Delays involving single tracking

Like thousands of other Metrorail riders, I was affected by both track equipment derailment incidents last Thursday, which caused single tracking of the Orange line in the morning rush hour periods as well as the evening rush hour.  This caused my normal 40 minute train ride home from Eastern Market to West Falls Church to be about an hour and a half.  I've requested the incident reports and other records and hope to be able to take a look at them, write up a good article and distribute them soon.

When I was stuck on the way home, I noticed something odd about the way Metro was dispatching trains.  Metro was single tracking trains from East Falls Church to West Falls Church, but the backups were all the way back to Rosslyn and beyond.  It appeared that every train that was entering the Orange line at Rosslyn was being sent all the way through the single track area to Vienna and back again.  For a long segment like East Falls Church to West Falls Church, travel time including clearing switches at both ends could be 10 minutes or longer.  This limits the line capacity to one train every 20 minutes in each direction.

The problem is, with a single tracking segment so far from the center of the city, if Metro sends every train through the single track section, it effectively off the capacity of the entire line.  If Metro can only send one train through the single track area every 20 minutes, then it can only send one (Orange Line) train every 20 minutes through Metro Center, and only one every 20 minutes can leave New Carrollton. 

What if instead Metro had decided to turn every other train around at Ballston?  The line before Ballston would travel twice as fast, with a train now able to go every 10 minutes.  Some people would have to get off somewhere before Ballston to change to a through train, but everyone getting off at Ballston or earlier would have a shorter ride.  There are probably few passengers riding from Vienna to Dunn Loring, so it would make less sense for Metro to turn trains around there to go back to Vienna.

The situation improves a bit more if more trains are turned around, but it's possible that platform capacity at Ballston would be overwhelmed by completely offloading two out of every three trains there.

Based on my discussions with system planners, I know Metro tries to maintain a "one seat ride" for passengers so transfers are minimized.  However, I think in this case the passengers would be happy that their seat is traveling twice as fast, even if they might have to wait 10 minutes to transfer if they're going further than Ballston.

I've asked WMATA about this issue and hope they will get back to me soon with something I missed when I thought about it.

Federal Budget Deficits

I don't have much time to post today, but I would just like to note that based on the graphic on the front cover of The Washington Post, the Federal taxes we pay in 2010 will only pay for $200B worth of discretionary spending out of over $1.4 trillion.  In other words, 90% of the taxes we pay ($2.4 trillion worth) are for mandatory entitlement spending and interest on our debt.  We're almost reaching the point where all of our discretionary spending (military, education, housing assistance, transportation, etc.) will be deficit financed.

This is similar to a household that earns money to pay the mortgage, car payment, insurance, and other fixed bills, then uses the credit card to pay for food, gas, groceries, and everything else.  I think we're nearing a point where I would consider our government bankrupt.  Something has got to give.  Probably a lot of things together.

On another note, the taxes collected from payroll that are supposed to pay for Social Security and Medicare are about $200 billion dollars short of covering those programs, out of about $1.1 trillion in costs.  So we're borrowing from our grandchildren to pay our grandparents.

That's all the time I have.

Transit Prices - Time to go "all you can eat"?

When you pay for transportation, whether it's for driving a private car or taking mass transit, there's a continuum of payment methods, with "pay-per-use" on one end of the scale, and "unlimited use" on the other.

Does the choice of method matter?  It should.  People make choices about how they get around based on how much the next trip costs them.  With unlimited use, the next trip is free.  With pay per use, the next trip can cost a lot, because not only are you paying the cost of an additional trip, but you're paying a fraction of the fixed costs.  If we want to encourage transit use and discourage driving (because of externality costs like pollution or congestion, safety and noise), then we should be pricing transit on an unlimited use model, and encouraging pay per use for cars.

Traditionally, cars are almost pure unlimited use pricing.  You buy the car up front (or pay a monthly loan or lease), pay registration, property taxes, etc. regardless of how much you use the car, and parking is usually provided free, whether you are a tenant, employee or customer.  Your only costs per trip are gas and maintenance, and those you don't even pay at the time you take the trip, but later, when your gas tank is empty or your tires are worn.  When you hop in the car, it's easy to not even think about these costs.  Psychologically, once you own a car, keep the gas tank filled and maintain it properly, additional trips are "free".

We could change this to price by use:  Charge tolls to drive on roads.  Charge per use for parking.  Daily or hourly parking charges are better for this purpose than monthly contracts.  With a monthly contract, parking is already paid for on day one, so all additional days are "free".  Other methods are less common:  insurance can be priced per mile.  Shared-car services like Zipcar charge by the hour, taxicabs charge per trip and mile.

