A particularly bleak budget prediction is forcing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to consider plans involving longer train waits, Metro station closures, and eliminating many bus routes, the Washington Post reported.

WMATA’s worst-case scenario plans, built on an assumption of no increase in funding from D.C., Maryland and Virginia, include layoffs of nearly 5,000 employees, closing 20-25 rail stations either permanently or on weekends, and closing stations at 9 p.m. WMATA said all but 37 Metrobus routes are also on the cutting board.

Additionally, Metro would cut back on plans to purchase new electric buses and rail cars to replace some of its outdated fleet.

The proposed cuts are coming just as Alexandria finally got its Potomac Yard Metro station open.

The dire budget would save $300 million but still doesn’t fully cover the $750 million budget shortfall.

The Washington Post noted that similar cuts were proposed in 2020, but a federal aid package helped keep the transit system afloat through the pandemic. Still, that $2.4 billion in federal aid runs out this year.

While Metro is still the most popular form of public transit in the region, ridership is still only half what it was pre-pandemic. Increased telework, in particular, has been a blow to Metro ridership.

Share the news! Yesterday, Metrorail Ⓜ️ ridership was about 318,000 trips, beating the previous pandemic-era high ridership day of 312,500 on October 12, 2022. #wmata pic.twitter.com/7WTlc52qsU

— Metro Forward (@wmata) March 2, 2023

Shuttles are running between the Potomac Yard Metro station and National Airport Metro station after a derailment this morning.

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) said there were no injuries in the derailment and shuttles are ferrying passengers between the stations.

Approximately 50 passengers were on the train when it was derailed and have been transferred via shuttle to another train, WMATA said.

WMATA said crews are currently performing track inspections ahead of single tracking rail service in the area.

Update: Due to a derailed train, service remains suspended between Potomac Yard and National Airport. There are no injuries. Shuttle buses are operating between the two stations to connect to additional service. #wmata

— Metro Forward (@wmata) September 29, 2023

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced yesterday that Virginia Tech students at the new Potomac Yard-adjacent campus will get unlimited metro trips at a significant discount.

WMATA said Virginia Tech is being added to the transit network’s “U-Pass Program.” The program is included in the cost of attendance at schools for around $1 per day.

According to the release:

Virginia Tech joins a growing list of colleges and universities enrolled in the program that provides full-time students unlimited trips on Metrorail and Metrobus during the academic year at a significant discount.

The program will give students convenient, affordable transit options and coincides with Virginia Tech’s expansion in the region with the future Innovation Campus expected to open in 2024 next to Metro’s new Potomac Yard Station.

Full time students at the Innovation Campus, Northern Virginia Center, Virginia Tech Research Center, and Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center— will receive a specially designed U-Pass with the Virginia Tech logo. The pass will be valid during the fall and spring semesters during the 2023-24 academic year.

Metro’s U-Pass is compatible with Apple Wallets too, for folks that want to avoid carrying a Metro card.

The Innovation Campus at Virginia Tech is scheduled to open next year.

The price of riding on the Metro might go up and so could your tax bill.

Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said that the region will experience collective pain by bailing out the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority from its projected $750 million budget deficit.

Wilson said there are no solutions that the city can afford to take off the table.

“We will have to determine ways to reduce the cost structure, the stakeholders will have to chip in and riders will likely bear some of the cost,” Wilson told ALXnow. “It’s going to involve some pain all around.”

WMATA gets billions annually from Alexandria, D.C., Maryland, other Northern Virginia jurisdictions and the federal government. Alexandria’s commitment this year is $56.6 million in operating dollars and $16.6 million in capital contributions.

“Following the exhaustion of federal relief funding in FY2024, Metro expects an operating deficit of $750 million in FY2025,” Metro announced in a budget presentation. “This is more than a one-year challenge. The deficit is projected to continue its growth through FY2035 even with continued ridership recovery.”

Metro Board Chair Paul C. Smedberg, a former member of the Alexandria City Council, said that the region needs a reliable transit system.

