Category: CSG in the News

Nonprofit groups say Metro needs dedicated funding before next fiscal year, even if labor, governance reforms have to wait

Posted on by Jason Adle

More than a dozen nonprofit organizations are backing the call for dedicated funding for Metro — and soon — saying that without it, the system risks further deterioration and drastic service cuts.

The 18 groups say they are aligning with the region’s business community to secure reliable, bondable annual funding stream for Metro, which stands alone among large subway systems in its lack of a significant source of dedicated funding. Business leaders from 21 regional chambers of commerce and employers’ groups issued a plea last week for dedicated funding and a restructuring of the system’s governing board.

Now, the nonprofits are adding their voice to the mix — highlighting the system’s importance to the region and the potential for further service reductions as key considerations in the fight. The groups, including the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the Sierra Club and the League of Women Voters, released a Statement of Principles in March endorsing dedicated funding and calling Metro “crucial for the economic health and sustainability” of the region.

“Going ahead, it’s gonna take both the business community, with their clout, and the nonprofit community, with our membership, to keep this focus on saving Metro and to win the funding the system needs,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, which is leading the nonprofit groups’ charge.

The nonprofits break from the business groups and some political officials, however, by eschewing immediate calls for an overhaul to the system’s governing board, though they support structural reforms. Schwartz said the Coalition for Smarter Growth is awaiting the release of a fall study by former transportation secretary Ray LaHood, which is expected to include recommendations on the system’s governance.

Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld has asked for $15.5 billion over 10 years for capital needs — including $500 million in new dedicated funding annually — and concessions from the transit agency’s unions. Wiedefeld also broadly supports the demand that board members have a singular fiduciary duty to the transit system, which business groups and some officials have called for.

Republicans in Virginia have said any increases in funding should be tied to labor and governance reforms.

“The one thing we don’t want to see is we don’t want to see political gridlock over structural and governance issues that end up delaying or endangering the additional funding the system needs,” Schwartz said.

The nonprofits say state and local jurisdictions should prevent Metro from falling into a “death spiral” by providing the funding it needs and ensuring frequent and reliable service. Budget woes, stemming partly from lower-than-expected ridership, forced Metro to raise rail and bus fares and reduce service frequency on five of six lines beginning this week.

Nancy Soreng, co-chair of a Metro working group of the League of Women Voters of the National Capital Area, said it’s up to regional leaders to determine how to reform the system’s governance and labor but that funding can’t wait.

“The most urgent thing for us is to get the three jurisdictions to agree on a dedicated funding source,” she said. As for structural reforms: “That’s a battle that we’re going to stay out of, and we’re going to let the politicians sort that out.”

Soreng was quick to note that the League of Women Voters has endorsed a sales tax for Metro since at least 1980, as the group’s website reflects.

“A sales tax which excludes such necessities as food and medicines would be the best means of financing mass transportation in the metropolitan area,” it points out. A regionwide sales tax, endorsed by a technical panel of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, is among the funding mechanisms regional leaders are weighing. Soreng said her group is open to other means of raising the money if the region can agree on them.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth stopped short of advocating a specific funding mechanism.

“We believe that the jurisdictions should commit to a level of funding and then find the mechanisms that work best for each of them,” Schwartz said.

The nonprofits are calling for dedicated funding to be established by the conclusion of the fiscal year next June.

“Waiting any longer means that capital costs could rise, you could fall further behind in the capital restoration in the system,” Schwartz said. “The operating gap could increase further, and there could be more service cuts.”

Click here to read the original story.

Bus lanes coming to 16th Street, but it could cost you some parking

Posted on by Jacob Korn

More parking restrictions could be coming to 16th Street NW as part of the ongoing changes to prepare the corridor for rush-hour transit lanes, expected by 2020.

The D.C. Department of Transportation says it is moving to lengthen 22 bus zones along 16th Street to better accommodate articulated buses. In the process, it would remove up to 66 parking spaces.

City planners are studying additional impacts on parking that could result from adding dedicated transit lanes to one of the city’s busiest commuter corridors. Parking now allowed in the off-peak direction during rush hour could be removed to allow for travel in all traffic lanes during the morning and evening commutes.

DDOT also is evaluating a proposal to extend rush-hour parking restrictions along the corridor to ease bus travel. Next week, however, the agency plans to bring back regular rush hours to this and other corridors where the agency extended parking restrictions by 30 minutes to ease congestion during SafeTrack. Metro’s yearlong maintenance program ends Sunday, and parking prohibitions will return to normal: 7 to 9:30 a.m. and 4 to 6:30 p.m.

The ongoing changes could reduce parking availability on 16th Street, but transit advocates say they are necessary to prioritize bus use in the corridor that carries as many as 20,000 commuters on a typical weekday. Some say it is a luxury to have any parking available on one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares.

The bus lane plan has been embraced by bus riders and city residents, who say dedicated lanes could help solve chronic problems on the S-Line, including crowding, bunching and delays.

The improvements would benefit thousands of riders who are often stuck behind traffic traveling at speeds of less than 10 miles per hour. The S-Line transports more people than cars during rush hour, making the corridor an ideal testing ground for the type of improved bus service that transit advocates and riders say would make Metrobus more efficient and attractive to commuters.

“People love their 16th street bus service and they love riding,” said Cheryl Cort, an advocate for bus lanes with the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Without bus lanes, she said, the problems will continue or worsen. Sometimes, buses are so crowded, she said, that four buses pass her before she can board one.

Metro has invested in the line, adding trips and restructuring service to provide extra buses along the southern portion. But as service was added, ridership grew.

DDOT began design work on the lanes last year, along with other enhancements to the road infrastructure, such as adjusting the timing of traffic lights and more frequent buses. Parking restrictions are next in the process, which also calls for the elimination of bus stops and more upgrades to the bus fleet. Plans also call for an off-board payment system and all-door entry on S-Line buses to reduce dwelling times at bus stops.

