Advocacy group demands Montgomery County Council call for restoration of Metro service

ROCKVILLE, Md. - An advocacy group has demanded the Montgomery County Council call for the restoration of Metrorail and Metrobus service before Tuesday's vote on the county's transportation policies.

The Action Committee for Transit (ACT) said Metro users in Montgomery County were being negatively impacted by higher fares and service cuts implemented over the weekend.

"Before this week the Red Line came every six minutes," Dan Reed with the Action Committee for Transit said. "It's been cut to eight minutes. It may not seem like a big difference, but the difference between a couple of extra minutes on the platform can mean more crowds, more waiting to get on the train, fewer seats on the train itself and a much-reduced quality of the commute reliability for the rider."

"Giving up on the Metro means giving up on this county's future. Hundreds of thousands of people depend on this service every day and millions and billions of dollars of development and economic investment depend on Metro," Reed continued.

The Montgomery County Council is sending a letter to the state of Maryland asking for more transportation funds, but the letter doesn't mention the Metrorail or Metrobus.

"We're astonished that the county council would consider a transportation priorities letter that ignores Metro riders," Action Committee for Transit President Ronit Aviva Dancis said in a written release.

The letter also ends the county's support for the Metrobus Priority Corridors Initiative, which the ACT said would improve bus service throughout the area.

The draft of the letter was approved Thursday by the council's Transportation and Environment Committee.

FOX 5 reached out to the council for comment and has not yet heard back.