“Customers would see longer waits, constant gridlock, higher fares and reduced operating hours and the region’s economy could stagnate,” Smedberg said.

Without a funding increase from Alexandria and its neighbors, WMATA reported “unprecedented operating deficits” will force it to make drastic cuts to rail, bus, and paratransit services across the region.

“Balancing the budget with service cuts would require eliminating two-thirds of Metro’s existing service, with no service after 9:30 p.m.,” WMATA announced last month. “All but 37 of 135 bus lines would no longer operate, customers would wait 20-30 minutes for trains on all lines, and MetroAccess would serve a much smaller area with less hours.”

In his monthly newsletter, Wilson said a “reckoning is afoot” for the transit system now that federal subsidies have dried up and ridership is inching toward pre-pandemic levels.

As of May, Metrorail and Metrobus ridership was 50% and 88% of pre-pandemic levels, respectively, according to WMATA.

“Transit is essential to our region’s economy and our quality of life, but the financial model that has supported its existence for a generation is upside down,” Wilson wrote. “The work ahead requires defining a new model to sustain transit for another generation.”

Metro laid out these drivers for the $750 million deficit:

• Jurisdiction Subsidy Credit: At the onset of the pandemic, Metro provided support to jurisdictions in the form of a subsidy reduction and forgone three percent increases. Had Metro not provided this support, the jurisdictional subsidy would be $196 million higher in FY2025.
• Decreased revenue since the pandemic: Overall ridership is forecasted to be approximately 25 percent below pre-pandemic levels in FY2025. In addition, shorter distance and weekend trips, which result in less revenue than long distance weekday trips, have seen the fastest recovery. These changes and related impacts to parking and advertising revenues are expected to continue to keep revenue below pre-pandemic levels in the short and medium term. FY2025 total revenue is expected be approximately $288 million below pre-pandemic levels.
• Inflation and collective bargaining agreements: Historic inflation caused by the pandemic and related supply chain impacts made everything more expensive, raising Metro’s personnel and non-personnel costs. The vast majority of Metro’s workforce which operates and maintains the system participates in collective bargaining. Metro must comply with mandated annual increases under the terms of the respective collective bargaining agreements, which indexes compensation levels to inflation. This cost growth is responsible for $266 million.

It’s finally here: the Potomac Yard Metro station officially opened last week.

City, state and federal officials gathered with workers who had labored on the station for years for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday.

Last year, Metro ridership was slow to climb back from the low levels of ridership during the pandemic. New reports earlier this year showed the Metro system hit a post-pandemic peak in March, though general ridership numbers remain at around half where it was pre-pandemic.

(Updated at 1:15 p.m.) During the celebration of the grand opening of the Potomac Yard Metro Station, electrician Antonio Jones looked up at the structure he and countless other laborers worked on over the last few years.

For him and other members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — as much as for the city staffers, transportation executives and elected leaders from across the region in attendance — today (Friday) was a day of triumph: the Potomac Yard Metro station is finally open.

“It feels good,” Jones told ALXnow. “I couldn’t wait to come out here and be a part of it. It’s bittersweet; in construction, you work yourself out of a job. But we worked vigorously to get it here on time. I get to ride past and tell my children I worked on this.”

It was a day that seemed like it might never get here. After years of groundwork laid to have the new station built, it was a project plagued with delays that pushed the opening back more than a full year past the original planned opening. But, to thematically appropriate songs like “I Will Survive” and “Don’t Stop Believing,” today’s ribbon-cutting was a celebration.

It was a who’s-who of elected officials, including Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, along with the 8th District’s Congressman Don Beyer and Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson.

WMATA Board chair Paul Smedberg, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation Director Jennifer DeBruhl, Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Chair Phyllis Randall, and Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands were all on stage for the ceremony.

Beyer noted particular excitement about the nearby Virginia Tech campus, calling it the “MIT or Carnegie Mellon of the 21st century.” Warner repeatedly referenced with hope that the station could be connected to the — still very undetermined — new FBI Headquarters in Springfield that Warner and other Virginia leaders have been advocating for.

For Alexandrians, though, the station was in-and-of-itself something to celebrate.

“What a great day to be an Alexandrian,” Mayor Justin Wilson said. “I’m now the sixth Alexandria Mayor to get up and wait to say these words: Alexandria, your Potomac Yard Station is open.”

Randy Clarke, WMATA General Manager and CEO, noted that 1,300 riders had already passed through the station before the official ribbon-cutting today, and Wilson said he was “so excited I went through the turnstile 1,300 times.”

It was also a somber moment as city leaders remembered former mayors Kerry Donley and Patsy Ticer, advocates for Potomac Yard who didn’t live to see the station opening.

“We talk a lot about in this business about the L-word: Legacy,” Wilson said. “For the past three and a half years, this site has been the workplace of hundreds of tradespeople. They have come to work every day under some of the worst conditions: a pandemic, rain, snow. They put in long hours and put decades of training to the test. But today, their legacy begins.”

Wilson also credited city staff, partners who helped finance the project, and Alexandrians at large.

“To countless Alexandrians who believed in this project when almost nobody else did: this is your legacy,” Wilson said. “This is your station. This station is going to change lives forever and we made it happen together.”

Good Monday morning, Alexandria!

☔ Today’s weather: Passing showers. Overcast. Mild. High of 66 and low of 53.
☔ Tomorrow: Rain. Cloudy. Mild. High of 71 and low of 57. Sunrise at 6:01 am and sunset at 8:07 pm.

🚨 You need to know

After eight months, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority reopened it’s yellow line on Sunday. The line has been out of service since September to allow work on the Potomac River tunnel and bridge.

“The work included replacing over 1,000 individual steel plates held together by more than 12,000 bolts in the tunnel and replacing 88 bearings on the bridge,” according to WMATA. “The project also upgraded the fire suppression system on the 3,000-foot bridge and removed and replaced miles of critical communications cables used by multiple regional partners.”

📈 Friday’s most read

The following are the most-read ALXnow articles for May 5, 2023.

1. Giant Food on Duke Street adapts to shoplifting increase by locking one of its front doors (858 views)
2. Notes: APD ‘determined’ to reduce crime near Braddock Road Metro after more shots fired (829 views)
3. ALXnow’s top stories this week in Alexandria (798 views)
4. Just Listed in Alexandria | ALXnow (129 views)

🗞 Other local coverage

• Yellow Line Roars Back into Alexandria Sunday Morning, May 7, after an Eight-Month Closure
  Zebra (Sunday @ 1:21 pm)

• Diapers Needed: Start a Drive in Alexandria To Help HomeAid National Capital Region
  Zebra (Saturday @ 12:54 pm)

• New Old Town Location for Alexandria’s Zen Press — Same Hospitality, Delicious, Nutritious Food and Juice Options
  Zebra (Saturday @ 9:07 am)

• Theogony Editor Staff at Alexandria City Public High School has Been Announced!
  Zebra (Friday @ 7:59 pm)

• Sewer Overflow Affects Stream In Alexandria
  Patch (Friday @ 3:49 pm)

• DASH Bus Lines To Serve New Potomac Yard Metro Station
  Patch (Friday @ 3:22 pm)

• “Happy to Learn This Was a Drill” Says A Lady in Alexandria about the Dummy Hanging Off Woodrow Wilson Bridge on Monday, May 1
  Zebra (Friday @ 1:49 pm)

• Lily’s Chocolate and Coffee to Open Soon
  Alexandria Living (Friday @ 11:42 am)

• Free Concerts Start June 4 at Fort Hunt Park
  Alexandria Living (Friday @ 10:55 am)

• Melanie Kay-Wyatt Named Permanent Alexandria Schools Superintendent
  Patch (Friday @ 10:39 am)

• Charlene’s Kitchen: Alexandrians’ ‘Go To’ for Catering, Events
  Alexandria Living (Friday @ 10:20 am)

