Late Night Metro Rail Demise?

I think this is a terrible suggestion. The reason friends from Bethesda, Rosslyn and Crystal City like to meet up in PQ is because it is metro convenient.

What will they do when they want to go out and there is no metro? Pay upwards of $20 for a taxi ride home every Friday and Saturday night? Or spend an extra hour plus on a bus home when they’re already tired and tipsy?

If this change happens, I think you will see a lot more people spending their weekends closer to home. It’s possible you could also see an increase in drunk drivers on the road.

I really hope this is a joke… they can’t be serious. Instead of moving towards 24 hour service like they should be considering, they want to cut back… I refuse to believe this is even on the table. If so, I putting my condo on the market and heading back to New York the minute it is announced.

It’s not even a bridge and tunnel issue … I have friends who live in Woodley Park who will metro here instead of cab it. They live a block from WP metro, and we usually hang out within two blocks of GP metro, so it’s kind of a no-brainer.

It’s only “late night” service Saturday and Sunday nights — am I to believe that reducing two days of extended service is a solution to metro’s budget issues? It doesn’t make sense that replacing train service with buses (and drivers who are famous for their $100K overtime checks) is going to save money and improve service.

Cutting the later hours basically sends the message that the metro is only for commuters and tourists and is not part of the vibrant cultural life of a city and its residents.

Metro needs to increase revenues and accellerate maintenance. They’re not increasing ticket prices and late-night service has been cutting into their maintenance schedules for years. If they shut down at 3am and open back up at 7, that’s 4 hours to handle track and tunnel repair for the ENTIRE Metro system. THAT’s why there are so many delays, particularly on the Red Line.

Metro wasn’t designed to run those kinds of hours. If they want to continue offering late night service, they need to increase fees AND hire more maintenance staff.

We need to voice these opinions directly to Catoe, along with suggestions.

If they absoultely need to cut back, maybe they should just run fewer trains. At least a train will be running.

We often come in on a late flight from the airport, and the metro is so convenient for this.

I ABSOLUTELY refuse to ride the bus.

A really bad idea. I’m not a drinker I just need to get back home to PQ. Try getting a cab in Rockville! I can’t believe that the late night trains are not profitable. They run infrequently and have good ridership. Unless they want to do more track work late night instead of weekends (which are a big inconvenience).

I agree…a horrible suggestion, AT THIS POINT IN TIME. If we had a decent bus system in place with a better repuation, then maybe this would work (The London Tube doesn’t run at night; everyone takes the buses home when the nightclubs close at 5am). But MetroBus is still seen as a loser cruiser with poor service. Catoe should be trying to turn our bus system into something world class…I bet his suggestion would be better received then.

What Metro really needs is to start receiving the benefits of that dedicated funding that’s been frequently promised over the last few years.

I’m really sad to hear that a cut to late night service is even a possibility. The late-night service really does contribute to the vibrant city nightlife, for partygoers and workers alike.

For the long term though, we really need expanded Metro subway service in the City, preferably with a third maintenance track built-in. I know that the separation of the blue and orange lines will be expensive ($6 billion), but the more I look at it, I don’t see how it can be avoided.

I was just about to write about this. It’s too bad that Catoe has this option on the table. I feel for him and for WMATA, because they are unlike all the other major transit agencies in this country: they have no dedicated source of income. That is, they have to ask for appropriations each year from the member districts, there are no guarantees built into the state codes of MD, VA or the District.

So Catoe feels like he has to run the show on the cheap when in reality he should be looking to expand service, not contract it. Those fools lost out when they didn’t lock up Dan Tangherlini.

If Metro’s bus service were as reliable as in cities such as Bogata or several places in Europe, perhaps maybe I’d be more inclined to catch a bus… however, considering Metrobus’ reputation for terrible service, not to mention killing pedestrians, I suspect many people aren’t thrilled with this idea.

If Catoe wants to save some money and gain some time to do maintenance, perhaps they should just cut back late night hours to maybe 1:00-1:30am instead of 3am, that way both sides win: they get more hours while we still have a way back, although we may cut our night’s out a bit shorter than we would want to.

Until Metro starts getting their deserved dedicated funding, how about we do some simple changes that can be done now, such as:

1. Replacing carpet with vinyl. For fans of the carpet, hate to break it to you, but first off, orange is one nasty color. This is not the ’70s. How about a nice clean vinyl that can easily be cleaned and save tons of money. Plus, they hold tons of allergens in the warmer months and start to smell when people track in snow in the winter.

2. More advertisements. Yeah yeah, we’ve all heard about how we don’t want our “world-class” transportation system to turn into a giant billboard, an underground Times Square if you will. But until we get reliable service, I don’t care if I’m bombarded with ads. If it helps me get from Point A to Point B faster and more reliably, then let’s go for it.

3. Stop letting employees working ridiculous amounts of overtime and taking money from Metro’s operating budget. For God’s sakes, place a cap on the amount of overtime hours an employee can work.

What about extending the late-night “Regular fare” times to increase revenues? Right now the late-night train only costs night owls more if they’re riding from 2am to close. Why not extend it from 11pm to close?

My guess is the late-night demand is relatively inelastic — folks that are coming into DC fri/sat night won’t stop using metro even if the fares go up.

Link for MetroRail fares/times:
http://www.wmata.com/riding/hours_fares.cfm#Metrorail_Fares

Don’t completely discount the bus system–there are a few lines that arrive often enough that the service is useable (like the 30’s along Pennsylvania that travel to Eastern Market and Georgetown).

Except for Anon@2:26’s comment, postings here show what an inane and ill-advised idea this is. Catoe should never have let this half-baked idea reach the public. This has made me lose complete confidence in this man’s judgment, and until now I was really giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Mayor Fenty, are you reading this? People like this in your administration are going to destroy your credibility. If you don’t cut him loose now he’ll help define your administration. You don’t want that.

Catoe obviously thinks that he is still living in LA.

Anon@11:20, Catoe isn’t a part of Fenty’s administration. WMATA selects its own General Manager. Some members on the WMATA board do work for the city government (i.e. Jim Graham). Fenty actually hired the previous GM of Metro, Dan Tangherlini, as the DC City Administrator. Tangherlini would have never supported this idea.

Its some sort of backhanded play to get more monies form the jurisdictions I think.

I’m the Anon@2:26. I was responding to the post that someone would “absolutely not ride the bus”–the bus system is not that bad and can be useful at times.

But buses are most definitely not a viable alternative to late night trains. If the trains disappear, very few if any of the riders would take the buses that would replace them–the length of the trip, infrequency of buses, and danger/inconvenience of standing on street corners at 1:00am are a few reasons why.

But I’m not too concerned with Catoe studying the issue. It’ his job to find ways to cut costs–if he goes ahead with the proposal, it’ll be the board’s job to recognize the greater good and keep the service in place.

I think the DC cab drivers are the only ones liking this idea.

When I lived in Madrid, they had a similar late night bus (called buso…which means owl in spanish). From 2 to 6 a.m., when the metro closed, all the busos picked up in one central location downtown, every hour on the hour.

It was o.k., but I don’t think it’s something most Washingtonian’s will go for. I agree that it will just add drunk drivers to the road. In Spain, it meant people just got more drunk, becuase many people just stayed out until the metro opened at 6.