Thursday, December 13, 2012

Is Metro Stealthily Cutting Service?

I wish someone on the Metro board would ask Metro about this.

To me, Metro's future looks worse than I'd ever thought, as promised service levels from 2006 to 2011 don't appear to have materialized and labor costs continue to balloon, according to data from the National Transit Database (NTD).

The below chart paints a very ugly picture, showing just how much promised rail service appears to have never happened, despite Metro doing everything possible to make it look otherwise.





Transit agencies like Metro are required by law to report certain performance statistics to the NTD. According to the website, the stats are used divvy up some $5 billion in Federal Transit Administration funds among the nation's transit agencies.

The "revenue mile" referenced equals one mile traveled by a vehicle, in this case a rail car, with paying passengers on board.

In the chart, the red line shows the number of revenue miles Metro said they would provide (and presumably were funded for) from 2006 to 2013. The numbers can be found in the approved budgets. It shows, as you can see, a steady increase in proposed service--on paper.

However, the chart's blue line is the number of revenue miles Metro reported to the NTD as actually having been delivered. The gaps between projected and reported have grown, sometimes dramatically, yet Metro keeps giving a rosy outlook year after year.

In 2011, for example, Metro budgeted for 81,569,545 revenue miles when it reported to the NTD that it only ran 67,234,252  revenue miles. That's an almost 18 percent difference. One could look at it like an 18 percent cut in promised service. 

Perhaps the loss of revenue miles is due to all the track work, but if that were the case, why does Metro continue to raise the estimates in its budget documents?

I wonder how the jurisdictions feel about funding a service Metro appears to not be providing. I know how riders feel when the fares go up and the service doesn't improve.
 
2009, the year of the deadly Red Line crash, is an inflection point for both budgeted and reported revenue miles, but the reported miles nosedived while Metro's promised service remained flat for the year.

Suddenly, reports of ridership dropping by five percent recently look pretty good considering what looks like an 18 percent cut in service.

Meanwhile,  labor costs (salaries, wages and benefits), Metro's biggest expense, rose a whopping 30 percent (19 when adjusted for inflation) from 2006 to 2011. In 2006, Metro spent $831,667,228, and in 2011, it spent $1,082,683,205, according to the NTD data.

It should be noted that the NTD has quite a big caveat on its data, but if they're basing funding on it, it can't be that bad. Both NTD and WMATA data seem designed to be as opaque as possible.

*This article was done in collaboration with Michael Perkins, who due to a misunderstanding, wrote  a similar article at Greater Greater Washington

Comments (60)

Loading... Logging you in...
  • Logged in as
BrianKal's avatar

BrianKal · 639 weeks ago

CAUGHT US! I'll hire a consultant shortly to make up some lie about this and/or blame the passengers.
-Danny
One has to wonder how much fraud and corruption hasn't yet come to light in Metro with that disparity.
Cletus Jenkins's avatar

Cletus Jenkins · 639 weeks ago

Most if not all transit agencies have operating deficits. WMATA has no real dedicated source of funding, such as a tax, so they either increase the fare or reduce service to make up for this. It is sort a bad cycle because as quality and service is reduced, not to mention the fare increases and the reduced federal transit subsidy, people find other means of transportation such as bike share to get around as a result.
10 replies · active 638 weeks ago
I hate that "no dedicated source of funding" BS Excuse.

They get $150 million from the feds, DC, MD, and VA each year.

Not only do they have a dedicated source of funding, they have FOUR!
it is not dedicated. each jurisdiction goes on a yearly basis. so it is not dedicated.
Yeah, and you get it every single year. At no point have you NOT gotten it.