It's possible to make some of these changes without changing the overall costs, so it's not even necessary to get into a cars vs. transit debate.  If someone pays $1000 per year in insurance and drives about 12,000 miles per year, it's not really charging them more if you charge $200 plus 6.6 cents per mile.  It would encourage people to drive fewer miles, however (for comparison, gasoline including taxes is currently about 8 cents per mile).  Also, if apartments typically rent for $1500 a month and include two parking spaces free, it's not an increase if the rent drops to $1300 per month and you pay $100 more per month for a parking space.  Parking at work, which used to be unlimited at $120 per month, could be $6 per day against a pre-paid account instead of an unlimited per month charge.

Most people pay per trip for transit in the Washington region.  About 35,000 unlimited weekly bus passes are sold per week, and about an eighth as many rail passes.  We should implement more convenient, reasonably priced monthly or weekly passes.  WMATA's effort to integrate the existing passes with SmarTrip cards is a good start.  However, the rail pass is still separate from the bus pass, and the rail pass only makes financial sense for those that ride the longest distances. 

The difficulty with rail passes in Washington compared to other systems is distance-based fares.  For other systems, the provider chooses a weekly price, which is typically 9-12 single rides.  For distance-based fares, how should you choose the price to base it on?  If you choose about 10 times the maximum fare, it's a terrible deal for most and you don't end up selling many passes (this is almost what we do currently -- it's $39.00 for a pass and the maximum fare is $4.50).  If you choose 10 times the minimum fare, it's expensive for the transit agency, and there's a lot of revenue loss compared to regular fares.

Smartrip cards are smart enough to have customizable weekly passes.  You could choose a fare level and pay ten times that amount per week automatically by subscription.  All your rides that are less than that would be free, any fare above that amount is deducted from your account balance.  This would have the effect of "pay for your commute and the rest is free".  This is just like wireless phone service, where you pay for a certain amount of daytime (peak) minutes and get your nights and weekends for free.  Right now WMATA has this policy, but there are only two potential fare levels, at around $26.40 for the cheaper "Short Rail" pass (equivalent to commuting downtown from approximately Bethesda), and $39.00 for the more expensive unlimited rail pass (which would be a good deal for anyone commuting downtown from White Flint or further).  Someone who commutes a short distance isn't likely to buy one.  Additionally, the passes are inconvenient, requiring purchase of a paper farecard, and for the short rail pass, carrying exitfare to make up the difference for each trip.

In addition to having reasonably priced unlimited passes, some transit agencies have taken the idea of unlimited pricing one step further.  For example, the Denver area transit agency, RTD, sells an unlimited pass to an entire employer based on the number of employees and the distance from the city's downtown and transit centers.  This is a form of insurance that spreads the cost out socially in order to provide a benefit.  In this case, the employer typically gets to reduce the number of required parking spaces, and the employees get free transit.  The transit agency prices the passes to assure revenue neutrality.  For a much lower price per employee thank single pass purchases, everyone gets an unlimited yearly pass.  The price per employee is lower (somewhere between 2 and 30% of the price of an annual pass) because the transit agency assumes some people will not use it.  Transit agencies still get the same amount of revenue, but instead of paying for each trip, the employees don't pay anything extra.  This program reduced the number of parking spaces needed for Colorado University, and increased the number of employees taking public transit downtown.  Boulder City staff were happy to talk to me about the program, so I'll be working on a post for the program soon.  From the materials she provided to me, the program is like steroids for transit.  People are many times more likely to use transit, even buses, when they have the pass.  Neighborhoods are allowed to organize and buy passes for everyone on the block.  Even though the price of a ECO pass has risen dramatically (RTD has hiked the prices more than 50% since 2003), so has transit ridership and pass usage.

Unlimited passes are also an interesting idea for sporting or entertainment events.  In that case, the stadium or ballpark would add a fee for every ticket, transferring the revenue to the transit agency.  In exchange, the sporting event tickets would act as a day pass (perhaps after a certain time in the afternoon). 

If you change the way people pay for transit and cars, you can still fund both, but switch the incentives so that more people want to take transit and fewer want to drive.  Because driving involves pollution, congestion, safety risks, and inefficient land use patterns; reducing driving would be good for society as a whole.  Because increased transit use reduces the bad effects of driving, and increases the political will to run more frequent vehicles and expand the network, it's good for society to increase transit use.  Unlimited pricing is an effective tool for increasing transit use for the same level of funding.

