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Maintaining Metro (rail) Service Levels

Testimony to WMATA Public Hearing

Presented by ACT Vice-President Cavan Wilk, May 16, 2011

Transit systems around the country are facing budgetary challenges due to the ongoing sluggish economy. The challenges that our Metro faces have much in common with other major systems. As our constituent WMATA governments deliberate on Metro service in the new fiscal year, it is important to the look at what has happened to transit agencies in both the recent and distant past when they cut services.

If one types “transit death spiral” into a web search engine, links to many stories across the United States from the past two years will appear regarding transit systems both large and small. Those systems faced challenging fiscal decisions. Many chose to cut service. By cutting service, they increased headways. Taking transit became a far less attractive proposition for their customers. Ridership decreased. Fewer riders meant fewer fares taken in. The budget gaps got worse in the next fiscal year because of the service cuts. I am very confident that the WMATA board and member jurisdictions are aware of the danger of this scenario and are doing everything they can to avoid it. They have wisely taken measures in the past to prevent our Metro system from going through the “transit death spiral,” the most recent example being last year.

Most customers appreciate the need for track maintenance. They’re willing to work around delays if they know it’s for capital improvements. However, if they knew that they had to wait 25 minutes by default, they wouldn’t even consider taking the Metro on weekends. Add in delays for routine track maintenance on top of the proposed 25 minute headways and you have a non-starter for most customers. Riders who change trains would have to plan on spending more than an hour and a half on train platforms round trip. Most would just opt not to bother, either driving or just not taking the trip at all. The Metro would become a system that’s only used for commuting on weekdays. It would cease to be the full-service lifestyle system that is celebrated for being good for both work and life.

Our Metro system enjoys high ridership and a loyal customer base because it reliably goes where people in our region want to go in a convenient amount of time. The majority of the ridership increases over the past ten years have come from off-peak usage as the valuable land around Metro stations has attracted new employment, residences, and amenities. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of Washingtonians have paid good money to live, work, and/or play in close proximity to Metro stations. None of this investment would have been possible if the Metro wasn’t a full-service system that accommodated weekend and evening activities.  If weekend headways are increased to 25 minutes, we will see the beginning stages of the dreaded "transit death spiral."

I first started regularly using the Metro in 2004. I did not yet live in walking distance of a Metro station but my girlfriend at the time did. I began using the Metro for play long before I started using it for work. After getting a taste of the then-new late-night weekend service, I vowed to myself that my next residence would be in walking distance of a Metro station. I never would have become a regular Metro rider and advocate if I didn’t experience its late-night and weekend service as a first-year college graduate. I finally was able to move in walking distance of the Metro in February 2007, calling Wheaton home for the last four years.

Two weeks ago, I literally put my money where my mouth is regarding Metro proximity. I closed on a condo that is within a 15 minute walk of the Silver Spring station. If Metro decreased its weekend headways to 25 minutes, fewer first-time homebuyers like me would be interested in paying good money to live near the Metro, unless they system is convenient to use on weekends. Fewer people living close to Metro stations would only mean less ridership at all times.

Excruciatingly long 25 minute weekend headways would more than make the Metro a non-starter for traveling to recreational activities on weekends. My girlfriend works in Dupont Circle on Saturday mornings. Normally on weekdays, she walks to the Forest Glen station and takes the Red Line to Dupont Circle. This past Saturday, she chose to drive down 16th Street instead because she did not want to wait out the long headways on Saturday morning. I can only imagine how many other people who work on weekends would make the same decision as she if headways were increased from 10-15 to 25 minutes.

During the past two weekends she was inconvenienced by regularly scheduled track maintenance. But driving and paying sky-high gas prices is not a good transportation option either. However, if she hears that the headways are 25 minutes, she would be far more reluctant to use the Metro on weekends at all. I’m sure that thousands of other Washingtonians will make a similar judgement.