Courtesy of The Fairfax Journal, October 16, 2000
© 2000 The Journal Newspapers

The order, which took effect last week, requires all federal agencies in the Washington area to provide employees a reimbursement of up to $65 a month to take mass transit to work. Before then, only a limited number of federal agencies offered the program, called Metrochek.

The Department of Transportation estimates that 75,000 to 100,000 additional federal employees will take advantage of the program.

About 57,000 federal employees have signed up with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for Metrochek since Oct. 1, said Metro spokeswoman Cheryl Johnson. Before the executive order, 56,000 federal employees and 51,000 private-sector workers were using Metrochek, Johnson said.

Despite the increase in program participants, Johnson said ridership on Metrorail has not increased beyond the normal volume of 600,000 weekday trips.

"We were not expecting to see anything this soon," she said.

The Department of Defense is the largest federal agency covered by the executive order. So far, 15,000 of the 117,000 Department of Defense employees, including 24,000 at the Pentagon alone, in the National Capital Region have signed up for Metrochek.

"The word had already gone out that it was going to happen, so I guess a lot of people were ready to take advantage," said department spokesman Glenn Flood.

Eventually the agency expects about 39,000 DOD workers to enroll in Metrocheck, at a cost of $30 million to $40 million, Flood said.

It's difficult to say if the expanded Metrochek program has resulted in less automobile traffic. Interstate highways 66 and 395 inside the Beltway, which handle an average of about 15,000 and 25,000 cars respectively during morning rush hour, showed no appreciable difference last week from the previous week, according to traffic counts conducted by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Meanwhile, the Virginia Railway Express saw an immediate jump in ridership. The commuter trains that run from Manassas and Fredericksburg to Washington saw ridership break the 10,000 mark for the first time last week.

VRE spokesman Matt Benka said ridership increased by nearly 10 percent last week, which he attributed to Metrochek.

About 52 percent of VRE's riders are federal workers, Benka said, so they were not surprised by the big increase.

"We've been preparing for about six months," since Clinton announced his plan back on Earth Day in April, Benka said.