Metro will open at 4am on "Black Friday"

According to Jim Graham at the WMATA board meeting last Thursday, the District of Columbia has agreed to pay to run Metro's services one hour early, starting at 4am, on Friday, November 28th.  The effort is intended to help customers get to the new Columbia Heights DC USA development.  At the meeting, Mr. Graham stated that the extra cost will be about $27,000.  The Friday after Thanksgiving, dubbed "Black Friday", is frequently a busy shopping day, and many stores have early "door-buster" specials.

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Here's the list of major shopping destinations at DC USA, and when they open on 11/28:

Best Buy - Opens at 5am

Target - Opens at 6am

Staples - Opens at 6am

Radio Shack - Opens at 6am

After borrowing $1T last quarter, the US Government can now borrow for free

Take a look at this.  The yield on the 3-month Treasury bill, an instrument the US Government uses for short-term borrowing, has dropped to zero, or a couple of hundredths of a percent away from zero.

Who are the people willing to lend the US Government money for three months and want nothing in return other than a guarantee they’ll get their money back? 

The only thing I could think of is if my currency is decreasing in value fast, like Zimbabwe.  I can’t think of any reason I’d lend my money to someone for free considering it’s already in US dollars.

Minnesota Ballot Recount: How hard is determining voter intent?

I enjoyed taking a look at these challenged ballots from the Senate race in Minnesota.  For some of these, it’s really hard to try to figure out what the voter wanted.  Especially the voter who bubbled in next to Al Franken, sort of crossed the bubble out and then wrote “Lizard People” in the write-in block just like he had for some other ballot contests.  Other challenges are just asncomical, where a voter bubbled in next to both Al Franken and Norm Coleman, then drew a single line through Al Franken’s name.  This one’s a simple vote for Coleman, right?  Franken’s team challenged the ballot, stating that the voter intended to underline Franken’s name (the line goes through the center of “AL FRA”, then slopes down underneath “NKEN”).

Bubble in next to the name.  If you can’t do that, make it really, really clear what you meant.

Here’s a slideshow of the challenged ballots, but it’s more fun to vote on how you’d rule if you were an elections judge.

Source: Minnesota Public Radio, hat tip to electoral-vote.com

CVS to start selling Smartrip cards

At this week’s meeting, the Metro Board of Directors will consider a proposal to allow CVS to sell Smartrip cards at 187 area stores.  A Smartrip card preloaded with $5 in value will be available for $10, the same price as at many Metro stations with paid parking garages.  CVS has agreed to sell Smartrip at no cost to Metro and at no additional cost to customers.  CVS will display Metro-supplied register signs, and Metro will advertise on its buses and in the Metrorail system that the cards are available at CVS.

Another win-win for Metro, CVS and riders.  With the upcoming elimination of paper transfers, customers will need a convenient place to get a Smartrip card to continue transferring from bus-to-bus for free.

Crossposted on Greater Greater Washington.

Metro to share parking with new hotel

At this week's Planning, Development and Real Estate Committee meeting, the committee will consider a proposal to enter an agreement with Marriott, who will be constructing a 162-room hotel on the Prince George's Plaza Metro station site as part of a ground lease agreement (see map).  Originally, the site was to have a free-standing bank, not a very high-density use of land near a Metro station.

View Larger Map

In order to secure a loan to build the hotel, Marriott needs to show its lenders that there is adequate parking for guests.  Some of the hotel's parking needs are being filled by an agreement with the existing retail parking garage, but they also need some additional spaces for guests.  Rather than build additional parking, the hotel has proposed using 45 of Metro's 1,068 parking garage spaces, which are currently only 51% occupied during the peak period.

Marriott will pay to install exit gates that will allow hotel guests to leave using hotel cards, and will pay Metro 150% of the current day parking rate per guest that uses the lot.  Spaces will be first-come, first-served, not reserved for guests.  If the parking lot starts getting full during the peak period, Metro has the option to cancel the agreement.

The presentation also has some great maps showing the amount of proposed transit oriented development at this metro station.

Image from WMATA.

