METRO DC 2018 BUDGET CUTS FORCES SYSTEM REFORM (TRUMP)

METRO DC BUDGET CUTS FORCES SYSTEM REFORM (TRUMP):

SLASHING METRO DC’S FEDERAL FUNDING WILL ALSO HELP ELIMINATE SYSTEMIC WASTE, FRAUD & POOR REGIONAL PLANNING.

BUDGET CUTS FORCES METRO DC TO MOVE INTO THE 21st CENTURY.

WILL METRO DC RETALIATE AGAINST MEDIA OUTLETS WHICH REPORT ON SYSTEMIC WASTE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS?

GIVING METRO DC & WMATA MORE MONEY IS NOT THE ANSWER.

REFORMING AND RESTRUCTURING METRO DC IS THE ANSWER.

ALL METRO ACCESS DRIVERS SHOULD HAVE CDL LICENSES.

ALL DISPATCHERS SHOULD BE WMATA DISPATCHERS NOT CONTRACTORS.

ALL FARES SHOULD BE REASONABLE & AFFORDABLE.

METRO DC SHOULD OPERATE 24-HOURS.

TRAIN ALL WMATA & METRO EMPLOYEES ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT POLICIES.


Sources: Washington Post, WTOP, Youtube


****** Trump administration budget trims Metro subsidy instead of killing it, as feared


Metro got a little good news Monday when President Trump’s budget proposed to trim the agency’s federal subsidy to $120 million from $150 million rather than eliminate it, as feared.
But the White House and the Transportation Department also warned that they want to shrink federal support for Metro, at a time when the region’s top elected officials of both parties are seeking to increase such backing.

The office of Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said earlier this month that the Trump administration planned to omit a critical grant for the transit agency from its budget for the 2019 fiscal year.

It wasn’t clear Monday whether the White House had changed its mind, possibly under pressure from Congress, or whether Warner and others had misread or overstated the administration’s intentions.

Either way, the Trump administration made clear it hopes the $30 million reduction is only the beginning of a decline in federal spending on Metro.

“The administration does believe that long-term, [the] federal role needs to be lessened, and reducing the federal contribution reflects that,” an Office of Management and Budget official said. “Federal direct subsidies and oversight should be curtailed.”

A Transportation spokeswoman said in a statement that “it makes sense for the Department to scale down” funding for Metro. The statement cited “constrained resources,” Metro’s advances in fixing safety issues, and progress in the District, Maryland and Virginia in raising funds on their own.

Warner and other local officials have been pressing the administration both to provide full federal funding for Metro and to increase such support. Two of the region’s top Republican officials — Rep. Barbara Comstock (Va.) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan — have urged increased federal funding if Metro meets certain conditions.

Warner raised the alarm previously that the White House might scrap the Metro subsidy altogether. He said the administration believed the 10-year federal grant program for Metro has expired and cited a Federal Transit Administration briefing to Congress in the spring of 2017 that made that point.

OMB and the Transportation Department appeared to differ on that issue Monday. OMB said the authorization expires in 2019.

Transportation said it expires in fiscal 2018, but the White House proposes to continue direct funding at $120 million in fiscal 2019 anyway.

Metro welcomed Monday’s budget news and said it would work in Congress to reverse the proposed $30 million cut. Any reduction in funding would complicate Metro’s financial picture at a time when the agency is pushing for the federal grant program to be renewed to meet its considerable capital needs.

The grant money is used to purchase new rail cars, pay for track upgrades and replace aging equipment. The grant is part of the 2008 Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, known as PRIIA.

“We appreciate the Administration’s recognition of the important safety and reliability investments Metro requires, as well as this acknowledgment of the critical role the system plays in the nation’s capital,” a Metro spokeswoman said in a statement. “We will continue to work with our congressional delegation and leadership on the Hill to ensure the full $150 million ­PRIIA funding is included in the federal FY19 appropriations.”

Warner sought to claim some credit Monday for what he portrayed as a reversal.

“Not long ago, the Administration was planning to zero out funding for [Metro] in its budget request to Congress,” Warner said in a statement. “I, along with other members of the Capital Region delegation, publicly pushed the Administration to honor the federal government’s ten-year commitment to Metro.

