So, to recap...

1) Metro service this year is going to get worse because of repairs.

2) Metro service may get more expensive. A lot more expensive for people who use paper fare cards. But the Post notes that Metro says that the increased revenue isn't going to toward repairs, it's just covering a budget shortfall to keep trains and buses running (sort of) on time.

3) Now Metro says they're going to hire 1,000 more workers (and no, they don't know how much that will cost) to perform repairs and run the new Silver line.

Yes, fare increases are inevitable and should be expected. And perhaps even at higher rates than Metro is proposing. As commenter rsn writes: "[...]if it keeps at its current rate, the smarttrip fare increase won't even keep up with inflation. Given the fact that most of WMATA's costs probably run higher than inflation (fuel, raw materials, wages, retirement and other benefits for employees), it seems to me that metro should consider higher fare increases just so they can get ahead of issue. Expecting fares to remain the same while the cost of doing business rises is counter intuitive."

But the communication failures—and subsequent perceptions that Metro is wasting money—may be riling folks up even more than fare increases do.

Photo by Mike Hicks

All that changed this week with the new D.C. Circulator site launch. It that looks better, but more importantly, it works better. The Circulator red, so stylish on a bus yet so unattractive on a website, has been replaced by clean white space and functional maps. The NextBus function is now easier to find, which is a handy tool, even if the buses come every 10 minutes.

Around here, we sure do gripe about transit a lot, but we're also happy to give credit where credit is due.

Photo by ElvertBarnes via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic License 2.0

Trains also will be forced to share a single track on many weekends and weeknights. Together that means riders will have extralong waits on platforms and shuttle bus trips around shuttered stations.

Riders may especially wince when Metro rolls out its budget proposal later this month: General Manager Richard Sarles plans to seek a fare increase to pay rising costs.

The agency says the track work is necessary to restore the system's aging tracks and systems — intentional delays in the short term to prevent unintentional delays in the long term when the tracks break down.

For longer commutes, Metrorail is probably still the best option, but for folks traveling shorter distances, buses are a pretty quick and relatively painless way of traveling the city (during peak hours, at least). The biggest downside for new residents may be the learning curve. When I first moved back to D.C., I only took Metrorail because it was easier to figure out than learning bus lines. But according to WMATA's helpful (and privacy stealing) Smartrip card tracker, in the last three months I've only used the rail system twice to supplement dozens of bus trips. I wonder if people who just need to get around town more quickly than Metrorail allows have helped account for the small increase in Metrobus ridership.

Bathrooms Are For Closers: If you think riding a Metrobus around the District is a tough, you should try driving one. The union that represents bus drivers says schedules are so tight there's no time built in for them to use the bathroom—meaning they're left to keep a bag or cup in the back of the bus to relieve themselves. Which is to say, watch where you sit. Metro officials say not to worry: There's a procedure, wherein bus drivers can contact the central office and ask permission to pee, then notify passengers they're doing so. Sounds fun. -3

Voting Rights R Us: Maybe all that time sleeping in tents in McPherson Square hasn't been good for cognitive abilities. The Occupy D.C. encampment has a new set of schemes to get Congress to give the District meaningful representation; first on the list is a petition, signed by 601,723 people from around the country, one for each D.C. resident. Another idea? A municipal tax on bottled water to fund full-time advocates for statehood, apparently because the ones we don't have to pay for aren't enough. Don't get us wrong, we appreciate the support, but this Congress seems a bit beyond the reach of a petition. +1

Stay Safe: The approach of New Year's Eve doesn't just mean a run on 2012-shaped glasses; it also means, apparently, a lot of you are planning to do terrible things to your bodies while celebrating. Area hospitals say that when Dec. 31 falls on a Saturday, it leads to more emergencies. Why? Alcohol. Enjoy your Sunday! -1

Happy New Year: 2011 was a doozy for D.C., from the prospect of Congress stopping garbage pickups to the Redskins racking up yet another losing season. Read all about it here with Washington City Paper's annotated guide to the year that was. Or put it behind you and move on—2012 is just hours away now. If only we could skip ahead a day, like Samoa. +12

Yesterday's Needle rating: 47 Today's score: +9 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 58

"The Washington region's recession may have hit later than in other places but has not been as severe," Metro spokesman Dan Stessel acknowledged. Still, he said, employment growth and spending have stalled in the federal sector, and Metrorail ridership is especially sensitive to changes there.

Fair enough, since the latest jobs report notes that government employment has been "trending down" since 2008. Meanwhile bus ridership has gone up 6.61 percent and Metro says they have no idea why—though it may be because of a year's worth of under-reporting how many riders the system has.

