I was getting off the escalator at Dupont Circle South this morning when I was handed a flyer by someone from the DC Sierra Club. The flyer altered me to the proposed cuts to the metro system.

• No rush hour 8-car trains
• No Yellow Line between Mount Vernon Square and Fort Totten
• No Yellow Line between King Street and DC late nights and weekends
• Longer waits for trains and buses at all times
• 30-minute waits for trains at night
• Many bus routes eliminated or shortened
• Train stations opening later — 30 minutes on weekdays, an hour on weekends
• Train stations closing earlier on weekends — as early as midnight instead of 3am
• Buses starting later in the morning and ending earlier in the evening
• Many bus routes eliminated at night or on weekends
• Closing some rail station entrances and even some stations entirely evenings and weekends

WMATA is facing a $190 million dollar budget deficit. The metro system of the nation’s capital cannot be allowed to function the way WMATA is saying it will have to function. It should not even be operating as it is now, does anyone remember what happened in the summer near the Takoma Station or the derailment of a train at Farragut North? I believe that the metro system should be federalized! It is ridiculous that it has to depend on so many municipalities for its funding.