I think this is win-win-win.  Metro gets development on its property, more riders (the station is only 8 stops or 20 minutes away from downtown), and revenue from an underutilized parking garage.  Marriott reduces its cost to build new parking spaces and gets to promote its hotel as being convenient to Metro and shops, potentially increasing the room rate.  The hotel customers get parking that's convenient to both Metro and their hotel.

Crossposted on Greater Greater Washington.

Mount Pleasant 1D05 Parking Supply Estimate

As part of the debate over Washington, DC’s resident permit parking program, the issue of maximum allowable permits came up during the recent Performance Parking Hearing chaired by Councilmember Graham.  I decided to take a look at a typical neighborhood in Ward 1 to see how many street parking spaces there were compared to the number of homes.  I selected advisory neighborhood commission single member district (SMD) 1D05, because from the overhead view it looked to be almost completely townhomes, simplifying the counting.  Here’s the google map I created for this study:

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Results:  ANC1D05 has approximately 1.7 on-street parking spaces per household.  If every household were to receive one RPP permit and park one car, there would be only 387 left to share among the 529 homes and their visitors.  This result is likely applicable to most DC townhome neighborhoods.

Method:  Using Google Maps, I drew a boundary line around ANC1D05 using the ANC map located here.  I divided up the district into 8 sub-districts and counted homes in each sub-district, counting 529 homes total.  There were a couple of buildings that I was not sure were residential buildings, so I counted them as “homes”.  The result may be that more than one family occupies the building, meaning that the results will be non-conservative (fewer parking spaces per home than estimated).  The vast majority of buildings in the district appear to be townhome-style residences.

I then used the Google Maps scale to calibrate a ruler, with every 20 feet of curb length equal to one parking space.  I measured each sub-district’s block faces, assuming that the block face opposite the street (across the SMD boundary) would be used for parking other SMD’s cars.  For each block face, I counted the length of the block face without subtracting any length for corners or curb cuts, so that is one source of potential error in that it would overestimate the number of curb parking spaces.  Since there was not an adjacent residential area on Adams Mill Road NW, I counted both sides of the street as having available curb spaces.  The similar segment of Irving Street NW was also double-counted.  I did not count the short segment of Mount Pleasant Street since it appeared to be commercial.

My estimate of 20 feet per car is somewhat non-conservative, since a 2009 Honda Accord can be parked in 18.5 feet (assuming one foot gap on each end), and a 2009 Honda Civic can be parked in 16.6 feet with the same gaps.  These representative vehicles show that the average vehicle length and parking habits in a neighborhood can vary the available spaces by 10-15%.  This error is similar in magnitude to the error in assuming there are no curb cuts and that parking is allowed all the way to the corners.

My estimates of available parking spaces show that the sub-district between Adams Mill Road and 18th St NW, Irving and Kenyon Streets NW (“block 6”) is the most adequately supplied with street parking, at 2.6 spaces per household, while the adjacent sub-district between Irving, Hobart and Mount Pleasant Streets NW (“block 8”) is the most under-supplied, at only 1.2 parking spaces per household.

The data show that on average, there are 1.7 available curb parking spaces per house in the SMD.  Since the development pattern appears similar to other townhome neighborhoods in the District in terms of street grid density and average townhome size, the results appear to be applicable to those other neighborhoods, such as Capitol Hill, where the development style is townhomes and curb cuts are not prevalent.

The data is available upon request. 

Metro's best- and worst-performing bus lines (and how they decide)

Metro produces a bus productivity report annually. As part of the report, Metro highlights the "Worst Performing" lines, ones that don’t meet the following criteria:

1. At least 300 passengers per day
2. At least 1.3 passengers per revenue mile
3. At least 10 passengers per revenue trip
4. Less than $4.80 subsidy per passenger
5. At least 12.4% of costs paid by passengers

Hopefully once the tracking technology is fully functional, WMATA will include a 6th criterion, on-time performance.

So, which are the bus lines are identified as Metro’s “Worst Performing”?

