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There are a lot of comments here about why public transit in the DC area doesn't work, but nobody that I've seen has put their finger on it. The biggest issue

There are a lot of comments here about why public transit in the DC area doesn't work, but nobody that I've seen has put their finger on it. The biggest issue is that the area covers two states, at least ten counties depending on what you count as the “DC area”, plus the District of Columbia, which isn't a state, doesn't have control over its own budget, and has no representation in Congress. Oh, and in Virginia cities are not part of counties so for instance Arlington is it’s own political entity. Plus DC doesn't have control over a large part of its own tax base because the biggest landholder in the city is the federal government, which is exempt from local property taxes. And because unlike everywhere else in the US DC workers who live in Virginia or Maryland don't pay DC taxes, because the Virginia and Maryland Congressional delegations have warped the DC tax code such that all that money stays in their own states. Any area-wide public transit project thus has to politically negotiate two Congressional delegations, one city that is in theory represented by the entirety of Congress, and 10+ local governments, any of which effectively has veto power over a project; and the primary beneficiary of the project, DC, is de facto not going contribute financially in proportion to how much it benefits because it’s budget won't allow it to do so. Similarities to e.g. Hong Kong or Europe fail on those grounds. DC area public transit fails because the DC area is a living example of how federalism fails.

seventytwo 5y ago
Sounds like DC needs to be made a state.
- SllX 5y ago
  Better: retroceded back into Maryland.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  The whole point of DC was that it won't be in any state. That was the sole reasoning for creating those 100 square miles. Maryland could take back it's half like Virginia did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_retrocession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_retrocess... , but creating a state out of a piece of land specifically designated as non-state doesn't make sense.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > creating a state out of a piece of land specifically designated as non-state doesn't make sense I mean, neither does creating a large metropolitan area with no representation after just winning a war over not having representation. Here we are, though.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - justapassenger 5y ago
    That’s not a reasonable argument for any position. Just because few hundred years ago something was designed differently isn’t a reason not to change it.
    - SllX 5y ago
      Well the parent proposed something perfectly reasonable: retrocession back into Maryland. This would wholly resolve their lack of Congressional representation and Maryland would gain a House seat, or maybe two if they were already on the threshold for another.
      - snowwrestler 5y ago
        DC can’t force MD to take them back, and neither can the federal govt. And MD doesn’t want them. Reasonable or not, it’s a no-go.
        stjohnswarts 5y ago
        It's absolutely a no-go. The constitution says that the seat of the US government will not be a US state to prevent favoritism for said state. There are some pitches for greatly reducing "Washington DC" down to the smallest possible constitutionally allowed area, but I don't see that happening. Republicans will not allow another Democratic state into the union anytime soon.
        SllX 5y ago
- nradov 5y ago
  A better option would be to cede most of the residential and commercial areas of DC to surrounding states. Just keep a few blocks containing the key federal government buildings, parks, monuments, and museums.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    That's not a better option. VA and MD don't want that. The people in DC don't want that. The people in DC want to be a state. That's what matters. We're far removed from it historically, but this country was created by groups of people coming together to decide they want to form a state and then joining up with other states. It's literally right there in the name: United States. It's kind of, like, our whole deal as a country.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      Have the people considered moving?
      - imgabe 5y ago
        They already live in the US. They shouldn't have to move anywhere to exercise their rights as US citizens.
        R0b0t1 5y ago
        They're already able to exercise their rights. As they don't live in a state they don't get to vote in state elections. The land was set aside for federal use, living in it and then complaining you don't live in a state seems insane.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > The land was set aside for federal use, living in it and then complaining you don't live in a state seems insane. Kind of like complaining about not getting a vote on taxes imposed on you when you choose to live in North American colonies rather than Britain proper. Whiners. Also note that US citizens who live overseas can vote in state elections for federal office under federal law (and in most states can also do so for local/state offices under state law.) Inside the US but not within the boundaries of a state is the only place US citizens are systematically disenfranchised by geography.
fallingknife 5y ago
> And because unlike everywhere else in the US DC workers who live in Virginia or Maryland don't pay DC taxes I don't think that's the case. In my experience as a remote worker you always pay where you live, not where you work.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- loeg 5y ago
  > you always pay where you live, not where you work. There are exceptions to that rule of thumb. E.g., NY taxes workers who live out of state.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- panopticon 5y ago
  There are a patchwork of state laws (reciprocity agreements, the "convenience rule", etc) and other caveats that don't make this universally true, but generally you pay taxes to (1) the state you you work in and (2) the state you live in. Note that #1 means the location where the work is being performed--not where the employer is located. So if you commute interstate for your job, you'll sometimes find yourself filing income tax forms for multiple states.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- mperham 5y ago
