Special Budget Committee MeetingPart 2

I attended yesterday's Special Budget Committee Meeting. What struck me most were the questions that didn't get asked, as opposed to the ones that were asked. I believe that a rider's perspective is desperately needed in all the Board's sessions with interaction with WMATA staff.

The second part of the meeting was dedicated to a walk through of the FY '06 budget for each Metro department and breakouts for their offices. There was also a discussion of goals and plans. Specifically of interest to me were plans for FY '07 and funding required for these plans. I strongly recommend a review of the PowerPoints for each department.

The focus of this budget meeting came across as Metro defending their FTE, spending and control of spending on ongoing initiatives. What was implied, but not expanded on were the plans and new initiatives that would benefit riders and actually address issues of high priority to system users.

One example:
In the presentation itself, the group responsible for SmartTrip card technology addressed the fact they where working with Banks and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to include the SmartTrip technology on ID cards and Credit Cards.

Big deal … as a rider, I want to seamlessly transfer between Metro and MARC; Metro and Ride-on; Metro and VRE; Metro and Fairfax Connector; and/or between any regional transportation system. After his presentation, I spoke with Fred Maxey about this need. His response was of course Metro is leading the charge on Regional use of SmartTrip and hope to have pilots up-and-running this year with VRE and many of the bus systems. MARC will take a little more time because of the way they capture fares … but its in the works.

Why don't they tell us their plans? The answer was they don't want to set expectations and not be able to hold to schedule because of lack of resources and technical integration issues. This office only has 3 people to handle all SmartTrip operations and planning … and they are the leaders for the entire regional partnership program. (Just 3 people!)

This is a systemic communication problem with Metro. Great things may be going on, but Metro is afraid to let us know.

If I can choose only one issue for the RAC to get Metro to change, it would be better communication with its patrons.

• Better signage in the stations
• Better information on schedules for rail and bus
• Better information on outages, delays, real-time arrival
• Better information outside stations
• Better information on Evacuation Plans
• Better information on issues raised by patrons
• Better information on short range (<>
• Better information on mid range (next year or two) plans
• Better information on future plans (greater than two years)
• Better information on personnel constraints
• Better communication skills by train operators; station managers; bus drivers; dispatchers; and call centers

As an organization interested in "Quality of Service", this is a vital role for the RAC. We must change Metro's culture to be more open and communicative at ALL levels of the organization. Sometimes, as Jim Graham said, "Metro forgets that it's not a monopoly, and unfortunately people have other choices."

I. Michael Snyder
rac@imsnyder.com