This Thursday is National Dump the Pump Day, an event launched by several transit-related entities including the American Public Transportation Association. The idea is not to fill up your tank with gasoline and in fact not to drive at all that day as a protest against high fuel prices and as a reminder that there are options to driving. As I’ve said before, this might be a good time to figure out how to make it work for you by going to Metro’s Web site (www.wmata.com) and plugging in your starting and ending addresses and letting the system figure out what you need to do to leave your car at home.
The cost of the commute is something that I’m not sure a lot of us really calculate. An example is a recent e-mail from Heather: “I don’t really have any complaints about the [Metro] system and service except, for one — the prices! To travel to and from work and pay to park in the garage it costs me over $10 a day. That’s really rough on the wallet, especially for new college graduates like me who don’t have huge incomes. It would probably be cheaper to drive even with the current gas prices. I just find driving too stressful, and who wants to be stressed before they even get to work?
“I can’t believe that there aren’t any discount programs available! I spent four months living in London last year and used the Underground daily. For example, in London you can apply for an Oyster card, which gives you a discount on purchasing monthly passes. You can also buy monthly passes without the discount but regardless they are good for unlimited use in whichever zone you choose to travel in. Has the Metro management ever considered any sort of programs/discounts like these? Do they even offer any discounts for students? Perhaps they could follow the lead of London and break the Metro up into zones and fix costs that way? I would just like to suggest that there be some sort of option available that allows unlimited travel for a flat rate. I just think there has to be a better way.”
All right, Heather, let’s do some math: From Vienna to downtown during rush hour has to burn at least one gallon of gasoline. There’s $3.20. Parking downtown even at a surface lot is going to cost at least $10 per day. There’s $13.20. Let’s assume you go back home at the end of the day, and that burns another gallon of gas. The daily driving commute is now $16.40, and we haven’t even factored in the cost of the wear and tear on your car’s brakes, oil system, cooling system or the addition to your insurance premiums, if you actually admit to your insurer that you drive into town each day for work. Plus, how can you calculate the value of the reduced stress by not sitting in rush hour and the value of the walk from the Metro station to your office and back again?
Metro still seems like a bargain. You might talk to your employer about signing up for the Metrocheck program, which is a discount in that it withdraws the monthly funds for transit use before taxes.
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