{"id":4132,"date":"2021-01-02T21:37:40","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T21:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4132"},"modified":"2021-01-02T21:37:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T21:37:40","slug":"the-head-of-d-c-s-long-troubled-metro-system-says-another-federal-bailout-is-needed-to-stave-off-apocalyptic-service-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4132","title":{"rendered":"The Head of D.C.&#8217;s Long-Troubled Metro System Says Another Federal Bailout Is Needed To Stave Off Apocalyptic Service Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\n\n&#8220;Over the past month, rail ridership on Metro&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmata.com\/service\/covid19\/covid-19-public-information.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has been down<\/a>&nbsp;around 80 to 90 percent of where it was at this point last year. Bus ridership was down by about 50 to 60 percent on weekdays, and down about 30 percent on weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even before coronavirus,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmata.com\/initiatives\/ridership-portal\/Rail-Data-Portal.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">transit ridership<\/a>&nbsp;in the D.C. area has been well-below its peak thanks to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/publications\/policy-analysis\/coming-transit-apocalypse#:~:text=The%20%E2%80%9CFour%20Horsemen%20of%20the%20Transit%20Apocalypse%E2%80%9D&amp;text=These%20%E2%80%9CFour%20Horsemen%20of%20the,such%20services%20using%20driverless%20vehicles.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">number of factors<\/a>, from falling costs of driving to the deteriorating quality of public transit itself, not to mention the rise of alternatives like ridesharing and microtransit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea of such drastic service cuts has already provoked D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to call for additional federal aid.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-wordpress wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-reason-com\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"NrqaVWqUxC\"><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2020\/12\/01\/the-head-of-d-c-s-long-troubled-metro-system-says-another-federal-bailout-is-needed-to-stave-off-apocalyptic-service-cuts\/\">The Head of D.C.&#8217;s Long-Troubled Metro System Says Another Federal Bailout Is Needed To Stave Off Apocalyptic Service Cuts<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;The Head of D.C.&#039;s Long-Troubled Metro System Says Another Federal Bailout Is Needed To Stave Off Apocalyptic Service Cuts&#8221; &#8212; Reason.com\" src=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2020\/12\/01\/the-head-of-d-c-s-long-troubled-metro-system-says-another-federal-bailout-is-needed-to-stave-off-apocalyptic-service-cuts\/embed\/#?secret=pO1WvKI3ZY#?secret=NrqaVWqUxC\" data-secret=\"NrqaVWqUxC\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Over the past month, rail ridership on Metro has been down around 80 to 90 percent of where it was at this point last year. Bus ridership was down by about 50 to 60 percent on weekdays, and down about 30 percent on weekends.<\/p>\n<p>Even before coronavirus, transit ridership in the D.C. area has been well-below its peak thanks to a number of factors, from falling costs of driving to the deteriorating quality of public transit itself, not to mention the rise of alternatives like ridesharing and microtransit.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of such drastic service cuts has already provoked D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to call for additional federal aid.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4133,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions\/4133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}