It looks like Metro is going to let those in the suburbs bear the brunt of the fare increases to make up its budget deficit. District representatives on the board don’t think that their constituents should have to pay more than a ten-cent increase to ride the bus.

It’s just more of the same.

Pitting one group against the other. The thing to consider is that many of those “rich people” living in the suburbs have the option to drive in to work rather than taking Metro. The maximum fare for the riding rail (suburban commuters) would go up to $4.70, a 21% increase. Parking fees could rise by 25-30%, but bus fares either won’t go up at all (for those using SmarTrip cards) or a mere 8%. The idea that all those commuters living in the suburbs have enough extra income to absorb any increase is absurd.

There are more than a few pockets of lower-income residents living in Maryland and Virginia. Not all of them can afford a $4-million dollar row house in Georgetown or an $800,000 condo in Logan’s Circle.

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They can’t all afford to spend $200,000 on a shell of a town house in Shaw when it will cost another $300,000 to make it livable. The Metro system, including the buses and the trains, was built for everyone’s use. It was and is funded by taxpayers. It has become a political toy for too many. Buses are already the most highly subsidized item in Metro’s budget, and this move will only make matters worse.It’s time everyone shared in the burden of funding Metro equally.

The easiest way to do it would be a dedicated funding source.

The source of electricity is something to consider, especially since our Metro rail system uses so much of it. We must make sure that trading one form of pollution (emissions from automobiles and trucks) for another in the name of public transportation or alternatives like electric-powered vehicles doesn’t just move the problem elsewhere. Don’t forget that a large amount of the pollution in our region is not home-grown but rather comes from plants and factories in the Ohio Valley on the jetstream.