We’ll keep up the fight in Congress to ensure that Metro receives the full $150 million in federal funds that they are owed for the next fiscal year.”

The FTA’s position last spring that the 10-year Metro funding program expires this year was based on a technicality in the wording of the bill.

It appeared to leave open the possibility that the authorization ends in the current fiscal year. But the FTA also said that Congress could extend the authorization to make sure Metro got the full allotment.

“Every indication from the administration was that they were strongly considering omitting the funding from the budget request,” Warner spokeswoman Rachel Cohen said.

Comstock, the only Republican in Congress who represents a jurisdiction in the immediate Washington area, said she had not heard from anyone except Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that the White House was considering omitting the Metro grant.

“I’m not sure what happened there,” Comstock said. “As we have in the past, we’ll fight for the full $150 million.”

Warner issued the warning about the administration’s plans at the same time that he, Kaine, and the two Democratic senators from Maryland — Chris Van Hollen and Benjamin L. Cardin — wrote to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao urging continuation of the PRIIA funds.

DC’S METRO TRANSIT MESS (REP COMSTOCK’S REFORM BILL)

DC’S METRO MESS (REP COMSTOCK’S REFORM BILL):

FEDERAL FUNDING FOR THE DMV’s METRO SYSTEM SHOULD BE HALTED UNTIL PEOPLE SEE CHANGE.

METRO PASSENGERS & DMV BLACK VOTERS DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED.

DISABLED & SENIOR PASSENGERS ALSO DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED.

Sources: WTOP, NBC News, Washington Post, House.gov, YouTube

District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia all share the responsibility of managing a massive public transportation system called the METRO.

More than 600,000 people utilize the METRO System each week to travel to Work and other various reasons.
The METRO operates via Federal Funding and extremely high-priced, unregulated Passenger Fares.
It’s unregulated because each region is legally allowed to charge passengers whatever the Elected officials choose to for service.

Unlike New York’s very well-organized MTA Public Transportation system, the DMV’s METRO System can legally charge riders up to three different Fares for just one trip.

Yet despite receiving Billions and Billions of Federal dollars, along with daily Fares from passengers the DMV’s METRO Public Transportation system remains plagued with:

***** Poor Service levels (Late Arrivals),
Poorly trained Operators,
Waste & Abuse of Federal Funds,
No Accountability,
Black Management Employees with Bad Attitudes who consistently display Poor Customer Service especially to Black patronage,
Corrupt Private Contracts (Dispatchers),
Preventable Accidents,
Broken Escalators (SUITLAND),
Workplace Drama (Adulterous Affairs & Sexual Harassment) which adversely impacts Employee Performance,
Top Heavy Management who are in it only for MONEY,
Nepotism,
etc.

I welcome Congresswoman Rep BARBARA COMSTOCK’S Metro Reform Bill to help straighten out this maze of the DMV’s Public Transit Mess.

Federal Funding should be halted until REAL Change is evident to the Voters and METRO’s passengers who deserve better from their Elected Officials.


***** New bill in Congress promises more money for Metro if…

Metro would get billions more in federal funding in exchange for a more powerful inspector general and better service under a new proposal to be introduced in Congress.

The region’s Democrats led by Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly are proposing to continue current federal funding of $150 million per year for capital projects, but would add another $50 million per year to support Metro’ operations for the first time plus $2 billion in additional cash over 20 years.

The proposed funding is dependent on a more independent inspector general, and that Metro would meet targets set by the U.S. Department of Transportation for better, safer, more cost effective service.

Among other competing proposals on Capitol Hill, Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock’s bill would require different reforms and provide significantly less money than the Democrats’ new proposal. She is the only Republican in Congress whose district includes a Metro station.

Even that bill has yet to have a hearing in the Republican-led House, so the prospects for the Democrats’ bill appear dim at best. Comstock opposes the latest proposal.

“It’s unfortunate that in the 9 years it took Gerry Connolly to write an 8-page bill, he failed to include any of the substantial management, financial or pension reforms advocated on a bipartisan basis by numerous transportation experts and Metro advocates who have been working for years to seriously improve and reform the system.

Throwing billions more at Metro without defined reforms is a dead on arrival strategy,” Comstock said in a statement.

