Practically every AU student uses the Metro to get around D.C., whether commuting to an internship or going out for a night on the town.
That’s why students, along with many locals across the city, ought to be concerned with a 5 percent fare increase that Metro General Manager Richard Sarles proposed earlier this month.
Under his proposal, SmarTrip users would see off-peak fares increase from $1.60-$2.75 to $1.70-$3.50, while the maximum peak fare would rise from $5 to $5.75.
Now I will admit that I am a nerd (or, dare I say it, a wonk) when it comes to public transportation. And I love the Metro system. Its stations are much cleaner and far more majestic than those in New York, and the service is much more convenient and affordable than the transit in San Francisco, near my hometown.
But doesn’t it seem that Metro service has gotten much worse as of late? You’re not imagining it.
WMATA (the agency that runs Metro) has planned to close down parts of the system during 18 weekends over the course of the first half of 2012. Single-tracking — once confined to weekends — has now become a regular occurrence on weekday middays and evenings.
This means the service is less frequent, trains are more crowded and the system is far more unreliable.
And that’s just when you consider the service interruptions that are planned.
Already twice in the past month, Metro has experienced unexpected delays for hours after a friction ring — a piece of the car’s braking mechanism — fell off of the bottom of a train onto the tracks.
The Metro system is literally falling apart, from the trains to the tracks to the escalators. And while all of this construction and partial system closures are necessary to slowly bring the system into a state of good repair, it doesn’t change the fact that in the meantime commuters are being asked to pay more for worse service.
But what strikes me as the most ridiculous part of Sarles’ proposal is the “simplification” of fares.
Users of paper farecards would suddenly be switched to a flat-fare system: $6 fare during peak hours, $4 during off-peak hours, regardless of whether you’re riding for one stop or 20.
Suddenly, the 25 cent surcharge for paper farecards would become up to a $4 surcharge. That’s one heck of a tourist tax.
Even if WMATA installs SmarTrip vending machines in every Metro station, plastic still has a $5 admission fee over paper.
And if this proposal goes through, then whenever students have friends or family members visit D.C., they’re going to also be facing these really steep flat fares. It’s a cheap shot at grabbing more money from casual riders, and I think it’s just going to cause those riders to avoid Metro altogether.
2012 holds a lot of changes in store for Metro.
This summer, WMATA will be rolling out new station names, and a major partial realignment of Blue Line service to ease congestion at Rosslyn — both excellent ideas.
But for a system facing as many challenges as Metro, a fare increase this regressive may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
WMATA needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out a fair fare proposal (no pun intended) that balances its needs with the needs of us students and the greater D.C. community.
Douglas Bell is a junior in the School of Communication.