Just stop with the excuses. Its getting old!
Bike Rider's avatar

Bike Rider · 639 weeks ago

40 percent of the riders are government employees who get their metro for free. sounds like dedicated funding.

also metro capital budget is funded largely by the federal government.

this is an old story that never was true
Hi. I'm a fed employee. Do you know how much subsidy I get to take metro to work? It's definitelty not free. It's closer to 1/3 of my total cost per day is covered.
1/3 more than the rest of us. My heart goes out to you.
i'd love to have 1/3 of my daily $14.65 covered.... (but a few times recently someone's gotten pissed off and knocked the arms off the parking gates at the new glenmont garage, so we got an unintended pass on parking. wo0t!)
dude, you know you can claim up to the same amount on your tax returns each year? You DO get the same as the feds. Quit crying and fill out the forms.
I'm at World Bank/IMF and my subsidy is $65 a month. I commute from Takoma to Metro Center on the Red Line and this covers about half (I don't park a car at the station, I bike/walk).
Clearly IMF, because WB is $40, and SA had to fight tooth and nail to get that up from $30.
WMATA = The Emperor's New Clothes
Solid reporting, Unsuck. This is why I read this website.

However, are the labor costs there adjusted for inflation? Inflation from 2006-2011 was about 11.6% (BLS CPI-U). So they really rose by about 19% (still crazy for a period when service levels apparently didn't increase by a similar amount).

Adusting the 2006 labor cost to 2011 dollars = $928,140,626

(I'm not a metro employee, I work with these numbers all day for a living).
2 replies · active 639 weeks ago
Hats off to Michael Perkins for crossing the line from the GGW ostriches.
Thanks. I added a parenthetical clarification.
Dr Gridlock's avatar

Dr Gridlock · 639 weeks ago

Well, you guys have been criticizing my reporting lately.

Not only did I ask Dan Stessel about it, but I also asked some of the board members. They said everything is going just fine, based on info Dan Stessel told them!
Sweet Bobby's avatar

Sweet Bobby · 639 weeks ago

There is nothing stealthy about it when you are frequently among throngs of people unsafely crowded on platforms waiting for trains in 5+ minute intervals during peak hours.
--or trying to get downtown on weekends when both ends of the red line are shut down.

i'll be driving in on saturday. thanks wmata.
3 replies · active 639 weeks ago
Yes, and now DC is planning on limiting parking. Double win!
well, i hope to park in my office bldg; if not, there's always parking in my sister's driveway and walking over memorial bridge. :-) (i usually NEVER try and park a car in DC, for just that reason.)

man, you'd think we didn't have a public transit system in this town... :P
grammarFun's avatar

grammarFun · 639 weeks ago

... never try TO...
Sorry, nothing personal, just a grammar peeve.
The graphic here is a primary example of lying with charts. Check out the scale on the Y axis. Why isn't the lowest number zero? Because the author is trying to exaggerate the gap between NTD- and board-reported data. Mr Perkins does a much better job of truthfully explaining the facts over at GGW.
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/17080/do...

With all the legitimate complaints about Metro, why do you feel the need to portray things worse than they really are? Perhaps everything you report is an exaggeration? You're either completely credible or completely incredible. I'm leaning towards the latter.
19 replies · active 639 weeks ago
Where is this black and white world in which you live? I'd love to find it!

The numbers are all there.

The liar is Metro, not me.
David Alpert and his band of pie-in-the-sky, pollyanna-ish busy-bodies are metro apologists. I'd trust Unsuck before those goobers.
Oh, unsuck, you are dastardly clever :)
BUSTED!!!!!
Hahahahaha, nice catch, Unsuck.
"Senior" planner.
Rush Plussed's avatar

Rush Plussed · 639 weeks ago

MDE,

Will the new bike racks you're testing restore the 18 percent cut in service?
Also, will endless surveys fix the signal problems that seem to happen every day?

Thanks,
Someone who pays your salary
How long have you been over at Metro's planning office, Little Mikey? Enjoying some nice new Dr. Dre headphones? How's Ol' Nat doing? You guys stink of graft and corruption.
This is a "spotlight" chart, which is completely legitimate, as long as the numbers are accurately reported.
--and just looking at the raw numbers is equally alarming.
MDE,

If you really worked with charts, you'd understand there really isn't a problem with displaying a non-zero y axis scale. The interest is in showing the drop in service, which looks identical on both charts. All unsuck did was zoom in on a section.