The bus lanes would run peak-direction during rush hour, from Arkansas Avenue in the upper Northwest area to H Street in downtown.

Earlier plans to extend the center reversible lane from Arkansas Avenue to K Street by installing a fifth lane south of U Street may not be possible because parts of the corridor are 2 to 3 feet short of the 50 feet needed to have five, 10-foot traffic lanes, officials say.

Still, the city said it is moving forward with rush-hour transit lanes throughout the length of the corridor. DDOT will present alternatives for how to do that in the segment that has only four lanes at a meeting next month.

As the project advances, the most controversial part has been the potential elimination of eight bus stops: southbound stops at Newton, Lamont and V streets; and northbound at L, Q, V, Lamont and Newton streets.

Residents and community leaders said at a meeting last week that taking away stops would impact riders, many of them elderly and with young children, who already walk four or five blocks to get to their bus stops.

Kishan Putta, a community activist who has been pushing for the transit lane for the past four years, said the consolidation of bus stops could alienate riders and the time savings is not worth it. Instead, he said, DDOT should consider whether it makes sense to have some buses uses different stops.

As part of the ongoing changes in the corridor, Metro will add more rush-hour trips on the S9 buses starting Sunday. In recent months, the limited-stop route tested transit signal priority, a system that allows the bus extra green time at the light so it can stay on schedule.

City officials say they are still evaluating the program’s success, and whether significant time savings are accomplished, before implementing on the S1, S2 and S4.

With regards to parking, DDOT spokesman Terry Owens said the city plans to begin work with Advisory Neighborhood Commissions on the parking spaces that will be removed to make bus zones longer. He said the minimum length of a bus zone on an articulated bus route is 110 feet. Twenty-two bus zones don’t meet that guideline and will be lengthened by 40 to 60 feet, which means two to three parking spaces at some locations.

DDOT’s project timeline puts bus lane in the corridor by 2020. Under DDOT’s proposal, buses would have a southbound dedicated lane from 7 to 10 a.m. and a northbound one from 4 to 7:30 p.m.

The lane could save nearly six minutes of travel time during the morning commute for some southbound buses and the same for the northbound traffic in the evening, but general traffic would see modest increases in travel time, according to a DDOT study.

Click here to read the original story.

Guest comment: 20 years in, still lots of smart growth work to do

Posted on by Jacob Korn

The Coalition for Smarter Growth celebrated its 20th anniversary last week at an event that captured the diverse coalition helping to shape a more sustainable path for regional growth. Founded in 1997 by the D.C. region’s leading regional conservation groups, CSG today partners with housing, transit, and bicycle/pedestrian groups, neighborhood activists, the development, architecture, and planning sectors, and local governments to promote mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented development.

We’ve supported millions of square feet of development and tens of thousands of housing units in smart growth locations. We’ve also pressed for the policies necessary for these projects to be sustainable and inclusive, including good design, reduced parking, affordable housing, “complete streets” designed to be safe for all users and modern stormwater management. The market has responded:

  • 86 percent of new office development is within ¼ mile of Metro;
  • Marriott, Nestle, Hilton, Choice Hotels, and many other corporations are moving to Metro station locations;
  • The JBG Cos. and Vornado Realty Trust are merging and concentrating their entire portfolio at Metro; and
  • D.C. has added 120,000 new residents over the past 12 years.

Fairfax County Board Chairman Sharon Bulova has said “transit-oriented development is Fairfax’ future.” So have leaders of most other jurisdictions, who have incorporated transit-oriented development as the core of the Council of Government’s Region Forward vision plan.

We’ve learned a lot along the path:

  • The demand for convenient urban living has helped revitalize neighborhoods but also created major affordability challenges. We need more housing closer to jobs, bigger housing trust funds, inclusionary policies, and more rapid planning and zoning changes – especially for commercial strip corridors.
  • Neighborhoods are concerned about rapid change and the addition of medium- to higher-density development. We need everyone at the table in planning for the future, excellent architecture, community benefits including town greens and pocket parks, and parking reform and demand management to ensure walking, biking, and transit are the predominant travel modes.
  • Partnerships are critically important. We would not have made this much progress without working with other nonprofits, smart growth developers, progressive architects and land use and transportation planners.
  • Transportation planning changes far too slowly and too few recognize the limitations of highway expansion – that new highways and additional lanes induce travel pattern changes and more auto-dependent development which fill up the new lanes in as little as five years.
  • Pricing matters – low gas prices and free or reduced-price parking encourage longer commutes and more driving while adding to congestion, while higher gas prices, market-priced parking, and affordable, frequent transit encourage transit use and living in walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods.
  • Leadership by elected officials, local planners and the private sector is essential. That’s why our annual award event recognizes the critical role of our democratically elected leaders, the technical skills of local planners, and the commitment to well-designed projects by the private sector.

Our region faces challenges, which we intend to help tackle in the same spirit of partnership that got us here. These include Metro’s aging infrastructure and a transit funding crisis, ongoing neighborhood concerns about medium and higher density development near transit, housing affordability, and the urgent need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.

Click here to read the original story.

Purple Line supporters say judge’s ruling presents an opportunity to end legal delays

Posted on by Jacob Korn

Purple Line supporters Monday described a federal judge’s latest ruling in the long-running Purple Line lawsuit as “ludicrous” and “terribly flawed,” while the plaintiffs called it a “victory for everybody.”

Both sides were quick to react after Judge Richard Leon issued a ruling Monday morning that called for the Federal Transit Administration to conduct a new environmental review that thoroughly considers the possible impact of Metro’s ongoing ridership decline and safety issues on the planned 16.2-mile light-rail project.