Photo by Michael W. Hicks

Statehood Rides the Bus: Hot on the heels commissioning of pro-statehood TV spots that only ran on the D.C. government's cable Channel 16, District patriots today rolled out pro-statehood advertisements that will run on...the sides of Metrobuses. That surely guarantees more viewers than tune in to watch old mayoral press conferences, but, especially with bus routes that stay in the city, it still presents a problem: The people most likely to see the ads have no ability to call a voting member of Congress to demand that the situation be rectified. -1

No Bull's Eye on South Dakota Ave: Target is abandoning plans to open a second D.C. store. The chain was supposed to go into Dakota Crossing, the troubled Fort Lincoln retail development that was supposed to have a Shopper's Food Warehouse and a Costco, too. But only one of the three hyped retailers has signed a lease, meaning it's unclear just who else will be luring shoppers to far northeast. The good news: If Michelle Obama's next "secret" shopping trip is to Costco, she may be able to stay in the District. -2

We Love Stuff:  If only Target had paid attention to the survey results from Bundle.com. The website says Washington is America's "most shopaholic city," with an "average monthly spending in clothes, shoes and other wear" of $263. Arlington, with $254.58, is second. Oddly, burgs like New York and Los Angeles aren't on the list, "we're guessing, because their populations include both the wealthiest and the poorest," speculates the Huffington Post. Because, you know, the District doesn't have any of America's poorest people. +3

It's a Disaster! President Barack Obama "today declared a major disaster exists in the District of Columbia," the White House announced. The Redskins? No, silly: The earthquake? Sure, the trembler took place back in August, but today's declaration helps the District and "certain nonprofit organizations"–like, say, the one that runs a cathedral frequented by various important locals–recoup repair costs. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 32 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 33

In the first eight months of 2011, Metrobus logged an average of 1,368 complaints per month, up from 1,299 the year before.

That means Metrobus is now the agency's least popular service as measured by complaints, topping MetroAccess for the first time in years. The buses carry far fewer riders than the rail system, meaning those riders are complaining disproportionately even more.

Metro cannot point to any single reason why the complaints about buses have risen. "It doesn't seem to be any one particular thing," Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said. "Maybe people are more comfortable in reaching out to provide feedback, which would be great."

While Metrobus complains are up 5 percent, Metrorail complaints are down nearly 20 percent. Is it that train rides are getting better? Or are riders just becoming inured to the hellishness that is riding a train?

It should also be noted that most bus complaints are about a newish policy in which buses skip stops if they're full or there's a bus right behind them. Even though it makes sense—since drivers can't seem to keep time—I've seen the reactions of people who've been left at a stop. It ain't pretty.

Photo by cuttlefish via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Please Sir, May I Have Some More (Acorns)?: Squirrel advocates (!) disagree on how to handle the coming Squirrel Famine—and whether there's even a famine coming. One group says they've noticed fewer acorns this year, and that once squirrels gnaw through their current stash, they'll be starving—so District residents may want to buy acorns, freeze them and pass them out through the winter. BUT! Another group says there isn't really a shortage of acorns, plus, there's a larger-than-usual crop of black walnuts, and feeding starving squirrels is a bad idea. No word on whether there's a chicken bone shortage. +3

Metrobus Murder: A rider on the W4 bus at 24 Street and Alabama Ave. Southeast was shot and killed after midnight by two men who fled the scene. “To think that somebody boarded that bus and did that to my child is scary, real scary,” Talaya Thompson, the victim’s mother, told WJLA. -6

Late Night Slurps: Why the interest in late-night oyster happy hours—particularly in the District? At Old Ebbitt Grill, the popularity built slowly: "It started with restaurant waiters and cooks who were getting off work late. Then they invited their friends. At some point, the restaurant earned a reputation as a place that knew its oysters and went the extra mile to source high quality." Do oysters taste better at night? Unclear. But they're certainly cheaper, what with half-price specials going at places like Ebbitt and Hank's Oyster Bar. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 57 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 58

Watch Your Backhoe: A Metrobus and a backhoe collided this afternoon on North Capitol and M Streets NE, injuring six. But the bus driver isn't to blame. According to WJLA, "Metro Spokesperson Cathy Asato says the backhoe made contact with the right side of the bus as the bus was passing through a construction area." -3

Remains Of Missing Boy Found: Police say they've found the remains of William McQuain, son of Jane McQuain, a Maryland woman who was allegedly killed by her husband. Suspected is the husband, Curtis Lopez, who was also William's stepfather. -6

Bagel Displacement!: The District isn't the only jurisdiction in the area being menaced by the specter of an invasion from Arkansas. A Walmart planned for Rockville Pike is setting off the usual gripes about traffic and density, just like the stores the firm wants to put in D.C. The Rockville site, though, would mean Bagel City, one of the few places in town to get reliably excellent bagels, would be evicted. Fortunately, whatever bagels Walmart sells are probably no good, so if the shop can find a new lease, it ought to survive. -2

