Posts by Michael Perkins — Contributor
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How can Metro close a $100 million gap?
Metro’s 2011 budget starts out about $100M in the red from a preliminary analysis, but the General Manager has to submit a balanced budget to the Board by December. Here’s some things he should consider: Keep reading…
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Metro customer service lines keep banker’s hours
Metro staff presented the results of the Labor Day track maintenance to a Board committee yesterday (audio). According to the staff member giving the report, Metro successfully completed the track repair, and the shuttle service provided was a success. Keep reading…
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Metro faces big budget gap even with a fare hike
Next year will certainly be a challenging year for Metro. According to Metro’s preliminary report, even after an inflationary fare increase of 4-6%, and continued deferral of preventive maintenance, Metro’s supporting jurisdictions would still be required to chip in almost 20% more than last year’s budget ($107M). Since such a large jurisdictional subsidy… Keep reading…
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Do Fairfax’s higher fare bus lines make a profit?
Fairfax County recently increased the fare on three express routes from $3 to $7. While the ridership on one line plummeted, the other two only saw fairly modest drops, while revenue nearly doubled. Is it possible that these bus lines now pay for themselves? Keep reading…
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Fairfax raises express bus fares, ridership plummets on one line
To balance this year’s budget, Fairfax County raised the price of express bus routes 380, 595 and 597 from $3.00 each way to $7.00 each way. They didn’t change schedules or service frequency. And they didn’t make a similar change on three other lines, creating nearly ideal conditions for an economics experiment. The result: On two of these express bus routes, Fairfax… Keep reading…
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Metro trip planner suggests riding a bus in a loop
Besides wanting to find out if they could get money from their data, Metro’s other stated reason for not working partnering Google was the quality and availability of Metro’s own trip planner. Sometimes, though, the trip planner gives bizarre results, even including riding a bus in a circle for an hour. Keep reading…
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Live chat with Ron Carlee
Welcome to our live chat with Ron Carlee, the outgoing Arlington County Manager. Keep reading…
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Google: We don’t pay MTA for data
After last week’s article about Google’s contract Google with New York’s and Chicago’s transit agencies, Google got back to me by email. I’d contacted them before running the article, but their spokesperson was on vacation. After checking with their business development manager and MTA, Google’s Elaine Filadelfo confirmed for the record… Keep reading…
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Google paid for NYC data (or not); Chicago removed indemnification
New York’s MTA, a much larger agency than WMATA, apparently was able to negotiate some kind of payment from Google in exchange for providing its transit data for Google Transit Keep reading…
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Metro releases station-oriented bus maps
Metrorail stations contain very informative bus maps showing the routes around a particular station. We recently looked at those at asked what additional bus map information you would find useful online. Metro decided to take our suggestion and post the station bus information maps online on each station’s webpage. They haven’t posted all of the information that… Keep reading…