How to drive people from taking mass transit, Part 2

I was talking to MTA spokeswoman Helen Ortiz Gilstrap this afternoon, and she provided a heart-slowing, mind-bending, sad statistic: In all of Los Angeles County, only 225 employers sell monthly MTA passes to their employees. About 300 employers sell MTA annual passes.

What the heck? you may be asking. L.A. County has a population of more than 10 million and a labor pool of nearly 4.9 million, so says the Census Bureau.

Let's talk monthly passes for a sec. The big advantage to such passes is that they usually come at half-price -- you pay $31, your employer picks up the other $31. That's a pretty good deal when gas is $4.33 per gallon, as it is at the Chevron at Colorado and Hill in Pasadena. Problem is, just a tiny fraction of employers seem to be offering this great deal that -- if I'm not mistaken -- ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO TAKE MASS TRANSIT!

My employer, The Times, is one of them. But once upon a time, you could go downstairs and buy the pass from The Times store in the lobby. That's no more. The sale of the passes has been outsourced, I'm told, so you now have to go online and buy the passes a month ahead of time. That's great, if you're really super-duper organized. That's not so great if, like me, you find getting to work with all your clothes buttoned properly is a major accomplishment.

-- Steve Hymon

Got a take on traffic or transportation? E-mail your tips to steve.hymon@latimes.com.

Comments

[Ray S.]

After a protracted fight, I finally persuaded my employer to reimburse me for my monthly bus pass despite the fact that they were paying $200/month to the building for my parking space (I don't have a car).

My understanding is that there is a law on the books that if a company in Los Angeles employs a certain number of employees and pays someone else to provide employee parking (they don't own the parking space themselves) they are REQUIRED to provide employees the cash equivalent of said parking if the employee elects to commute by other means but it is not enforced. (And if that law doesn't exist, it should.) Perhaps the Bottleneck Blog could investigate?

[David Sutton, Director Metro Commute Services]

Track Back – Unfortunately, some employers are aboard while many others are still stuck in traffic! However, as gas prices increase so do the number of employers who enroll in our pass programs -- we are adding about 15-20 new employer pass accounts a month now! In most cases, this benefit should not be "taxable income" for the employee. We also offer several programs to encourage rideshare participation, such as: Metro Rewards; a $15 gift card that can be earned annually, Metro's Vanpool program that provides up to $400 per van per month, and Metro's Guaranteed Ride Home program that provides employees with a free taxi ride home if they have to work late unexpectedly or they have to get home mid-day to take care of an emergency. If you would like your employer to get on board and offer Metro passes please call me at 213-922-5633. We will set a meeting with your employer to explain the benefits of offering Metro passes.
David Sutton, Director Metro Commute Services

[don Hosek]

My employer reimburses the whole cost of the pass. It doesn't show up in the MTA stats though since we go out, buy the pass ourselves, then submit the receipt for our reimbursement check.

[M]

My employer pays us depending on how many days we used public transit, biked, walked or carpooled every pay period. 1 to 2 days of riding the train is $5, 3-4 is $8 and so on. Different transportation methods earn different amounts. Then the money is given to us in our paychecks and it is taxed. Unfortunately it comes out to so little that I've known people that were excited about the program until they figured out how much money they were actually saving and how much time they were losing by using the program, so they just went back to their old method of getting to work.

[Lars Helstrom]

My employer pays a generous $25, leaving me to cough up the other $37. But that's for the current cardboard pass. Next month they are going to the TAP system. No word yet from my employer on how that's going to work.