• Old Town Alexandria Home Dating Back To 1830 Has Patio With Brick Wall
  Patch (Friday @ 9:59 am)

• How Blackwall Hitch Is Leading Alexandria Waterfront’s Culinary Resurgence
  Alexandria Living (Friday @ 9:45 am)

• Mount Vernon: Revolutionary War Weekend May 6, 7
  Alexandria Living (Friday @ 9:29 am)

• Samy Seeks Home with a Friend
  Alexandria Living (Friday @ 7:41 am)

• About Alexandria with Mark Eaton: Staggering forward
  Alexandria Times (Friday @ 7:41 am)

• Your View: We needed a Metro bond referrendum
  Alexandria Times (Friday @ 7:34 am)

• Your View: Decongest Duke Street sensibly
  Alexandria Times (Friday @ 7:30 am)

• Our View: Not ‘Poetry in Motion’
  Alexandria Times (Friday @ 7:27 am)

📅 Upcoming events

Here is what’s going on today in Alexandria, from our event calendar.

• No events today. Have one to promote? Submit it to the calendar.

Personal security cameras, speed cameras in school zones, summer youth employment programs and eviction prevention funding are just a few of the final additions included in the fiscal year 2024 budget by the Alexandria City Council on Tuesday.

Council approved funding a $20,000 program to encourage businesses and homeowners with a “small incentive” to set up security cameras to deter crime, as well as increase their coordination with the Alexandria Police Department.

“I like the concept,” Mayor Justin Wilson said. “I think we want our residents to partner with us in providing this kind of neighborhood visibility.”

Other additions include $490,000 for five speed cameras at school crossing zones around the city. Last year, Council approved $400,000 for the speed camera program in five school zones.

Not all of the requests made the final cut. Vice Mayor Amy Jackson’s request to give the Alexandria Commission for Women $20,000 for it’s 50th anniversary event failed to gain consensus.

Council also took $657,629 from the budget that was intended for the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center (200 S. Whiting Street), pending proposals from City Manager Jim Parajon to find alternative uses for the facility, pursue regional partnerships for facility use and optimize capacity for the underutilized space.

The full list of additions to the budget are below.

• Out of School Time Program (OSTP) staffing ($200,000) — This increases paid leave and benefits for part-time staffing with the city’s Out of School Time program.
• Fee waiver for OSTP participants ($15,000) — This would fund a waiver for program participants eligible for SNAP and TANF.
• Speed cameras in school zones ($490,000) — This adds five photo speed cameras to school crossing zones prioritized by the city’s Department of Transportation and Environmental Services
• Childcare services ($50,000) — This will provide child-minding services at City COuncil town hall events, as well as select board, committee and commission meetings.
• Additional eviction prevention funding ($150,000) — This would increase the current funding level of $100,000, all of which will “reasonably assist 40 households in FY24,” according to the city.
• Central coordinator for immigrant affairs/refugee settlement ($110,000) — This would explore a new position or series of positions that could advance efforts to connect immigrant communities with information, resources and services and address the city’s challenges with immigrant populations.
• RPCA Mental Health Pilot position ($75,000) — These funds would go toward developing a Department of Recreation Parks and Cultural Activities pilot program for youth mental health services.
• Summer youth employment program ($214,943) — This would expand the program by 50%, to serve 255 children (85 more than the current program).
• Study for local housing voucher program ($250,000) — This would add funding for a study on a voucher-like program that stabilizes housing and enables access for low-income housholds across the city’s private rental market.
• City library security ($70,000) — This funding maintains library security staffing at current levels.
• Department of Aging and Adult Services ($19,000) — This fills the gap created by Virginia budget formula changed related to the Older Americans Act.
• DASH service line expansion on Line 33 ($120,000) — This would expand DASH Line 33 service from once every 60 minutes to 30 minutes on Sundays, easing connections to the new Potomac Yard Metro Station.
• Visit Alexandria advertising ($78,000) — This additional funding can be used by Visit Alexandria for any sort of media, online or print advertising, either regionally or nationally at their discretion.
• City Council aide compensation increase ($5,300) — This is a 2% scale compensation adjustment.
• Private security camera incentive program ($20,000)
• Continuation of AEDP economic recovery manager ($147,208) — The ERPM is responsible for creating and administering AEDPs Business Association Grant program, which supports Alexandria business associations as well as other ARDP rogramming to promote economic recovery.
• Rental inspection program enhancement ($136,000) — This allows staff to evaluate non-compliant multi-family rental properties.

