HD12 - Report on the Feasibility and Desirability of Locally Sponsored Bus Services in Northern Virginia

  • Published: 1984
  • Author: Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation
  • Enabling Authority: Senate Joint Resolution 20 (Regular Session, 1983)

Executive Summary:
Senate Joint Resolution 20, enacted by the 1983 Session of the General Assembly mandated that the Department of Highways and Transportation in collaboration with the Northern Virginia Transportation Connnission (NVTC) conduct a study of passenger bus service in Northern Virginia focusing on the desirability and feasibility of providing service independently of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).

This report details the background and structure of public bus service supplied by WMATA, analyzes major Metrobus advantages and disadvantages in light of experiences outside Northern Virginia, and examines alternatives to WMATA as the sole provider of bus service in Northern Virginia.

Background and Structure of Bus Service (pp. 1-14)

The construction and operation of an integrated mass transportation system in the Washington Metropolitan Area has proven to be a difficult task and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The administrative and financing structure of WMATA (the regional transit authority largely responsible for mass transportation policy) involves complex arrangements between the federal government, the states of Maryland and Virginia, the District of Columbia, and seven local governments. The General Manager of WMATA directs Metrobus and Metrorail activities under the guidance of the WMATA Board, composed of two members and two alternates each from the D.C. City Council, the Washington Suburban Transit Commission (Maryland) and the NVTC.

The most visible and important roles of NVTC are its involvement in Metrobus financing and allocating aid funds for mass transit in Northern Virginia. NVTC acts as a forum for forming consensus on Northern Virginia positions concerning WMATA activities. On issues that are isolated to Northern Virginia, the WMATA Board generally acquiesces to the policies transmitted by the NVTC members of the Board. Though all Northern Virginia jurisdictions are directly represented on NVTC they are represented on the WMATA Board only to the extent that the Virginia Board members represent the views of all the Northern Virginia jurisdictions as opposed to the views of the jurisdiction that elects them. On certain issues such as fares, situations may arise where NVTC representatives on the WMATA Board may be under pressure to vote what is best for their own jurisdiction rather than voting the consensus of NVTC. To the extent that parochial voting does occur, NVTC's role as a subregional policy body is less than optimal. While other transportation districts are not so constrained, the Virginia Transportation District Act prohibits NVTC from constructing or operating transit facilities and entering into agreements with private companies for the operation of transit facilities. Furthermore, it is not specified that NVTC has the power to enter into agreements with cities or counties to provide transportation service.

Financing Metrobus is a complex two-tiered process involving both the WMATA Board and NVTC. The Board adopts a finance plan and formula which allocates a share of total Metrobus costs to Virginia and NVTC decides how each Northern Virginia jurisdiction will share in this cost. The current WMATA formula distributes variable cost to Virginia on the basis of Virginia's proportion of miles covered, hours behind the wheel, and weekday revenue miles. Fixed costs (overhead) for Northern Virginia are 29% of the administrative costs of Metrobus. The NVTC formula is very similar to WMATA's., Metrobus farebox revenues are accredited among the jurisdictions statistically by a survey sampling bus route ridership. The subsidy a locality pays is the accredited revenues minus the allocated costs. The subsidy is then covered by state aid, local fuel taxes, Federal operating assistance, and local general revenues.

The current governance structure is thus quite complex. It appears ill-suited to addressing individual locality needs and provides significant impetus for the interest in local bus service provision. In addition, the complexity of the financing structure and the mechanics of the WMATA cost allocation process render it very difficult for localities to anticipate the impacts that service changes will have on their Metrobus subsidy requirements. Furthermore, because service reductions and cost reduction linkages are not directly proportional, actions of a single locality in the Northern Virginia Transportation District (NVTD) can affect the liability of all other jurisdictions. Bus transportation governance and financing arrangements which better address individual locality needs and reduce the uncertainty of local transit liability will be improvements to the current structure of bus transportation in Northern Virginia.

Metrobus Advantages and Disadvantages (pp 15-24)

From a service perspective, the most significant advantage of Metrobus service in Northern Virginia is transit coordination in terms of rail and bus interfacing and interjurisdictional scheduling and fares. Furthermore, staff expertise in planning, routing and general management and the existence of a well established Tnfrastructure are positive aspects of WMATA as the regional bus service supplier. WMATA's major funding advantage is that 80% of rolling stock and capital facilities are funded by grants from the Urban Mass Transit Administration; thus, Northern Virginia bears only a relatively small portion of the cost of buses and garages.

Regarding service disadvantages, WMATA buses are typically not designed to serve as neighborhood circulators nor is the WMATA operation focused upon coordination with potential paratransit markets. Indeed, as noted earlier, the WMATA Board structure is not well suited for imparting locality needs and getting rapid implementation. Funding disadvantages fall into three major categories: Labor costs; local budgetary control; and grant regulations. Labor protections stemming from the WMATA Compact, the 13(c) Labor Protection Clause of the Urban Mass Transportation Act, and protections and benefits guaranteed under union contracts are a major influence on the rising operating cost of Metrobus. Such cost increases are of significant concern to local jurisdictions. A second aspect of WMATA provision of bus service that has caused interest in local bus systems is that localities appear to have little control over their transit budgets. This concern can be traced to four sources: Linkages between service changes and cost changes are not directly proportional; the ability of a locality to unilaterally use the farebox as a budgetary control tool is limited; the ability of NVTC to exercise control on WMATA's administrative cost is, at best, indirect; and finally, the process of auditing and calculating amounts actually owed WMATA is cumbersome and typically takes two years. Concerning Federal grants, the fact that WMATA receives funds from the U. S. Department of Transportation brings into play Federal regulations which tend to increase costs.

