The month of March is going to be a big one for local commuters and it's not just because my birthday falls on one of its 31 days. It's because the transit benefit is increasing as reported by local transit agency, WMATA: "Employers and employees will see the transit benefit allowance increase to $230 a month beginning March 1, thanks to the recently-enacted economic stimulus package that raises the tax-free or pre-tax transit benefit for workers from $120 a month.
"The new federal legislation enables employers to offer their employees up to $230 a month, or $2,760 a year, in public transportation benefits, or allows an employee to receive the transit benefit as a pre-tax payroll deduction, or some combination of the two."
On the other side, as this website has been reporting for some time, paper Metrocheks have been discontinued and are being replaced with the SmartBenefits® program. SmartBenefits allows employers to apply commuting benefits to their employees' SmarTrip® cards instead of distributing paper vouchers. Employees can buy fares for transit systems that don't accept SmarTrip, such as MARC and VRE, through CommuterDirect.com or at Arlington's Commuter Stores.
But most area transit providers do accept SmarTrip cards, including:
- Metro
- ART - Arlington Transit
- CUE - Fairfax City
- DASH - Alexandria Transit Company
- DC Circulator
- Fairfax Connector
- GEORGE Bus, Falls Church
- Loudoun Commuter Bus Service
- Martz/National Coach
- PRTC - Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park
- Ride On - Montgomery County
- TheBus - Prince George's County
Most of these systems have also eliminated paper transfers. Riders using SmarTrip cards automatically get discounted transfer fares. This is the culmination of many years' efforts to come up with a regional pass card.
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The Obama administration seems to be having some internal disagreements about whether or not to implement a GPS-based method of taxing drivers based on how far they drive. This would replace the gasoline tax that most agree does not provide enough revenue to repair or replace or build that which is needed. According to Channel 9, (Federal Transportation Secretary Ray) "Lahoud says the gas taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can't be counted on to raise enough money anymore. So maybe it's time to look at a VMT or vehicle miles traveled tax."
Others representing President Obama have said that this won't happen.The "problem" is that the gasoline tax hasn't been raised in many years and just hasn't kept up with demands being put on the transportation trust fund. There are those who argue that the GPS system of tracking miles will be more fair for those who have purchased hybrids or other vehicles that get good gas mileage. Truth is that the gas tax does a very good job of equalizing what people pay; if you drive a Hummer that gets 10 miles a gallon you are going to buy a lot more gas than the person driving a Prius that gets 35 miles a gallon and that means a lot more contributions to the transportation trust fund.
A proposal in Massachusetts to track mileage via GPS devices is not being received very well. Some of the responses are like this one that AAA-Mid-Atlantic's Lon Anderson gave to Channel 9: "Do we want instruments on cars that will be able to track us and be able to know exactly where we are, where we've been, what time? That's a lot of big brotherism that I'm not sure the American public is ready to buy off on."
Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.
We hear those arguments all the time: the gas tax is not raising enough revenue, and it will get worse as cars get more effcient.
But, you know, if we raised the gas tax by a factor of 10, cars could double in mileage and we'd still raise 5 times as much money. So the problem isn't that it's not working; it's just too low.
Posted by: Steve Offutt | March 01, 2009 at 06:01 PM