Rate Hikes Are Needed But So Are Wage Benefit Sacrifices

[tysons engineer]

http://thetysonscorner.com/blog/time-to-tighten-up-the-wmata-budget/

I have always been a proponent of mass transit and of labor unions, but when I looked into the revenue vs cost for bus service (which needs rate hikes in order to keep up with the 300% increase in fuel costs in the past 10 years) as well as the percentage of WMATA wage costs that come from benefits (36%) which far exceeds other Transit workers like Chicago I have come to my own belief that something has to give. For the average WMATA employees wages to be the equivalent of 100k is a slap in the face. I understand cost of living, but I am a professional licensed engineer with 10 years experience who is in a very highly technical and skilled field and I don't even cost 100k in total wage. It's one thing for certain people in WMATA to cost that much, but for the average to be that high is just too much for a progressive like me to swallow.

With even a 5% reduction in benefits the systems become far easier to fund and we may even be able to remove much of the operation subsidies necessary currently, and apply them towards capital projects such as the purple line or better connectivity.

The links is an article discussing. What do you think?

[Transport]

You should e-mail the governor of Virginia and suggest cutting all Metrobus service in Va. and farming it out to the local operators to save taxpayer funds.

[Super G]

Va. already tried farming it out to the Fairfax Connector and it didn't work.