  Oregon requires commuting workers who live across the Columbia River in Washington to pay income tax.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Your experience may betray you _because_ you work remotely. The state you live in is the state you work in, because you work from home. If you work and live in two states, they will both do their best to get a cut of your paycheck.
QuarterReptile 5y ago
This may be an explanation for why the metro isn't better in DC, but not the source of the area's problems. Outside the city, most of the area is set up below the intensity of viable urban fabric and is entirely focused on cars. In that system, transit is just an attempt to set up satellite traffic jams where people then spend extra time commuting afterward. You can't have successful transit while favoring cars. And if people cant get around at both the origin and destination of the trip without a car, then it's a system designed for cars.
- GlenTheMachine 5y ago
  That's because in order for public transit to work it has to cover the place the people work. Which is mostly in DC. Virginia isn't going to pay for public transit in DC. Maryland isn't going to pay for public transit in DC. Whereas what they will absolutely do is pay for roads in their own states. And DC can’t pay for public transit in DC because it’s tax base isn’t big enough. It isn't so much “favoring cars” as it is favoring tax money staying local, which is defined very oddly in the DC area. It's sort of miraculous that the DC Metro exists at all, tbh.
  - tmnvix 5y ago
    > And DC can’t pay for public transit in DC because it’s tax base isn’t big enough. How does DC pay for roads?
    - nradov 5y ago
      Congress allocates funds for roads and other infrastructure in DC.
      - GlenTheMachine 5y ago
        Note, also, that DC roads are in terrible shape. The Beltway survives because none of it is actually in DC.
  - javagram 5y ago
pirate787 5y ago
Arlington VA is a county, not a city, and has the land area and tax base of a county. Indeed Arlington is perhaps the most successful build out of mass transit in a community in the United States in the last 30 years. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/arlington-virginia-more-evidence-that-growth-can-be-green/243757/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/arlingt... Also the DC metro system is in fact organized across state lines and receives generous federal subsidies....DC Metro spends $4.7 billion a year. There's also interstate light rail from MD and VA to DC that's billions more. There are probably few cities in the world that have public transport more heavily subsidized than DC. Commuter income tax reciprocity in DC metro is no different than most other regions. The primary issue this week is that this section of Virginia rarely sees snowstorms of this magnitude and further most DC residents have no idea how to drive in it (or know when to stay home).
- GlenTheMachine 5y ago
  “ Commuter income tax reciprocity in DC metro is no different than most other regions.” I hesitate to publish studies from think tanks with explicit political leanings on HN, but Brookings has the most cogent summary I can find of why this is incorrect. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chapter_1.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chapter...
- GVIrish 5y ago
  > The primary issue this week is that this section of Virginia rarely sees snowstorms of this magnitude and further most DC residents have no idea how to drive in it (or know when to stay home). That's not really it. We get snowstorms of this size once every 2 or 3 years, sometimes more. The problem is that somehow they didn't keep up with plowing and salting on that stretch of I-95, and that led to back-ups, and once that happened, there was no way to prevent ice from forming on the road. An exacerbating factor was that it was raining before the snow event, so they weren't able to pre-salt/brine the roads. Notice that the major traffic jam was on I-95 South outside of the beltway, it wasn't on the outer loop, inside DC, or in Maryland even though the storm blanketed the area.
  - 5y ago
peterburkimsher 5y ago
Geneva is a special case of cross-border agreements in Europe. The Swiss public transport (TPG) bus service made a bilateral agreement with the French authorities to set up a cross-border bus. A tram service is being built too, next to CERN. It can be done. Possibly as a result of that, the bus ticket machines now accept Euros and Swiss Francs, even on the Swiss side. Quite how this works financially is remarkable to me. Is diplomacy difficult? Of course! Does it take time? Yes! And were there many compromises? Absolutely. But even the little bit that did get finished is very heavily used, and has brought great economic, social, and environmental improvements to the Pays de Gex. So take heart, it can be done.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > Possibly as a result of that, the bus ticket machines now accept Euros and Swiss Francs, even on the Swiss side. Quite how this works financially is remarkable to me. Legal tender is a currency that has to be accepted (and returns given in) by all merchants in a jurisdictional area. There is no law that prevents merchants from accepting payment in other currencies, which was why the good old Deutsche Mark was widespread in former Yugoslavia and the US Dollar is accepted in a lot of countries without a stable currency or somewhat sane politics, or even outdated currencies - the Deutsche Mark is still convertible at the German Federal Bank, and retailers have been known to run "pay with D-Mark" offerings for ages. If you were referring on the financial workings of the bus line itself, that one is considered a non-issue in Europe - we are a densely packed continent and there are lots of cross-border transportation networks. Usually, operators count how many people use which segments of a line and divide operating expenses, profit/loss and public subsidies by the actual share of passenger-kilometers.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    >Legal tender is a currency that has to be accepted (and returns given in) by all merchants in a jurisdictional area. Perhaps digitally? I see a lot of businesses that no longer accept cash in physical locations.
  - cipheredStones 5y ago
imgabe 5y ago
