How much does the Washington Metro system spend on maintenance, how much maintenance is it deferring, and how big are the liabilities that are accumulating? If Metro officials know the answers, they aren’t saying.
According to Examiner.com, Metro budget director Richard Harcum noted back in 2004 on the Metro Matters website that the transit agency’s annual maintenance budget was only one percent of the total value of the infrastructure, instead of the three percent needed to keep the system in tip-top shape. Writes Examiner.com: “How long maintenance has been seriously underfunded is anybody’s guess.”
Harcum’s comment prompted Fairfax County taxpayer gadfly Arthur Purves to ask for the cumulative cost of Metro’s deferred maintenance, which he speculates is on the order of $5 billion — comparable to the cost of building the proposed Rail to Dulles extension. Despited repeated requests for information, Purves has yet to receive an answer.
Virginians are being asked to raise $5 billion (including federal funds) to build the Metro extension through the Dulles Corridor. We need to know what we’re getting into. With more miles of track, it stands to reason that we’ll be taking on a larger share of the cost of maintaining the system. The true cost of the Rail to Dulles project entails more than the up-front capital cost of construction: It includes ongoing obligations for operations and maintenance. We need to know what those obligations will be.
If Purves is anywhere in the ballpark and deferred maintenance for Metro approaches $5 billion, what’s Virginia’s share under current funding agreements? And how much will Virginia’s share increase if Rail to Dulles gets built? Does anybody know? Does anybody besides Purves, Examiner.com and Bacon’s Rebellion care?
