Many Metro passengers not onboard with proposal to permanently cut late night service

WASHINGTON - Metro's SafeTrack repairs have come to the Red Line starting on Monday with continuous single tracking between the Silver Spring and Takoma stations. But a new proposal to permanently cut service throughout the entire system has some passengers seeing red.

When Metro began their maintenance repair plan earlier this year, the transit system shut down its late night service - closing at midnight on Friday and Saturday instead of 3 a.m. But now, Metro wants to make these service cuts permanent.

The proposed plan would close Metro every day at midnight except for Sundays, which would close at 10 p.m.

D.C. Councilmember and WMATA board chair Jack Evans warned making this permanent could hurt D.C.'s nightlife, hotel and tourism industries.

"It's for people who use our restaurants and hotels, but it's also for, maybe more importantly, the people who work in them," said Evans. "People are workers who have to get home and can't use Uber because it's too expensive."

So why does Metro want to shut down earlier all the time? Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said the issue comes around to track work. If Metro were to keep its old service hours, they would only have 19 hour a week to work on the tracks. And the lack of track work is what led the current problems Metro has been suffering.

But many Metro passengers are not onboard with the new proposal.

"As a college student, it's really expensive to even get Uber rides, said Mer Die. "I like to stay out late on the weekends. That's going be a problem/ I don't know how I'm going to get home."

"A lot of people like me, we are depending on the Metro and it's affecting me right now," said Anita Sherman.

"I think most individuals would want the service that they had just because of the ballgames, the sports activities and whatever," said Pam Johnson.

Metro revealed this proposal last week. FOX 5 asked to speak with Wiedefeld about this, but we were denied by Metro.

However, Wiedefeld is holding another big meeting with managers Wednesday at the Verizon Center. The last time one of these sessions was held, Metro eliminated jobs and reworked its management structure.