Local governments often make decisions that are profoundly unjust for the communities they are supposed to serve. Some of those decisions have the potential to be even more dangerous thanks to the power of a bad example. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, better known to locals as Metro, may be about to make one of those precedent-setting poor decisions.

Metro, the public transit agency serving the nation’s capital and its inner suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, has been operating on restricted hours for almost three years now. The need for critical safety repairs led to an initial series of “safety surges” followed by a period of “enhanced preventive maintenance.”

These cutbacks have posed serious hardship to people who work at night – often low-wage service workers in the health care and hospitality sectors. In Metro’s defense, the restricted hours were required to do urgently needed repairs. It was unjust, but it wasn’t necessarily Metro’s fault. Other, larger forces were at play, including the prevalence of low-wage service work, and gentrification that compels these same workers to live far from their jobs so they can afford the rent.

But a new proposal from Metro is both unjust and a mistake entirely of its own doing. The agency’s Board of Directors has announced a plan to subsidize transportation from companies like Uber and Lyft for late night and early morning workers, rather than restoring Metro service during those times.

If Metro goes ahead with this plan, it will effectively be financing its competition, undermining its own long-term viability in exchange for short-term monetary savings – all at the expense of low-income workers and the environment. And with those short-term savings, the Board can justify its lack of late night service – likely killing the prospect of ever restoring Metro’s full hours.

Metro’s quick savings comes on the backs of low-wage workers in the D.C. area. The plan will subsidize $3 per trip each worker makes to and from their job – not nearly enough to ease the financial burden on low-wage workers forced to use transportation network services like Uber and Lyft instead of Metro.

A worker who commutes from the center of Washington, D.C. to their home at the end of the line would pay $3.65 for late night Metro service. An Uber trip between the same points would cost more than $20, according to the ride-share giant’s own fare estimation website. Even using Uber’s carpool option could come in at nearly five times the price of the Metro fare. A $3 subsidy is grossly inadequate for a low-wage workers’ budget.

Gentrification heightens this injustice. A recent study found that the Washington DC metro area has experienced the highest rate of gentrification in the country. Lower income residents displaced by gentrification face longer commutes and higher transportation costs. Denying them late night Metro service in perpetuity and expecting them to use Uber and Lyft instead, even with a token subsidy, amounts to a policy choice to raise the cost of living for those who can least afford it.

Not to mention, the subsidy is restricted to 10 trips per worker per week. Anyone who commutes more often than that – not uncommon for low-wage workers – won’t get even this meager subsidy on all their rides. On top of that, the program budget is capped at $1 million per year, raising the prospect that the program may not be able to serve everyone who needs it throughout the year.