Tyrone Turner / DCist/WAMU
Metro officials say they will need significant increases in funding and changes in state legislation to avoid dramatically cutting down service in the 2025 fiscal year.
At a Thursday board meeting, agency leaders detailed three possible scenarios by which Metro could avert a “transit death spiral,” where the agency would have to cut services back by two-thirds as soon as July 2024.
Metro officials have said such service cuts cannot happen and will be “devastating” for the region. Trains would stop running at 9:30 p.m. and arrive every 20 to 30 minutes as opposed to every six to 12. The system would have a daily capacity of only about 300,000 for trains and 200,000 for buses. Officials have painted a dire picture of the consequences, outlining a scenario in which roads would become severely congested, pollution would worsen, and the local economy would suffer.
To avoid that outcome, Metro says it needs additional funding from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. But Maryland and Virginia would need to pass legislation that would enable them to give those additional funds. In 2018, when the three jurisdictions agreed to provide $500 million in annual funding for Metro, Maryland and Virginia capped their subsidy increases to 3% each year (D.C. does not have this cap). Metro officials are hoping that both legislatures will remove that cap for the 2025 fiscal year.
Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said Thursday that legislation removing the cap “has to...
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