The long-awaited ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2014 by two Town of Chevy Chase residents—John Fitzgerald and Christine Real de Azua—and the trail advocacy group Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called the ruling “incredibly disappointing, but not entirely surprising,” and said the state “will continue to pursue any and all legal action to ensure that the Purple Line will move forward.”

Leon took about five months to issue the ruling after receiving information from FTA and Maryland Transit Administrations that stated Metro’s woes wouldn’t significantly impact ridership on the Purple Line. It could take several months or more than a year to conduct the new environmental analysis ordered by the judge, which requires public hearings, if the state accepts the ruling and doesn’t appeal it.

“The fact that it took a federal judge this long to reach the conclusion that more study is needed is completely baffling and, if allowed to stand, will cause irreparable harm to this vital project and cost the state hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars,” Hogan said in a statement issued Monday afternoon. He said the ruling ignores the opinions of federal and state transportation experts as well as environmental advocates who support the project.

“This is not a political issue—it’s an important transportation and transit priority for Maryland and the region that has strong bipartisan support,” Hogan said.

Opponents of the project were pleased with the ruling.

“Obviously, it’s a victory of substantive analysis over agency arrogance,” Ajay Bhatt, president of Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, said Monday. “Before Montgomery County, Prince George’s County and the state continue to push this fiscally irresponsible and environmentally damaging project, we should focus on Metro’s woes.”

He said the state and the two counties that are contributing funding to the project should shift that money to help the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority fix Metro and to other projects that could reduce traffic congestion in the area.

“This really is a victory for everybody,” Bhatt said.

Fitzgerald, who also serves as an attorney on the case, said in a statement the judge’s order requiring the FTA to conduct a new Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement “should provide the public with a chance to put up-to-date facts on the record.”

Leon’s decision is likely to further delay the start of construction, which was scheduled to begin late last year. A spokeswoman for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office said officials are reviewing Leon’s order before determining whether they’ll take additional legal steps. Earlier this month, Attorney General Brian Frosh requested a legal maneuver in D.C.’s federal Court of Appeals to try to force Leon to issue a ruling by June 1.

State officials have warned in court filings that further delay could result in losses of $13 million per month and possibly lead to the cancellation of the project. Leon previously vacated the project’s federal approval in an August ruling, preventing the state from securing $900 million in federal funding needed to pay for construction, which is expected to cost more than $2 billion.

The entire project is estimated to cost $5.6 billion over the 36-year contract with the state’s private partner—Purple Line Transit Partners—which is a group of finance and construction companies working with the state to design, build, operate and maintain the light-rail line.

The state has also estimated that it stands to lose about $800 million that’s already been spent on planning and designing the project as well as for contractual penalties that must be paid to the private partner if the project is cancelled.

In his ruling, Leon said the federal and Maryland transit administrations failed to adequately analyze the potential impact of Metro’s ridership decline on the future ridership of the Purple Line.

However, the transit agencies found that even if no Metro riders used the Purple Line, the light-rail line would still have about 50,000 weekday riders by 2040, compared to the 69,300 including Metro riders that is currently projected. Ridership at that level would still be enough to meet the line’s purpose—to create a reliable east-west transit system between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, according to the agencies.

Metro’s ridership problems are among about two dozen environmental issues that the plaintiffs claimed the agencies failed to account for in their 2014 environmental review of the project.

Leon said he’ll “issue an opinion on these remaining issues in the next few weeks”—raising the possibility that additional roadblocks besides Metro’s issues could be raised. It’s not immediately clear if the state can appeal Monday’s ruling given that Leon hasn’t ruled on the other pending issues in the case.

Meanwhile, Purple Line supporters believe Leon’s decision provides the state with an opportunity to appeal his order.

Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner called the ruling “a terribly flawed decision, one that I am confident will be reversed by the Court of Appeals—and the sooner the better.”

Berliner added that Leon’s opinion is “profoundly lacking in logic” because it says Metro’s current travails will have a profound impact on ridership on the Purple Line in the year 2040, when FTA provided evidence that shows if there was not a single rider from Metro, and in effect no Metro system at all, that the Purple Line would still be in the public interest.

The Purple Line would be operated by the state’s private partnerer, not WMATA, but the line is designed to connect with Metrorail at five stations where riders are expected to transfer between the two transit systems.

County Council member Hans Riemer, an ardent Purple Line supporter, said he was not surprised by Leon’s decision.

“I think it’s good that we got this decision now, rather than six months from now,” Riemer said. “I think the judge probably would have sat on it as long as he possibly could.”

The judge wrote in his order that the decision took a considerable amount of time because he had a large caseload. He noted that since late January he has issued more than 22 written opinions and presided over 60 hearings in other cases.

“[Leon] is so wrong that in my opinion it proves that he’s biased,” Riemer said. “The state has already responded that a reduction in Metro ridership is irrelevant to the core decision of whether this is a cost-effective project. Even if Metro doesn’t exist, there’s still enough Purple Line riders to make it a good federal, state and local investment.”

However, Bhatt said state officials should be held accountable for signing the contract with the private partner while the federal lawsuit was still pending.

“Who’s going to be held accountable for the state’s decision to sign the $5.6 billion contract while the federal lawsuit hadn’t yet had its day in court?” Bhatt asked.

Pro-transit groups on Monday universally panned the judge’s decision.

“The slapdash and tardy ruling outright ignores much of the expert testimony that has already answered questions raised again by the court,” Ralph Bennett, president of Purple Line NOW, said in a statement. “Still, we are relieved to finally have a ruling, as Judge Leon has given ample grounds for appeal and we trust that the fundamental strength of the project will be vindicated in higher court.”

The Coalition for Smarter Growth, which supports transit-oriented development projects in the D.C. region, maintained the Purple Line will spur economic development along its east-west route between Bethesda and New Carrollton in Prince George’s counties.

