The Metro board finance committee voted Thursday to raise fares for bus and rail riders, reduce train frequencies and slash some bus routes, advancing the agency’s austerity budget to a final vote — but not before slipping in three last-minute amendments to preserve a slew of bus lines that were slated for cancellation or reduction.

Board members approved the $1.8 billion operating budget in the face of numerous concerns, chiefly: whether fare hikes and fewer trains would accelerate a ridership decline that has driven the nation’s second-busiest subway into financial distress.

Metro is facing a $290 million budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year, and ridership and parking revenue losses — exacerbated by the year-long SafeTrack maintenance program — make up about a third of the shortfall. As board members cautiously advanced the spending plan, Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld defended the cuts, which have drawn the ire of riders and transit advocates.

“The way that we bring back ridership is through basically more reliable service,” Wiedefeld said at a news conference after the board meeting. “We have not been able to deliver what we said we were going to deliver. So I think it’s more important to the customer [to] ‘just tell me what I’ve got and then deliver it.’ ”

[Metro moving forward with fare increases for coming year]

Rail ridership was down 12 percent compared with a year earlier, the latest figures showed, and has fallen by about 100,000 trips from its 2009 peaks. Metro estimates that the fare increases will result in a total loss of 10 million trips during the 2018 fiscal year. But even with the ridership loss, Metro estimates the fare increase will boost revenue by $21 million.

Rush-hour rail fares would increase by a dime, with $2.25 as the new minimum and $6 as the maximum one-way fare. The plan increases off-peak rail and bus fares 25 cents. The frequency of trains, most of which are scheduled to arrive at least every six minutes, would be reduced to every eight minutes, with more service in the system’s core.

The full board is expected to approve the budget March 23, and the fare increases and service changes would go into effect July 1.

There was little debate over the need for drastic cuts. Wiedefeld, who has eliminated 500 jobs and is in the process of cutting 500 more, has said there are few other sources of savings left for the beleaguered transit agency.

But board member Malcolm Augustine said the fare increases and service cuts are the wrong approach. The lone dissenting vote, he worried the changes would only hasten the ridership decline.

“This is basic economics. You’re raising the price. You’ll lose riders,” he said. “That is a bad business move.”

Wiedefeld, however, called the changes a “strategy” to improve performance.

“If we provide consistent reliable service then that market will come back,” he said.

[Metro riders, officials fear communities of color may be targeted in service cuts]

Aimee Custis, deputy director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, an advocacy group that promotes pro-transit policy, said it’s illogical to think riders will return with Metro offering less service.

“The thing that will eventually bring people back is frequent, reliable service, and we are headed away from that,” Custis said.

But other board members agreed with Wiedefeld, saying the measures are necessary to balance the agency’s budget.

Board member Jim Corcoran said the fare hikes will help stabilize ridership because a stable budget helps pay for safety and reliability improvements that will win back riders in the long run.

“I think this is a very good business decision to improve the product because an improved product will bring back riders,” he said.

Echoing Wiedefeld, board member Christian Dorsey said Metro could stem the ridership losses by adhering to its promised wait times.

“If we can deliver on what we say we’re putting out there, that would be an improvement,” he said.

Meanwhile, board members from the District, Maryland and Virginia scrambled to insert last-minute changes into the budget to help their constituents. The 11th-hour effort to save bus routes around the region was an about-face for the members, who arrived at the meeting with printed amendments detailing the list of bus routes that they planned to rescue from the chopping block — causing some to question whether the move was an act of long-planned political showmanship.

[‘Where is the light?’ frustrated Metro board member asks of system’s grim outlook]

The District rallied to save routes B8 and B9 — the Fort Lincoln Shuttle Line — and to modify the H6, which runs between Brookland and Fort Lincoln.

Virginia board members offered several changes that they estimated would cost about $500,000 in subsidies for the year. Their list included the full restoration of the 3T in Pimmit Hills, the 1C in Fair Oaks, and the 16G/H/K/X routes that run along Columbia Pike, from Columbia Heights West to Pentagon City.

They also approved some changes to local routes meant to help serve riders affected by the cancellation of the 28X, 7X, 17A and 17F lines.

Members representing Maryland pushed an amendment restoring the following routes: T14 (between Rhode Island Avenue and New Carrollton stations), F1 and F2 (running along Chillum Road), C8 (between College Park and White Flint stations), and the J1, J2 and J3 routes (operating between Bethesda and Silver Spring stations).

Maryland representatives also persuaded the board to allow Metro to continue to operate the J7 and J9 buses through at least October. Those are express buses that run along Interstate 270.

