DC/MD/VA: Billion-dollar deficits, drastic cuts: Metro faces fiscal catastrophe

[marmar]

(WaPo) The Washington area’s Metro transit system is inching toward financial catastrophe, threatening the region’s quality of life and its efforts to lift up the poor, address climate change and spur a post-covid economic revival.

Billions of federal pandemic-relief dollars are now nearly gone, and the “nation’s subway,” as some boosters call it, is facing massive deficits far into the future.

Local jurisdictions agreed this year to cover much of a vast budget shortfall for the fiscal year that started July 1, staving off drastic cuts that would have shut down 10 rail stations and half of Metrobus lines to close a $750 million gap in Metro’s $2.4 billion operating budget. The infusion prevented a “death spiral,” Metro said.

But that was all just a warm-up.

Annual operating deficits of up to a billion dollars are looming in the coming years, Metro officials said, which will require dire cuts or new funds. ...............(more)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/08/09/metro-financial-crisis/

[jimfields33]

1. A billion dollars is a lot to run a metro.

Perhaps a new price on riding. I remember going on the metro in the 90’s often and it was cheap. Maybe have a sliding scale where tourists pay the most, rich pay higher and the poor pay current rate. That’s the only way to save it.

[CoopersDad]

2. Like parks, schools, and libraries, transit should be heavily subsidized.

We don't tax wealth the way we did under Reagan, Carter, Johnson, and earlier administrations.

All of these tax breaks for the top earners is killing transit.

To solution is, in large part, to tax wealth and lift others with that revenue.

Free transit for youth and seniors should become the standard.