The Northern Virginia Commission’s Nov. 16 public forum on the state of our region’s Metro transit system misses the mark. Metro’s principal problem is not funding, but governance. Expenses growing at twice the pace as income and the largest in-system-history $1.2 billion Safe Track needing an even larger subsequent $1.5 billion shows a need for a new board and general manager — not more money. Obama’s Transportation Secretary recently noted that Metro provides 20 percent more service than the average urban transit system, a cost driver current governance can’t or won’t redress. NVTC casts about everywhere to find a solution to Metro’s woes except to look in the mirror where it would find the answer.
Instead, it looks to Richmond for funding and grouses about “breaking through the regionalism” where funding for Metro must compete with education, prisons, healthcare, etc. Metro’s lack of a “dedicated funding source” is because D.C., Maryland and Virginia can’t agree on one. The three jurisdictions’ inability to settle on a Metro funding source shows why D.C.’s Maryland and virginia suburbs should join D.C.’s statehood bid. Once the entire region was in the same state, it would be keeping the money it now sends to Annapolis and Richmond and doesn’t get back because they spend it elsewhere. A single state legislature would enact a uniform tax to fund metro. Far from far-fetched, uniting the region in a single state would prove prudent public policy.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria