the return of 20 more 7000 series to the organization's fleet. Unfortunately, as critics note, the return of the complete fleet can’t come soon enough as customer’s contend with blue and yellow line construction and headways across the system averaging 17 minutes, which harms riders, businesses, and the region.
GM Randy Clarke responded to these and other concerns in an op-ed published by the Washington Post:
Everyone at Metro is focused on providing the excellent experience our customers and the region need and deserve. We are keeping customers at the center of everything we do. Operating safely isn’t a choice. It’s either safe or we won’t do it. I am empowering all staff members to own our service outcomes and to proudly represent America’s transit system.
MetroNow commends GM Clarke’s attention to service excellence and for actively engaging with customer concerns. We encourage WMATA to continue its proactive engagement with WMSC to (as safely as possible) expedite the restoration of the full fleet. Especially since the Silver Line Phase 2 to Dulles might finally, actually, really, seriously be almost opening soon?!
Read More:
Metro GM looks for fare evasion solution while stressing customer service (WaPo 9.3.22)
“Now — and one thing I pride myself on is telling the truth — not everyone that’s jumping the gate is someone that can’t afford to pay. But the other thing is there’s actually a fair amount of kids that are doing it. And the kids actually ride for free [through a D.C. program that provides free transit cards to students]. This is a long-winded way of saying we have some things that we’re working on.”Metro gets OK to add more suspended trains with less frequent inspections (WaPo 9.2.22)
“In my frequent conversations with Metro customers, I hear over and over that more frequent service and more 7000-series trains on the tracks are a top priority, and that’s what we’re working to deliver,” Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said in the statement.”
Buses and Gondolas and Bears, Oh My!
This month brought two exciting developments around regional transit expansions. Members of the Georgetown Transit Enhancement to Metrorail Study, including Federal City Council, DDOT, Georgetown BID, and the National Capital Planning Commission, published a refined list of recommendations for connectivity improvements along the corridors connecting the Georgetown neighborhood to Rosslyn and Downtown DC.
September also brought a win for public transit in Montgomery County. Officials announced that Flash, the county’s Rapid Bus solution, would be receiving financing to advance the construction of two new routes. Veirs Mill is projected to open in 2027 and Route 355 in 2028.
Read More:
Coalition releases new Georgetown transportation alternatives for review (GGWash 9.12.22)
“The study presents enhanced bus service and aerial gondola schemes narrowed down from forty initial ideas.”
After a long wait, funding is becoming available for much of Flash, Montgomery County’s Bus Rapid Transit Network (GGWash 9.6.22)
“What’s changed is the legislature has asserted itself to provide some funding in two ways,” said Korman. Taking advantage of a budget surplus, the legislature passed Senate Bill 291 that provides a one-time boost of $63 million, allowing the county to move forward with the 355 and Veirs Mill lines.”
Transit Champion of the Month: the Rail Deal
The Transit Champions of the Month are the advocates, labor leaders, negotiators, and rail officials who came together to create a deal. The extended talks, culminating in attendance by President Biden, secured better working conditions for the rail workforce and helped avoid a national strike that would have hampered the economy. Commuters had been bracing for major delays as regional and national operators scrambled to make emergency arrangements. Cancellations would have impacted the Northeast corridor affecting MARC, VRE, and Amtrak.
MetroNow is relieved the region will not have to face the added disruptions of canceled MARC and VRE service and thanks the negotiators who came together to find common ground to preserve our national freight and intercity transit ecosystem. Amtrak is now working to restore the remainder of the routes that had been proactively canceled amidst the tense negotiations.
Read More:
White House announces ‘tentative’ deal to avert strike (WaPo 9.15.22)
“The tentative deal marks the first time that railway carriers have bargained and reached an agreement over attendance policies that affect workers at three of the largest railway carriers — BNSF, Union Pacific and CSX.”
"Together, you have reached an agreement that will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruptions of our economy," Biden told leaders in the Rose Garden. He added, "This agreement is validation -- validation in what I've always believed: unions and management can work together."
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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.