“The Purple Line is a badly-needed east-west transit connection for access to jobs and revitalization, and significant ridership will be driven by that demand, as well as the revitalization inside the Beltway that the project will spur,” Executive Director Stewart Schwartz said in a statement.

Click here to read the original story. 

Judge’s ruling is a major setback for the Purple Line

Posted on by Jacob Korn

Once upon a time, we headlined a story “The Purple Line Is Really Happening,” after Republican Governor Larry Hogan gave it a surprise green light and the Maryland Department of Transportation selected a firm to build and operate the 16.2-mile light rail line. Construction was slated to begin in late 2016.

But we should have known not to count wealthy NIMBY neighbors out.

The Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail filed a lawsuit that already resulted in one major delay, when U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled last August that the MTA needed to recalculate its ridership projections in the wake of WMATA’s issues. Now, that same judge ruled today that federal transit officials failed to sufficiently take Metro’s safety and ridership problems into account and has ordered another study.

“After careful consideration of the motions, the applicable law, and the entire record in this case, I find that defendants have failed to take the requisite ‘hard look’ at the potential impact that WMATA’s ridership and safety issues could have on the Purple Line project,” Leon wrote in a 12-page opinion.

While the 16.2-mile, $2.4 billion light rail line isn’t a part of the Metro system, it will have connections to the Red, Green, and Orange lines among its 21 stops (should it ever get built).

Transit advocates argue that the Purple Line is a vital link for the corridor and that the connections to Metro are only a part of its benefit for the region.

“We already know that Metro ridership will make up only a limited percentage of Purple Line ridership,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, in a statement. “The Purple Line is a badly-needed east-west transit connection for access to jobs and revitalization, and significant ridership will be driven by that demand, as well as the revitalization inside the Beltway that the project will spur.”

On the other side, Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail argues that Maryland should be focusing on coming up with its portion of the billions necessary to make badly needed repairs for Metro.

Maryland will pay $160 million in construction costs for the Purple Line, and has sought $900 million in federal transit aid along with contributions from local jurisdictions. Today’s ruling puts already appropriated federal funds in jeopardy, and could conceivably even spell the end for the project. From The Washington Post:

“How much more delay the Purple Line project can withstand is hard to say. Maryland officials can’t secure federal funding until Leon or another judge reinstates the light-rail project’s federal environmental approval, which Leon revoked in August.

State officials have said they need that environmental approval restored by June 1, or they would have to suspend much or all of the rail project’s planning and design work because state money would run out. The state would then have about 60 days before it would have to cancel the project, Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn said in a court filing.

If the state canceled the Purple Line, Rahn said, it could lose more than $800 million: $545 million already spent on planning and design, more than $200 million in contract termination costs and up to $150 million in delay costs.”

Click here to read the original story.

Purple Line suffers major setback in court

Posted on by Jacob Korn

Metro’s current safety and ridership issues may doom the Purple Line.

A U.S. District Court judge said in a ruling on Monday that the Federal Transit Administration has failed to take a “hard look” at how Metro’s ridership and safety issues will impact the 16.2-mile Purple Line. That means, under his order, a new study and perhaps a lengthy delay — and maybe the final death blow — to the light-rail project, which is expected to serve as a major east-west transit connection between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

In the 12-page memorandum, Judge Richard Leon wrote that Maryland and federal officials must produce a supplemental environmental impact statement “as expeditiously as possible.” The ruling is an extension of what Leon told the parties in November, when he declined to reinstate the Purple Line Record of Decision, a federal environmental document that would allow construction on the $5.6 billion project to proceed.

This all comes in a response to a complaint from a Chevy Chase citizens group, Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, that has been in the courts since 2014.

“In effect, FTA boldly concluded that there is no need for an SEIS, and the Purple Line will meet its established purposes, no matter what happens to WMATA Metrorail,” Leon wrote. “To say the least, this is a curious conclusion when one considers that one of the three explicit purposes identified for the Purple Line was to ‘provide better connections to Metrorail services.'”

Ajay Bhatt, president of Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, said the ruling is an opportunity for state and federal officials to step back and re-evaluate transportation priorities.

“Better to re-evaluate than to continue to rush this fiscally irresponsible and environmentally damaging transit system,” Bhatt told the WBJ, adding that fixing Metro’s current issues should be the priority over the Purple Line.

The Purple Line is not a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority project, but it is designed to connect to the region’s subway system. Purple Line supporters say the project will create as many as 6,300 construction jobs and thousands of additional jobs, shave east-west travel times by as much as a half an hour and connect key employment nodes between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.

An additional environmental review will delay the project further or even kill it. Maryland officials say they need the environmental approval restored by June 1 or they might have to suspend much or all of the rail project’s planning and design work because state money would run out, according to the Washington Post.

Leon notes that under current models, Metro ridership could decline anywhere from 3.7 percent to 27.4 percent by 2040. The Coalition for Smart Growth, a vehement Purple Line backer, said that it is certain Metro ridership will recover in the longterm.

“The Purple Line is a badly-needed east-west transit connection for access to jobs and revitalization, and significant ridership will be driven by that demand, as well as the revitalization inside the Beltway that the project will spur,” coalition Executive Director Stewart Schwartz said in a statement. “In an era of climate change, the most progressive transportation solution available is to build more transit.”

Gregory Sanders, vice president of rail advocacy group Purple Line NOW, said he hopes the FTA and the state of Maryland will appeal.

Leon took his time rendering a decision, driving Maryland officials to demand through the courts that he move faster. The judge addresses that issue in a footnote, writing that while Maryland’s “desire for a speedy resolution of the case is understandable,” it is his job to take his time, weigh competing interests and balance a heavy docket.

