(Washington Informer) — Metro kicked off tighter security controls Tuesday, beginning randomized searches of riders’ bags at two stations during the morning commute. The first screenings, typically running well under a minute each, lasted for an hour at the Green Line’s College Park station and Braddock Road stop on the Yellow/Blue lines in Alexandria. No […]
(Washington Examiner) — Metro’s revenue and ridership — especially among bus passengers — are falling well below projections since the transit agency raised fares last summer. Metrobus has driven about 42 million passengers through the first four months of Metro’s fiscal year, more than 3 million fewer than a year ago, according to the agency’s […]
(Washington Post) — A Metro board panel backed away Thursday from a flawed plan to cut the price of SmarTrip cards amid concerns that it would allow customers to manipulate the system and that possible fixes would be overly complicated. Several members of the finance committee of Metro’s board of directors suggested that leaving the […]
(Washington Post) — Metro’s plan to reduce the price of SmarTrip cards by half has encountered major obstacles: the agency’s concern that people would use cheaper cards to avoid paying millions of dollars each year and the possibility that the agency will run out of the electronic cards, Metro officials said Thursday. The revelations at […]
Saving hundreds of millions of dollars could be just one stop away. As the preliminary engineering work on Phase 2 of the Metrorail line to Dulles reaches its final stage, officials have estimated how much could be saved by an alternative to the 2-mile tunnel underground at Dulles International Airport with an underground station. Read […]
(Washington Examiner) — Metro officials are preparing to roll out a new $250,000 program intended to address the recent rash of successful suicide attempts involving the transit system. The Metro Board’s safety committee on Thursday is scheduled to discuss a long-delayed suicide prevention program. But details of the agency’s plan to stop people from killing […]
(Washington Business Journal) — The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority will install monitoring video cameras in all of its buses as a way to reduce accidents, improve safety and save on fuel. Metro decided to install the system of driver and road video surveillance after a nine-month test. The system, known as DriveCam, is made by […]
(Washington Post) — Metro’s historic fare increase is hitting some riders far harder than others — with some paying entirely out of their own pockets while a large percentage, including 170,000 federal employees, enjoys a commuter benefit of up to $230 a month that offsets the cost. That disparity has generated complaints of unfairness from […]
(Washington Examiner) — Highest-paid director misses half of meetings. When Metro’ to approve a major development plan for the New Carrollton station, Vice Chairman Marcell Solomon never showed. His absence was notable because he represents Prince George’s County, which will benefit from the injection of 6.1 million square feet of economic development. But it wasn’t […]
(Washington Examiner) — Local transit agencies are providing more trips than in the past but the costs to provide them are rising far faster, according to a new report, putting the burden on riders and taxpayers who pay the way. The cost of running Metro has grown by at least 28 percent over a four-year […]