Letter to the Editor

Metro Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal must be seriously mistaken when she believes that the economy, not the transit agency's fare increases, is responsible for revenue shortfall.  A large portion of Metro riders are federal employees, most of whom receive a large subsidy from the government to commute to work.  And even if the subsidy doesn't cover an entire month's fare, federal employees need not spend much to cover the rest.

While I, along with the rest of the Metro riders, pay for the ride in full.  Many of my fellow private sector employees have started driving or carpooling because the cost of riding Metro no longer outweigh the benefits.  Furthermore, with Metro failing to replace it's ancient 1000-series cars actually makes driving to work a safer alternative.

Furthermore, the national capital region has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.  Almost all financial analysts agree that the DC area was mostly protected from the economic disasters faced by other areas of the country like California.  Finally, tourism to DC is still high, as many families opt to take vacations within the country instead of flying internationally.  Simply put, there is no evidence that the revenue shortfall is a result of the "poor" economy.

Metro fails to understand the basics of economics.  Raising prices is going to decrease demand.  That's exactly what's happening.  Metro needs to start accepting responsibility that their greed has made the system unsustainable.

Michael Soh
Alexandria, VA

Initial Analysis of WMATA salary data

I finally received spreadsheet copies of WMATA salary information.  I’ve spent the past week examining them and trying to understand what all the data means.

If you would like the raw data, please donate.  Once enough funds are raised, I will release them publicly.  The request cost me a little over $200.  However, the analysis that I provide will always be free.

I’m focusing on two areas right now: Metrobus drivers and Metrotrain operators.  There are many positions within the WMATA system, but I’ll be focusing on these two for now.  In light of the highest fare increases in history, I wanted to see how much these operators were making.

Below you’ll find a histogram of how much each train operator gets paid:

Here’s how the data breaks down:

1. Average salary (rounded to the nearest dollar): $60,922
2. Average length of employment: 13.1 years
3. Highest earning operator: $121,042 (working for 31 years)
4. Longest working operator (that’s still employed): 41 years (earning $77,165)
5. Average starting salary: $43,267
6. Average salary after 5 years: $53,603

This raises a lot of questions.  Why do we pay someone over $100K to run a train?!  A starting salary of $43K is acceptable.  Unless a person has intimate knowledge of how to push buttons on Metro, they should either be retired or promoted out of this position.  I say the most that someone should get paid to run the Metro train is $70K, and that’s being very generous.  231 operators would be retired.  If these operators were immediately let go, it would save WMATA at least $10.5 million dollars.  The average salary of these people is $91,561.

Metrobus isn’t any better:

Here’s the data break down:

7. Average salary (rounded to the nearest dollar): $53,023
8. Average length of employment: 9 years
9. Highest earning operator: $117,260 (working for 38 years)
10. Longest working operator (that’s still employed): 46 years (earning $23,010)
11. Average starting salary: $33,943
12. Average salary after 5 years: $51,093

The longest working operator salary seems a bit odd.  I’m not sure why they are getting paid so little compared to the average starting salary.  Nevertheless, the questions still stand: Why do we pay someone over $100K to run a bus?! Starting salary of $33K is acceptable.  The most that bus drivers should be paid is $60K.

Why are we wasting so much money for jobs that requires less training than my job that requires a college degree and various programming skills?  As a public transit system that is funded by taxpayer dollars, we the People should have the right to fire these people.  Unfortunately, ALL of these operators are “protected” by the union.

Don’t let WMATA or any of the politicians fool you: fare increases pay for union salaries, NOT repairs or safety improvements.  Consider the fact that WMATA took out $30 million out of their maintenance fund to pay the deficit in their budget.

A large majority of customers that ride Metro daily are federal workers, many of them receive subsidies to ride the Metro.  Taxpayers like you and me pay for these subsidies.  No surprise that most federal works are unionized under the AFL-CIO.  It's also no surprise that WMATA is run by the Amalgamated Transit Union, which is a part of the AFL-CIO.  And just to be clear, WMATA is NOT a federal agency.  It is a private-public partnership. 

The large reason why very few people actually fight against rate increases is because most of the customers will get a higher subsidy.  They have no incentive to fight.  It would be like McDonald's saying, "We're going to raise the cost of food. But we'll give 90% of you coupons for a free meal everyday for the rest of your life."  When 90% of the customers receive free food, the voice of the 10% is very small.