“The fact that I am issuing this opinion today, rather than as soon as Maryland would have liked, is not due to judicial neglect or disregard for the parties’ interests, but rather the byproduct of the very type of intricate docket juggling that is performed daily by District Court judges around the country,” Leon wrote.

Click here to read the original story.

Sneaker Subsidy? New Proposal Would Give Cash to Commuters Who Don’t Drive

Posted on by Jacob Korn

John Smith’s commute from Rockville, Maryland to downtown D.C. is only 20 miles, but during the morning rush hour, it takes him an hour and 20 minutes. Smith, a finance professional, would rather take Metrorail’s Red Line, but he puts up with the traffic because his employer pays for his parking space.

“It’s just a bunch of traffic. If I leave really early, it’s not too bad, but to get here on time it’s stressful,” said Smith on a recent morning near his office.

Even with Metro’s problems, he would prefer to use mass transit instead of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to and from work.“It’s less stressful, especially when the Metro is working well,” he said.

Smith may soon be able to cash in on his preferred mode of transport by cashing out his parking benefit.

Legislation proposed by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) would require any business that pays for a worker’s parking space to offer that same benefit — in cash — if the employee chooses to walk, bike or take transit to the office instead of driving.

This is not the pre-tax transit or parking benefit many employers already offer; Allen’s proposal deals with taxable cash paid out in addition to an employee’s salary or wages.

“It’s only fair that if you choose transit, you choose bike, you choose walk, some other way to get to work, that value should carry with you. It’s about fairness for our employees,” said Allen in an interview with WAMU.

If an employer provides a specific parking subsidy, for example, up to $350 per month for parking, the worker would be able to cash out the amount and use it to pay for their preferred mode of transportation, even walking. Where an employer does not specify a value, the bill calls for a maximum of $255, the same amount in tax-free parking benefits an employer can provide in 2017 under IRS rules.

Why would someone need money to walk to work?

“Well, you might buy a new pair of sneakers every six months,” said Cheryl Cort, the policy director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth, an advocacy organization that favors sustainable transportation over highway expansions. “But it is taxable cash,” she added. “So you can use it how you want. And the point is, rather than only incentivizing driving and parking, why not incentive healthier, sustainable commutes?”

Good for the environment, good for business?

Allen’s proposal appears to square with the District’s goal of getting commuters out of cars at a time when the city has ambitious goals to reduce downtown gridlock. The Council member said his legislation would not add costs to any employer’s operation.

“The employer was going to spend the money anyway,” Allen said. “But if the employee chooses not to drive their car or if they don’t have a car, then now that value can be transferred to help support their transit, their way of getting back and forth to work.”

Six percent of D.C. residents bicycle to work and 12 percent walk, according to Census data. Less than 50 percent of city residents drive alone to the office. An informal survey by the District Department of Transportation found that 34 percent of D.C. employers pay for employees’ parking.

Matt Klein, the president of Akridge, a major real estate developer with offices in downtown Washington, said it remains to be seen if the business community will embrace Allen’s legislation, even if it brings no additional costs.

“It’s important to look at the total weight of regulation on businesses in the District,” Klein said. “This is really smart policy. This is something we should explore fully relative to how we improve road capacity within Washington. But my business sense is that we really have to also understand what it means to have the District start to become more involved in the interaction between employer and employee.”

Some employers may welcome Allen’s proposal as a way to become more competitive. The downtown architecture firm ZGF already offers the pre-tax transit benefit. Otto Condon is an executive at the firm.

“We need to actually look at a benefits package which does address getting to work, whether that’s bike assistance, transit assistance, even shoe subsidies for people who walk,” Condon said.

There is evidence such incentives are effective. Donald Shoup, an expert on sustainable transportation at UCLA, contends that employer-paid parking is an invitation to drive to work alone, and it is single-occupant vehicles that cause congestion. A parking cash-out law approved in California in 1992 has produced benefits, Shoup said.

“What it has done in some cases is encourage people to live closer to where they work and use the cash payment as a rent subsidy,” said Shoup, who has researched the effect of the parking cash-out law in Los Angeles, a city known for horrific congestion. “Out of every 100 employees, it shifted 13 out of solo driving into carpooling or mass transit,” he said.

In a March 28 editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Shoup wrote: “Of those 13 former solo drivers, nine joined carpools, three began to ride public transit and one began to walk or bike to work. Overall, the share of commuters who drove to work alone fell from 76% before the cash option to 63% afterward,” Shoup wrote in a March 28 editorial in the Los Angeles Times.

Some Washington workers said the Council proposal sounds good — almost too good to be true.

“I think encouraging people not to drive is a great idea. I wonder if this legislation would have that effect,” said Erica Handloff as she walked to her office at a think tank one morning. Handloff lives in the District, takes a bus downtown and then walks the rest of the way. “If somebody was offering $250 or whatever the benefit is, that would be fantastic. I also think there’s no such thing as a free lunch. It sounds too good to be true.”

She and other skeptics could get answers to their questions soon. Council member Allen’s bill could get a hearing before the Council takes its summer recess in July.

Click here to read the original story.

Is riding the bus finally becoming cool?

Posted on by Arielle Moir

Sydney Taylor used to have a mantra: Metro or bust.

For years, the 27-year-old relied exclusively on the subway to commute downtown from Eastern Market, a daily travail she described as “horrible and super-crowded and just a generally terrible experience.”

Then, an aunt offered her a tip. Why not try the bus? After a few trips on the D6 Metrobus, Taylor reached a few surprising conclusions: The bus was fast. It was cheap. And it was, strangely, kind of lovely.

“I got to see so much more of the city,” said Taylor, who now lives in Adams Morgan and takes the 96 every day. “It was just, on the whole, much more pleasant.”

