You Have a Friend Request From Metro

Metro, the agency so many people love to curse when their trains and buses are late, wants to be your friend. The agency has started a Facebook page.

Got an idea about how the cash-strapped agency can make more money? Want to vent about advertising in the rail stations? Or suggest what kinds of things should be sold by vendors in the stations? Metro wants to hear from you.

Not a bad idea, to tap into the social networking phenomenon during a week when the agency had major delays from three derailments and unveiled $21 million in proposed rail and bus service cuts. And started laying off some employees.

"We think it has become a really popular way for people to communicate on an informal level," said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. Users can also check out rail and bus delays.

Metro set up the page a few weeks ago but didn't tell anybody.

"We decided that with all the talk about the budget, this might be a good opportunity to ask about people's thoughts and engage people and get some suggestions," Farbstein said. Some ideas might be "a little more possibly outlandish." But "if you don't ask, then you don't know."

So far, neither General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. nor any Metro board members are listed as fans.

Having board members as Metro Facebook fans would be a good thing. "That way, they would have the opportunity to see the comments that people make," Farbstein said. "That would be fun, too."

Metro could certainly use friends like one poster named Tim.

"I really think that Metro needs to stop talking service cuts and start talking fare increases," he wrote. "I understand that we raised fares only a year or two ago -- but I would much rather be paying an additional 50 cents per trip than I would have to deal with trains/buses coming less frequently (they already don't come frequently enough)."