Metro Board Delays Discussion of Fare Hikes

Metro board members voted yesterday to delay for two weeks consideration of proposals to raise fares to give them more time to consider three plans they put forth as alternatives to one recommended by General Manager John B. Catoe Jr.

Board members said they hope to reach agreement by Oct. 25 on which subway and bus fare and parking fee proposals they will submit to riders for public comment at hearings this year. Board members would be able to lower fare increases before final approval. New fares would go into effect next year.

The plans highlight the differences between suburban members, who want to keep parking rates and rail fares low, and urban members, who want to keep bus fares low.

Jim Graham, who is chairman of the Metro budget committee and represents the District, was eager to present the city's proposal at yesterday's meeting. But other board members said there was no point because there hadn't been enough time to digest the recommendations.

"Mr. Chairman, I'll pull out my sword," joked T. Dana Kauffman, who represents Fairfax County.

Catoe has proposed raising the cost of a base rush hour subway trip by 20 to 40 cents, bus rides by a quarter, senior bus fares by 15 cents, MetroAccess service for the disabled by 50 cents and parking fees by 50 cents.

The District's plan would not change fares for the bus and MetroAccess and would shift the burden of higher costs to suburban riders through a 30-cent increase in fares for a base peak subway trip and a $1.25 jump in parking fees.

Kauffman wants to increase everything in proportion and keep bus fares unchanged for users of the electronic SmarTrip card. Twenty-one percent of daily bus riders use the card, compared with 65 percent of rail customers.

Maryland board member Peter Benjamin, who was Metro's chief financial officer for 13 years, said he also has a proposal but declined to provide specifics.

Better Notice on Problems Pledged

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Metro officials promised yesterday to do a better job of communicating information to passengers when there is a major subway breakdown. And they say they mean it this time.

In response to long-standing complaints, agency officials said they are embarking on a campaign to improve coordination among personnel in its operations center, train operators, station managers, and bus and rail supervisors. They are also considering adding personnel to the operations center, which controls all train movements, to give easy-to-understand explanations to customers as soon as possible, even if all details are not available.

If there is a delay on the Red Line, for example, train operators and station managers on the Orange and Blue lines should tell their passengers before they reach a transfer station such as Metro Center so they can plan for other options.

"Some of these things may seem obvious, but these are things that we need to do over and over," said Ray Feldmann, the senior manager Catoe has ordered to come up with improvements.

The changes will require a major shift in culture among about 8,200 operations employees, which probably won't happen overnight.

In the short term, Metro officials are considering giving dry erase boards to station managers so they can put up signs outside fare gates when there are major delays.

They also want to explore giving handheld radios and wireless microphones to station managers so they can get timely information from the operations center and share that with large groups of customers in stations.

Officials also said Metro needs to lower customer expectations that shuttle buses will arrive immediately after a major rail problem. Instead of telling customers to head outside to catch a shuttle bus and "creating automatic frustration" when buses are not there, Feldmann said, Metro should explain that it typically takes 30 to 40 minutes for buses to appear and sometimes longer during rush hour.

Drill to Close Part of Yellow Line

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Metro will shut down the Yellow Line between the King Street and Fort Totten stations from 7 a.m. to noon tomorrow for a regionwide disaster drill.

The safety exercise will simulate smoke and fire on a train that becomes "disabled" over the Potomac River.

Metro will operate a shuttle train between the Huntington and King Street stations. When the shuttle train arrives at King Street, passengers will need to transfer to a Blue Line train to reach their destinations.

Customers should add at least 30 minutes to their travel time because of the exercise, agency officials said.

After the safety drill ends, all Yellow Line trains will operate between the Fort Totten and Franconia-Springfield stations.