The D.C. region needs world-class, fully-funded public transit to support our region’s transportation needs, climate and equity goals, and economic health.
Author: Elena Sorokina
Who We Are
The Fund Metro! coalition is made up of several DC-area nonprofit groups. List of the groups who have signed on to date:
- Coalition for Smarter Growth
- Active Prince William
- Chesapeake Climate Action Network
- Clean Fairfax
- DC New Liberals
- Gaithersburg HELP
- Grassroots Alexandria
- Greater Greater Washington
- Just Economics
- League of Women Voters, DC
- League of Women Voters, Maryland
- Mobilize Frederick
- Prince William Conservation Alliance
- Sierra Club – Maryland Chapter
- Sierra Club – DC Chapter
- Southern Environmental Law Center
- Sustainable Mobility for Arlington County
- Washington Area Bicyclist Association
- YIMBYs of Northern Virginia
Our Asks
Short term stopgap (by April/May 2024):
Close the FY25 and FY26 funding gaps with enough funding from Virginia, DC, and Maryland to avoid service cuts and minimize fare hikes and shifts of preventative maintenance funds to operations. Minimum request:
- $150 million from Maryland
- $130 million from Virginia (split 50/50 with Northern Virginia localities)
- $200 million from DC
Ideally, we can win even more funding to avoid fare hikes and shifting maintenance funds to operations.
Long term solution:
- Solve the long-term dedicated funding challenge once and for all by reaching regional consensus on sources of dedicated funding legislatively earmarked to WMATA and indexed to inflation.
- Consider numerous funding sources including land value (“split-rate”) taxation for transit-oriented development areas.
- Shift funding from highways to Metro and other transit given the climate crisis.
- Improve efficiency through dedicated bus lanes, consolidated bus purchases with local providers, and even consolidating bus operators.
- Continue Metro’s progress in improving safety, preventative maintenance, operations, cost controls, financial reporting, and communications with decision-makers and the public.
- Standardize WMATA’s reporting to the three states, Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, and Federal government on finances, operations, maintenance, and safety to provide more transparent and accessible reporting and reduce the administrative burden on all parties.
Why We Need Metro
Metro’s benefits to our region include:
- Shaping a more sustainable region through walkable, bikeable, mixed-use, transit-oriented communities and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- Affordable access to jobs and opportunity – within the Metro Compact Area, the land within ½ mile of the system’s Metrorail stations and Metrobus stops contains 60% of the region’s population, 70% of jobs, and 50% of businesses.
- An effective alternative to sitting in traffic that benefits everyone by reducing congestion.
- An essential service underpinning a competitive and growing economy – attracting companies and the next-generation workforce.
- An important contributor to tax revenue – Metrorail station areas are only 3% of the region’s land area, but contribute 30% of its property tax revenue.
- Lower combined housing and transportation costs, particularly when combined with affordable housing – Washington metro area commuters can save over $13,000 per year by using transit instead of driving.
- Reduced consumption of land, saving farms and forests, and leaving room for parks and protected stream corridors.
RELEASE: Campaign for better buses in Mont. Co. launches at noon, 25+ orgs support
Today, over 25 organizations will launch a campaign advocating for better bus service in Montgomery County.
MEDIA ADVISORY: 20+ organizations to announce campaign to reimagine bus service in Montgomery County
Over 20 organizations will hold an event to launch a campaign for better Ride On and Metrobus service in Montgomery County.
RELEASE: “Devastating. Leaders must step up to save WMATA.”
PRESS STATEMENT
December 1, 2020
Contact:
Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director
703-599-6437 (cell)
Proposed cuts to WMATA would be devastating
Leaders must step up!
“The reality of proposed cuts to our Metrorail and Metrobus service in the absence of a rescue package is now clear. It would be simply devastating – to our workers, our economy, our transportation network.
Congress needs to step up and this includes every Republican. We are one nation, one economy, with a huge share of our economy dependent on our cities and metropolitan regions.
If the cuts were to take place they would gut a system the DC region built over four decades and upon which our essential workers and economy depends. It would undermine decades of real estate investment, prompt flight of our next generation workforce, and have a disproportionate impact on the essential workers upon whom our food and health and services systems depend.
We shouldn’t let our two Governors and local elected officials off the hook either. We cannot afford to continue wasteful road expansion and sprawl, massive toll roads that benefit few, and boondoggles like the Maglev when we can’t afford to maintain and operate what we’ve already built. We must be shifting funding from road expansion to save the transit system that is the backbone of our region’s economy.
‘Fix-it-first’: maintain, rehabilitate, and operate our existing infrastructure and locate new development in walkable communities with both jobs and frequent transit.”
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