One missed all five criteria:

24T: Heading up the pack by not meeting any of the categories is route 24T. This weekday rush-hour only service makes 11 round trips per day between the East Falls Church metro station and the Tyson’s Westpark Transit Station. It takes about 27 minutes to make the one-way journey of 8 miles. From the look of the schedule, two buses are dedicated to this route, at a subsidy cost of around $300,000 in 2007. Each of the trips averages less than 10 passengers, and fares only pay for 11.6% of service costs. With the exception of bus service along Westmoreland Street in Arlington and Fairfax counties, and Lewinsville Road in Fairfax, service along the route might be provided by other bus routes. Some of this alternate service is not really a good substitute, but for service between the transit station and the Metro, Fairfax County operates two bus lines, the 425 and the 427, from West Falls Church station. The alternate bus lines are shorter, more frequent, and operate along a limited-access highway so it’s a lot faster (9 minutes).

Missed four out of five:

98: Chairman Graham mentioned this one specifically at the parking hearing when the topic of transit to Adams Morgan came up. He’s also proposed replacing it with limited-stop circulator service, which would be faster and funded by the District instead of WMATA. This line is intended to shuttle folks from the Metro stations at U Street and Woodley Park to the hot night spots on U Street and Adams Morgan. It runs all day and late into the night (3am on Friday and Saturday), has a cheap 25 cent fare, and runs pretty frequently (every 10-13 minutes from 6am to midnight weekdays and Sunday, and all the Friday and Saturday hours too). I think this one is a transit rider’s dream in terms of service (cheap fares and frequent, regular service at all hours), but it doesn’t meet Metro’s effectiveness criteria at a subsidy cost of $730,000 per year and $6.80 per passenger. It failed all the criteria except #2 above, and got pretty close to meeting #1. It’s low fare probably is one of the reasons it has one of the lowest cost recovery of all, at 9.5%.

E6: I don’t know much about this line. It runs weekdays between Friendship Heights Metro and Rock Creek Park, serving the Knollwood Retirement Home. This one just barely met #1 above, but only had half the criteria’s passengers per trip, at 4.8. Each of those passengers costs a subsidy of almost $6.00, and fares pay for only 10.6% of costs.

Missed three out of five:

This category has too many for individual write-ups, so I’ll just list them:

• 15K/L (missed 2, 4 and 5 above)
• 20F/W/X (2, 4 and 5)
• 17A/B/F/M (2, 3, and 4)
• N8 (2, 4 and 5)
• 18E/F (1, 2, and 4)
• 3T (2, 4 and 5)
• C7/9 (2, 4 and 5)

Now, I can’t discuss WMATA’s worst performing bus lines without discussing the best. So here are the “winners” in each of the five criteria (ignoring special school service lines that WMATA isn’t allowed to operate any more):

• For passengers per day, it’s the 30/32/34/35/36 combination, at 15,500. This line had a big customer experience enhancement last year, including the addition of limited-stop “express” service, so I’m looking forward to getting new data to see how much better it’s gotten. This bus line grouping is the way WMATA reports the data. If the 70/71 and 79 were all combined, that one would be higher, at 16,830. The X1 and X3 are sister lines to the X2 but they don’t bring up the X2 enough to take the top spot here (total of 14,071). The 90s lines don’t really combine (96/97 don’t follow the same route as 90/92/93). For the rest of the categories, I’m just going to report the highest based on WMATA’s data since it would be hard for me to combine cost recoveries or passengers per revenue mile.
• For passengers per revenue mile, it’s the X2 at 10.3. This radial line connects the Minnesota Avenue metro station with downtown along one of DC’s busiest main streets. The line is on the short list for being upgraded to streetcar service.
• For passengers per trip, it’s the C2/4 at 66. This cross-suburb line connects Twinbrook, Wheaton, the University of Maryland, and the Greenbelt metro/MARC station. It’s a long line and it connects a lot of destinations to Metrorail, so it’s not a surprise this one has a lot of passengers per trip. It ranks among the top lines in other criteria, too.
• For subsidy per passenger, it’s the X2 at 56 cents. Interestingly, even the best bus lines don’t operate at a profit.
• For cost recovery, it’s the 11Y (an express route direct from Mt. Vernon to Farragut Square) at 56.3%. This line makes 6 morning northbound trips, and 6 evening southbound trips for a fare of $3.00. It’s followed closely in the category by the X2 again at 55.7%.