I lived in the DC area for 20 years (1999-2019) and commuted daily on the Metro for many of those years. The things you say are true, but they were also true 15-20 years ago when the Metro was leaps and bounds better than it is today. They were true in the 1970s when the Metro was first built. So it can't be the whole story. There's much more to it. It's not just that the Metro is bad, it's that it keeps getting worse and worse. There's decades of deferred maintenance. This is probably due to funding problems because of what you're talking about, but the Metro is in a hole that it might not be able to dig itself out of unless someone takes it seriously and commits a lot of money and effort. The WMATA is incompetent. I don't know how else to put it. Like, why are you even running 6-car trains at all during rush hour? The system is treated like a jobs program to give make-work jobs for people who would otherwise be unemployed. I'm sure some of the workers are dedicated and care, but many don't seem to. Try asking a station attendant to use the bathroom that's supposed to be publicly available and watch the annoyance that you have dared to inconvenience them. The collision in 2009 caused them to switch to manual braking and they just...never switched back. Whatever problem there was with the automatic braking system, they decided to just give up on it instead of fixing it. It's minor, but it slows things down. It's not like public transit in DC is impossible. It used to work, if not perfectly, much much better than it does today. DC needs to be a state. It's unconscionable that it isn't and the rights of 680,000+ US citizens are ignored because it isn't politically expedient to give them the representation they're due. That would help a lot. DC could control its own budget and negotiate on equal footing with MD and VA.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  DC shouldn't be a state, it would give that "state" too much power and also make politicians there outsized politically powerful and we have enough of that already with states like rhode island, wyoming, and the dakotas
  - Bud 5y ago
    - 5y ago
lettergram 5y ago
The question people need to ask are that the government spends the entire net worth of Apple x3 a year. Where does it go? The US rebuilt Iraq, rebuilt Afghanistan, etc. it’s corruption. That said, the issue in this case isn’t any of that. It’s that we didn’t have enough snow plows in those areas for what ever reason. I’ve taken the dc metro. It’s easy to do, works great. Don’t really get the complaints. Sure it could be expanded. But this was a highway. Issue here is lack of proper planning. By the drivers and the state.
- imgabe 5y ago
  > I’ve taken the dc metro. It’s easy to do, works great. Don’t really get the complaints. The metro is great for tourists. If you're relying on it to get to work every day it's a different story.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
asiachick 5y ago
Japan, often considered to have some of the best public transportation in the world, privatized their "public" transportation in the 1970s. They seem to have setup the incentives so for the most part it works. Train companies own land/real-estate around each station. They open grocery stores, shopping centers, office buildings, hotels at many of their own stations. This seems to lead to a virtuous cycle. It's in their best interest to get people to use their trains. Further, there's at least some competition as there are often 2-4 paths to get from one place to another. For example, you can go from Shibuya to Yokohama either by JR East or by Tokyu (different companies). You can go from Tokyo to Yokohama either via JR East or by Keikyu (again, different companies). You can go from Osaka to Kyoto either by JR West or by Hankyu. You can get from Ogikubo to Shinjuku either by Eiden or JR East. You can get to Haneda airport by Tokyo Monorail, or Keikyu. You can get to Narita by JR or by Keisei and for both of those there's a regular, and an express. I'm sure it's not perfect but it's arguably better than many public transportation systems where the politicians underfund things and have hardly any incentive to make each station as useful and nice as possible. The point is, there are other solutions than DC area has to have government run the transportation and all the problems come with that, at least in the USA. Of course you have to get the incentives right. Get them wrong and it will probably be just as bad.
- tallanvor 5y ago
  Tokyo Metro is the second largest system in Tokyo by passenger count, and it's jointly owned by the national government and the Tokyo government. Toei is the 4th largest in Tokyo, and it's fully owned by the Tokyo government, and there are others outside of Tokyo that are also publicly owned. So I'd say that while private train companies has partially worked, they certainly haven't been able to rely on private companies completely.
  - asiachick 5y ago
    You can frame this many ways. #1 it's second, not first. #2 there are at least 10 different train/subway companies in Tokyo so it's 1 of 10 (JR, Eiden, Toei, Tokyu, Keisei, Keikyu, Keio, Odakyu, Tobu, Seibu) #3 the government gets to pick the best spots via eminent domain #4 lots of conflict of interest when government, via #3, decides who gets what #5 It's not just Tokyo. Other big Japanese cities also have multiple train companies. Kyoto has at least 4 (JR West, Hankyu, Keihan, Keifuku), I'm sure Osaka has several too (haven't spent as much time there so not as familar) #6 The fact that the gov trains exist does not in any way suggest that they couldn't rely on private companies completely, especially given the 9 other companies doing just fine
7952 5y ago
I am starting to wonder if administrative boundaries should be drawn to match transport catchments instead of historical artifacts.
lapalmian 5y ago
The Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg spans two states in a federal country. It is managed by the two states, counties and cities. You have common tarificiation, so you can switch easily between different modes and counties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkehrsverbund_Berlin-Brandenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkehrsverbund_Berlin-Branden...
stuaxo 5y ago
In the UK they solved this for the north of England by making an organisation to cover the area and deal with all stakeholders. The current Johnson govt didn't like this so decided not to continue with it.
MrMan 5y ago
this article has little to do with public transport or DC

