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Budget Plan Keeps Metro Fares Fixed
Under the proposed budget, service reductions and income from higher ridership would fund improvements, among them relieving crowding on buses such as this one headed to Silver Spring.
(By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)
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For rail, the budget includes money to operate new cars and continue introducing eight-car trains during peak hours.
Metro has been pressed over the last year to make its budget easier to understand and reduce annual increases in subsidies from the eight regional jurisdictions that make up the transit authority.
As an addendum to his spending proposal, White made a series of so-called "unfunded" recommendations for improvements if Metro's directors can find a way to pay for them.
They include an additional $5.6 million to further relieve bus crowding.
Even with the extra money, White said only two-thirds of necessary improvements would be made to the bus system.
His "unfunded" proposals also included $4 million to boost rail service on four federal holidays and on off-peak hours and weekends and $1.3 million to raise the salaries of 184 contract cleaners and parking attendants to a level that Metro managers have determined is a living wage.
The Metro board of directors will review the spending proposal and hold the agency's first-ever public budget hearing before voting on the budget this spring.
Jack Corbett, founder of the passenger advocacy group metroriders.org, called the hearing "an important step."
He said some of the group's 1,500 members would be likely to use the opportunity to tell Metro directors that they need to spend more money on subway improvements than White has recommended.
