H3 bus headed to Brookland Metro station by Aimee Custis Photography licensed under Creative Commons.

“When the bus pulls up [in DC], you’ll just get on it.”

That’s how DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson described the future of District bus trips, which under a revised version of Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen’s Metro for DC bill, would be free to riders beginning July 2023.

Pitching the revised bill as a way to shift more transit trips to bus, ease the burden of transportation costs on low-income riders, and improve the quality of bus service, Allen and Mendelson touted the uniqueness of “free bus” as a way for DC to lead the nation in public-transit access. Additionally, under the revised proposal, 12 existing bus routes — selected for their usefulness to late-night/third-shift workers — would operate on a 24-hour basis.

The Council can make Metrobus routes free by next summer by moving emergency legislation, planned for Council consideration on Tuesday, December 6. The revised bill differs from the original in a few important ways:

Image by the author.

Free Metrobus? How would that work?

The new version of Metro for DC would make all Metrobus trips that begin in DC free. Though many routes that take place in DC start or end elsewhere, the bill uses the start location as the trigger for a fare-free trip. At a press conference on Thursday, Mendelson noted that most routes that begin in DC and extend beyond its boundaries only do so for one or two stops. DC would pay WMATA directly what the agency estimates it costs to run buses in DC, around $32 million per year.

The 90 Metrobus by Caroline Angelo used with permission.

Free Circulator was small potatoes. Free Metrobus is thrice-cooked fries for the whole table

At the press conference, reporters asked Allen and Mendelson whether “free bus” was essentially Mayor Bowser’s idea for the Circulator, which the Council rejected repeatedly over the last few years.

The Circulator runs a limited number of routes, so the number of trips it can shift to transit, and people it can help, drew from a limited pool. It also wasn’t clear whether the $1 fare (compared to $2 for Metrobus) was a significant barrier to people using the Circulator, or if whether making it free would simply shift trips from Metrobus or walking to the Circulator instead of trips by car to the Circulator, which was a purported aim.

More people will benefit from making Metrobus free than the Circulator because Metrobus has many more riders and routes.

Image by MW Transit Photos used with permission.

Why subsidize everyone’s ride instead of only low-income riders?

At the press conference on Thursday (aptly timed on Rosa Parks Day), Allen and Mendelson were asked why a universal benefit was preferable to subsidizing the trips of lower-income riders (the bill’s previous design would have eventually reached everyone, but was meant to start with residents on the lowest incomes).

Allen responded: “Public transit’s a public good. I’m not going to means-test your sidewalk, or your library, or your school. It also costs an incredible amount of money to create a means-tested program. When 70% of bus riders are earning less than $50,000 a year, we don’t need to do a lot of complicated math [to work out that this approach will especially benefit lower-income residents].”

That “complicated math”could have stymied the bill’s implementation if the bill was left in its previous form. DDOT has repeatedly pointed to concerns about building the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to test and ascertain the need levels of applicants. Means-testing also puts a burden on applicants to establish their worthiness for a benefit, which doesn’t make a lot of sense for a service that we actually want people to use.

A Metrobus on M Street in Georgetown by Mike Maguire licensed under Creative Commons.

24-hour bus-party people

Buses that run overnight provide affordable options for late-night/third-shift workers to get to and from their jobs. Mendelson outlined a few possibilities for the 12 routes to run 24 hours that seemed to have been discussed with WMATA (though not confirmed) including the X2, V2, 30, and 80 bus routes.

At a time when DC’s economic recovery is on the minds of many policy leaders, workers, and business types, providing a public transit option to nightlife and other amenities round-the-clock could create significant economic benefits — and fun.

Another train is delayed, but it’s still scheduled

The new bill kicks the $100 monthly subsidy for all transit trips (including bus, rail, and Circulator) to fiscal year 2025, which starts October 2024. Whether that part will come to pass depends on political will and funding.

But the new bill’s design explicitly prioritizes bus as an equity measure, as well as offers a pragmatic read of how to shift more trips to transit: rail riders enjoy higher incomes and are more likely to be employed than bus riders, so trips are less sensitive to price.

Inside train station by BeyondDC licensed under Creative Commons.

What does WMATA think about all this?

While WMATA has not put out a statement, Metro Board member Tracy Loh* attended the press conference. Both Mendelson and Allen stated that they’d worked with WMATA to offer a cost estimate, as well as identify routes to extend to 24-hour operations.

Faster buses are better buses

Allen’s aims in creating Metro for DC originally were to shift more trips to transit, make it more affordable for lower-income residents to get around, and improve transit quality by creating a dedicated fund. Those were and are great goals, and GGWash was happy to support the original bill. But it did have a few drawbacks.

How would the earlier bill’s income-prioritized rollout be implemented when the District already struggles with means-tested benefits (and few students see their Kids Ride Free cards, DC’s existing free SmarTrip program)? Why should the District provide, in effect, even more subsidy to Metro over and above what Virginia and Maryland offer? How would fraud be minimized? What would happen to the existing SmarTrip programs through DC universities — a valuable source of revenue for WMATA that would look a bit less attractive to school administrators if each student already received a $100 monthly subsidy?

The revised bill addresses several of these issues by replacing the need to ascertain eligibility to provide a benefit and simply sends the funds to WMATA based on how much it costs them to operate Metrobus in DC (though the $100 monthly SmarTrip subsidy is still on the table). It’s also cheaper at a projected $50 million for the bus service improvements and free bus, with more time to figure out how to tackle rail through the wider $100 monthly subsidy proposal.

Most importantly, this approach is more likely to directly improve bus service in DC by making it faster for residents to board. Dwell time can constitute up to a third of bus-travel time, and eliminating fares entirely is likely to be even more efficient than other solutions such as all-door boarding. Faster buses don’t just mean shorter trips for riders that can attract them away from cars. Slow buses cost WMATA more than $40 million per year (16% of DC’s annual subsidy to WMATA) according to internal estimates, so speeding them up means they can afford to put more buses on the road.

If the emergency bill passes, we could have faster, free DC Metrobuses — some that will run 24 hours — with a dedicated pot of money to improve overall bus service by next July. Maybe Christmas and Hanukkah will come early this year!

Disclosure: GGWash Board of Directors chair Tracy Hadden Loh is also on Metro’s board. In keeping with our editorial policy, board members maintain no oversight of editorial decision-making.

Tagged: dc, transit

Caitlin Rogger is deputy executive director at Greater Greater Washington. Broadly interested in structural determinants of social, economic, and political outcomes in urban settings, she worked in public health prior to joining GGWash. She lives in Capitol Hill.