Public Transportation

I ride public transportation all the time, and I like it. Even though it takes me longer to get to work that is does by driving, I like the fact that I can catch up on my reading, and/or take a nap if need be. Also, I'm discovering that the less I drive, the more I realize that I hate driving. I wish more people would feel the same way.

I live in the Washington, DC area. We have out-surpassed Los Angeles as the traffic capital of the United States. Driving on the Capital Beltway during rush hour is a royal pain in the ass. It takes forever to go 50 feet. There has to be a way to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation, without punitive measures. As a Conservative, I believe people should have choices. The choice of choosing public transportation for commuting to work, needs to out-way the choice of driving by yourself and sitting in a traffic jam for an hour. Public transportation needs to be safe, convenient, reliable, and cheaper than driving by yourself. If one of these things is missing, people will continue to drive themselves for the "convenience" of having their own car, even though they will raise holy hell about sitting in a traffic jam for over an hour.

Here's my assessment of the Washington, DC, metro system.

Safety: Even though their are reports of assaults and robberies on the Metro and the buses, I haven't witnessed any. I have seen some pretty shady-looking characters hanging out at the Rockville Metro station, however. Increased police patrol, and intense police scrutiny, including the unpopular practice of "stop and frisk" harassment  of these individuals on a regular basis, would chase them away. That would be a good thing. Liberals would scream bloody murder about this, but if the crime rate was reduced  dramatically, and it would be, they would look like the fools that they are. Profiling and harassment work. Several years ago, the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department went on a campaign to eliminate an open air drug market at Hanover Place, NW, Washington, DC. They stopped and harassed every white person seen driving on Hanover Place. They set up sting drug deals, and arrested many white suburbanites coming to Hanover Place to buy drugs. Those suburbanites also lost their cars. But of course, you  didn't hear one peep out of the Left about this, because white people were being targeted and arrested. Oh wait, you did hear about how it was terrible that this practice was affecting the livelihood of the neighborhood drug dealers...

Convenience: This is where Metro falls down the most. Out where I live in the inner ring suburbs, in Prince George's County, the Metro Rail runs until midnight on weekdays, and until 3:00am on weekends. Metro Bus, however, stops running somewhere around 10pm. If you are out late, you either have to walk from the station to your home, which in my case is about a mile through a decaying neighborhood, or you have to have someone pick you up, or take a taxi. If you are in Montgomery County things are not as bleak. Both Metrobus and Montgomery County's Ride On buses run well after midnight in some jurisdictions. If you are in the Rockville area, there are late night buses. In downtown DC, some buses run until 4am and start back up at 5am.  Metro needs to adjust its bus schedules, so that buses meet the trains on a regular basis, and that a last bus meets the last train in the evening from each and every suburban stop. That would encourage evening ridership into and out from the entertainment areas of Washington, DC, and the suburbs.

Reliability: DC's Metro system is fairy reliable, but it is aging and needs substantial infrastructure work at this point in its life. Single tracking operations and station closing are ongoing on weekends, which is a major inconvenience for many riders. Metro, however, has not choice. They have to keep the system running.

Cost effectiveness: During rush hour, Metro is not cheap. Yes, you can use your Smart Trip card and ride buses with unlimited transfers for two hours for a buck and a half, but it will take you until next Wednesday to get where you are going. There needs to be a push for more government subsidies (yes, you heard that right. Even as a Conservative, I believe that certain things need to be subsidized by the government) from the federal, state, and DC governments. With EZ Pass technology expanding, it would be very easy to install EZ Pass readers at the Beltway entrance ramps, and collect a nominal toll, say 25 cents for the privilege of driving on the Beltway. If you don't want to pay the toll, you can always take the back roads. We now have the Inter-county Connector and the soon to be Hot Lanes on the Virginia side of the Beltway as precedent. Both use EZ Pass readers to collect tolls. The Inter-county Connector is not cheap either. It's over $4 each way during rush hour, and that's for a road that is just over 20 miles long. A nominal toll would generate millions of dollars for highway maintenance and other transportation projects, freeing up a lot of transportation money for public transportation. In addition, Metro should either lower the cost of parking at their stations, or eliminate the cost all together. Paying $4.75 to park for the day, and then paying rush hour peak fares, does not make riding Metro cost effective for most people. It's cheaper to drive. Charge a dollar if you must. Most people would be willing to pay that. Also, reduce the rush hour fares substantially, and you will have a huge increase in ridership.

I believe that public transportation is the wave of the future, especially in our urban and suburban areas. We need to expand it, and we need to fine tune it. If we do that, people will be willing to use their cars when they really need them for their cargo space, or for recreational purposes. I'm hoping to see more rail-based and dedicated lane express bus public transportation in my lifetime.

UPDATE: July 1, 2012. Metro's fares went up today. Buses are now $1.60 with a Smart Trip card, and $1.80 if paying cash. Rail fares have increased too. So has parking. However, Metro did eliminated the "Peak Of The Peak" fares that made travel by Metro too expensive for many people.They have also added a $1 surcharge for using a paper fare card, rather than a Smart Trip card. Check out Metro's website for more information