From this performance, it looks like replacing the X2 line with a streetcar is a really good idea. We’ve obviously found a route that a lot of people can use. Streetcars travel faster (due to higher torque electric motors), have lower operating costs for high ridership lines, and can carry more passengers per vehicle, reducing the number of vehicles and operators needed to serve customers. They just need a route that has high ridership to justify the fixed investment. I think that investment is justified.

The data is available by request until I can find someone to host it. Send an email to my profile address.

Transit Wayfinding

One of the interesting comments at the parking hearing I attended was from one of my panel-mates, a businessman from Adams Morgan. He stated that if people only knew that the 42 bus went to Adams Morgan from Dupont Circle, more people would ride there. Right now the headsigns from Dupont Circle only say "42 - Mt. Pleasant", because that's the ultimate destination, but Adams Morgan is on the way.

This brings up an interesting debate about what the balance should be between overwhelming people with too much information (i.e., the metro station "U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo) and not providing enough information (i.e., the station named "Smithsonian", which is not the closest stop for many of the museums).

Another example of this issue was when I saw a family having trouble with a metro farecard machine. Turns out they were just trying to figure out which station the Verizon Center was at. Normally I would say that we should try to keep our station names short to avoid cluttering the map. When the destination is as popular as the Verizon Center and visited by many people that don't normally take Metro, we should probably add the name to the system.

Metrobus operates the 38B, dubbed the “Orange Line with a view”.  The buses feature prominent Metrorail-style graphics showing station names similar to those on the Orange Line.  This might be an example of a best practice for buses:  Show the major neighborhoods but not every stop.  Brand the bus with a specific purpose, and give people an idea of what’s going to be on the route.

What should the balance be? Should we list all the major neighborhoods traversed by a bus line, or just say "Silver Spring via 16th Street", as in the case of the S lines?

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my mom’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!).  I thought she deserves a blog tribute even more than my dad, so here it is:

First, a note of thanks. Mom, thanks for everything you taught me, it’s more than you know.  There’s no way to ever repay you, but hopefully I can pay it forward to my children.

A lot of Mom’s lessons echo Dad’s lessons.  After all, you usually end up marrying and staying with someone that shares a lot of your values.

Now, Mom's Lessons

Be grateful and give back:  My mom has a strong faith, something that took me awhile to come around to.  I think after years of attending church with her, then not going for a couple of years, I missed the fellowship, the music, and especially the feeling that you are grateful for what you have.  There’s also that feeling that if you have been given much, then you should be expected to give back.

Hard Work/Academics are important. I think my mom had high expectations for doing my well in school, but I remember that she was always reading and learning too.  She ended up going back to school to get her teaching credential and her Master’s degree, and now teaches first grade, which she really loves.  I think there were a couple of science fair projects that she did more than I did, but that’s the way it goes sometimes (Mom:  remember when we had to find a bible verse that had something to do with my crystal-growing project?  Don’t know how you did it.)

Sometimes, it’s the little things:  Some of my fondest memories growing up with her are the smallest things.  How she used to take me to class in Berkeley and then we’d get a slice at Blondie’s, or the way she would pretend that the car was haunted and insisted on going grocery shopping after church.

The importance of Family:  Mom grew up in a big family (9 kids in a 3 bedroom house!).  Family dinners at her parents’ house were always crowded.  She still is the center of the family, the one everyone goes to for the latest news about the rest of us.  My siblings and I don’t call each other enough, but at least through Mom we can find out what’s going on.

Libraries/Reading:  It was always a family outing to go to the library.  She tells me that I once said I was going to read every book, “starting from here”.  I’d say that’s still a goal, but they keep writing new books!  She read to me a lot as a kid, and to this day it’s in the top three of things I like to do.

Fiscal Prudence: Mom taught me about managing money, how to find bargains, etc.  She knew that if you saved money, you could get nicer things.  She encouraged me to date women that wouldn’t flinch at using a coupon at a restaurant. 

Love Music: Mom plays piano and sings in the choir.  It’s because of her that I love music of all types.  I never stuck with any instrument long enough to be as good as she is at piano, which is unfortunate.  Mom got me a record player and a crate full of classical music for christmas one year, and I think I listened to them constantly.  I can’t imagine trying to go to sleep listening to Bach’s harpsichord pieces, but I actually did when I was a kid.  Fun fact: To me, a harpsichord sounds like a “robot piano”.

