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| Re: WMATA Board Approves Fare Hike (534060) | |||
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Re: WMATA Board Approves Fare Hike |
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Posted by Mirai Zikasu on Sat Dec 15 18:07:50 2007, in response to Re: WMATA Board Approves Fare Hike, posted by Forest Glen on Sat Dec 15 13:22:04 2007. The Metro isn't a bad system. I love the Metro. Aesthetically and in theory operation-wise, I would say that it is one of the best of the world. However, that's operation in theory. In reality, more midday trains to Shady Grove do me no good if the one I'm on has malfunctioning doors and is taken out of service at Metro Center. An extension to Largo Town Center is great for the people who live and work out that way, but it does me no good if I'm on a train with 600 commuters in the evening rush hour that is stuck broken down in the Rosslyn Tunnel for an hour. Taking a bus anywhere does me no good if I'm waiting for a bus for 35 minutes that in the end never shows up. Catoe put forth and somehow bamboozled the board into accepting his fare hike.What is the purpose of the fare hike? To balance the budget. No distinct service increases, no promises of improved reliability, and not even nice-sounding lies connecting the fare increase with the future Silver Line. Catoe won't even admit that he's running a dysfunctional system. Every time something goes wrong, it's just "Oops! We'll try better next time, lol!" Then, he and his cronies go about their merry way figuring out how many seats they would have to rip out to squeeze ten more people into each car...while conveniently forgetting that it doesn't matter how many people can fit into a car if it breaks down at a choke point in the system at rush hour thanks to shoddy maintenance. Catoe's only merit thus far has been his commitment to cut costs. However, seeing how he has targeted service (which is nine times out of ten bad to cut) and system aesthetics to do this and yet still needed his precious fare hike to balance the budget, I would say that he has quite thoroughly failed in this as well. Then, he has this mindset where he wants to rip carpet out of railcars, install bench seating, clutter stations with advertising, install supposedly energy-efficient and definitely irritating bug zapper-like lighting as was done at Foggy Bottom-GWU station, follow the trend of the obnoxious, new "STEP BACK DOORS CLOSING!!" messages with frequent and equally obnoxious public service announcements, and overall, downgrading to NYC MTA "ambiance" without caring to upgrade to NYC MTA service. In short, Catoe has done nothing beneficial for Metro and should be thrown out accordingly before he can screw anything else up. Under him, Metro's operations are gilded. The stations and overall ambiance of the system are timelessly brilliant, but ultimately superficial as basic maintenance and operation of the system are piss-poor. Now, if Catoe were to actually get the boot as he should, what would it take to pull Dan Tangherlini away from the Fenty Administration and get him back in charge of Metro? |
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