Despite this, the fact that there is this much corruption should be cause for alarm, primarily because the safety of all customers is in jeopardy.  To further the McDonald's analogy, it would be like McDonald's no longer screening and testing their meat and providing sub-par service.  The problem is compounded because WMATA is practically a monopoly.  Yes, people can drive but it has no competitors to ride on it's rails or it's bus lines.

WMATA needs much better finacial oversight than it receives now.  Every dollar must be tracked and every account watched.  If $30 million that was earmarked for maintenance can be pulled to pay salaries, then none of us are safe.  And ATU union employees end up richer.  The only solice that the public has is that they too must ride on the machines they operate.

WMATA provides records, but with a hitch

Last week, I finally received the records I requested in back in March.  However, WMATA did not provide the proper format.  In my letter, I specifically requested "a format suitable to be viewed in a spreadsheet application. This includes, but is not limited to, Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, XML, or CSV (Comma Separated Values). I will not accept this report as a printed document."  The reports were sent to me in PDF format.

WMATA instituted it's largest ever fare hike, costing Metro riders at least $.30 more per trip.  The excuse this time is "to close a $189 million budget gap for the fiscal year."  This was the same excuse used when Metro proposed an emergancy $.10 fare hike.

On June 10, 2010, the WMATA Board approved the FY2011 budget. From the FY2010 budget, there was a $189 million shortfall.  The changes to the FY2010 budget were as follows:

WMATA finally responds!

After two long months, WMATA has finally replied back with my PARP request.  The good news is that they will fulfill the request.  The bad news is that it's going to cost $208.00.  WMATA denied my request for a fee waiver, which was expected.  Here is their response in it's entirety:

Letter to the Editor

Original letter:

I am disappointed with the Examiner's coverage of WMATA and it's bloated budget.  In today's paper, it reported that over 70% of the comments received by WMATA indicated that they did not want service cuts.  What I believe is missing from the coverage is where is the money currently going.

After WMATA's last 10-cent increase, I started my own investigation.  I found that in 2008, WMATA spent over 77% of it's expenditures on salaries and benefits while only spending 3% on preventative maintenance.  These figures are available to the public via WMATAs web site.  I also found out that the industry with the highest salaries-to-expenditures ratio is the health care, which comes in at 55%.  Since finding this out, I submitted a Public Access to Records request to WMATA, asking for salary information of it's unionized workers.  My guess is that much of the WMATA force is grossly overpaid when compared to the open-market and it's the ATU that is forcing these fare increases.

I only have so much influence as a private citizen.  I've been working on my investigation on my own time for two months, negotiating slowly with WMATA's legal council to release these records.  As a major news outlet, I expected much more from the Examiner.

I am covering my investigation on my website: http://www.mikesoh.com/tag/wmata

All of my figures and facts have been sourced.

Author’s note: This letter was published in an abridged form on April 12, 2010 in the Washington Examiner.

WMATA Follow-Up

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced my "private investigation" of the WMATA system here in Washington, DC.  Initial results were that WMATA was spending more than 75% on salaries, which seems awfully high considering that they have one of the worst safety records. Only 3% of their expenditures account for "preventive maintenance."

As a result of this, I sent WMATA's legal counsel a Public Access to Records Policy request, which is similar to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Here is the e-mail I received this morning:

Why does WMATA increase fares?

Like most people who live in the National Capital Region (NCR), I use the WMATA Metro system to get to work.  Over the last two years, WMATA has increased fares at least 3 times:

• Jan 6, 2008: Fare are increased for the first time since 2004.  The average increase is about $0.50


• Jun 28, 2009: Bus fares are increased by $0.10 on average


• Feb 28, 2010: Fares are "temporarily increased" by $0.10 on average

There are other fares that were increased but were not included.  Service was also trimmed several times in the last two years.

WMATA, unlike most other subway systems, does not have any dedicated funding from local governments.  Ignoring the fact that they get money from the federal, VA, MD, and DC government every year, the fact is that there is no law saying that these agencies will fund WMATA.  WMATA likes to bring this up every so often to remind people that this is why cuts must be made and fares should increase.

I say bull.