If there are a bunch of excuses why you can’t buy something now, you’re probably getting it for Christmas.  Remember the rubber stamp kit, mom?  I do.

Be Generous: Mom found some really great charities.  She sends care packages to children including school supplies, books, and clothing.  She encouraged me when I was young to learn to give to others.

Metro profits on Smartrip sales

Metro riders have become accustomed to paying $5 for a Smartrip card, and Metro has long maintained that they are passing on the cost of a card to the riders.  However, this exchange from this past week’s Customer Service Operations and Safety Committee meeting seems to contradict that assertion, and imply that WMATA is actually turning a profit on it’s electronic fare card:

At 2:02:22 of the audio file, Jim Graham, Chair:  “I think the other point that was raised by Mr. Zimmerman [and others] is the question of whether or not we should under any circumstance be selling Smartrip cards for more than our cost.  I’d like to request for our next meeting a fiscal impact analysis of this so we could see what would be the fiscal impact if we sold these Smartrip cards at our cost, also include a fiscal impact if we gave them away.”

Catoe: “Would you like that for our Board meeting next instead of at the committee meeting?”

Why on earth has WMATA been selling Smartrip cards above their cost, especially when there is an issue of penetration into the low-income bus market?

I guess we’ll find out next Board meeting (Thursday, 11/20) how much above cost Metro has been charging.  Of course, if Metro reads Mr. Graham’s request super-narrowly, all they will get is the budget impact of eliminating Smartrip card profits, rather than any comprehensive look into how much Metro makes on each card or how many are sold.

Crossposted at Greater Greater Washington

Metro's General Manager to discuss Smartrip Upgrades - Passes in 10 months!

At this coming Thursday's meeting of Metro's Customer Service Operations and Safety (CSOS) Committee, the General Manager, John Catoe, will discuss the plan of action and milestones for upgrading Smartrip cards.  The schedule for key enhancements is:

• Present-August 2009:  Expand available locations to load value onto Smartrip cards.
• September 2009:  Smartrip Passes (yay!)
• September 2009:  Smartrip self-service website (you can view recent transactions and register for "other point-of-sale features")
• December 2009:  Auto Load
• December 2009:  Account Link (For compliance with IRS tax rules that require transit and parking benefits to be stored separately on transit smartcards)

The milestones happen almost immediately (starting this week) and end with final system acceptance in March of 2010.

There is a slide at the end talking about requests for proposals for an "Open Payment System".  I think this means WMATA will be investigating using open standard farecards so the problem of being tied to a single vendor goes away.

It's amazing what happens when the Inspector General, The Washington Post, your oversight Board and a Local Crank light a fire under you.  We went from upgrades contracted in 2003 with no completion by 2008, to a contract in late 2008 with (hopefully!) delivery by early 2010.

Why I did not encourage you to vote

Unlike many bloggers out there, I did not put up an election day post encouraging you to vote.  I figure most of my readers are going to go vote anyway, and those who aren't probably wouldn't be convinced by the superliminal argument.

So if you voted, and you did your homework to understand the candidates and issues, thanks.  If you stayed home because you didn't know or didn't care, thanks for letting your (hopefully better informed) neighbors decide.

HT:  Mankiw, and "The Ivy Lee" for the Simpsons reference.

My estimates on number of Metro transit passes were not too bad

Earlier this year, I estimated the number of transit passes sold by WMATA.  This week, WMATA published their estimate (see page 15).  Here they are:

	My Estimate	WMATA Report
Short Rail Pass	2,433 per week	1,800-2,100 per week
Rail Fast Pass	3,842 per week	3,000-3,600 per week
Bus Flash Pass	19,572 per week	35,000 per week

In my analysis, I explicitly overestimated the number sold by assuming that an increase in price would not decrease the number sold.    I don't know why I was so far off for the bus passes, but for the rail passes, I'm glad I was pretty close.

