Mayor, 2 Governors Meet About Metro


After a long morning meeting of D.C.’s mayor and the governors of Virginia and Maryland with Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority General Manager Paul Wiedefeld at the Washington Hilton Oct. 12 — the topic being Metrorail’s “Safe Track” repair program — the most urgent question at the press conference concerned the next 24 hours.

“What is going to happen to thousands of baseball fans who attend Thursday night’s playoffs between the Washington Nationals and the Dodgers?” Mayor Muriel Bowser was asked angrily. “If the final innings are late, will ticket holders have to decide whether to stay and see the ending, or run to catch the Metro whose after-midnight service has been banned? What alternatives will they have?”

The mayor couldn’t say. She repeated that she felt the blanket ban on late-night Metro service was wrong. She didn’t even seem to support a temporary ban, given workers’ schedules and the many special occasions the nation’s capital celebrates. “Because it’s not just a matter of people coming home from late-night parties and bars. Many Metro riders need it to go back and forth every night to late-shift jobs,” she said.

But if the Nats game runs late tomorrow? She didn’t know.

Reporters brought up other hot issues at the tight (six questions only) press conference following the meeting. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe got this question: “Is Virginia going to commit more money for the badly maintained D.C. Metro system, in which mainly Virginians were injured in 11 of the 18 serious accidents?”

“I’m the Metro’s biggest cheerleader,” said the Democrat, a close friend and political adviser of the Clintons. “But I’ve already had to require Virginia state agencies to cut their budgets by five percent across the board. Right now, the number-one issue for me is sequestration — the huge budget cuts that President Obama imposed in 2011, especially on federal defense facilities, many of which were located in Northern Virginia. The action badly affected the economy there.”

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan was also asked about increasing his state’s contributions to Metro (Red Line) repairs and to construction of the new Purple Line. “We have already committed a half billion dollars for these projects, far exceeding our usage of them, since only a small proportion of the Maryland’s state population benefits from the D.C. Metro,” Hogan responded. “We won’t support fare increases either. But we are willing to explore expanded regional and federal partnerships.”

“What about instituting a dedicated regional sales tax just for the Metro?” the NPR transportation reporter Martin Di Caro yelled out. “How difficult can that be?”

“We’ve just seen that proposal this morning,” all three officials answered. “It will have to get feedback from numerous stakeholders before any decision in made.”

As for what happens tonight, at press time the late-night Metro ban still had not been lifted. The game starts at 8 p.m.

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