As Metro continues to battle its myriad rail reliability problems and track infrastructure overhauls, a rare bright spot has emerged in the agency’s transit offerings: its bustling bus network.

Even as Washington-area residents malign the subway — vowing after each rush-hour meltdown that they’ll never take a train again — there is an increasingly vocal cohort of bus evangelists.

Why bother with the sturm und drang of SafeTrack, they ask, when buses are nimble, affordable and increasingly predictable with the help of mobile apps?

It’s an option that has become increasingly favored by Dan Reed, a 29-year-old who lives in Silver Spring. When he heads home from work in the afternoon, he checks the status of the Red Line. If he spots a blooming flare-up of delays, he’s quick to swap modes.

“It’s great that I can check the status of the Red Line and say to myself, ‘Oh, wait, I don’t actually have to go deal with this at all,” Reed said. “A lot of times, the buses are more predictable.”

The glowing reviews are a stark departure from long-held stereotypes about buses: capricious schedules, undependable service, plodding speeds, grubby interiors and a general “sketchy” aesthetic.

Those stereotypes persist in many other parts of the country, where transit advocates bemoan the way buses continue to be treated as a second-class form of transportation — at least by politicians and residents who don’t have to rely on bus service.

“Bus is a second-class citizen for ‘choice’ riders because it’s scary, it’s harder to figure out, it’s obtuse,” said Aimee Custis, deputy director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Trains are like public transport for beginners — there are physical tracks, so you can see where it goes. The Metro map is easier to read than any bus map I’ve ever seen.”

But in the District, that perception is shifting.

“I had a bus awakening,” said Dylan Landers-Nelson, a health policy researcher who lives in Adams Morgan. He and his wife just purchased a condo in 16th Street Heights. (Haven’t heard of it? It’s the neighborhood north of Columbia Heights and west of Fort Totten.)

When they were looking to buy a home, they prioritized finding a place near transit. But they weren’t perturbed by the prospect of buying a home a mile away from the nearest Metro station. Instead, Landers-Nelson and his wife marvel at all the bus routes that pass within a block of their home. The S1, S2 and S4! 52, 53, 54! The 70!

“The bus lines give you options in a way that Metro often doesn’t,” Landers-Nelson said. “It turns out to be a very convenient, quick way to get around the city.”

Some of that shift in attitudes can be attributed to large-scale policy changes aimed at improving the coverage and reliability of the network: fleet repairs to improve on-time performance, signal prioritization at some intersections, built-out transit centers in Silver Spring and Takoma-Langley Park.

But commuters’ openness to bus transportation also is fostered by the small, often underappreciated pleasures of bus travel that are inherent to the mode: The comforts of being aboveground, able to grasp one’s geographical bearings in the city and watch the world go by. Steady access to cellphone service, so riders can download a podcast or stream a new playlist mid-commute. No need to deal with the annoyance of an unexpected broken escalator.

And even when you’re stuck on a bus, the experience feels less fraught with gloom and senselessness.

“You can look out, you get some light, and if you’re not moving, you at least have a sense of why you’re not moving,” Landers-Nelson said. “On Metro, you’re quite literally left in the dark.”

Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said some people may be intimidated by the idea of using the bus system — deciphering their most convenient route, tracking down a schedule — and that some have benefited from the extra push SafeTrack provided.

“It’s been positive. We’ve heard that from people,” Wiedefeld said. “They see, okay, that works well, too, for some of their trips, so that’s been possible.”

And the historical weakness of bus systems — its lack of a dedicated right of way — may also be one of its greatest strengths. Buses can be easily diverted and reassigned. And without reliance on tracks and tunnels, one bus breakdown doesn’t cause a ripple effect throughout the region. That’s become increasingly apparent in the past couple of years, when buses are frequently dispatched to rescue stranded riders when arcing insulator incidents and unexpected track problems strike the system at inopportune moments.

“The reality is, any time we have issues on the trains, the buses are there to save us,” Wiedefeld said.

To be sure, buses are not immune to Metro’s ridership woes: The number of trips taken by bus in the second half of 2016 was 11 percent lower than in the year before — a drop-off that is still less than the ridership decline on the rail side. The rise of Uber, the shift toward walking and biking, the low cost of gas, and the increased prevalence of teleworking during SafeTrack all affect Metrobus ridership just as they do for the trains.

And yet, there are signs that buses have become the golden child of Metro’s transit offerings. Bus reliability has increased dramatically in recent years. And customer satisfaction among bus riders remained at a modest 77 percent last year — about the same as the previous year — quite a bit better than the 66 percent of satisfied rail customers, a number that has steadily dropped in recent years.

Technology has also been a major boon for the Metrobus network. In the past, would-be riders lacked trust in the system, wondering whether a scheduled bus would in fact arrive anywhere close to its appointed time. But between apps that connect to GPS systems installed on the buses, offering fairly accurate estimated times of arrival, and LED countdown clocks installed at popular bus stops, technology has helped address that concern.

That technology has also been bolstered by the rise of Uber and Lyft, as tech-savvy riders have grown accustomed to using their phones to perform a daily mental calculus on the best option for travel based on the time of day and their intended destination.

“The ride-sharing economy made me realize that you don’t always have to subscribe to this set system — Metro, cab, or walk,” Taylor said. “When I step out the door, I’m thinking, ‘What else could I be doing that’s cheaper or simpler?’ ”

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Metro funding proposed from D.C., Maryland, Virginia sales tax, outsourcing of union jobs

Posted on by Jack Smith

The chairman of Metro’s board of directors is hailing General Manger Paul Wiedefeld’s call for dedicated funding for long-term repairs and lower labor costs for the troubled transit system, but the union representing most Metro workers said it is “bad for the region.”

Board Chairman Jack Evans endorsed an idea for a regional 1 percent sales tax on the Maryland, Virginia and D.C. jurisdictions serviced by Metro to secure a $500 million-a-year funding stream for the nation’s second-busiest mass transit system.