Metrorail to get security cameras

According to this presentation for the Finance, Administration and Oversight Committee, Metro is proposing installing security cameras at ten DC and two Fairfax County Metrorail stations in FY 2009.  The cameras will be installed at these stations:

• Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood
• Congress Heights
• Deanwood
• Minnesota Ave
• Fort Totten
• Takoma
• Brookland-CUA
• Columbia Heights
• Georgia Ave-Petworth
• Tenleytown-AU
• Vienna/Fairfax GMU
• Franconia-Springfield

Cameras will be installed overlooking the stations and entrances.  Recording and viewing will be supervised by the Metro Transit Police Department.  The cost of installation for cameras and equipment at the twelve stations is $275,000, which will be paid by the District ($200,000) and Fairfax County ($75,000).

The DC stations were selected based on the number of serious crimes occurring at the stations, and the need for security enhancements.  There are “highest crime rate” lists for Maryland and Virginia in the July 10 presentation to the CSOS committee.

Metro leaving options open for future Smartrip vendors

According to the director, office of customer service, Metro is working toward acceptance of more open standard farecards.  The current farecards, using Cubic Go-Card technology, are in compliance with some parts of ISO 14443, the standard for contactless ID cards, but are still proprietary.  Metro is not able to accept other types of farecards at this time.

The process requires compatibility between open standard farecards and the corresponding readers.  Cubic’s Tri-reader (pdf), capable of reading Go-Cards as well as ISO 14443 farecards, is installed in bus fareboxes throughout the region, and Metro is working on installing compatible readers for Metrorail over approximately the next year.  Once the card readers and software are upgraded, Metro can start working on investigating whether another farecard could be accepted.

The Director of Customer Service stated that “Metro has the rights and capability to connect readers from sources other than Cubic to our equipment.”  I’m assuming that readers from other sources will generally not be compatible with the current Smartrip, based on Cubic technology, so that’s a right that will likely only be exercised once Metro is able to change the farecard standard.

Hopefully, once Metro moves to a more open standard farecard, they will be able to get better service from the vendor, including better programming support with open software standards.  Also, competition between card providers might bring down the cost of purchasing a new Smartrip card as well as providing other products and form factors like keychains or paper disposable options.

Come and get it!

I put up a subscription link over on the top right hand side of the site.  If you already subscribe, thanks.  If you don’t, and would like to know why you should subscribe, the folks over at Common Craft put together a helpful video.

Alternatively, you can email me at michael (at) infosnack (dot) org and I can set the site up to email you new posts as they go up.

Or, for the low, low price of $149.95 per year, I will print new posts and mail them to you weekly by US mail.  This exclusive “paper subscription” option is only available to the first 500 people that sign up.</sarcasm>

Bailout Borrowing

According to the US Treasury Department’s public debt website, our public debt has increased almost $1T since September 15th.  Perotcharts.com has the chart, click for full view:

This is one of the fastest accumulations of debt in US history, and is where the bailout money came from.  At an average interest rate of 4.2%, the interest on the additonal $1T in debt is approximately $42 billion dollars, or about what we spend on all federal highway and mass transit spending.

Hat tip to Perotcharts.com.

New charts to explain entitlement spending problem

Perotcharts.com has another easy-to-understand presentation on our nation's entitlement spending problem.

The "Other" reason behind eliminating paper transfers

Metro is eliminating paper transfers as of January 4th.  According to this presentation before the Customer Service Operations and Safety (CSOS) Committee of the WMATA Board, 25% of bus riders use a bus paper transfer, and 2% use a rail paper transfer, compared with 6% of riders who use a Smartrip card to transfer between buses.

If you only read the official press releases, you'd get the impression that the principal reason Metro is doing this is to save money on printing the paper transfers, since that aspect of it has a dollar figure attached to it:

SmarTrip® also makes transferring easier. And it saves Metro - and you, our customer - money on paper and printing. That's why we're discontinuing the paper transfers.

Eliminating paper transfers will save Metro about $350,000 a year for the cost of paper and printing, plus expenses associated with the repair and maintenance of the old transfer machines in stations. It also is expected to minimize fraud and abuse of paper transfers by individuals who sell or give away their transfers to other riders, and reduce assaults on bus operators by riders who have disputes with operators about transfers.

However, according to the presentation, the larger effect on Metro's finances is likely to be an increase in bus rider revenue.  $5 Million per year, according to Metro.  This is much more than the $2 million in one-time cost savings by not having to maintain rail transfer printing machines, and $180,000 (per year?) saved by not printing bus transfers.  The increase is also about 3.3% of Metrobus passenger revenues.

