WMATA Board Members Still Not Using Metro

[WMATAGMOAGH]

From today's Washington Post:

Metro Use A Rarity For Half Of Board
Some Owe Years Of Parking Fees
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[size=-1]By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 22, 2009; C01
  As Metro contemplates job and service cuts to help eliminate a budget shortfall, some riders are wondering how board members can make such decisions when many of them rarely use the system.
Half of Metro's 12 board members, including Chairman Jim Graham, do not regularly ride the train or bus system they oversee. And even as members say they need to trim expenses and boost revenue, several haven't paid their parking fees at Metro headquarters for at least 2 1/2 years.
"I'm actually stunned," said District resident Jan Poston Day, who rides four of Metro's five subway lines daily. "How will [Graham] know how to advise the management of the Metro if he doesn't know what's going on as a consumer?"
Day, a 40-year-old computer software company manager, said she was even more stunned that some members have outstanding parking bills. "Tone comes from the top," Day said. "There's a budget deficit. Dude, like, pull your weight."
For the nine years he has served on the board, Graham, a D.C. Council member representing Ward 1, has not regularly taken the bus or subway. Now that he's chairman of the Metro board, he said he is climbing aboard.
"I'm going to become a more regular rider," Graham said. "On a weekly basis, I will be found on the bus."
Graham said that last year he rode "on various occasions, both bus and rail." His most recent bus trip was in December. Train? "Every time I went to a Nationals game, because it's a direct shot from the Columbia Heights Metro to the uh," he said, fumbling for the station name. An aide supplied it. "Right," Graham said. "Navy Yard."
Graham said frequent night meetings make mass transit inconvenient. But that doesn't affect his job performance, he said, or diminish his transportation experience. Few D.C. Council members have children in the city's public schools, he said, "but we all vote on the budget. We're all engaged."
For years, he has driven and parked his harvest moon beige Volkswagen Beetle in the employee garage. But Graham is now considering riding Metro to board meetings.
"I think it's a substantive and symbolic issue," Graham said. Still, he said: "I don't want this story to be 'Graham to Ride Bus.' This is not the issue."
But who rides, and who doesn't, is an issue.
Last year, then-Metro Chairman Chris Zimmerman, who represents Virginia, urged board colleagues to "make every effort to immerse themselves" in the system. He suggested a contest. Whichever delegation -- Maryland, Virginia or the District -- racked up the most Metro trips would win dinner from the losers.
The District, with "an insurmountable lead," was the unofficial winner, Zimmerman said. But even friendly competition was too sensitive for specifics. Graham, Zimmerman and Metro Inspector General Helen Lew, the scorekeeper, declined to provide details about who rode and how often.
"I think that information is between me and the board members," Lew said.
With Metro facing a $29 million deficit in its $1.3 billion budget, riders fear that $21 million in proposed bus and rail service cuts will be used to shrink the gap. Fare increases haven't been discussed. But only Metro's board can make those decisions. For the non-riding members, riders had tips.
"They should know how it feels to stand at a bus stop and the bus doesn't come," said Josh Silver, a Bethesda resident who takes the bus and subway. Or how it feels when his Red Line train is delayed, he misses his T2 bus and then has to pay for a $10 cab ride home to pick up his daughter from school.
"If a Metro board member had a schedule like mine, it might get them a little more concerned about keeping the service reliable," Silver said.
Metro's board is a mix of elected and appointed officials. They usually meet twice a month. They don't get paid by Metro. District members receive no compensation. Some Maryland and Virginia members receive nominal compensation from the communities they represent. The exception is the alternate representing Prince George's County, Marcell Solomon, who has held the post since 2003. For the fiscal year that ended June 30, the county paid him about $73,000 for Metro work and other county service, according to a county spokesman.
The jobs come with a free hot lunch on meeting days. The lunches cost Metro about $8,000 last year. And unlimited travel on bus and rail.
The members who say they ride regularly are: Peter Benjamin and Gordon Linton, representing Maryland; Zimmerman, Catherine Hudgins and Jeffrey C. McKay, representing Virginia; and Anthony R. Giancola of the District, the only daily commuter. Hudgins got caught in Orange Line delays Thursday on her way to a Metro meeting.
Infrequent riders, in addition to Graham, are Maryland representative Betty Hewlett, Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille, Neil O. Albert, a deputy D.C. mayor, and D.C. Council member Michael Brown (I-At Large). Brown, sworn in last month, said he couldn't remember the last time he took Metro. Taking transit is not convenient for their jobs, they said.
Solomon rarely uses the system, current and former colleagues said. He did not return several calls to his office and cellphone.
Board members are supposed to pay for parking at Metro-operated lots and at the headquarters. At the headquarters, two blocks from Verizon Center, they park in daily spaces set aside on board meeting days. But some members haven't paid their bills in more than two years, officials said.
The headquarters garage started charging in July 2005, and a parking machine was installed ($1.50 an hour, with a $12 daily maximum). But the machine didn't always work, so then-District member Gladys Mack asked Metro to bill the city's members monthly, Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. The typical invoice was $25.
"At first, board members paid their invoices regularly," she said. "As time passed, they began to pay sporadically, until it came to be that those billed monthly stopped paying at all." Only the District members requested bills, she said.
That was in June 2006. Metro declined to provide copies of invoices. Graham is the only member of that original group that was getting billed who is still on the board. Assuming that he attended every meeting since then, he owes Metro about $800.
Graham said he used the machine initially, then stopped when the District members requested that the city pick up the tab in recognition of their Metro service. But then-District transportation director Emeka Moneme declined to pay the bills. "We sent them directly to the council members' offices," he said.
Graham said he never received an invoice. He said he wasn't trying to avoid paying and will pay whatever he owes: "I assumed this was all being taken care of."
Nobody at the employee garage enforces the parking fee with regard to board members.
Euille, a member since 2000, said he thought board members got free parking and has never paid. Hewlett, appointed two years ago, said she didn't know she was supposed to pay for parking at Metro headquarters.
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My take: I can understand that politician's schedules and travel needs aren't really the types that are compatible with frequent public transit use, so expecting the board members to use Metro all the time is a bit unrealistic, though I wonder if they could use it more if they tried.  That said, if they are expected to pay for parking, they should pay their parking invoices.  Whether they actually should have to pay for parking is another question, personally I'm split on it.