Metro Finances: Proposed Cuts Take Too Much from District

According to this presentation which will be discussed before Metro's Special Budget Committee, the previously discussed service cuts leave the District of Columbia with a $2.9M surplus at the end.

This means that the previously proposed service cuts to Metrobus and Metrorail affected the District of Columbia disproportionately through the funding formula. 

During the meeting Mr. Graham, Mr. Albert, Mr. Brown and Mr. Giancola, the District's representatives on the committee, should be asking questions about why the District should have service cut more than needed to keep their subsidy the same as last year, while other jurisdictions still need to give up more to balance the budget.

For reference, here are the other jurisdictions and the amount of additional service cuts to non-regional bus service needed to balance the budget:

Jurisdiction	Additional non-regional bus cuts (increases) needed to balance
DC	($2.9M)
Mongomery County	4.7
Prince George's	3.2
City of Alexandria	0.2
Arlington County	1.2
City of Fairfax	0.1
Fairfax County	1.0
Falls Church	0.0
Total	$7.4M

These numbers are the amounts of non-regional bus service that would need to be cut (or added) in order to balance each jurisdiction's Metro budget, after already taking into account the administrative changes proposed in January and the service cuts proposed earlier this month.  Non-regional bus lines are ones that don't cross jurisdictional boundaries.  For example the U8 (Capitol Heights to Benning Heights) in DC, the 18s (Orange Hunt) and 17s (Kings Park Express) in Virginia, and the R4 (Queen's Chapel Road) in Maryland bus routes.  Costs after subtracting fares for non-regional bus lines are paid for directly by the jurisdiction, rather than through the funding formula for rail or bus.  Rail's funding formula takes into account population and density, ridership, and number of rail stations.  Regional Bus's formula is based on population and density, service hours, the number of miles buses traveled, and ridership.  Paratransit is paid for by the rider's home jurisdiction.

From the table, any further cuts are likely to hit Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, while the District may be looking at improving service compared to the previous proposal.  WMATA's staff is proposing that service cuts be approved for public comment on March 5th, and that after reviewing public comments either in writing or at public hearings, that the Board approve any selected service reductions on April 23.  As always, more to follow.

WMATA proposes bus line elimination, headway widenings, station entrance closures

Today's Finance Administration and Oversight working meeting today had WMATA chief John Catoe and Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal discussing potential "service adjustments" (service cuts) in order to close the remaining $73M budget hole for the 2010 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

During the previous FAO meeting, the WMATA board committee gave instructions to WMATA staff about some assumptions to change in the budget that would help close the gap, at the loss of some conservatism in the figures.  If some of these assumptions turn out to be wrong, it's unclear what the fix would be.  It's possible in that situation WMATA could pass a mid-year fare increase, could cut back on service, place employees on involuntary leave, or request more money from jurisdictions.  Some of the adjustments are:

• Assume $5M more revenue from the elimination of bus transfers due to the reduction in fraud
• Assume $1.2M more revenue from renting space for fiber optic telecommunications lines
• Defer funding WMATA's unfunded health insurance fund by $4M for an additional year
• Use $10M more in available Federal capital funding to perform capital-like operating maintenance expenses.  This would take money from capital funding which would either have to be replaced or WMATA would reduce the ability to invest in the future
• Save $7M this year based on smoothing pension liabilities over a 5-year period as opposed to a 3-year period, something David alluded to in a previous GGW post
• Cut $12M based on "wage settlement", which was not discussed in the handout, but could be the result of negotiations between WMATA and its transit unions.  The FAO Committee has been holding executive (closed) session meetings with union negotiations as the stated topic of discussion, so it will likely be the results of these meetings.

After these and other changes, WMATA's budget shortfall is $28.8M for the year, about a third of the shortfall from FY 2009 that required large fare increases in January of last year.

From there, WMATA staff proposed various service cuts.  First, to save $10M they proposed eliminating some bus routes that duplicate other bus service:

• DC:  Eliminate bus routes 60, L4, N3, P2, cut short the 42 bus, the 80 and buses that serve schools (last year the FTA limited transit agencies' ability to provide special bus service for schools in an effort to not allow federally subsidized transit agencies to compete with charter buses)
• MD:  Eliminate bus routes C4 (portion), C8 (off-peak and Saturday), L7, P17&19 (cut short), W13&14 (cut short), J3
• VA:  Cut back 9A, Cut back 10A, 10E, Eliminate 18R&S, cut back service on 28A&B

Next, to save $3.3M, they proposed widening headways (time between vehicles) on buses.  As part of this change, WMATA assumed no loss of ridership and therefore no loss of revenue.