Where does this revenue come from?  Some people just won't end up getting a Smartrip card, despite their increasing availability and Metro's efforts to distribute them.  I guess they will have to pay full fare when transferring.

Fraud reduction is the other big source.  Paper transfers are frequently resold on the black market, either individually or by the book.  There is some evidence for this, in that more people board Metrobus using a paper transfer than there are cash riders.  The two methods go hand-in-hand.  Only cash riders receive a paper transfer.  For comparison, there are only 1/3 of the number of Smartrip transfers as Smartrip cash transactions.  I’m not sure this implies that 2/3 of paper transfer uses are fraudulent, or what.  That seems almost impossibly high.

Other transit systems realized huge revenue gains when they eliminated paper transfers, and Metro is looking forward to a net revenue gain of $9 million over two years after accounting for the cost of Smartrip cards, customer communications and other expenses.

Metro should just level with the community and state that some people are defrauding the system to the tune of almost $5 million per year.  That buys a lot of Smartrip cards.

Fairfax Connector bus fares increasing

After four years without an increase, the $1.00 Fairfax Connector bus fare is going to be increasing (PDF).  Public hearings were held today and will be held next Saturday.  More information on the website.

In general, bus fares are being increased to coincide with the WMATA fare structure, including the elimination of paper transfers.  Regular cash fare increases from $1.00 to $1.35, and for Smartrip it will now be $1.25.  See this fare chart.  Fairfax County has also proposed to follow WMATA's lead for future bus fare increases.

County staff will accept your public comments at FairfaxConnector (at) fairfaxcounty (dot) gov until 4pm on Friday November 14th. 

Our Multilingual Metro Police

Agenda packets for the Customer Service, Operations and Safety Committee (CSOS) and the Finance Administration and Oversight Committees (FAO) for Metro are out, one of my favorite days of the month.  Yes, I am a transit nerd.  I’ll be posting some articles during the next couple days on interesting items.  I read the reports so you don’t have to.

From the CSOS Committee report (PDF):

In addition to English, Metro has police officers that speak Arabic (3), Chinese (2), French (4), German (3), ASL (3), Italian (1), Korean (1), Spanish (18), and Vietnamese (1).  Three out of 16 recent recruits speak Spanish.  This is out of a Metro Transit Police department population of 578, which includes 465 members of the two police force unions, according to the FY 2009 Approved Budget (huge PDF).  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that we probably don’t have many French, German, or Italian-only speaking Metro customers, so we’re talking about 28 officers out of 465 that serve customers with a potential language barrier.  That’s about 6% of the force.  Is that high enough?

Metro also didn’t report what the standard for “speaking” a foreign language would be, is it native fluency, competency, familiarity?  Being able to speak, listen, read, write?  I took four years of Spanish but can only handle basics at this point and read documents only if I have a lot of context.  I took one year of Russian and can now only say some basic phrases, recognize some words and sound out the Cyrillic alphabet.  My wife lived in Spain for a year and a half and was considered fluent, but is probably a little rusty.  What level of competency do these 36 language competent officers have?

I wonder if this population of language speakers happened by design or by chance.  Since Metro serves populations where many members speak another language primarily (like Spanish or Korean), then some funded efforts to get more foreign language competency may be justified.  Some of these efforts might be recruitment bonuses for foreign language speakers, community recruitment outreach, language classes or the use of language training materials.

The Board or its committee should be asking these questions of the Metro Police Chief, Michael Taborn.

Will people support Obama even if they’re told he’s pro-life?

Audio (MP3) file

“Man on the street” interviews of Obama supporters.  They are asked about whether they support Obama’s policies, and are given examples that are actually McCain’s policies.  I wonder if people will still support Obama.  The policy positions are:  Pro-life, Keep the troops in Iraq, No Stem Cell Research, and the choice of Sarah Palin as VP.

You’ll have to listen to the file to find out.

From “How Stupid are We?”

Note:  This might be cherry picking the funniest responses rather than a representative sample.  It’s like on “Jaywalking” where I wonder how many people they had to interview to find people (a) that stupid and (b) willing to make it up to get a laugh.