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WMATA GM issues plan to "fully fund" Metro


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#1 CNJRoss

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Posted 20 April 2017 - 05:32 PM

WMATA news release, 4/19:

 

Wiedefeld issues financial plan to keep Metro safe, reliable & affordable

 

 

Metro General Manager/CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld today issued a financial plan to keep Metro safe, reliable, and affordable. Recognizing that Metro's federal and regional capital funding expire next year and that operating costs are growing at nearly twice the rate of revenue, Wiedefeld's analysis concludes major financial changes are required this year.

 

Please see the documents below to learn about Metro's need for a new Capital Trust Fund and changes to its business model.

Documents here.



#2 CNJRoss

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Posted 21 April 2017 - 06:09 AM

WTOP radio, 4/20:
 

What you need to know about Metro GM’s plan to fully fund transit

 

 

WASHINGTON — New taxes to help fund Metro and major changes to how the transit agency operates would be in store if the region signs onto General Manager Paul Wiedefeld’s plan to address the system’s funding.

 

In the past, the agency’s funding issues have contributed to subway breakdowns, delays and jurisdictional squabbling. Here’s what riders and area taxpayers need to know about Wiedefeld’s goals for the plan, reaction and what happens next.

The plan in brief

Wiedefeld’s plan to save Metro and stabilize its finances largely breaks down into three pieces:

 

SNIP

 

Wiedefeld’s plan assumes that fares would increase every two years, as current Metro Board policy calls for. Fares are set to go up this summer for the first time in three years, including significant jumps for non-rush hour rail rides. Bus riders will also pay more.

 

More here.



#3 CNJRoss

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Posted 24 April 2017 - 09:40 AM

The Washington Post, 4/24:
 

Editorial

Metro’s test: Can our politics still solve critical problems?

 

By Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor

 

 

Can U.S. politics still deliver in the public interest? A test case is taking shape in the Washington area.

 

The test is this: Can the transit system of the nation’s capital be saved?

 

On one level, a rescue should be easy. Pretty much everyone, even people who don’t use Metro, agrees that its demise would be a disaster. Pretty much everyone agrees that Metro desperately needs help. And while there isn’t quite the same consensus on a solution, what needs to be done also is pretty well understood.

 

SNIP

 

The federal government would be in big trouble without Metro. Will Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao step up?

 

And if gubernatorial candidates in Virginia, state delegates and city council members in all three jurisdictions and U.S. senators from both states opt for compromise and honesty, will voters punish or reward them? The answer to that question could spell the difference between a prosperous, growing capital region and one that chokes on its own traffic as a $40 billion onetime jewel wastes away.

 

Complete editorial here.



#4 CNJRoss

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Posted 25 April 2017 - 08:57 AM

WAMU-FM, American University Public Radio, 4/21:
 

Wiedefeld’s New Role: Chief Lobbyist

 

 

With his plan to bring in billions to restore Metro’s sprawling rail and bus systems, Paul Wiedefeld is assuming an unusual role for the transit authority’s chief executive.

 

He is now becoming Metro’s chief lobbyist.

 

From the day he was hired 17 months ago, Wiedefeld insisted on staying out of politics and public policy debates, focusing instead on getting the trains to run on time at an agency struggling to recover from a string of safety mishaps. But with the release of his proposals to create a new business model for WMATA by reducing labor costs while spending billions to maintain the 41-year-old system, Wiedefeld is effectively calling on the region’s elected officials to act and asking Metro’s largest labor union to make major concessions.

 

His audience already knows what is at stake, Wiedefeld said during an appearance on The Kojo Nnami Show on WAMU on Thursday.

“What I’ve heard from all stakeholders, the business community, elected officials, riders, is that we have to start to address these issues. We cannot continue this path,” the general manager said.

 

Continue here w/audio report.



#5 CNJRoss

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Posted 26 April 2017 - 07:21 PM

WTOP radio, 4/26:
 

Regional Metro sales tax needed very soon, report finds

 

 

WASHINGTON — A new 1 percent regionwide sales tax should be implemented in two years to cover Metro’s urgent capital funding needs, a panel of local leaders said Wednesday afternoon.

 

“Doing nothing is not acceptable,” said the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments technical panel’s final report. But it acknowledged that the same urgent recommendations have been made before alongside similar dire warnings, and that nothing has changed.

 

“The Panel’s conclusion regarding the sales tax option is the same as one made in 2005,” the report said.