After the meeting, finance committee chairman Michael Goldman said he believes Maryland will be able to pay the approximately $2 million necessary to retain some of those local routes, because there appears to be extra money in the subsidy appropriated by the state legislature to Metro for next year’s bus budget.

Goldman said Metro staff has been asked to come up how much it will cost to save those routes, and the state will pay for them if the cost falls within what it can afford.

[Proposed bus cuts ‘might actually harm Metro in the long-term’]

“If it fits within the wiggle room, all those services could be restored,” Goldman said.

Dorsey praised the amendments for ensuring the cuts don’t adversely impact riders of Metrobus, “relatively the shining star of Metro at this point,” he said.

Augustine was afraid increasing the bus fare a quarter, to $2, would have a dramatic impact on Metrobus ridership and target low-income and minority riders.

In the original version of the fare increases proposed by Wiedefeld last fall, Metro came close to failing a Title VI analysis — a federally mandated statistical test to ensure that low-income and minority riders are not disproportionately harmed by changes to transit fares or service. Metro said Thursday that the agency’s decision to preserve the $17.50 price of a weekly bus pass was aimed at helping it steer clear of civil rights violations.

Augustine, however, pointed out that only a small percentage of Metrobus riders use the weekly bus-only pass. Following his lone ‘no’ vote, it was announced that the budget had been approved.

But a brief moment of confusion ensued when board members realized they hadn’t heard from member Corbett A. Price, who was looped in via conference call. Perhaps a sign of the general discontent with the situation, Price chimed in: “You may record my vote in favor of it, reluctantly.”

 

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A coalition of affordable housing advocates, faith groups, business groups, tenants’ groups, developers, and over 250 residents have unified to support more housing, more affordable housing, and targeted support for communities as DC rewrites its Comprehensive Plan. One of those priorities: Best utilize areas near transit.

The coalition, which includes Greater Greater Washington and many other groups, has agreed on a statement of ten priorities. In a series of posts, coalition members will go through many of the priorities to explain what they mean, why there’s a problem, and how the group reached agreement. Do you support the priorities? Sign on today!

What “Best utilize areas near transit” means

The coalition says:

Best utilize areas near transit.​ When redevelopment occurs on blocks surrounding Metrorail stations and priority transit corridors, the District should, through the Comprehensive Plan, permit and encourage mixed-use developments of medium to high density. To the extent feasible, redevelopments involving increased zoning should include affordable housing in excess of what is required by inclusionary zoning.

Put plainly, building housing near Metro stations, bus lines, and streetcar service makes it easier for people to live in the District without owning a car. And that means less congestion and pollution as well as a stronger local economy.

As the District of Columbia continues to grow to historic population levels, our transit corridors and stations offer the best opportunities for creating places to live and work that are more sustainable, accessible, and affordable. Helping more people live close to transit, enabling more jobs near transit, and creating attractive places near transit are all essential to well-managed growth.

The consequences of not creating these opportunities near transit is spread out, sprawling development.

Pushing growth away from cities, towns, and transit lines means converting more farms into subdivisions and strip malls. This generates ever more polluted stormwater runoff and carves up working agricultural lands.

Sprawl also makes it impractical to get around by walking, biking, or transit, forcing everyone to get around by car, which  fuels traffic congestion and air pollution. The cycle then continues, as the congestion leads to bigger roads that simply get congested again, all of which are built with money that gets diverted from transit and existing infrastructure.

Finally, when we sprawl out, low-income people disproportionately feel the negative effects of having no option but to drive.

We’ve missed chances to build near transit in the past

Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of lost opportunities to provide more  mixed income housing options at Metro stations in D.C. While some parts of the District have been growing, others— particularly more affluent ones— have not.

The reason for the lack of new homes is not due to lack of interest. Rather, local opposition that takes advantage of a weak and nebulous Comp Plan make it difficult to build new housing in neighborhoods where some existing residents are determined to stop it. That leads to exclusive enclaves with limited housing opportunities for residents of different incomes.

Under our current Comp Plan language, here are a few examples of what we’ve lost:

• Withdrawn: 1,721 apartments next to the Woodley Park Metro station, including family-sized 3 and 4-bedroom units.

• Shrunk: An expanded Georgetown Day School offered housing (including affordable units), retail and parks along Wisconsin Avenue and 42nd Street, a few blocks from the Tenleytown Metro station. The school sliced about 50 apartments and now the entire project is on hold.

• Abandoned: The single use, two story library constructed by the Tenleytown Metro station was supposed to be a mixed use building with affordable and market rate housing above the library. While the city spent extra money to strengthen the foundation to allow some apartments  to be built above the library in the future, the prospects for many affordable units is dim.

• Delayed since 2000: Plans for nearly 200 homes on the Takoma Metro station parking lot, along with preservation of the large open space in front of the station.

