Preliminary VRE budget wouldn't raise fares or add service

Virginia Railway Express officials presented an $83.6 million preliminary fiscal 2012 budget Friday that would keep fares level but offer no new services for a system whose ridership continues to grow.

The preliminary budget contains a roughly $2.1 million budget shortfall and is almost $10 million lower than the fiscal 2011 budget because of a lack of federal funds for capital projects, VRE chief executive Dale Zehner said

"We will eliminate that budget gap between now and December," when the budget goes before the VRE Operations Board for a vote, Zehner said. "We'll take a close look at our maintenance and fuel costs, so I don't think we need a fare hike."

Zehner said the budget includes no new trains, not only because of the lack of funding but also because the commuter-rail service has maxed out its storage space at Union Station

Separate from the operating budget, Zehner presented a long-range plan for capital projects to the Operations Board on Friday. Zehner said he will budget money to explore new storage options, build a third track in Spotsylvania County and replace aging railcars - buying 30 new rails cars to replace the antique gallery cars from Chicao

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 06300.html

Is there any posting of a document or pdf with a list of all of the long range plans on the internet yet or not?

Thanks,

Davis

strench707 wrote:Is there any posting of a document or pdf with a list of all of the long range plans on the internet yet or not?

Thanks,

Davis

The only thing posted online is VRE' s Strategic Plan through 2025 that was developed in 2004. View in PDF here: http://www.vre.org/about/strategic/strategic_plan.htm.

It shows that in the future MARC could stop at VRE's L'Enfant Plaza station