By Jim Larocco, Alexandria (File photo)

To the editor:

Would you buy a car rated by Consumer Reports as unreliable, needing constant repair or a money pit without a bottom in sight? Of course not. So I find it incomprehensible that city council would even entertain the notion of spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to buy into a Metro system on life support.

They argued first that “if you build, they will come,” but the builders came without a Metro station, and now the once vacant Potomac Yard area is filled with thousands of new housing units. Some can walk to the Braddock Road Metro station, while others can take advantage of the Metroway bus rapid transit service, which is now operating reliably and predictably, unlike the Metrorail service it takes you to.

So what’s the reason now? Even if it makes sense in the long run, it is only reasonable to delay any decision to move forward unless and until the Metro system pulls back from the brink of failure and establishes itself as a reliable mode of transportation that is well managed and well maintained.

A decision now to move forward can only drag us further into this money pit.