Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeFive
WMATA rail ridership is currently stuck at 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels...
To this point, COVID-era federal funds have masked the financial implications of collapsing ridership. ... But now that money is running out. In 2024, D.C.’s WMATA is staring down a $738 million shortfall.
The proposed answer for these problems is always to find more money from taxpayers, from the state and/or Federal governments.
Any insights from a NoVA perspective?
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This is an unusual problem because the cities it's most affecting are the ones that pre-covid had the most successful fare recovery. Basically, financially speaking, it doesn't matter how many people ride (say) Colorado Springs buses, because there are so few buses and a high percentage of their operations are subsidized anyway.
But DC, SF, NY... these cities had great fare recovery pre-covid. Tons of service, with much more of it paid by fares than typical US cities. Exactly what you'd call "successful" if you wanted maximum efficiency for minimum subsidy.
But then covid teleworking cratered the downtown transit commute. It's recovering ("stuck" is not really an accurate way to describe it), but at a pace that's slower than the rest of the economy.
So are we really going to punish the cities that had been doing it right by relying on fares, by permanently wiping out their infrastructure, for what is in all likelihood a temporary problem? That would be extremely stupid. Even if you don't care about transit (which would also be stupid, but I digress), the costs of replacing these transit systems with new infrastructure to serve these cities would be astronomically higher than the cost of bailing them out for a couple more years.
And yes, that's how it would work. It's not a matter of
"well fewer people are riding today, and we don't need replacement infrastructure, so why not just provide less service and lock in today's status quo?" That doesn't work, because if you provide less service, the people who are still riding will stop. And there's still a hundred thousand commuters per day coming into downtown on the Metro, even with this lower ridership. That's people, not trips. If we make the Metro unusable, they're either not coming anymore, or we're going to have to bulldoze a lot of buildings and replace them with parking lots.
A lot of buildings. Like 100 square blocks worth.
Oh you were hoping for an economic recovery? Sorry about that. Going to bulldoze literally half of downtown instead, for the parking that's now required because we didn't want to bail out the Metro.
So that's where we are. And San Francisco, and a few other cities. The bailout is the cheapest option, actually.
PS: None of this is to say transit doesn't need to adjust. Off-peak is still doing better than peak, and probably will for a long time. Downtown is going to evolve to be more residential. Last mile trips are still falling off the bus and being replaced by other modes. A lot of evolution is happening and accelerating. But the question of "should we bailout transit operations in the big cities later this year?" is actually pretty straightforward.
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I guess I don't see what is so terrifying. I never said anything about this being done behind closed doors - a connections plan can be an open process that involves the community. By looking at an entire neighborhood as a single composition, it should be possible to come up with a design that is more efficient, wastes less space, and is more aesthetically attractive. Based on what I have seen, the double-alley example IS the norm and most cities' current approach tends to continue giving crappy results like 
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