Being Influential Finally Pays Off! The D.C. Council voted to stop arresting people with expired tags on their cars after pressure from the likes of Fox News, the Washington Post and Virginia Senator Jim Webb. WTOP: "The bill submitted by Democratic Mayor Vincent Gray was approved without opposition Tuesday. It would eliminate criminal penalties for expired tags, replacing them with civil fines." -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 73 Today's score: -12 Today's Needle rating: 61

Recycling Legislation: Our federal overlords on Capitol Hill generate 5,300 tons of solid waste a year; after all, as any Tea Party activist will tell you, most bills are hundreds and hundreds of pages long, and printing them all out means a lot of garbage. Now the Architect of the Capitol has grand visions of burning any trash that isn't recycled—in order to generate steam, which will, in turn, yield electricity. The waste is enough to power the Dirksen Senate Office Building for months. The jokes, meanwhile, will write themselves. +1

Embassy Not So Sweet: For the capital city of the country that likes to take so much pleasure in its global hegemony, D.C. is largely free of the sort of Cold War-era international mayhem that, say, postwar Vienna was famous for. But authorities say the Iranian government may have been behind a foiled plot to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies here, which would certainly have changed all that. How alarmed to be about the plot isn't entirely clear; the FBI says the bombings would have killed lots of people, but there's also the not-so-small matter of the fact that no bombs were ever actually planted. Look for many references to this plot in future bellicose op/ed columns about Tehran, though. -2

Obama Street Market?: This year's version of "shovel-ready projects" the 2009 stimulus bill made famous is a new list of projects the White House wants to fund quickly in order to help make the economy show some semblance of life. And the O Street Market, in Shaw, has made the cut, along with 13 other development initiatives around the country. Being on the list means a faster review for federal loans, permits, and other assistance. Unless, of course, the GOP steps in to prevent such obvious Communism. +2

Stabbing, Masturbating Both Discouraged on Buses: Being a Metrobus driver seems like a thankless task. Haul commuters around all day, get stuck in traffic, deal with the usual gripes about public servants—and, apparently, also get stabbed by guys who don't like it when you ask them to stop masturbating on board. So it went at the Silver Spring Metro station last night, where passenger Victor McEachin, 52, of Silver Spring, is accused of stabbing a bus driver during an argument prompted by the driver's suggestion that his bus should be a McEachin-penis-free zone. Police say they caught McEachin with a knife and with marijuana. The bus driver is recovering. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 63 Today's score: -1 Today's Needle rating: 62

Metro officials say they've found the Metrobus driver filmed unceremoniously heaving a passenger from his ride. Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel says Metro isn't releasing the allegedly grumpy driver's name, and that there's no word on criminal charges against him. "At this point, this is an administrative process," he says.

Video of the incident surfaced Tuesday and made the rounds on news sites, with no one having a clue as to how such an ugly incident could have happened. But now we may know: If you stumble onto a bus, crush a toddler, get mouthy with other passengers, then threaten the driver, you might just get catapulted.

According to an account given to transit cops by the witness who filmed the shoving, it all happened on the U-5 to Lincoln Heights.

On August 31, 2011 at approximately 2031 hours while riding the U-5 bus en route to Lincoln Heights, a male patron boarded in the area of Minnesota Avenue, N.E. being loud and boisterous.  C1 stated that the patron appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance (either narcotics or alcohol) and unsteady on his feet.  While boarding the bus, the patron stumbled and fell onto a female patron that was seated and also fell on top of that patrons 2 year old child.  The female patron became angry and pushed him off of the child at which point he fell to the floor of the bus.  He was then assisted to a seat by a patron exiting the bus.  While seated, he became involved in a verbal altercation with several other patrons.  The patron stood up next to the bus operator and began to threaten him unprovoked.  C1 stated that the bus operator ignored the patron initially however the threats continued.  She stated that the bus operator became frustrated and pulled the bus over to confront the patron and demanded that he exit the bus.  This is the point in which she began to film the incident with her cell phone.

To see what happened from there, just play the vid.

City Desk has asked for updates on whether the driver will be reprimanded in some way, since Stessel earlier said that the driver did the wrong thing, and should have called transit police. We'll add more if we hear back.

A Metrobus driver is in trouble for getting pushy—literally.

Video of a hulky driver shoving a not-so-hulky, maybe even scrawny, rider off a bus surfaced over the holiday weekend, and has WMATA hunting the offending employee. They weren't able to immediately identify the driver from the video, but Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel told NBC Washington that ramming a customer off a bus "is completely inappropriate."

