A Playbook for Transit Recovery from D.C.

On Saturday, as massive crowds of protesters gathered in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C.’s Metro system carried nearly 70,000 passengers — its highest one-day ridership total in the past three months. It’s a sign that the nation’s second-largest transit system is coming back to life. But that figure was still just a fraction of an average Saturday in February 2020, before coronavirus arrived.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) operates 91 rail stations covering 117 miles of track and more than 10,000 bus stops. On a normal pre-pandemic weekday, the system carries about a million people. But as in so many other cities, Covid-19 triggered a dramatic collapse in ridership and service — by the last week of March, rail ridership was down 92%, and bus passenger numbers fell 75%. Nationwide, stay-at-home orders forced public transit systems in many cities to reduce service levels while gutting their budgets. And the road back will be a long one: WMATA general manager Paul Wiedefeld says he does not expect full service to return until spring 2021.