The budget will be approved on May 3 and go into effect on July 1.

After more than a year of delays, the Potomac Yard Metro Station will open on Friday, May 19, Mayor Justin Wilson announced today.

Wilson made the announcement alongside Randy Clarke, general manager and CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority. He said that the city has been pushing to make the station a reality for more than a generation.

“On Friday, May 19, this station is going to open up to serve the public,” Wilson said. “That is an incredible accomplishment and one that is only possible because of this incredible team of city staff, of WMATA staff, of  the contractor, all of our state partners, our federal partners who have made this happen.”

The $370 million project has seen its share of delays. It was initially scheduled to open in April 2022, but Clarke didn’t want to discuss the delay.

“I came to announce that today we’re opening on May 19,” Clarke said.

Clarke said that the station was first envisioned in 1983, when the Huntington station first opened.

“We’re happy to be partners with the city to accelerate economic development, bring more housing, bring more opportunity to deal with sustainability and equity, all the things that the city of Metro share as goals for both the city and the region,” Clarke said.

Wilson said that the project hits a number of policy areas for the city.

“This is our biggest economic development initiative,” Wilson said. “This is our biggest transportation initiative. This is our biggest Climate Initiative. This is our biggest infrastructure initiative. This is a huge initiative for the city and it hits so many different policy areas for us as a community, and that’s why we’re really excited.”

The station is located next door to Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus, which is slated to open the first of three academic buildings in 2024. The Potomac Yard Shopping Center is also under massive development.

City Manager Jim Parajon said that the station is a critical factor for Alexandria’s continued economic growth.

“I think this work is signature to our economic development growth,” he said. “You already see it with Virginia Tech’s Innovation campus and some of the office development occurring right around the station… Economic growth helps pay for the services that our community needs and wants. It’s an amazing station and I’m looking forward to May 19.”

City Council Member Sarah Bagley said that the station is a dream realized for many residents.

“I think it means that we can do things we put our minds to, and that long expensive things are worth it,” Bagley said. “From an inclusivity perspective it’s wonderful. We’re going to have all these exciting buildings here. There’s healthcare here, there’s education here, and people will be able to access that.”

Council Member Alyia Gaskins said that the station will bring a lot of commerce to the City.

“When i think about this station I think about everything that’s going on around it, from Virginia Tech to the National Societies for the Blind to the Potomac Yard community,” Gaskins said. “This is an opportunity for us to bring people here, to have them experience our city and to stop and linger in some of these great developments that are happening.”

Council Member Canek Aguirre said that the art at the station will also bring visitors. Much of the art for the station has not yet been chosen and WMATA has to go through a request for proposal process.

“I’m super excited,” Aguirre said. “This is gonna be a destination site, and people are going to come just to be able to take pictures of the station and especially the artwork.”

Vice Mayor Amy Jackson said that the station is an exciting development.

“Tourism and retail in general will see lots of business,” she said. “Folks will come down and be able to get off here and go to the restaurants, see our Virginia Tech campus and more. It’s very exciting.”

The big announcement this week was the return of the Yellow Line.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced this week that the Yellow Line will open again on Sunday, May 7.

The line had been out of service since September as WMATA worked on repairs to the Potomac River tunnel and bridge. The reopening of the Yellow Line will provide another connection to D.C. after months of riders forced to take the Blue Line.

The reopening is another step forward for Metro in Alexandria, coming after the city was completely cut off from the Metro network for two months last year.

There’s still one major advance on the horizon, though: WMATA confirmed to ALXnow this week that the Potomac Yard station is still on track to open sometime in May.