seventytwo 5y ago

Sounds like DC needs to be made a state.

SllX 5y ago
Better: retroceded back into Maryland.
flavius29663 5y ago
The whole point of DC was that it won't be in any state. That was the sole reasoning for creating those 100 square miles. Maryland could take back it's half like Virginia did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_retrocession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_retrocess... , but creating a state out of a piece of land specifically designated as non-state doesn't make sense.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > creating a state out of a piece of land specifically designated as non-state doesn't make sense I mean, neither does creating a large metropolitan area with no representation after just winning a war over not having representation. Here we are, though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- justapassenger 5y ago
  That’s not a reasonable argument for any position. Just because few hundred years ago something was designed differently isn’t a reason not to change it.
  - SllX 5y ago
    Well the parent proposed something perfectly reasonable: retrocession back into Maryland. This would wholly resolve their lack of Congressional representation and Maryland would gain a House seat, or maybe two if they were already on the threshold for another.
    - snowwrestler 5y ago
      DC can’t force MD to take them back, and neither can the federal govt. And MD doesn’t want them. Reasonable or not, it’s a no-go.
      - stjohnswarts 5y ago
        It's absolutely a no-go. The constitution says that the seat of the US government will not be a US state to prevent favoritism for said state. There are some pitches for greatly reducing "Washington DC" down to the smallest possible constitutionally allowed area, but I don't see that happening. Republicans will not allow another Democratic state into the union anytime soon.
      - SllX 5y ago
nradov 5y ago
A better option would be to cede most of the residential and commercial areas of DC to surrounding states. Just keep a few blocks containing the key federal government buildings, parks, monuments, and museums.
- imgabe 5y ago
  That's not a better option. VA and MD don't want that. The people in DC don't want that. The people in DC want to be a state. That's what matters. We're far removed from it historically, but this country was created by groups of people coming together to decide they want to form a state and then joining up with other states. It's literally right there in the name: United States. It's kind of, like, our whole deal as a country.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    Have the people considered moving?
    - imgabe 5y ago
      They already live in the US. They shouldn't have to move anywhere to exercise their rights as US citizens.
      - R0b0t1 5y ago
        They're already able to exercise their rights. As they don't live in a state they don't get to vote in state elections. The land was set aside for federal use, living in it and then complaining you don't live in a state seems insane.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > The land was set aside for federal use, living in it and then complaining you don't live in a state seems insane. Kind of like complaining about not getting a vote on taxes imposed on you when you choose to live in North American colonies rather than Britain proper. Whiners. Also note that US citizens who live overseas can vote in state elections for federal office under federal law (and in most states can also do so for local/state offices under state law.) Inside the US but not within the boundaries of a state is the only place US citizens are systematically disenfranchised by geography.

