Steve Eldridge, The Examiner
2007-10-10 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

Some congratulations and kudos go out today to a couple of locals. David Gunn, who ran our Metro system for several years and the New York City transit system, and who was the president of Amtrak during some of the system’s most trying years, has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the American Public Transportation Association. Mr. Gunn was, by anyone’s measure, a straight shooter: He told you how he felt about things and didn’t sugarcoat it. I asked him once in his Union Station office at Amtrak whatever he might be interested in coming back to Metro. He said he didn’t think the board would like what he had to say. He kept in his office a large piece of electric conduit with a burned end. When asked why he would keep something so unattractive in such a nice office, he said it was to remind him of how the little things can shut down an entire system. A short in that piece of wiring shut down a portion of the Northeast Corridor’s train system for the better part of a day.

The other group that deserves some congratulations is the communications staff at Metro. The system’s Web site has been given high honors by a transit publication. More Riders Magazine gives Metro’s Web site a gold star and named it one of the top five of 125 transit Web sites in the nation. Metro’s Web site has grown from 1 million page views in 1999 to 27 million page views last month. The system says the most popular feature on the Web site continues to be the Trip Planner, which we have applauded on several occasions in this space.

Lacking logic

Phil writes in response to the discussion by Metro’s Washington representatives to substantially increase fees at the system’s parking lots: “Let me see if I’ve got this right. ... Government wants to continue to encourage transit ridership to help improve traffic congestion, so they’re considering major increases in parking fees at Metro lots so they’re closer to parking rates at commercial lots. ... Would it surprise anyone if many more people started driving all the way to their offices in response? And who said those of us who must drive to reach a Metro station should be singled out for a larger increase than other riders? Where's the logic of all this?”

To paraphrase George Bailey from “It’s a Wonderful Life”: It just doesn’t make any sense at all, does it Mary?