They then proposed saving $7.5M by reducing the frequency of trains:

• Less frequent service between 6 and 7am
• Less frequent service between 6:30pm and 9pm (15 minutes between trains) and 9 and midnight (20 minutes)
• Less frequent service during mid-day (probably 15 minutes)
• Less frequent service on Saturdays from 10am to 6pm (15 minutes)

Last, some additional station entrances would be closed on weekends and earlier on weekdays, saving $700K.

Total savings for all the described service cuts is $21.4M, leaving only $7.4M of budget gap out of an over $500M subsidy.

From here, it's possible that WMATA could do any of three things.  They could send the $7.4M out as a request for increased subsidy (after all, it's only about 1.5% of the budget), they could figure out a minor fare increase (approximately ten cents on rail or bus would probably do it), or they could come up with additional service cuts.  Considering that $7.4M is about a third of the cuts they already made, the rest of the cuts would likely be to service that affects even more riders, an undesirable situation.

After these cuts and "service adjustments", we're getting very close to having a workable budget.  The WMATA board meeting is next Thursday, February 26.  I don't think that any potential service cuts would be in a form ready for the Board to authorize public hearings at that time, but we're getting close.

Photo courtesy giveawayboy on flickr, crossposted on greatergreaterwashington.org

Stimulus with our children's money

Writer Jeff Johnson has an interesting and funny proposal for stimulating the economy in the New York Times.  It's funny because it's mostly true, we are stimulating the economy by borrowing from our children.

Metro considers 16th Street limited-stop bus service

Metro's finance committee is going to be considering a plan to start up a 16th Street limited-stop bus service. For the first 15 months, the service will be financed by the District, but if the line meets certain performance criteria (the targests are higher than the system average passengers per trip, passengers per revenue mile and cost recovery), it will be funded by Metro as a whole through the funding formula.

The new limited-stop service will be called the S9, and will operate between Silver Spring and McPherson Square during morning (6:30-10:00) and evening (3:00-7:00) rush hours, every 10 minutes. Having the bus stop only 16 times per direction is expected to save 6-8 minutes each way. For the first full year of operation (July 2009-July 2010), DDOT is expected to pay just over $1.6M to operate the line.

In addition to operating the new bus line, Metro wants to assign two bus line supervisors to the route to better manage bus bunching and other schedule adherence problems.

Metro has some other changes to the "S" bus lines that can only be implemented after further transit study. They are considering a "turn-back" service at Colorado Ave. or Piney Branch Parkway, to more frequently service the more heavily utilized southern portion of the route; they're considering dedicated southbound morning peak bus only lanes between Piney Branch and Florida Avenue; and they're considering queue jumping lanes at two intersections along the route, where through a change in intersection design, buses would be given "head of the line" privileges at red lights. They are also studying transit signal priority, where buses can send signals to traffic lights, holding them green until the bus goes through the intersection.

This isn't the first limited-stop Metrobus service. Metro Extra route 79, which operates along Georgia Avenue and 7th/9th Streets NW, carries over 5,400 passengers per day in all-day (6am to 7pm) service from Silver Spring to Archives. Its operating cost is higher than the proposed route, with a lower current cost recovery ratio than the target for S9. It meets the other productivity requirements for the S9 line, making it pretty likely that similar service on the S9 route will be successful enough to continue. There's also the limited-stop 37 line, which operates on the 30s corridor from Friendship Heights to downtown in the peak direction only during rush hour.

If approved by the FAO committee and the full board, the new line is expected to start operating on March 29.

Virginia "Crossover Day" - Legislative Update

Virginia's Legislative Process is now about halfway through the session. Virginia's Constitution limits the length of the session to 60 days (90 days for a budget year), and bills have to be passed by February 10th of this year in order to be considered by the other house. Here's an update on the transportation bills being considered in 2009:

HB 1604: This bill authorizes borrowing $12M for a parking garage near the state capitol. It passed the House unanimously.  Identical bill SB 852 also passed the Senate, so this one is as good as law.