General Manager Paul Wiedefeld has said additional money is needed beyond current levels to pay for maintenance and repairs that were put off for decades.

Without additional federal money, local taxpayers would have to foot the bill alone. Maryland, Virginia and D.C. are considering legislation to boost their share of dedicated funding for Metro.

The co-sponsors of the newly introduced bill with Connolly are Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, Jamie Raskin, Anthony Brown and John Sarbanes; Virginia’s Don Beyer; and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Raskin and Brown had also introduced their own Metro bill that tracked transit union recommendations.
A separate bill from Maryland Democrat John Delaney would require changes to Metro’s collective bargaining structure and the size of Metro’s Board in exchange for an extra $750 million over 10 years.

METRO ACCESS PROBLEMS (WMATA) - ARE THERE ANY IMPROVEMENTS YET?

METRO ACCESS PROBLEMS (WMATA) - ARE THERE ANY IMPROVEMENTS YET?

IS THE COMPANY STILL PLAGUED WITH RARE ON-TIME DISABLED PASSENGER PICK UPS, ACCIDENTS AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT ISSUES?


IS SUCH CHAOS THE RESULT OF USING PRIVATE CONTRACTORS WHO ARE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY??


Sources: WTOP, Washington Post


****** MetroAccess riders, drivers join forces to voice their complaints


Disabled riders and MetroAccess drivers have joined hands to complain about the transit service that they say could use a lot of improvement.

Both riders and drivers complain that they are victimized by poor service, and they gathered together at Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church on Friday to air their complaints.

“It’s totally unreliable, totally unreliable … I have been abandoned more times than you can imagine,” says Gloria Jones Swieringa of Fort Washington, who is blind.

Unionized drivers, who are members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, say that dispatchers don’t welcome their input, that the policy of collecting fares outside the vehicle is unsafe and low driver pay produces high turnover rates.

“We need to make changes as far as the drivers, clients, the dispatchers, it needs to be a better service,” says Genoa Greene, a MetroAccess driver for the past eight years.

The complaints have drawn the attention of Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker.

“[I’m] very much concerned,” he says. “It was part of our budget hearing and so we want to hear what the problem is. I know a lot about people with disabilities trying to get back and forth so it’s a big concern of mine.”

METRO ACCESS - PARATRANSIT REMAINS BROKEN IN DC (GREASED PALMS)

METRO ACCESS - PARATRANSIT REMAINS BROKEN IN DC:

YET THE PROGRAM COLLECTS MORE FEDERAL FUNDS.

WHICH POLITICIANS' PALMS ARE BEING GREASED??

WHY NOT REPLACE CONTRACTORS WITH UBER & LYFT DRIVERS?

METRO ACCESS GROWING PROBLEMS INCLUDE.......

POLITICALLY-RIGGED CONTRACTS,
POOR MANAGEMENT,
HORRIBLE PERFORMANCE LEVELS,
SEVERE RETALIATION AGAINST WHISTLE BLOWERS,
EXTREME DISORGANIZATION,
RARE ON-TIME PICK-UPS,
DISABLED PASSENGERS FORCED TO RIDE FOR HOURS,
NEPOTISM,
DISPATCHERS DON'T KNOW WHERE DRIVERS ARE,
POWER STRUGGLES,
SEXUAL HARASSMENT,
HOTBED FOR SINGLE WOMEN LOOKING FOR SUGAR DADDIES IN THE WORKPLACE.


Sources: Washington Post, WTOP, Youtube


******* How problems with MetroAccess have left D.C.’s most vulnerable commuters stranded


Users of Metro’s service for the elderly and people with disabilities say they have recently endured hours-long waits for rides, spent entire afternoons in vans traveling nonsensical routes and watched as fellow riders soiled themselves on unreasonably long trips.

The routes that MetroAccess drivers must follow are not only unnecessarily long, but sometimes also take them in the opposite directions from their destinations, say customers, including some who are blind, medically fragile or use wheelchairs. One former customer said her doctor recommended she stop using the service to get to her lung cancer treatments because it was too stressful.

For MetroAccess’s 43,000 registered customers, the problems began last September with a sudden, seven-point drop in on-time performance. The share of excessively late trips nearly tripled from the month before. Metro officials have blamed soaring numbers of late and missed trips on a driver shortage.

