Will L.A. have the gumption to require businesses to provide transit passes?

Between the constant blathering and elephanteering, occasionally something intriguing burps out of the Los Angeles City Council. Take, for example, a motion offered today that potentially could force employers in the city to provide mass transit passes for employees.

The motion by council members Wendy Greuel and Greig Smith asks bureaucrats to explore the idea -- an idea, by the way, that was recently enacted into law in San Francisco.

How does it work? Business owners in San Francisco with more than 20 employees are given three choices: Either allow employees to buy transit passes on a pre-tax basis, provide transportation for them or pay for transportation for them. The latter two choices are costly, so employers go with the pre-tax option.

By most accounts, it's a win for everyone involved. The tax deduction knocks a few bucks off the cost of a monthly transit pass, and more people in Rice-a-Roniville end up with passes. The savings are even larger if your employer picks up half the cost of the transit pass (as does The Times).

It remains to be seen if the City Council will embrace the idea, but it probably helps that the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce has shown some interest. The motion is only the start of the process, which could consume days, months, years, decades, epochs -- after all, this is the L.A. City Council we're talking about.

--Steve Hymon

Comments

[Ed Greenberg]

It costs my employer $150/month for an employee's parking space, so they are happy to provide me with an EZPass+zone sticker instead. Win-win all around.

[David Galvan]

I guess this merger of bottleneck and L.A. Now won't be so bad. If Steve keeps posting transit stories here, I'll take the trouble to scan for them.

As to this topic: Does providing transit passes on a pre-tax basis mean the company buys the passes, pays the full price plus tax, and then sells them to the employees without the tax? How much is this tax? Just curious about the details.

[Ruby Jackson]

Isn't this the same as the AQMD rules already in place?

[Just facts]

I'm all for encouraging employees -- mine or others' -- to take mass transit and get out of their cars as much as possible. But there are many differences between us and San Fran, starting with their excellent BART, connecting the burbs to metro, the city's compact size, etc.

MY workers commute from Glendora and West Covina and Valencia, as do 80% of the workers in my Beverly Hills building. You'll find the same in any West L A building, too. I've had to offer flex hours to get workers to commute, which can be a pain in a business which relies on employees to staff the support lines for the East Coast, too.

L A does not have the mass transit available now -- connecting commuter lines with local lines -- to make offering passes of any use to my employees or most of them. These are lines that MTA is planning to build, and as someone who's attending various scoping meetings, they've done a great job of planning the routes. (I may have wanted a more zig-zag line to serve tourists and locals than the simple down-Wilshire line, but the line is better than nothing.)

Haggling over where the route and Measure R funding will go, against Valley obstructionists like Antonovich/Knabe, Eastside Westside haters line Molina/ Gloria Romero, and bloggers Ron Kaye and the rest -- allied with some West L A groups that want to keep the hoi polloi from invading their neighborhoods -- has stalled and obstructed this from decades ago to now.

Until we get mass transit extensive enough to bring workers from the burbs to metro L A, we need other ways to encourage commuting than copying San Fran. Like copying London: charging those not living in the metro area a daily drive=in tax, or an annual permit fee of some $1500 -- that could seriously encourage carpooling among buildings and companies, not that hard to manage with email websites which already exist to bring commuters together.

[Damon]

As much as our public transport is lacking, I am glad we have Metrolink. As we connect our more urbanized areas with better rail lines, it will make the far-reaching Metrolink system that much more valuable, and more widely used.

Hopefully employers won't have a problem forking out the cash for the $250/month passes.

[Stuart Baker]

A few details about the San Francisco program: Most employers here choose to offer the passes or transit vouchers pre-tax. This saves them the 9% payroll tax and the employees save up to 40% of the $120 maximum allow by the feds. It's just like a 401k (except without the risk of losing it in the stock market!). The business community, particularly the SF Chamber, has been a strong supporter of the ordinance.

Sure, the usage would be lower in LA, but what this does is help to create more demand, which improves service...and reduces traffic congestion for everyone.

[David Sutton]

The Commuter Benefits Program allows employees, employers or both to use up to $115 per month in pre-tax dollars to purchase monthly transit passes or vanpool costs. And now bike riders can spend up to $20 per month in pre-tax dollars for maintenance of their bikes they use to commute to work. Employees commuting by vanpool or transit and enrolled in commuter benefits may save over $300 a year. For more information you can review the IRS tax code §132(f) or call us at 213-922-2811 and we will be glad to meet with your employer, explain the program in detail and offer to set up an annual or monthly pass program for your employees.
David Sutton, Director Metro Commute Services