HB 1876: This bill looks like the winner among the many bills requiring drivers of motor vehicles to avoid the use of cell phones while driving.  The bill is a big improvement over the predecessors.  It's been reported out of the two different committees.  The provisions only apply to motor vehicles, prohibit dialing or entering text, reading emails or text messages.  The law doesn't apply to GPS navigation systems or in emergencies.  It also doesn't allow an officer to pull you over for using a cell phone (it's not a primary offense).  Penalty is a $20 fine the first time, $50 otherwise.

HB 1645:  This bill allows localities to use up to two-thirds of their highway funds to service debt for projects in any of various capital improvement programs.  This means that localities can pay for more projects through debt financing.  It passed the house unanimously.  This is similar to SB 1438, which passed the Senate 36-4.

HB 2476:  Extends until 2010 the special clean fuel plates allowing single drivers to use the HOV lanes if they drive a hybrid or other clean fuel vehicle.

On to the Senate:

SB 1402:  Increases the penalty for "Improper Driving", a lesser offense than reckless driving, from $500 to $1000.  Passed the Senate unanimously.

I encourage Virginia residents to visit "Richmond Sunlight" and to contact their legislators about any of these bills you feel strongly about.

Someone get me a reader from North Dakota and Alaska

Like many bloggers, I'm interested in who's out there reading.  I use online tools out there to see reader statistics, Google Analytics and Feedburner are two of them.  One of my favorite features is in Google Analytics.  It displays a map showing where your readers come from.  Since July I've almost filled in the US map, except for North Dakota and Alaska.

I'm putting out a call, I'd like to fill in the US map.  Could one of you you please forward an article you found interesting to someone you know in North Dakota or Alaska?  I know I write mostly about transportation policy in the Washington, DC area and performance parking, but perhaps these subjects might be of interest?

Andrew Biggs on the principles of the Social Security program

The US Government can now borrow for free

The Economics of Gift Giving

How I started working out (and stuck with it!)

Social Security Tricks

Well, if anyone can help me out, thanks.

For your information, no personally identifiable information is tracked with the tools I use.  It's stuff like the date and time, how you got here (whether it's a google search or a referral from another site) what your network name is (e.g., "US House of Representatives"), what pages you looked at and how long you stayed, and what link (if any) you clicked to leave.  I don't share this information with anyone except for aggregate numbers like the total visitors for an article.

Feel free to post comments on anything I write.

Observations on Philadelphia

To escape the masses for Inauguration and to take a rare family trip, we went to Philadelphia for the 4-day weekend.  Here are some of the things I noticed on my trip:

• If you're used to DC's megablocks, the short blocks offered by an older-style city are refreshing.  Looking at a map while planning the trip, I was disappointed by how little appeared to be in walking distance.  Once I got to Philly, I think it was that I was expecting a 7 block walk to be a long distance.  Had I checked the scale of the map, I would have figured out that the blocks are much shorter than DC's, which seemed to work really well.  Philadelphia's center city has short blocks and narrow streets, which is very pleasant for pedestrians.
• Our microwave in the hotel had ringtones.  It played "Oh, Suzanna!", "Auld Lang Syne", and some other song I've never heard.  It's actually very annoying because it doesn't turn off when you open the door, only when the song is over.  Please, just beep when you're done.
• Laptops with no internet are boring, but $10 per day for wifi is kind of a ripoff.  I bought one day's worth but was on the lookout for free wifi everywhere.  If you like coffee there are plenty of places.
• 30-minute headways for buses = I'm not going to bother.  Additionally, buses are inherently harder to learn as a system.  Philadelphia, like Washington, does not use Google Transit.  10 minute headways for weekend trains = great.  Also, not decreasing service just because it's the middle of the day or a federal holiday = also great.  If WMATA weren't so strapped for funding, I'd say this was a good idea.  I don't see how they could afford it, though, with their significant funding shortfall.  I think every system should have the equivalent of LA's "12-minute map" so that people who want to get around without schedules can figure out where the best part of the system goes.
• Our hotel, the Embassy Suites, had trilateral symmetry.  Great room, but the elevators get overwhelmed, especially when an entire high school band moves in at the same time.  I would highly recommend this hotel for tourists because it's close to the city center, the museums, and transit.  Parking was expensive; I would just take one of the Chinatown buses that run 5-6 times per day for around $15 each way.  Some of the buses even have WiFi, I've heard.
• Much as the District's street naming system seems to "confuse" tourists, at least it's a system.  If you don't live or work here, how do you memorize the pattern of east-west street names?  (Update: you just do.  I seemed to get it after a couple of days)
• If your transit lines on the map are designated with colors, it doesn't help to have the website have you choose between the "Market Street" line and the "Broad Street" line.  Just call them the Blue Line and the Orange Line.  At least it's better than Pittsburgh, where the light rail line had a route number and was mixed in with the bus schedules.
• 15F is really, really cold.
• If all you're going to do is the museums and downtown, there's no need to bring a car to Philly.  Getting to Pat's King of Steaks requires either a lot of planning to figure out the bus system or a car, though.  I guess I could have taken a cab, but do they allow two-year-olds to ride without a car seat?