“I feel like because I have a disability, I’m being treated like less than everyone else,” said Shannon Minnick, 46, who is quadriplegic and uses a wheelchair.

Minnick, of Silver Spring, said she recently missed a doctor’s appointment after spending more than 2½ hours in a MetroAccess van for what is typically a 25-minute ride. On another recent trip, a driver taking her home from Rockville first picked up someone in Kensington, five minutes from her home, and then drove another passenger to north Silver Spring before heading south again to drop her off.

Nancy Childress, 63, of West Springfield, Va., recalled how one MetroAccess trip took so long this winter that another passenger soiled herself after being in the van for two to three hours.

“She couldn’t help it,” said Childress, who has trouble walking and balancing from being hit by a car two decades ago.

The driver disinfected the van, and they went on their way, Childress said.

Heidi Case, a disability advocate, said she knew a woman who almost called the police, frantic that she hadn’t heard from her severely disabled daughter who had been stuck in a van for more than two hours.

Those are the kinds of “disastrous things that are happening,” Case said. “It is a significant quality-of-life change.”

On-time performance remains near its lowest level since at least mid-2013. In April, 88 percent of customers were picked up on time — better than the 83 percent in the fall but still below Metro’s minimum target of 92 percent.

By April, the number of trips deemed “excessively late” — more than 20 minutes past the half-hour pickup window — had nearly doubled since last summer, from about 2,400 a month to 4,700. Incidents in which the driver never showed also doubled to almost 1,500 in April.

The number of botched and excessively late trips make up a relatively small portion — about 3 to 4 percent — of MetroAccess’s overall service. But with about 8,000 trips a day, the percentages mask thousands of missed appointments, late arrivals at work and frustrated customers who rely on the service to live independently.

While high driver turnover has been a problem in the paratransit industry for decades, Metro officials say the growth in services such as Uber and Lyft has further cut into the driver pool. The shortage worsened just as ridership was picking up from the summer lull, Metro officials said, even though the agency’s own data shows usage actually dropped by 9,500 passengers between August and October.

Christian Kent, Metro’s assistant general manager for access services, said contractors were down about 100 drivers in September, leaving the companies 10 percent short of the 1,000 needed for full service. As the driver shortage increased throughout the fall, Kent said, on-time performance couldn’t recover, even in months when ridership dropped.

“The contractors experienced a more competitive driver market than they have had to deal with in the past, and the number of people who applied for jobs with MetroAccess was lower than we’ve seen in the past,” Kent said.

Transit agencies are required to provide paratransit service under the Americans With Disabilities Act, and MetroAccess is the fifth-largest such program in the country. Usage has more than doubled in the past 14 years, from just under a million trips in 2003 to more than 2 million trips. It is the agency’s fastest-growing and most expensive service.

Metro spends about $100 million annually to provide Metro¬Access service via five contractors. The transit agency subsidizes 92 percent of the costs, with the rest covered by fare revenue.

Rides cost two times the equivalent bus or rail fare, with a maximum $6.50, for a trip that costs the agency an average of $50.

Customers must make a reservation a day in advance and are given a 30-minute pickup window. As a ride-sharing service, there are typically multiple passengers per van.

Many of those who rely on MetroAccess cannot easily navigate Metro or afford taxis or ride-hailing services.

Kent said a trip is considered late if it is even one minute outside the 30-minute pickup window.

Just because on-time performance dropped, he said, that doesn’t mean “that suddenly every trip is egregiously late.”

Contributing to the problem are the computer-generated routes that drivers are required to follow — even if they don’t make sense in terms of geography or time.

Documents obtained through a public records request show that MetroAccess contractors began “dropping” routes at a precipitous clip last August, meaning the companies didn’t have enough drivers to accept all the trips that the computer assigned them.

During some months last fall, as many as 1,337 trips had to be reassigned among available drivers.

Fewer drivers means those on hand must cover larger areas and have more trips tacked on to their routes, Kent said. Accommodating these “add-on” trips causes the circuitous routes that customers have complained about.