fallingknife 5y ago

> And because unlike everywhere else in the US DC workers who live in Virginia or Maryland don't pay DC taxes I don't think that's the case. In my experience as a remote worker you always pay where you live, not where you work.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
loeg 5y ago
> you always pay where you live, not where you work. There are exceptions to that rule of thumb. E.g., NY taxes workers who live out of state.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
panopticon 5y ago
There are a patchwork of state laws (reciprocity agreements, the "convenience rule", etc) and other caveats that don't make this universally true, but generally you pay taxes to (1) the state you you work in and (2) the state you live in. Note that #1 means the location where the work is being performed--not where the employer is located. So if you commute interstate for your job, you'll sometimes find yourself filing income tax forms for multiple states.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mperham 5y ago
Oregon requires commuting workers who live across the Columbia River in Washington to pay income tax.
dahfizz 5y ago
Your experience may betray you _because_ you work remotely. The state you live in is the state you work in, because you work from home. If you work and live in two states, they will both do their best to get a cut of your paycheck.

QuarterReptile 5y ago

This may be an explanation for why the metro isn't better in DC, but not the source of the area's problems. Outside the city, most of the area is set up below the intensity of viable urban fabric and is entirely focused on cars. In that system, transit is just an attempt to set up satellite traffic jams where people then spend extra time commuting afterward. You can't have successful transit while favoring cars. And if people cant get around at both the origin and destination of the trip without a car, then it's a system designed for cars.

GlenTheMachine 5y ago
That's because in order for public transit to work it has to cover the place the people work. Which is mostly in DC. Virginia isn't going to pay for public transit in DC. Maryland isn't going to pay for public transit in DC. Whereas what they will absolutely do is pay for roads in their own states. And DC can’t pay for public transit in DC because it’s tax base isn’t big enough. It isn't so much “favoring cars” as it is favoring tax money staying local, which is defined very oddly in the DC area. It's sort of miraculous that the DC Metro exists at all, tbh.
- tmnvix 5y ago
  > And DC can’t pay for public transit in DC because it’s tax base isn’t big enough. How does DC pay for roads?
  - nradov 5y ago
    Congress allocates funds for roads and other infrastructure in DC.
    - GlenTheMachine 5y ago
      Note, also, that DC roads are in terrible shape. The Beltway survives because none of it is actually in DC.
- javagram 5y ago

pirate787 5y ago

Arlington VA is a county, not a city, and has the land area and tax base of a county. Indeed Arlington is perhaps the most successful build out of mass transit in a community in the United States in the last 30 years. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/arlington-virginia-more-evidence-that-growth-can-be-green/243757/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/arlingt... Also the DC metro system is in fact organized across state lines and receives generous federal subsidies....DC Metro spends $4.7 billion a year. There's also interstate light rail from MD and VA to DC that's billions more. There are probably few cities in the world that have public transport more heavily subsidized than DC. Commuter income tax reciprocity in DC metro is no different than most other regions. The primary issue this week is that this section of Virginia rarely sees snowstorms of this magnitude and further most DC residents have no idea how to drive in it (or know when to stay home).

