Suddenly, the consequences of earlier planning decisions became apparent. WMATA had been formed with little thought about finances. There was no realistic plan to pay for the system long-term—local officials expected Uncle Sam to bankroll construction and fares to fund operation costs. Other cities have a so-called dedicated revenue stream, money automatically appropriated through taxes. New York gets 35 percent of its funding this way, Boston 47 percent, and Chicago and Atlanta 56 percent. WMATA, by contrast, collects a minuscule 2 percent of its budget through dedicated revenue.
The agency’s leadership thus has to convince competing jurisdictions to appropriate cash from their public coffers each year to help fund day-to-day costs. However, according to former Metro officials, it was hard to get the board excited about routine work. “When you open a new rail station, that’s a very sexy thing,” says Harold Bartlett, a 23-year WMATA veteran who was chief of staff from 1997 to 2006. “But when you [want to] buy a new rail-wheel truing machine that makes the wheels not go clickity-clack on the rail cars, that doesn’t get a lot of attention.”
The board generously supported other parts of WMATA. According to a 2010 report by former Metro GM David Gunn, then a consultant, government funds for the buses doubled and for handicap transit tripled from 2000 to 2009. During the same period, rail funding increased by only 12 percent.
It came down to politics, Gunn says: A board rep might not be able to get a new Metro station in his district—too costly—but could certainly swing a bus stop. “They stripped [funding] out of the rail system, and they had it go to the handicap services or to buses,” he says. “And they did that because those are politically positive things.”
At the same time, board reps began to press for longer service hours—another way to score points with constituents. In 2003, Metrorail pushed back its closing hours to 12 am on weeknights and 3 am on Fridays and Saturdays. That was good news for riders, businesses, and the environment. But it accelerated the infrastructure’s deterioration. The new schedule left less time when Metro was closed and maintenance crews could access the tracks. On weeknights, “you’re talking about three hours of actual work time,” says Aaron Wiggins, a maintenance manager who retired in August after 27 years. “Ain’t a lot you’re going to get done in three hours on a nightly basis. It’s impossible
