Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) The contentious process of determining when Metro will open and close once the Safe Track program is done gets underway at Thursday’s Board of Directors meeting. Factions remain split on whether to return to late-night service on Friday and Saturday nights as the General Manager calls for a new policy of more time to do track maintenance.
“I’m still a late-night person,” Board Chair Jack Evans, also the D.C. Ward 2 Councilmember, told WMAL. “What can’t happen is the status quo, closing at 3 in the morning and midnight during the week. You see the end result. We’re going to have to make changes. The question is where.”
Three proposals released prior to the meeting include closing the system at 11:30pm instead of midnight weeknights, opening at 8am Sundays and/or closing earlier at 10pm Sundays. Evans said General Manager Paul Wiedfeld’s goal is to have 30 hours of track maintenance time per week; the old schedule gave them 19.
“If we’re going to stay open until three in the morning, then when are we going to close that we now don’t close?” Evans asked. He floated one idea to open the system at noon on Sundays, while maintaining “nobody” on the Board wants late-night service to end.
In its presentation prepared for Thursday’s meeting, Metro also says it may explore expanding late-night bus options.
Evans said he isn’t worried about turning away riders permanently with more restrictive operating hours, even amid historic lows in ridership currently.
“Once we get the system fixed and it’s safe and reliable, you’re going to see a large return, in my view, to people riding the system,” Evans said. “Ridership, albeit down and albeit a loss of revenue during Safe Track and maybe into the future, is not the contributing factor to Metro’s financial problems.”
The public can comment on the proposals throughout the month of October. A vote on a final plan is set for December, set to go into effect next summer.
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