GlenTheMachine 5y ago
“ Commuter income tax reciprocity in DC metro is no different than most other regions.” I hesitate to publish studies from think tanks with explicit political leanings on HN, but Brookings has the most cogent summary I can find of why this is incorrect. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chapter_1.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chapter...
GVIrish 5y ago
> The primary issue this week is that this section of Virginia rarely sees snowstorms of this magnitude and further most DC residents have no idea how to drive in it (or know when to stay home). That's not really it. We get snowstorms of this size once every 2 or 3 years, sometimes more. The problem is that somehow they didn't keep up with plowing and salting on that stretch of I-95, and that led to back-ups, and once that happened, there was no way to prevent ice from forming on the road. An exacerbating factor was that it was raining before the snow event, so they weren't able to pre-salt/brine the roads. Notice that the major traffic jam was on I-95 South outside of the beltway, it wasn't on the outer loop, inside DC, or in Maryland even though the storm blanketed the area.
- 5y ago

peterburkimsher 5y ago

Geneva is a special case of cross-border agreements in Europe. The Swiss public transport (TPG) bus service made a bilateral agreement with the French authorities to set up a cross-border bus. A tram service is being built too, next to CERN. It can be done. Possibly as a result of that, the bus ticket machines now accept Euros and Swiss Francs, even on the Swiss side. Quite how this works financially is remarkable to me. Is diplomacy difficult? Of course! Does it take time? Yes! And were there many compromises? Absolutely. But even the little bit that did get finished is very heavily used, and has brought great economic, social, and environmental improvements to the Pays de Gex. So take heart, it can be done.

mschuster91 5y ago
> Possibly as a result of that, the bus ticket machines now accept Euros and Swiss Francs, even on the Swiss side. Quite how this works financially is remarkable to me. Legal tender is a currency that has to be accepted (and returns given in) by all merchants in a jurisdictional area. There is no law that prevents merchants from accepting payment in other currencies, which was why the good old Deutsche Mark was widespread in former Yugoslavia and the US Dollar is accepted in a lot of countries without a stable currency or somewhat sane politics, or even outdated currencies - the Deutsche Mark is still convertible at the German Federal Bank, and retailers have been known to run "pay with D-Mark" offerings for ages. If you were referring on the financial workings of the bus line itself, that one is considered a non-issue in Europe - we are a densely packed continent and there are lots of cross-border transportation networks. Usually, operators count how many people use which segments of a line and divide operating expenses, profit/loss and public subsidies by the actual share of passenger-kilometers.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  >Legal tender is a currency that has to be accepted (and returns given in) by all merchants in a jurisdictional area. Perhaps digitally? I see a lot of businesses that no longer accept cash in physical locations.
- cipheredStones 5y ago

imgabe 5y ago

I lived in the DC area for 20 years (1999-2019) and commuted daily on the Metro for many of those years. The things you say are true, but they were also true 15-20 years ago when the Metro was leaps and bounds better than it is today. They were true in the 1970s when the Metro was first built. So it can't be the whole story. There's much more to it. It's not just that the Metro is bad, it's that it keeps getting worse and worse. There's decades of deferred maintenance. This is probably due to funding problems because of what you're talking about, but the Metro is in a hole that it might not be able to dig itself out of unless someone takes it seriously and commits a lot of money and effort. The WMATA is incompetent. I don't know how else to put it. Like, why are you even running 6-car trains at all during rush hour? The system is treated like a jobs program to give make-work jobs for people who would otherwise be unemployed. I'm sure some of the workers are dedicated and care, but many don't seem to. Try asking a station attendant to use the bathroom that's supposed to be publicly available and watch the annoyance that you have dared to inconvenience them. The collision in 2009 caused them to switch to manual braking and they just...never switched back. Whatever problem there was with the automatic braking system, they decided to just give up on it instead of fixing it. It's minor, but it slows things down. It's not like public transit in DC is impossible. It used to work, if not perfectly, much much better than it does today. DC needs to be a state. It's unconscionable that it isn't and the rights of 680,000+ US citizens are ignored because it isn't politically expedient to give them the representation they're due. That would help a lot. DC could control its own budget and negotiate on equal footing with MD and VA.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
DC shouldn't be a state, it would give that "state" too much power and also make politicians there outsized politically powerful and we have enough of that already with states like rhode island, wyoming, and the dakotas
- Bud 5y ago
  - 5y ago