Though there's no indication of how the conflict got started, the video captures the driver opening the doors of the bus and the passenger proclaiming, "I ain't done nothing to nobody, man." The driver thinks different: "Go ahead and get off the bus, now," he orders.

They argue for a few moments before the driver decides to go all linebacker. The rider resists being pushed off by grabbing onto a pole, but that only inspires the driver to bulldoze harder, eventually flinging the rider from the vehicle and into the street in an awkward and painful-looking flop.

Stessel told NBC4 the driver should have called transit police instead of acting like a club bouncer, but in my experience, there's also another option. As a daily Metrobus rider, I've seen passengers who've earned the ire of a driver and a command to "get off" refuse to go. But that's when the driver has defused the situation by pulling over and saying something like, "I can't move this bus until you get off." At that point, everyone stares daggers at the problematic rider, who eventually succumbs to social pressure. Deescalating conflicts would seem to be an important skill for a D.C. bus operator to have handy, since Metrobus drivers were assaulted 90 times last year.

Multiple calls to Metro for an update on their manhunt went unanswered.

No, Really, I Want To Drive A Metrobus: Last summer, Metro officials were embarrassed to admit that a 19-year-old who didn't work for the agency, William Jackson, had been able to walk into a garage, drive a bus out, and run the B2 route, picking up riders, until he crashed into a tree. Jackson was charged with stealing the bus, but apparently that didn't stop him. Twice since then, he's shown up at Metro properties with a uniform or an employee ID card that he shouldn't have had. Metro, when fate is calling that loudly, you can't resist it—give the kid a job, already. +1

The Rent Is Too Damn High: D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry may want to ban new apartment buildings from Ward 8, but it's other wards west of Rock Creek Park that really need attention, at least according to a new report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Few rent-subsidized apartments are available west of the park, landlords frequently refuse to rent to black tenants, and builders are putting up new units that disabled people can't access, the report found. Worst part of the report: None of that will come as news to anyone who's been trying to find affordable housing in teh District. -3

BikeShare, Now With More Tourists: Capital BikeShare often feels like a victim of its own success—so many people have joined that it's hard to find a bike (or a place to park a bike) when you need one. Add to the list of BikeShare users a whole new category: Guests at Kimpton hotels. DDOT officials and the hotel chain are giving free 24-hour memberships to everyone at the seven properties the chain owns in the District. The memberships even come with helmets, so Kimpton guests can live to stay another night. +1

Know It When We See It: There are some basic characteristics you want in the people charged with educating your children—they should be inspiring, intelligent, caring, and they should, ideally, not be into child pornography. Fauquier County officials appear to agree with that last one, if nothing else; they say Joshua Myers, 29, of Warrenton, is no longer up for a promotion to principal of Brumfield Elementary School, where he's the assistant principal, now that he's been arrested on three federal child porn-related charges. Got to have some standards, after all. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 42 Today's score: -2 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 42

• A Metrobus hit a pedestrian yesterday afternoon, sending him to the hospital.
• The driver responsible for a fatal Metrobus crash in 2008 has been arrested.
• Turns out the underground Dulles Metro Station decision wasn't so final after all.
• Eight people were hurt in a Metrobus crash in Columbia Heights Wednesday.
• A series of escalator breakdowns paralyzed the Woodley Park-Adams Morgan station, prompting a "clusterfrack."
• Two people were shot outside the Shaw-Howard Metro station last Saturday. None of the security cameras there were pointed in the right direction.
• Tourists are returning to the Metro in droves. They're going to stand on the escalator's left side.

As for Metro Good News... well, Capital Bikeshare's launching a major expansion. Maybe you could just use them instead.

• After it surfaced that Metro employees at Huntington station were abusing parking, Metro CEO Richard Sarles reminded all WMATA employees he'll dispatch Metro Transit Police to enforce parking regulations.
• Are Metrorail riders meaner than Metrobus ones?
• Some parking advocates would prefer a $1 surcharge on station parking, instead of service cuts.
• Navigating Metro in a wheelchair proves very unpleasant for one rider. Unfortunately, her experience isn't uncommon.
• A man in Virginia has pleaded guilty to planning a Metro bomb attack with government agents pretending to be members of Al-Qaeda.
• Local leaders in Virginia are considering pulling funding for the Silver Line project.
• Now that cherry blossom fever has subsided, Metro's going back to intensive track work.
• Upgrading Ward 5's transit isn't going to happen right away.

In Metro Good News, a plan to put a 5-cent surcharge on Metro riders at Union Station has been scrapped (for the moment), and Arlington riders may soon be able to load bus passes onto their SmarTrips.

And if Metro Bad News is too depressing, perhaps you'd prefer it reenacted by marshmallow peeps.