Is it time to fire Wiedefeld?

I've seen some amazing public transit systems around the world.  Wmata is certainly not one of them.  The only two I've been on that I would consider worse are in Houston and Cleveland-and both of these are much less expensive than wmata.   In fact, for a family wmata is probably the singular most expensive system I've been on and as expensive as any for an individual.

And now wmata wants to make it worse.  In fact, after taking the first steps to shut it down and the dc region having done little more than complain on twitter and facebook, they have now decided to proceed further.   They want to shut numerous stations down.  Let's look at the impact of shutting down some of these stations at all times but rush hour:

Now in fairness I'll admit I haven't been to a lot of these stations, but I have been to some and let me share from my general knowledge.

The Stations in SE DC and PG county-I'll admit I've never been out that way, but my understanding is that many of the people who live there are not high wage earners and often don't work 9-5.  Granted Wiedefeld, not caring about the working poor isn't anything new.  Most of Wiedefeld's nonsense hits them the hardest.  So we are looking at taking struggling people and making them struggle even harder.  What are the impacts of this?  People make drastic decisions such as having to choose between feeding their kids and feeding pets-so the pets end up dead in animal shelters.  So basically Wiedefeld and his metro cronies are dog and cat killers.  Not to mention increased homelessness and loss of health care-then we'll tax these poor unlucky souls for their lack of health care-what a country!
     
Now for the stations on the west part of the line, I have been to some of those (except Virginia Square): So-called wealthy families-who cares about them right?  Well for one things many of them work hours that exceed rush hour at times and don't always know this at the beginning of the day.  And unfortunately people too often stereotype all six income earners as having unlimited money.    In the DC area not even close.  And sometimes people need to come home during the day.   Don't be naive and think when rideshare helps kill of metro they won't raise prices sky high-not to mention ride share is not pubic transit.  In fact, from a climate change perspective it's probably much worse than owning a car because you have people driving around in circles all day whether someone is in their vehicle or not.   And isn't that one of the points of public transit.   Have we completely forgotten this?

Virginia Square is going to be it's own mess.  I actually looked at an apartment near there.  Really liked the building and only didn't move in because the place was filthy and I felt the owner was going to be a slum lord.   Now I'm sure glad that place was filthy, because knowing the station might be closed all day I wouldn't touch Virginia Square with a ten foot poll.  Virginia Square is also home to numerous medical offices.  While you can walk from Ballston not all sick people can walk that far.  Even as someone who doesn't ride wmata even near daily I find being able to use the metro during the day time critical, for various reasons sometimes my husband needs to come home during the day time and why would I pay Virginia Square prices to walk all the way to Ballston or Claredon?   Virginia Square also has very limited bus service.

You are also going to see a larger negative impact.  Housing prices by the metro stations that are open all day will skyrocket and price many people out (probably including me).  Meanwhile prices at stations closed during the daytime will crash.  But this wont' really matter because the working people who need them most won't be able to live their because they will need hours other than 9-5.  People will them start to leave the DC region if they can.  If they can't be prepared for even more unhappy depressed DC people.  There may also be a lack of people to fill low paying service jobs because they can no longer afford to get into wealthier neighborhoods.  At the same time, you will see stay at home mom's, retirees and others who have higher earning potential trying to get after higher paid jobs, which their won't be enough of due to the increased cost of living (where one income or retirement is no longer enough to stay where they are).  This will create a whole new group of people who will struggle who will no longer have high paying jobs, many of whom will be the sole earner for their household (aka in Arlington many singles, but others too).   You can also expect more traffic and no widening roads never has and never will solve that problem.  

So here is where I'm supposed to mindlessly say something about safety and the so called safety issue?  Well, as far as I'm aware no one has been directly killed by metro in 2016.  That is basically vision zero.  You can't even come close to that statistics for driving (yes, taxis ubers and care shares are driving), cycling, or walking.  So, if you want to scream shut it down until it is safe, you better start with the roads.

Don't be naive.  There are many vested interests that want wmata shut down, including internal forces.  Ever notice how when there is a problem on wmata you are pounded with ads for lyft?