Steve Polkinghorn, of Burke, Va., said his commute home from his job in Arlington County used to rarely exceed 90 minutes. Now it can take more than two hours. That’s because the drivers who pick him up at his Crystal City office often head into the District to pick up another passenger before turning around and slogging through traffic back to Northern Virginia to take him home.

“Why am I driving due north when I live due south?” said Polkinghorn, who has multiple sclerosis.

Cindy LaBon, who is blind, said out-of-the-way routes have left her and her guide dog stuck in a van up to three hours.

In the fall, LaBon said, a fellow passenger who was mentally disabled began crying after the driver passed her street to drop off someone else miles way. The woman had already been in the van for three hours on a trip from Lanham to Silver Spring.

Two weeks ago, LaBon said, she spent more than two hours trying to get from Burtonsville to Gaithersburg — both in Montgomery County — in a van that first took her to Northwest Washington.

“They don’t know geography,” LaBon, 68, said of whoever sets the drivers’ routes. “They don’t even put trips [together] going in the same direction.”

While the computer suggests three options, staff members in the scheduling center can override the software, Kent said.

“On days when we have surging ridership and depleted drivers to route, sometimes the dispatchers don’t have an ideal choice coming out of the computer,” Kent said. “We are very much aware of the issue.”

Metro has fined the three companies that provide drivers — Transdev, First Transit and Diamond Transportation — almost $1 million each in contract “damages” since the fall.

But Metro officials say they’ve also cut the companies a financial break to help them hire more drivers. The agency has greatly reduced future financial penalties, in some cases by 90 percent, for six months, according to Metro. Transdev also has been allowed to use temporary drivers, a Metro spokeswoman said. And the agency recently agreed to pay the contractors “slightly” more so they could raise wages.

“It’s very difficult for them to put out the extra cash to pay drivers at a higher wage scale if, simultaneously, we’re taking the money back from them in damages,” Kent said.

Transdev, the company responsible for half of MetroAccess rides, blamed the sudden downturn on the difficulty of recruiting drivers, “given the current robust labor force and low unemployment rate.” The company said it had been fully staffed a year before the performance drop, but suddenly attrition rose and driver training classes shrank. Meanwhile, ridership increased in the fall just as back-to-school-and-work traffic jumped.

First Transit, which is responsible for 35 percent of Metro¬Access trips, said it faces the same problems attracting drivers. By fall, the company was short 35 to 50 drivers, spokesman Jay Brock said last month, and the workforce hadn’t fully recovered. Brock said the company is participating in job fairs, increasing its marketing and undertaking grass-roots efforts to attract new hires.

“We’re screening, interviewing, taking [applicants] through our background checks and trying to get them on the road and behind the wheel,” Brock said.

John Gray, acting project manager at MV Transportation, which manages the MetroAccess call center, directed reporters’ questions to Metro.

Kate Walden, a spokeswoman for Diamond Transportation, which provides 15 percent of MetroAccess trips, said driver shortages are occurring nationwide. She said the company is now “nearly fully staffed” for MetroAccess and is “aggressively recruiting to ensure we have a full complement of drivers this summer.”

A union representing paratransit drivers says Metro is letting contractors off the hook for poor service. A key problem, they say, remains the “poverty wages” drivers receive. The companies recently agreed to increase wages to at least $15 an hour, union officials said. For example, Transdev drivers who were making $13.85 an hour saw their wages increased to $16 an hour.

“You cannot operate a public service with a sweatshop employment model,” said Todd Brogan, a union organizer with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1764 at a recent demonstration urging Metro to stop using contractors for paratransit.

[Transit service for elderly, people with disabilities sees sharp decline]

Kent said training classes are now full and efforts continue to hire more drivers to meet the growing demand. The agency said late Friday that they were fully staffed. Metro also recently began receiving 207 new vans to replace older ones and expand the fleet by 25 vehicles.

The five-year MetroAccess contract expires in June 2018, and the agency is putting the new one out for bid. The agency also is exploring ways to partner with Uber, Lyft and other transportation services to provide same-day paratransit service at a fraction of the cost.

Kent said MetroAccess will improve, even as the number of people needing it continues to grow.

“There’s really not a choice,” Kent said. “MetroAccess is our responsibility to our customers with disabilities. We must provide it under the ADA, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.