Transportation
D.C. Metro's Latest Fix: Disinvest in the City's Poor, Black Neighborhoods
Slashing services may help the system with operational costs, but at a profound cost to the city in terms of social equity.
No discussion of D.C.’s flailing Metro system is complete without .GIFs of dumpster fires and novel imperatives like “unsuck.” But D.C.’s rail system could be worse. Metro always finds ways to remind passengers of this fact.
In a presentation on Metro’s operating budget for fiscal year 2018, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority outlined some of the system’s deep-seated budgetary challenges as well as proposals for fixing them. Fare hikes and benefits reductions are among the bitter pills that Metro may ask its anguished passengers and beleaguered employees to swallow.