“Everyone in the region has a vested interest in Metro,” Mr. Evans, who also serves on the D.C. Council, said during Thursday’s board meeting.

However, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 said any attempt to lower labor costs by hiring contractors to fill union jobs would “demoralize the workforce in a race to the bottom.”

Late Wednesday, Mr. Wiedefeld released a slate of proposed changes aimed at saving the cash-strapped subway system from financial and operational ruin. According to the 10-year plan in his comprehensive report, the general manager said Metro needs a new business model and $15.5 billion over the next decade to remain “safe, reliable and affordable.”

“While Metro has $25 billion in total unfunded capital needs, WMATA will require $15.5 billion of this amount over the next 10 years for critical capital projects,” the report says, using the acronym for the agency’s full name, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

That lack of capital funding over the decades has left the system in disrepair and forced Metro officials last year to pursue a systemwide rehabilitation that has been the bane of riders trying to get around the region.

Mr. Wiedefeld proposed that regional leaders find an annual $500 million stream of dedicated funding for long-term capital repairs to the system. He noted that Metro is still one of the only major American transit systems without dedicated funding for capital repairs. But he stopped short of telling Maryland, Virginia and the District how to come up with that money.

Mr. Evans, Ward 2 Democrat and Metro Board chairman, said the District’s chief financial officer had determined that a regional 1 percent sales tax in each jurisdiction Metro serves would generate $500 million to $700 million a year.

That proposed tax would have to be approved by the county governments in Virginia and Maryland, as well as the District. The sales tax idea, which has been floated before, has generally not been well-received in Virginia.

Mr. Evans acknowledged that the tax idea could generate considerable grumbling in Virginia but said complainers should think about the region as a whole and the benefits of Metro. The system is a boon for the regional economy with housing developments, restaurants and other businesses being built near stations.

“It is an economic driver,” he said of the transit system.

Mr. Wiedefeld also is hoping to reduce worker costs by switching from a pension to a defined contribution program, such as a 401(k), and by opening some jobs to nonunion employees.

Metro is facing a $1 billion unfunded pension liability as well as $1.8 billion in other retiree benefits.

The proposed use of contractors for certain projects instead of union workers raised the ire of ATU Local 689, which represents more than 12,000 Metrobus and Metrorail workers.

“Paul Wiedefeld’s proposal for WMATA is bad for riders, bad for workers and bad for the region,” the union said. “Instead of offering real proposals to improve the system and win riders back, Wiedefeld has, once again, pitted riders against workers in an attempt to balance the agency’s budget on the back of WMATA’s hardworking employees.”

The union said outsourcing some Metro jobs would make the system less safe, less reliable and more costly, and that Mr. Wiedefeld has not been responsive to worker needs.

“Instead of opening a dialogue with WMATA’s workforce on how to improve service and fix the system, the general manager has chosen to go around our negotiated contract and bargain in bad faith through the media,” the statement said.

But Mr. Evans said even the unions need to cede something to make Metro work again.

“What they have to recognize is that everybody’s got to give something,” he said. “The alternative is no system.”

The plan also proposes a rainy-day fund equal to 10 percent of the system’s annual $1.8 billion operating budget for emergencies such as severe weather. It also would cap the operating budget increase at 3 percent as a way to balance out the extra funding needed in the capital budget.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth, a local group pushing for more transit-oriented development, applauded the plan.

“The general manager’s plan is the best we’ve seen to date,” said Stewart Schwartz, the group’s executive director. “His statement is bluntly honest about the situation and we generally endorse his proposals, although we will need more information about some of them.”

Mr. Schwartz said the honesty of Mr. Wiedefeld’s plan “represents our best opportunity to develop shared facts and understanding about the challenges and best fixes for the system in time for legislative action on funding next year.”

The group also said regional leaders need to step up and find more money for long-term repairs.

“For too long, our elected officials haven’t made Metro’s state of good repair needs a priority — year after year approving a regional transportation plan without fully funding Metro capital needs,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Metro is the backbone of our transportation network and regional economy and, as such, merits the funding needed to fully restore the system.”

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Union dissent highlights difficulty of enacting Wiedefeld’s rescue plan for Metro

Posted on by Jack Smith

General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld’s ambitious rescue plan for Metro drew a generally positive response Thursday, but a bitter dissent from the agency’s largest union was a sign of the formidable obstacles he faces.

Wiedefeld’s recommendations are “bad for riders, bad for workers and bad for the region,” Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 said in a statement. The union, which represents about 9,200 Metro workers, said Wiedefeld’s plans to outsource services and provide less-generous pensions to future hires aim “to balance the agency’s budget on the back of [Metro’s] hard-working employees.”

Overall, however, elected officials, transit advocates and business groups praised Wiedefeld for offering what many called a “reasonable” plan that deals head-on with the tough challenges facing the transit agency.

[Metro GM proposes ‘new business model’ and $500 million a year in extra funding to save D.C.-area transit agency ]

Although many disagreed with individual details, and the region’s top Republican officials were distinctly skeptical, most welcomed Wiedefeld’s call for new taxes or other dedicated sources of funding to channel an additional $500 million a year to Metro. The money would go to buy new rail cars, buses and other equipment, and perform the maintenance necessary to restore service quality after decades of underinvestment.

“This proposal appears to be a realistic and responsible contribution to the regional discussion about how best to fix Metro,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said.

Wiedefeld’s plan “is the best we’ve seen to date,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the pro-transit Coalition for Smarter Growth. “His statement is bluntly honest about the situation, and we generally endorse his proposals.”