A review of National and local experiences outside Northern Virginia adds perspective to the centralized regional service provided by WMATA. That review indicates that local jurisdictions can most likely provide peak service with lower operating cost than WMATA and that (as has been proven true in Kansas City) the regional system need not be a loser in the process, particularly if the focus is on services which are cross subsidized by other services or jurisdictions. The Tidewater experience shows that transportation district commissions can be quite successful and strong in a role of coordinating and brokering services that are both effective and low cost. The Kansas City experience suggests that moves on the part of Northern Virginia away from bus service that is totally regionally supplied to decentralized local service should be accompanied by an expanding coordinating role on the part of NVTC.

Evaluating WMATA Alternatives (pp. 25-36)

The evaluation of alternatives to WMATA as the sole provider of bus service in Northern Virginia is based upon the application of funding and service criteria. The funding criteria consist of operating cost minimization, capital cost minimization, and maximizing local budgetary control. The service criteria examine feeder/metrorail service, interjurisdictional service, circulator service, and paratransit service. Six provider groups are evaluated with WMATA serving as the baseline for comparison. In addition to WMATA as the most centralized type of provider, the following providers are evaluated in order from the most centralized to the least centralized: 1) NVTC including all labor protections of the Transportation District Act of 1964; 2) NVTC with the labor protection clauses removed; 3) WMATA in combination with local jurisdictions; 4) NVTC, without labor protections, in combination with local jurisdictions; and 5) solely local jurisdictions.

The evaluation shows that a largely regional or centralized bus system operated by WMATA is preferable to other alternatives only when judged against the capital cost criterion. Furthermore, bus service operated solely by NVTC offers no advantage over WMATA unless the labor provisions of the Transportation District Act of 1964 are relaxed and even then, the net gains from an NVTC regional operation appear to be quite uncertain. In this case, the benefits from operating cost reductions, local budgetary control, and improvement potentials in circulator and paratransit service may be totally offset by large start-up, learning, and capital costs that will likely be larger than what the region presently pays WMATA for its share of the 20% Federal match. With respect to operating cost, local budget control, circulator service provision, and paratransit coordination, the near term decentralization trend toward a WMATA/Local combination is not at all undesirable. It should, however, be accompanied by NVTC's active involvement in terms of preparing for spill-over cost impacts (As described in Chapter III) and realistically appraising the extent to which capital requirements might be expected to offset operating cost reductions. In the longer term, a decentralized NVTC/Local combination of service offers potential for meeting both local and regional needs at reasonable cost. The success of this alternative is not at all clear, however, and would require a great deal of planning and coordination by NVTC and localities in terms of the labor provisions of the Transportation District Act, estimating trade-offs between operating cost reductions and capital cost requirements, appraisal of private contracting for service, and the utilization of paratransit.

Recommendations (pp. 39-40)

The findings and conclusions outlined on pp. 37-39 suggest the following recommendations for improving the structure of bus service in Northern Virginia.

Recommendation 1: Given that the trend toward decentralized bus service provision by WMATA/Localities is not undesirable and given the experience with such decentralization in other parts of the U. S., it is recommended that NVTC take an active role. in this decentralization by developing a Bus Service Management Plan. This is not to suggest that NVTC should promote decentralization. Rather, such a Management Plan would examine feasible options for planning, routing, scheduling, establishing fare structures, operating, marketing and coordinating a diverse set of public transportation services responsive to the growing transportation needs of Northern Virginia. In developing this plan, NVTC would receive input from the Transportation Planning Board, localities, and WMATA necessary to take proper account of the tradeoffs between reductions in operating costs and increases in capital costs; closely monitor and avoid any undesirable impacts on interjurisdictional service; determine the likely spill-over costs among NVTD jurisdictions as the trend progresses; and assure that paratransit and peak shedding are utilized to their maximum advantage. These activities will have as their goal the provision of bus transportation which is cost effective from a Northern Virginia regional perspective while meeting locality needs. The implementation of this recommendation should be greatly aided by utilizing "The Surface Transit Alternatives Study" sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Phase I of the study is complete and presents a methodology for evaluating the details of management, routing, and other aspects of proposals to substitute local for regional bus service.

Recommendation 2: Given that an NVTC/Local combination of service (without the labor protection clause of the Transportation District Act) appears to offer potential for effective bus transportation in Northern Virginia; given that the current labor protections and operating restrictions of the Transportation District Act of 1964 prohibit the feasibility and desirability of such service; and given that there appear to be no compelling reason for these statutory barriers to continue, it is recommended that, as part of the Bus Service Management Plan, NVTC make a determination of if and when it is appropriate for implementation of an NVTC/Local operation and inform the General Assembly thereof in order that it may consider the necessary legislative changes.