RSSPenny wise and pound foolish
With rail on the way, cutting Connector bus routes is wrong signal
Of all the belt-tightening being done around Fairfax County these days, the decision to cut several popular Fairfax Connector bus routes is among the most confounding.
For the better part of a decade, virtually every public official in Northern Virginia has touted public transportation as the tonic for all that ails us. We're often told that if we can somehow take 100,000 cars off our main roads, home values will rise, commuting times will fall and the local economy will flourish.
That line of thinking helped justify a $5 billion rail extension to Dulles Airport and fueled high-density development up and down the Dulles corridor.
One has to wonder why the rug is being yanked out from under those most loyal to public transportation without providing them a reasonable alternative.
Money, of course, is part of it.
When Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority officials took control of the Dulles Toll Road, officials decided to redirect $6.6 million in state grant money previously used to subsidize express bus service in the Dulles Corridor. Instead, MWAA intends to plow its money into toll-road maintenance and funding construction of the new 23-mile Metrorail line.
As a result, county transit officials will cut seven highly used bus routes in the Reston area, scale back the frequency of several other routes in northern Fairfax and increase fares.
While we understand the need to change things up in difficult times, the message to those who travel to work by bus every morning or thousands of others who are considering ditching their Honda Accords for a Metro pass is, don't get rid of that car too quickly, folks, because you just might need it again in a few months.
The people most affected by these cuts walk to bus stops in Reston or Herndon, ride to the West Falls Church Metro station and jump off the train between Clarendon and Foggy Bottom. In other words, they are the same people who county, state and federal officials had in mind when discussions to extend rail intensified two decades ago.
It should go without saying that any world-class Metrorail operation rises or falls with its feeder system. In Fairfax County, feeder system equals bus route. When seven bus routes are clipped, it translates to thousands of new car trips on our main and secondary roads. It also means more cars battling for precious few spots at the Vienna, Dunn Loring and West Falls Church station parking lots each morning.
Given all that, it seems MWAA and county officials would do themselves -- and the rest of us -- a great service by digging a little deeper to keep these routes from vaporizing.
This isn't the time to be penny wise and pound foolish.