In the early morning hours, students, blue-collar workers and businessmen alike pass through turnstiles and flood the Metro station, ready to embark on their daily commute.

Every morning, more than half of public school students in the Southeast region of D.C. commute to school by walking, biking or taking public transportation. Students living in Wards 7 and 8 travel the furthest, with many routes to school taking over an hour. While some students across the region opt for carpooling over public transport, those in D.C. often don’t have that option. A 2023 report found that more than a third of D.C. K-12 students ride the Metrobus and Metrorail.

In 2021, the average daily Metro trip fell by 200,000 riders, compared to 2019. Metro authorities have recently exhausted pandemic relief funds to regain ridership, forcing local jurisdictions across state lines to cover the budget shortfall. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) currently faces a $750 million loss, reflected by regional General Manager Randy Clarke’s new 2025 budget proposal.

However, problems may arise from the WMATA budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year. The proposal, totaling a $4.5 billion total budget, will bring various changes — including a 20% increase in fares and parking, turnbacks on the Red and Silver Line, ten station closures, and 10 p.m. closing times across the greater D.C. area. The WMATA also plans to remove 67 out of 135 bus lines and reduce services for 41 lines. 

Routes transporting students to D.C. public high schools will be cut disproportionately. Charter buses specialize in transporting students directly to campus, which may not pertain to other types of riders. Former D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Chair Sherice Muhammad said the budget proposal will be detrimental to students’ commuting times.

“Families are choosing schools that are outside of their immediate footprint,” Muhammad said. “The average walking distance to school is 3.5 miles away, but for some families, it’s more, and they need those specific buses to get there.”

Muhammad believes that WMATA must prioritize across-city buses over neighborhood routes in the budget plan. The D6 line, for example, travels from Southeast D.C. to Sibley Hospital, in Northwest D.C., acting as the only mode of transportation for MacFarland Middle School students. The same route is on the 2025 elimination list, which could increase truancy and delays in getting to school for MacFarland students. Routes like the N2 and H2 lines, also on the 2025 elimination list, directly transport students to Jackson-Reed High School in Tenleytown. Other communities across the nation’s capital have already seen Metro’s cut to ridership, said Ward 7 Education Council chair Marla Dean.

“We’re already impacted by the Metro budget because of the Circulator bus service, which was cut this year,” Dean said. “It’s adversely impacting students who rely on transportation, and we’ve seen huge increases in absenteeism and travel time.”

Originating from a 2005 partnership between the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and WMATA, the DC Circulator is a bus system that runs through Georgetown, L’Enfant Plaza, Woodley Park and other locations. In July 2024, DDOT announced that the Circulator would roll back services starting Oct. 1 of this year and will be fully out of service by December. The limited services impact students’ families, as parents have to leave early and arrive home later due to longer commute times, Dean said. 

WMATA faces challenges with personnel funding and financial resources allocated to staff-related costs, including salaries and training. In December 2019, WMATA’s board of directors offered workers a one percent raise if ridership increased by at least two percent in the next year. 

After the COVID-19 crisis cut ridership by more than 90%, even small post-pandemic increases have met the two percent growth requirement. The agency lost $5.8 million in 2023 alone by paying worker bonuses. Junior Mira Hsu attends School Without Walls, a magnet school in D.C., and believes the system’s misuse is a catalyst for its current budget problems, she said.

“A lot of people who use the Metro don’t even use it properly, and I watch people hop over the gate all the time,” Hsu said. “But if they increase the price of the Metro, its quality isn’t worth taking.”

Every morning, Hsu rides the Metro from Ward 6 to her high school in Ward 2, which includes the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Fellow School Without Walls junior Hazel Klein follows a similar schedule. Klein walks to her local metro station in Brookland, takes the Red Line to the Metro Center and transfers to the Silver Line before walking to school in Foggy Bottom. Not only has their commute to school surpassed an hour per day, but Klein has also felt endangered when riding the Metrobus, she said.

“I and many of my friends have experienced uncomfortable situations while riding public transportation,” Klein said. “Most of these involve people coming up to us and starting to talk to us or asking for things.”

Unlike Hsu and Klein, most Ward 6 students cannot receive a selective education. The area’s families enter a tedious lottery system called My System D.C., first established in 2014. The process allows families to apply for seats at D.C.’s public charter schools across all wards. 

The system’s admittance procedure stalls education for students in less affluent neighborhoods said Whitman junior Emma Benaissa. Benaissa explained that the system was the main motive for her family’s move to Bethesda before middle school.

“In high school and middle school, everyone tries to move out,” Benaissa said. “I was lucky enough to have the ability to move, but some people didn’t. And if you don’t get into these waiting lists, then you’re really screwed.”

In the 2023 Statewide Assessment, students in less affluent districts, like Ward 7 and 8 only scored 19.4% proficiency in language arts and 10.8% proficiency in math. Comparatively, in wealthier districts like Ward 3, nearly 70% of students were proficient in language arts and math in the 2021-2022 academic year. The disparity in data is partially due to Ward 7 schools’ lack of appropriate funding and staff loss post-pandemic. After emerging from the pandemic, less than half of its students attended the area’s public schools. Throughout crucial times of transportation, losing vital means of commuting would harm underprivileged students of the city even further, Hsu said. 

Both students and parents fear that the proposed changes to Metro lines will only deepen existing inequalities in D.C.’s education system, Dean said. Without a stable mode of transportation, students who require the most aid educationally would be unable to show up at their schools’ doors. Muhammad recommends that officials in D.C.’s outer wards foster a better environment for their students to reduce truancy. Learning proficiency would increase in less affluent communities if each school worked with their ward’s education demands, she said.

“If a student doesn’t have reliable, dependable transportation, then they don’t feel supported,” Muhammad said. “And if they aren’t supported, then what would be the point of going to school in the first place? The Metro is an aspect of the equation: the rest of it is making a community where students can learn and belong.”