To the Editor:
As a transit commuter living in Reston, I appreciated the honesty in the opinion piece by Ken Plum, “Silver Line No Silver Bullet” [Reston Connection, July 2-8, 2014]. Still, among all the positive notes about the benefits of the Silver Line, I continue to see public officials ignoring the huge increase in costs for daily transit riders in Reston (not just drivers on the Toll Road).
I commute from Reston on a Fairfax Connector bus to West Falls Church, where I transfer to metro to my job at Farragut West. With the recent metro fare increase, I pay $5.10 each way ($3.85 metro + $1.25 bus transfer) for a total of $10.20 per day. Based on the posted new Silver Line fares (http://silverlinemetro.com), I will soon have to pay the max metro fare of $5.90 + $1.25 bus transfer for a total of $7.15 each way, or $14.30 per day. This is a 40 percent increase in costs, and I still have to transfer from bus to rail! I used to park free at the Wiehle Ave park-and-ride, but if I now park at the metro station, I have to add $4.85 per day to the metro fare, resulting in a cost of $16.65 per day – a more than 60 percent increase in daily costs!
These are huge increases. For someone who commutes every day to Arlington/DC, this is well over $1,000 per year in added costs – and the irony is that rail times are no faster than the current bus/rail service, since the Fairfax Connector buses use the airport access road.
I’ve seen discussion about supporting affordable housing in Reston, but where are the voices of our politicians for affordable transit options? With the Silver Line, the bus ride to metro in Reston will be a very short trip – why not reduce the bus fares to encourage use and mitigate these much larger rail fares? Why not change the metro fare structure so that price rises per station rather than per mile, so the one stop between Tysons and Reston doesn’t break our budgets? Metro will do wonders for redeveloping Tysons and Reston, and commuters from DC/Arlington to Tysons will be the big winners, along with land owners near the stations. But for Reston residents who have to pay $1,000+ extra per year to get to work, this is a very high price to pay.
Michael Grant
Reston