How radical would you get in addressing Metrorail’s troubles?
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Version 0 of 1. Dear Dr. Gridlock: Flat fare for transit? Let’s get radical for a few moments. How about a flat fee? Charge everyone in the D.C. region $100 per year (that is, about two tanks of gas), and make buses and rail free (that’s F-R-E-E). That gets people’s attention. Under the current system, am I going to pay $5 each way (per person) to ride the Silver Line to go shopping at Tysons Corner? No way! I’m going to drive my car to Tysons, use $2.85 worth of gas and park for free. But make riding the rail or bus free and that will change. Even those who don’t ride transit benefit from the reduced traffic, so everyone pays the fee, and that is what makes the cost per person fairly reasonable. Well, that’s my first wish for the Transportation Genie. And I have two more to go! — Graham Long, Herndon I can cite some practical concerns with a no-fare system, but Long is on the right track when he advises that it’s time for big thinking about making transit more attractive. The arrival of Metro’s new general manager, Paul Wiedefeld, creates an opportunity for reflection among all of us who care about getting around the D.C. region. We can’t start over with Metro any more than Wiedefeld can, but we can revive some ideas, reassess others and come up with some totally new proposals to make travel easier. Long opens the discussion with a huge idea, so I’d better explain why I wouldn’t go down that particular path. The flat fee bothers me for some of the same reasons I don’t like the flat fare, which my colleague, Lori Aratani discussed in “Five myths about Metro” on Nov. 22. It demands nothing extra of the people who get the most out of the transit system. The flat fare makes no distinction between the person who travels from the end of the line to downtown Washington in the crush at rush hour and the 0ff-peak rider who goes just a few stops. The flat fee not only makes no distinction among income levels, but it also hands an enormous break to the relatively small percentage of the region’s people who have easy access to Metrorail. Yes, both ideas have merit. The fare systems they’d create are simple to understand. [Metrorail rider satisfaction plunges] The flat fare means you don’t have to scrutinize that chart on the vending machines to figure out the cost of a ride. But that annoyance will greatly diminish with the elimination of paper Farecards. Regular riders can maintain a balance on their plastic SmarTrip cards, which they can link to an account online. The flat fee would make payment even simpler, though people still would need to show some proof that they paid the annual charge. A long-term attraction: Congestion relief. The flat fee would create an incentive like no other for people to move near Metro stations. Many would rethink whether they need to own cars. None of that would overcome our sense that no-fare is no-fair. Our modern mind-set about financing both roads and transit is to combine taxes and user fees. We know — even if begrudgingly — that we all benefit from having the infrastructure to move people around, so we pay the taxes for it. But we also impose gas taxes, tolls and transit fares to get something extra from those who benefit most. Okay, so maybe something as radical as Long’s proposal wouldn’t be right for the near future. What then? How about we ask that Metro broaden its focus from rebuilding tracks and trains to include rebuilding the riders’ trust in its ability to move them safely and efficiently? Trust took a serious hit in 2015. Metro’s staff has proposed some customer-friendly ideas. They’re giving riders an escape clause so they can exit stations for free when they discover that lengthy delays await them. Also on the staff list: Rush-hour fares would start at 6 a.m. rather than at the 5 a.m. opening, creating an early-bird special. Another plan would set up two new fare passes to make riding simpler and more economical for many. They’re all good ideas, and they’re not enough. Not if Metro’s surveys are correct and rail riders’ satisfaction really did drop by 15 percentage points this year. No, that requires a more fundamental rethinking of what’s been allowed to slip away and a new commitment to customer service, endorsed by all the governments that oversee our transit system. For example, the escape clause for free exits would treat a symptom, not a cause of riders’ disenchantment. The cause is unreliable service. The solution to that isn’t radical: Make the trains run on time. But the top-to-bottom change in thinking to get us there, that’s revolutionary. Dr. Gridlock also appears Thursday in Local Living. Comments and questions are welcome and may be used in a column, along with the writer’s name and home community. Write Dr. Gridlock at The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or e-mail drgridlock@washpost.com. |