All these proposed projects offered below market rate and market-rate homes. They are all examples of the market responding to strong demand to live in the city close to transit by redeveloping sites close to transit.  They are also examples of how determined opponents can use contradictory language in the Comp Plan to stall, stop, and shrink the construction of much needed new homes and affordable homes.

Under the current Future Land Use Map (FLUM), which translates the Comp Plan onto a map, no Metro stations are designated for low density residential development. A reasonable update to these designations could be to take land that the FLUM categorizes as “moderate” density (row houses and low rise garden apartments) and make it “medium” (4-7 stories), and to change what the FLUM categorizes as “medium” to be “high” (8 stories or more).

Based on the experience of the last decade, it’s fair to say that the Comp Plan has not been as effective as it should have been in balancing the need for more housing, and more affordable housing, around transit stations. That’s especially true in affluent neighborhoods.

Looking into the future, it’s critical that the Comp Plan clarify that a good share of our city’s needed future homes should go to places well-served by transit. Rather than losing out to some neighbors’ objections about new homes, we need to address local concerns while committing to creating more housing opportunities that help more people live more sustainably, and help the city thrive.

Sign on to the priorities!

This is one of ten priorities where the coalition reached agreement. We’ll be following up with articles on more of the 10 priorities by a variety of coalition members.

(Note: While the coalition agreed on the priorities, this article is my commentary about one of the priorities, not an official coalition statement, and all members have not signed onto the specific wording here. The same goes for the other posts in this series.)

So far, 65 organizations and over 350 individuals have put their names on the priorities statement. Will you join them?

Sign the Priorities Statement!

Click here to read the original story.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of the District in a four-year case over inclusionary zoning, a policy allowing developers to construct larger buildings than otherwise permitted in exchange for creating affordable units. The case was a touchstone of affordable housing issues in D.C.—leading some organizations to push for improvements to the city’s IZ program.

In December 2012, real estate developer Art Linde brought the suit, via one of his companies, over a 22-unit condo building at 2910 Georgia Ave. NW near Howard University. Linde’s company for the building argued that IZ requirements prevented the developer from making an “economically viable use” of the property. In fact, the building was the first to bring IZ units onto the the District’s housing market—a total of two.

Linde’s lawyers contended that the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development could not supply the developer with any qualified buyers for the two affordable condos. The 20 other condos sold within a few months. The LLC argued that IZ amounted to an unconstitutional taking of property rights as well as a denial of due process and equal protection rights.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court for D.C. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied Linde’s company’s constitutional challenge to the District’s IZ program. In her ruling, Kollar-Kotelly dismissed the company’s constitutional claims while acknowledging that D.C. may have indeed “‘fumbled and bungled every aspect of the IZ Program’s implementation,'” as the developer had stated in its complaint.

“The Court does not intend to minimize Plaintiff’s [2910 Georgia Avenue LLC’s] legitimate grievances with the District’s administration of the IZ Program, or to suggest that the District acted perfectly at all times,” the judge wrote. “The Court merely concludes that at no point did the District’s conduct rise to the level of a violation of the United States Constitution.” D.C.’s IZ program was first approved in 2007 and took effect in 2009, slow to start after the recession.

City Paper has reached out to Linde and his attorneys for comment and will update this post if we hear back. Meanwhile, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine‘s office says the ruling “is a major victory for the IZ program,” which requires that 8 to 10 percent of a new development’s residential space be set aside as affordable housing. Last year, the D.C. Zoning Commission lowered the income threshold for affordable units through IZ.

“We are committed to using all of the tools in the toolbox to protect affordable housing” via IZ and other legal means, Racine says in a statement.

Kollar-Kotelly’s opinion notes that IZ requirements did not stop the developer of 2910 Georgia Ave. NW “from earning a considerable profit from its property”—some $6 million from the sale of the market-rate units in the building, which resulted in a “20 percent return on their investments.”

Affordable housing advocates praised Kollar-Kotelly’s decision. Cheryl Cort, policy director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth, says IZ “has proven to be a reasonable program for developers and an important development to D.C.’s residents searching for more affordably priced homes.” And Claire Zippel, an analyst at the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, notes the District isn’t alone in enacting IZ regulations. “I am heartened but unsurprised by the court’s affirmation of inclusionary zoning, which has worked successfully with the private sector to create hundreds of affordable homes in D.C.—and hundreds of thousands of affordable homes in more than 500 jurisdictions across the country,” Zippel explains.

In January, a majority of the D.C. Council co-introduced a bill that would amend existing IZ law to reflect last year’s changes by the Zoning Commission.

Click here for the original story.