In all, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Philadelphia and would definitely go back.  It's highly recommended for people who like an urban/city experience as well as some great museums (National Liberty Museum, Independence Hall, Franklin Institute).

2008 Metrobus Performance Report

I recently received the Metrobus Performance Report for 2008.  It's available here (PDF - main sheet) or here (entire collection as Excel).  As expected, a lot of the same lines are listed among the worst performers as in 2007.  Here they are for 2008:

24T: This bus only averages 189 passengers per day.  Fares only pay 9% of operating costs, and each rider costs area governments $7.24 in subsidy, for a total subsidy of almost $350,000 per year.  This performance is even lower than last year, with declining cost recovery ratio (defined as passenger revenue divided by operating costs).  Travel between the Metro and Tyson's Corner Westpark Transit station is duplicated by a much faster, more frequent bus provided by Fairfax County Connector.  Eliminating or cutting back this line further should be on the table.  There are some people along Westmoreland Street in Arlington and Lewinsville Road in Fairfax County that would lose bus service if this line is cut back, but this is the lowest performer in the system and funds should be diverted to where they can make a greater impact.

98:  This evening Adams Morgan shuttle link is still one of Metrobus' worst lines.  It's expected to be replaced with a circulator service, transferring the responsibility for funding the line to the District.  Oddly, it's not listed in the main table but shows up in each table listing lines that failed to meet basic criteria.  Like the 24T, it failed all of WMATA's performance criteria, with one of the lowest cost recoveries in the system, high subsidy per passenger (over $10 each), and low ridership (less than 6 passengers per trip even though it only runs during times that demand is expected to be high).

N8:  This line increased in failed criteria from 3 to 4.  The line decreased in ridership by over 10%, and all related performance criteria suffered.  The line serves about 350 passengers per day with a subsidy of $1M.

For lines that failed less than 4 criteria, I'm just going to list them. 

S80, S91

C7, C9 (repeat from 2007)

15K, 15L (repeat)

W19

E6 (improved in ridership since 2007)

66, 68 (declined in performance since 2007)

17 (A B F M) (repeat)

18E, 18F (repeat)

Other notable lines are the B30 and the 5A.  These are the only WMATA links to the BWI and Dulles airports.  Both have too few passengers per revenue mile, probably due to the length of the line.  Other than that, they perform adequately, with generally good cost recovery (the 5A is the highest in the system) and moderate subsidies compared to other lines.

The best lines have changed little from last year, as expected:

For daily passengers, the 30s lines were split up into different statistical bins, so they lose their #1 spot to the 70/71 combination.  The northern portion of this Georgia Avenue/7th street line is a prime candidate for upgrading, in my mind, to streetcar, but according to DC (PDF) it's unclear whether the line will be streetcar or BRT.

For cost recovery, it's the 5A followed by the 18(GHJ) express buses from Pentagon.  These lines' cost recovery is helped by the fact that they charge a premium fare for express service.  The highest cost recovery among local buses is the X2, same as last year.

By passengers per mile, it's the X2 and the 42 bus.  These lines are great "pedestrian accelerators", with relatively frequent service (check this against schedule) and low overall route length.  The X2 is on the short list for upgrading to streetcar service.

By subsidy per passenger, it's the X2 again.  I don't know why the subsidy increased so much this year, but last year it was a lot less.  Annual operating costs were higher by more than $1M, and passenger revenue was less than last year.  Ridership was down overall by about 500,000 per year. 

By passengers per trip, it's the C2/C4 combination just like last year.  I believe the data for the P12 line is not correct for number of revenue trips, based on the spreadsheet stating 6,000 trips for this year and 30,000 trips for last year, with approximately the same ridership.  I just don't buy that the same number of people are riding the same bus line, with a dramatic cut in frequency that I'd never heard of.

Just like last year, I think this performance just demonstrates how good a line the X2 is.  It's no wonder that DC is considering upgrading the line to streetcar.  Let's hope they get the funding and overhead wires issues sorted out quickly so we can start laying some tracks.