 

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#6 CNJRoss

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Posted 08 May 2017 - 04:43 PM

The Washington Post, 5/5/17:
 

N.Va. sharply split over proposed regional sales tax for Metro

 

 

Northern Virginia’s local governments are sharply divided among themselves — and with the District and Maryland — over a proposed regional sales tax to fund Metro.

 

The discord was evident Thursday night at a transit policy meeting in Tysons Corner. It was an early sign of how difficult it will be to achieve a regional consensus on how to raise the billions of dollars of additional funds Metro needs in coming years to provide a safe and reliable system.

 

At a regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, county and city officials spoke strongly against a recent recommendation for a uniform, penny-per-dollar tax for Metro. They objected that Northern Virginia, because of its larger population, would pay more than the District and Maryland combined.

 

In addition, a split was evident between transit-friendly inner suburbs — such as Arlington and Falls Church — and the outer suburb of Loudoun over how the burden should be shared within Northern Virginia.

 

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#7 CNJRoss

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 06:43 AM

The Washington Post,​ 6/21/17:

Eleanor Holmes Norton to business leaders: Want to save Metro? Pull your strings.

 

 

 

As Metro officials and transit advocates try to drum up support for a dedicated revenue source for the struggling transit system, they want business leaders to do more to convince lawmakers that there is public demand for more federal and regional funding.

 

At a panel discussion Wednesday morning, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said the people with the most power to sway lawmakers are not transit officials like Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld, or even members of the region’s congressional delegation, but rather executives of companies headquartered in the Washington region.

 

“I’m still baffled why the business community has not been more public,” Norton said at the panel hosted by Bloomberg Government. “The business community in this region has prospered largely because of Metro — and has the clout with Congress that no member has, that Paul doesn’t have. And I think they could help us … could help Congress understand the importance of Metro for the economy of this region, and for the federal government itself.”

 

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#8 CNJRoss

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 06:50 AM

​Loudoun Times-Mirror,​ Leesburg, VA 6/19/17:

Metro board member says Loudoun shouldn’t ‘shirk’ its Metro obligations

 

 

Will jurisdictions like Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria go for a regional sales tax to support the region’s embattled Metro (WMATA) rail system?

Several of Metro’s Virginia board members recently ducked the question and called on Loudoun County to do its part in helping finance the system.

Late last month, Loudoun County Supervisor Matt Letourneau (R-Dulles) offered some harsh predictions on a plan for a one-cent regional sales tax recently proposed by a Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) panel to help finance Metro.

Letourneau, the vice chairman of MWCOG, said the regional sales tax has “virtually zero” chance of the General Assembly approving it or each locality adopting it. He also said the plan took the “easy way out.”

When asked at a recent Metro forum in Alexandria if Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria would go for the sales tax, WMATA board members representing those three jurisdictions didn't give a clear answer.

“It is a difficulty in sometimes educating people what the need is for Metro, even when they’re putting it into their own jurisdiction,” said board member Catherine Hudgins, who represents Fairfax County and is a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. “I would hope that the Loudoun County board is not going to be one that would be a hold out in this [regional sales tax]. We always remind people, when you ride the Metro and you come into a jurisdiction, we pay for you.”

 

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#9 CNJRoss

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 06:53 AM

​Trains​ Newswire, 6/21/17:
 

Maryland politicians call for overhaul of WMATA leadership and funding

 

 

WASHINGTON — A group of Maryland lawmakers is calling for an overhaul of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to streamline its governance and provide a steady income stream the agency says it needs.

Local media reported that WMATA's 16-member board would be replaced with a panel made up of the secretaries of transportation in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia and that members could not block a project in their jurisdiction without a majority vote, the Washington Post reports.

The three jurisdictions, plus the federal government, would make $500 million annual payments to WMATA, but each jurisdiction would decide how to raise the money. This would eliminate the inevitable friction that could arise if all parties had to agree on a single formula.

Under the proposal, WMATA also would have the authority to issue bonds for capital improvements.

 

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#10 CNJRoss

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Posted 23 June 2017 - 07:15 AM

The Washington Post,​ 6/21/17:

Eleanor Holmes Norton to business leaders: Want to save Metro? Pull your strings.


 

Continue here.

 

And more recently, some lawmakers have said they don’t believe it’s wise, or even possible, for Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia to agree on the same kind of revenue source. Instead, they say, the three jurisdictions should individually decide how to come up with their share of the money.

 

Norton said she’s not opposed to that idea. But all three revenue sources must be sustainable in the long term, she said, so that they can be used for bonds.

 

“This is the only transit system that has to cross three lines. Therefore we may end up with some kind of porridge,” Norton said. “But it’s got to be dedicated porridge. I think we’re getting to the point of desperation.”

 






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