“Metro, citing drop in subway ridership, urges Congress to boost transit benefit” reads the Washington Post headline. The DC subway system has been screwing riders almost every chance possible in recent years – especially with endless weekend planned slowdowns for “track maintenance.” The weekend work crews (probably receiving double or triple overtime) and they are some of the biggest sloughers I’ve seen since I worked for the Virginia Highway Department. The subway is run for the benefit of the unionized government workers who too often sleep at the switches.
So what does Metro management propose? A big boost in subsidies to force American taxpayers to further underwrite Metro’s contempt-of-customers – and to provide another unearned benefit to government workers (who would be the prime beneficiaries of such a policy).
Bah. Here’s a few cartoons explaining why Metro is a piece of [redacted]. There is even a Twitter account entitled UnSuck DC Metro @unsuckdcmetro
[Some folks will say – ‘then just drive into D.C.’ But the D.C. govt. is one of the most corrupt in the nation as far as rigged speed cameras and red light cameras. They are even putting their “catch ’em” cameras at stop signs. The D.C. system knowingly sends out vast numbers of unjustified tickets to drivers – and the system is rigged to make it difficult and expensive for victims to challenge that injustice.]
You are actually more than kind — you could have cited items like this:
“…[T]he many many problems of the escalators failing—in some cases, even injuring riders—can also be attributed to the union’s “Pick” system. Under this arrangement, workers get to choose where they report to work, based on seniority. What happens? More experienced workers go to newer escalators and elevators that don’t need nearly as much work, while less experienced workers get stuck with the more broken, time-consuming ones.
There is also the problem of failing upwards. In April, the man in charge of WMATA’s escalators and elevators was transferred to run its track and engineering services department. With such incidents as the one reported above being less rare than they should be, and escalator failures being common, everyday occurrences (with repair times sometimes stretching into weeks, rather than hours), you would think Mr. Bitar would have been fired. Instead, he’s essentially received a promotion.”
– Jeremy Kolassa, “Top five policies that keep DC’s Metro dysfunctional,” R Street, June 27, 2013