Photo by jimhavard on Flickr.

Metro again is lurching toward crisis. A fatal smoke incident suddenly showed that General Manager Richard Sarles’s pronouncements about a new safety culture are, at best, suspect. Rising costs and declining ridership (thanks partly to cuts in federal transit benefits) begat another budget shortfall.

Montgomery County and the District are talking about creating new transit authorities amid a general trend of more local bus services in place of Metrobus. Meanwhile, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority board is interviewing candidates to replace Sarles.

We need Metro. The region’s economic success depends on Metro’s success. Metro brought new life to downtown DC and many suburban areas, such as Arlington County and Silver Spring, and today it represents the best path to grow Tysons Corner without crippling the roads with traffic.

Since construction wound down, Metro has been underfunded for maintenance, additional railcars, buses, electric power upgrades and yard space. But riders, elected officials, and even professionals inside city and state departments of transportation are frustrated. Read my latest column in the Washington Post.

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Tagged: metro, metro safety, transit, wmata, wmata board

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.