DC/MD/VA: Billion-dollar deficits, drastic cuts: Metro faces fiscal catastrophe

(WaPo) The Washington area’s Metro transit system is inching toward financial catastrophe, threatening the region’s quality of life and its efforts to lift up the poor, address climate change and spur a post-covid economic revival.

Billions of federal pandemic-relief dollars are now nearly gone, and the “nation’s subway,” as some boosters call it, is facing massive deficits far into the future.

Local jurisdictions agreed this year to cover much of a vast budget shortfall for the fiscal year that started July 1, staving off drastic cuts that would have shut down 10 rail stations and half of Metrobus lines to close a $750 million gap in Metro’s $2.4 billion operating budget. The infusion prevented a “death spiral,” Metro said.

But that was all just a warm-up.

Annual operating deficits of up to a billion dollars are looming in the coming years, Metro officials said, which will require dire cuts or new funds. ...............(more)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/08/09/metro-financial-crisis/