lettergram 5y ago

The question people need to ask are that the government spends the entire net worth of Apple x3 a year. Where does it go? The US rebuilt Iraq, rebuilt Afghanistan, etc. it’s corruption. That said, the issue in this case isn’t any of that. It’s that we didn’t have enough snow plows in those areas for what ever reason. I’ve taken the dc metro. It’s easy to do, works great. Don’t really get the complaints. Sure it could be expanded. But this was a highway. Issue here is lack of proper planning. By the drivers and the state.

imgabe 5y ago
> I’ve taken the dc metro. It’s easy to do, works great. Don’t really get the complaints. The metro is great for tourists. If you're relying on it to get to work every day it's a different story.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

asiachick 5y ago

Japan, often considered to have some of the best public transportation in the world, privatized their "public" transportation in the 1970s. They seem to have setup the incentives so for the most part it works. Train companies own land/real-estate around each station. They open grocery stores, shopping centers, office buildings, hotels at many of their own stations. This seems to lead to a virtuous cycle. It's in their best interest to get people to use their trains. Further, there's at least some competition as there are often 2-4 paths to get from one place to another. For example, you can go from Shibuya to Yokohama either by JR East or by Tokyu (different companies). You can go from Tokyo to Yokohama either via JR East or by Keikyu (again, different companies). You can go from Osaka to Kyoto either by JR West or by Hankyu. You can get from Ogikubo to Shinjuku either by Eiden or JR East. You can get to Haneda airport by Tokyo Monorail, or Keikyu. You can get to Narita by JR or by Keisei and for both of those there's a regular, and an express. I'm sure it's not perfect but it's arguably better than many public transportation systems where the politicians underfund things and have hardly any incentive to make each station as useful and nice as possible. The point is, there are other solutions than DC area has to have government run the transportation and all the problems come with that, at least in the USA. Of course you have to get the incentives right. Get them wrong and it will probably be just as bad.

tallanvor 5y ago
Tokyo Metro is the second largest system in Tokyo by passenger count, and it's jointly owned by the national government and the Tokyo government. Toei is the 4th largest in Tokyo, and it's fully owned by the Tokyo government, and there are others outside of Tokyo that are also publicly owned. So I'd say that while private train companies has partially worked, they certainly haven't been able to rely on private companies completely.
- asiachick 5y ago
  You can frame this many ways. #1 it's second, not first. #2 there are at least 10 different train/subway companies in Tokyo so it's 1 of 10 (JR, Eiden, Toei, Tokyu, Keisei, Keikyu, Keio, Odakyu, Tobu, Seibu) #3 the government gets to pick the best spots via eminent domain #4 lots of conflict of interest when government, via #3, decides who gets what #5 It's not just Tokyo. Other big Japanese cities also have multiple train companies. Kyoto has at least 4 (JR West, Hankyu, Keihan, Keifuku), I'm sure Osaka has several too (haven't spent as much time there so not as familar) #6 The fact that the gov trains exist does not in any way suggest that they couldn't rely on private companies completely, especially given the 9 other companies doing just fine

7952 5y ago

I am starting to wonder if administrative boundaries should be drawn to match transport catchments instead of historical artifacts.

lapalmian 5y ago

The Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg spans two states in a federal country. It is managed by the two states, counties and cities. You have common tarificiation, so you can switch easily between different modes and counties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkehrsverbund_Berlin-Brandenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkehrsverbund_Berlin-Branden...

stuaxo 5y ago

In the UK they solved this for the north of England by making an organisation to cover the area and deal with all stakeholders. The current Johnson govt didn't like this so decided not to continue with it.

MrMan 5y ago

this article has little to do with public transport or DC