Despite the applause, no one underestimated the political difficulty of extracting union concessions and winning support for higher taxes from multiple jurisdictions in the District, Virginia and Maryland. Many politicians and analysts said it will be necessary to go further than Wiedefeld’s proposals, by restructuring the Metro board of directors and adopting other reforms in how the agency is governed.

[Va. Gov. McAuliffe taps Ray LaHood to head panel to study Metro]

“I think you need some governance changes to show that the people who will be spending the money will be doing a good job,” said Maryland state Del. Marc A. Korman (D-Montgomery), co-chairman of a work group of Annapolis legislators focused on Metro issues.

Business groups such as the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the Federal City Council, and politicians have proposed to shrink the 16-member Metro board and apply new membership requirements to streamline the panel’s work.

“Governance changes are necessary to enable Paul [Wiedefeld] to make the changes necessary to return Metro to the world-class system it once was,” said Terry D. McAllister, chairman of the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

Wiedefeld said it wasn’t appropriate for him to propose reforming the governance structure above him. But he also expressed concern that such changes — which would require amending the Metro Compact, or governing document — could delay agreement on urgently needed funding.

“If we get into a whole thrashing of some of those issues, I just think it could drag out for years. I don’t think we have years,” Wiedefeld said.

Thursday morning, after having spent the previous 24 hours briefing more than 50 government officials and other regional leaders about his plan, Wiedefeld readily acknowledged the difficulty of his task.

“It’s going to be an extremely heavy lift,” he said at a news conference.

But Wiedefeld said he was optimistic that the region could overcome its differences on taxes, labor relations and governance because so many people see the need to save the transit system.

[Metro makes it official: Higher fares, reduced service coming July 1 ]

“I think the agreement, if you step back, is that they all want to try to do something to get this right. So that’s a good place to start,” Wiedefeld said.

Wiedefeld is about to launch meetings with Metro staffers, elected officials and private groups around the region to explain his plan further and try to win support.

Described in a six-page “White Paper” and 27-page PowerPoint presentation, the proposal explains why Metro needs $15.5 billion in investment over the next 10 years — an average increase of nearly 30 percent from its previous plan — to keep the system safe and reliable.

To allay concern that Metro spending is headed out of control, Wiedefeld also proposed to cap the annual growth in jurisdictions’ annual contributions for operations and investments at 3 percent. That’s separate from the new $500 million capital fund and a new $26 million “rainy day” fund Wiedefeld has proposed.

In a related effort to hold down costs, Wiedefeld proposed major concessions by Metro’s unionized workforce. A key part of the plan is to amend a federal arbitration law to strengthen management’s position in contract disputes.

His proposal to outsource operations — a form of privatization — drew particular opposition from unions. As an example, Wiedefeld suggested Metro’s unions might have to compete with private contractors for jobs on the second phase of the Silver Line, which is scheduled to open in 2020.

[Metro isn’t hopeless. Here are 4 realistic reforms the region could agree on. ]

OPEIU Local 2, which represents many of Metro’s IT staff, engineers and contract administrators, doubted the plan would achieve significant savings. It also expressed concern that the quality of work would decline.

“He [Wiedefeld] thinks that contracting is a way to save money,” said Eric Starin, the union’s chief steward at Metro. “There might be rare incidents where that is true, but there are also an awful lot of incidents where it costs more money to contract work out.”

Wiedefeld’s privatization plan mirrors a similar strategy employed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston. In the past year, the MBTA has outsourced warehouse and money-room operations, efforts that are projected to save an estimated $177 million over the next 10 years.

The agency also used threats of privatization to reach a new, money-saving contract deal with one of its biggest unions. Brian Shortsleeve, MBTA chief administrator and acting general manager, said he met with Wiedefeld this year to offer advice on how to employ the same strategies in Washington.

Republican lawmakers in Congress and the Virginia General Assembly — and some Democrats in the region — have said Metro must curb labor costs before they would be willing to consider giving the agency more money.

Wiedefeld needs congressional support to extend the program under which the federal government grants Metro $150 million a year — and the three local jurisdictions match it — for investments.

But his plan got off to a rough start with a key House member, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), the only Republican in the local delegation in the GOP-controlled Congress. She complained Wednesday that she didn’t receive an adequate briefing about Wiedefeld’s plan, saying she heard only about the “huge price tag.”

Wiedefeld tried to patch things up Thursday, saying he already planned to meet with Comstock next week.

“I will work with her very closely to get her more comfortable with at least understanding what we’re trying to do,” Wiedefeld said.

Comstock said Thursday she still lacked enough information to comment about the specifics of Wiedefeld’s plan.
“I have asked for far more details on Metro’s operating and capital costs and the justifications for them than we have received to date,” Comstock said in a statement.

Wiedefeld’s plan also drew a tepid response from Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R). Hogan’s office said it had not seen details of the plan but reiterated the governor’s position that it is up to local leaders in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties to pursue dedicated funding if they choose.

“A statewide tax is a nonstarter,” said Amelia Chasse, a Hogan spokeswoman. “One question our administration does have is why this proposed plan does not call for an increase in federal funding, when approximately 40 percent of Metrorail riders are federal employees.”

Elected officials will be pressing for abundant details about Metro’s spending before supporting taxes or other dedicated funding.

“We need to know, for sure, what the cost is for what,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova (D) said. “We need to be assured that labor issues have been addressed. We also need to know that governance issues have been addressed.”

Virginia Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne said such questions would be considered by a panel headed by former U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood, which is to study Metro and make recommendations in the fall.

Wiedefeld’s plan “gives us a very, very good basis to make a political case along with the review that Secretary LaHood’s doing,” Layne said.

Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans stressed that there will be political cost for anyone who resists making concessions to make the plan work.

“Nobody’s going to look kindly on any party that says, ‘I’m not compromising,’ ” Evans said. “I think they’re going to find themselves left out in the woods.”

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