Does Catoe Ever Use Metro?

After reading this, you may come to the same conclusion that we did: that he never has.

The Washington Post has an article summarizing some ideas WMATA has for saving money. Basically, it's the same stuff Dr. Gridlock talked about yesterday--fewer buses, fewer trains--but what really struck us was this quote from Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr.

"This is the first time we've recommended service cuts," Catoe told the board yesterday, talking about the current budget cycle. "We don't want to do any of this," he said. "But we have a shortage of revenue and we looked at what could we do that would have a minimal impact on service."

Service? What service? Metro can't even get us to work on time, and we think that has more than a "minimal impact" on many riders' lives. He's starting to sound like the train conductors one reader mentioned who tell you the train will be moving "momentarily" knowing full well there's a major delay down the track. Metro would do well by leveling with its customers.

Also mentioned in the article is how "managers outlined how they had found more revenue and expense cuts to shrink the gap from $73 million to about $29 million."

Where did that $44 million come from? According to the article, "finance officials readjusted their estimates by budgeting more revenue from such measures as eliminating paper transfers. They reduced operating expenses for items such as preventive maintenance, relying on capital funds instead."

Metro's financial arrangements would be hard enough to understand without the smoke and mirrors games Metro seems to like to play.

We LOVE the caption on the photo here.