Now, is John Catoe using the system???

[Antozilla]

Zimmie uses it, I have seen him on it

[C40LF_2464]

WOW!!! And dont they get to ride it for free??? Ill be on the bus/subway every day second and yea John Catoe does use his system i read somewhere that he rides the metrorail everyday to work or it can just be a rumor.

[rideonrulez]

WOW!!! And dont they get to ride it for free???

I guess you missed it.....

"The jobs come with a free hot lunch on meeting days. The lunches cost Metro about $8,000 last year. And unlimited travel on bus and rail."

[WMAveteran]

There are no defensible explanations for WMATA Board Members to not use the Metro system. 

[rideonrulez]

There are no defensible explanations for WMATA Board Members to not use the Metro system. 

I totally agree. But I'll tell you what, this is normal in this industry. ALOT of the higher ups that make decisions don't ride at all. I think it is a shame if you ask me because they should be the ones setting the example....

[Antozilla]

they have the same excuses the general public does.  Its not as fast, its dirty yad yada yada....

I have to ride with winos...

[LandoverDivision]

This explains why the Board can't fix most of the problems Metro has. If the Board would actually ride Metro and see most of the problems people face on a daily basis, they can do something about it.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

There are no defensible explanations for WMATA Board Members to not use the Metro system. 

The Board members could use transit more often than they do.  However, the reality of the situation is that transit is set up to provide service to people with more regular routines than those of a politician, who have unexpected commitments and schedules that require them to be in all sorts of places over the course of the day.  In my mind, those are the sorts of people you don't exactly spend a lot of time trying to persuade to use public transit because it is simply not feasible.  Ironically enough, the same goes for transit officials.  I was doing a project for TCAT in 2006 where if I used the bus to do my fieldwork, I would have never finished the project within a reasonable timeframe.  A bus serves the TCAT facility once an hour but I rarely took it to work, I usually took my bike, nearly everyone else drove to work every day.  I'm about to start another project for them, and when I go down to their offices later this week, I intend to drive because the constraints created by the bus running once an hour make it almost impossible to get to my meeting and then on to my next commitment.

That said, the politicians on the WMATA Board could ask their staffs to find times in their schedules where using the Metro would in fact be feasible, and it would be a step forward.  But I think we need to be reasonable in our expectations, and realize that it is not reasonable to expect the board members to use transit for all of their travel needs.

[Tritransit Area]

Well, let me play devil's advocate here...

There's certainly viable reasons for transit professionals to not use transit.  For one, transit doesn't go everywhere, and if one is fortunate enough to be served by it, it's not always quite convenient.

Besides, many people have meetings all over the place - they don't just sit in offices all day long.  Therefore, they need their cars to take them around to the meetings.

This doesn't even include the people that take their kids to/from school and daycare, which makes taking transit truly stressful.

Let me put myself in the spotlight.  Until recently, my "commute by bus" entailed taking three vehicles on a 2.5 hr (one way) trip to the office.  Needless to say, I preferred to drive. 

Fortunately, I now have a SEPTA bus route that cuts my travel time down immensely thanks to the addition of a morning trip.  However, I'm still "stuck" in the office in terms of lunch or doing my out of office duties.  Of course, I still have that 30 minute walk before sunrise...

Of course, I make it a point to ride our services (not SEPTA, but the rushbus) to work every so often, particularly when SEPTA fails me for some reason.  However, it's still a huge boondoogle for me to catch that bus, including a 30 minute walk and a 2 hour ride.

I didn't understand it before I started working here, but it makes sense.  However, I still believe that Metro board members should ride the routes every once in a while.