This may have been hammered into your head in high school statistics that you need a zero on the y-axis, but most people know how to read a chart. Metro's extreme service cuts look really bad any way you graph it.
Let me guess... as someone in Metro Management, you never actually take Metro...
He's planning to one day. tee hee ;)
hahaha quoting David Alpert. He's a liberal utopian tool who thinks everything around here is okay and that we should keep shoving money at anything progressive, urban, and public no matter what the cost or consequences.

He's a moron and so are you for quoting that site.
Agree with your take on Alpert, but he has lots of free time on his hands and spends most of it advancing his agenda. Unfortunately, he does get pols to listen to him.
Thats' what is wrong with this area. Losers like Alpert with no real job who are basically a false lobby.

I like how he band dissenting opinion on his page too. you must love the metro or youre just being unruly. Whatever.
I loved Paul Krugman's take down of people who are obsessed with the silly idea that the y-axis must start with zero.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/axes-...
chartsFarts's avatar

chartsFarts · 639 weeks ago

Lol, why doesn't the x axis start at zero?
Lrn2chart.
I think Metro should be sued for all drunk driving arrests and crashees in the DMV on the weekends- that will teach them to cut weekend service at night.
Great article which shows what we've expected all along.

Sad thing is nothing will ever come of it.
Write the board. Tell them to hold metro accountable!!

<Catherine.hudgins@fairfaxcounty.gov>; <tom.downs@veoliatransportation.com>; <mortdowney@verizon.net>; <info@NicholsCreativeDevelopment.com>; <jdyke@mcguirewoods.com>; <mbowser@dccouncil.us>; <marcel.acosta@ncpc.gov>; <mbarnes@ciponline.org>; <mhynes@arlingtonva.us>; <terry.bellamy@dc.gov>; <ahampshire-cowan@howard.edu>; <william.euille@alexandriava.gov>;
1 reply · active 639 weeks ago
I'm sorry, but the board is in executive session cutting self serviing land deals and funneling metro money to their friends like Toole Design Group...check it out. They're making bank.
Stan Dessel's avatar

Stan Dessel · 639 weeks ago

Oh darn! We mixed up kilometers and miles.

Nothing to see here.

You're welcome!
Unsuck, can you tell us more about the misunderstanding with Perkins? His post makes it sound like he brought you this tip, told you to wait on it while he gave Metro time to comment, and then you posted it anyway. It sounds like you're the bad guy here, and I don't know why you'd alienate a potential ally. What's going on?
6 replies · active 639 weeks ago
Michael Perkins and I talked about this stuff for some time. I don't want to put words in his mouth because I consider him to be a friend, but I think we both thought we were going to take different angles. That turned out not to be the case, as you can see.

I agree the GGW explainer sounds as if I pulled something underhanded. I can assure you I did no such thing, and Perkins and I are still friends.

Hope that helps.
Transit bros for life
Micheal why does GGW love anything metro /advances all public transportation while demonizing driving?

Why does GGW refuse to call out the issues with Public transportation and public funded projects and ban any dissenting opinions on that blog?
The little note at the bottom of the GGW is so small. The news got out on two outlets! Better than one! I'd guess a lot of GGW readers don't read Unsuck and vice versa.

Put the squabbling behind and focus on Metro.
I hope one of the DC Metro TV station picks up this report. It is eye-opening and proves that Metro is spending more money per revenue mile than ever before without any measurable improvement (ridership continues to decline, at an accelerating rate). Please, major news outlets, report on this stuff. Force some change at Metro!
GGW, Unsuck...who cares? it's out, and thanks. Where's the f*ucking Washington Post on this? What a bunch of dolts
I bet this is showing all the break downs where the miles can't be reported because the trains are busted.

Post a new comment

Comments by

 
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Site Meter