Ride or Drive? Revisiting the Cost of a Metro Commute.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Many Metro riders say they are looking at their relationship with Metro and trying to decide whether it still makes sense, and many think the marriage should be saved. When a letter writer said Metro is too expensive compared with driving, riders responded with their calculations.

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

I was slightly surprised to see the letter [Dr. Gridlock, Nov. 8] saying that it was more expensive for two to commute by Metro than by car from Vienna to the District.

By my estimation, the cost of commuting by Metro is $287 a month for the couple, while driving costs $510 a month.

My assumptions were these: Gas is $3 a gallon, and their car gets 20 miles per gallon, so driving the car costs 20 cents a mile. (This was derived by simply assuming that a car costs $20,000 and will last about 100,000 miles and doesn't take into account insurance or maintenance and repairs.) And it is a 40-mile round trip from Vienna to the Judiciary Square station.

On the Metro cost calculation, I have assumed that they do one trip at rush hour and one not. If both trips are during rush hour, add $54 to the Metro rate. In both cases, I have assumed that there are 20 workdays per month.

Either way, taking Metro costs a significant amount of money, but driving is clearly more expensive.

Robert Pohl

Capitol Hill

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

Mary Rogers stated that rather than spending nearly $400 a month to ride Metro, she and her husband drive to work and spend $230 a month for parking.

Now I will admit that $400 is a lot more than the $230 they pay for parking in the District, but isn't there also the added expense of gasoline and automobile maintenance, which these days is about 45 cents per mile?

If you allow them a conservative mileage of 30 miles per day, that would add $12 a day to their cost of driving, which adds up to about $264 a month, plus parking. And on top of this, by riding Metro, they avoid the additional stress of driving in D.C. rush-hour traffic, which in my opinion is priceless.

Steve Berto

Annandale

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

I don't know what expense reports allow these days, but I think 40 cents per mile or more for gas and wear and tear on a car would be the minimum allowed.

If the commute from Vienna to Judiciary Square is 10 miles one way, that's 20 miles per day, times 40 cents per mile, times five days per week equals $40, times four weeks per month equals $160, plus the parking fee of $230 equals $490 a month.

The above calculation certainly does not take into account accidents or other delays when you just sit in traffic fuming. And Metro just isn't door-to-door convenient.

Lois Gawler

Bethesda

Head hurt? Try the commuting expense calculator provided by the Arlington County commuter services team to encourage people to leave their cars at home, even for a day or two each week. You will find it on its new Web site at http://carfreediet.com.

Transit Emergencies

One of the many riders who has had a difficult autumn commuting on the Red Line wrote in about how he could not get clear and correct information when his train was taken out of service at Van Ness and passengers had to leave the station. And he began with what happened the next day.

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

When I arrived at the Shady Grove station, my SmarTrip card was locked out, and I was told to see the station manager, who informed me that I "had left the station on Sept. 29 without paying." I explained what had happened in that situation, but he held firm.

I would love for someone from Metro to explain why I am being charged for services not rendered.

Gordon Harold Mehlman

Rockville

Here's what Joanne Ferreira, a Metro spokeswoman, said about that in an e-mail:

"First, let us offer an apology to Mr. Mehlman because the station manager he talked to should have been more accommodating and reset the customer's SmarTrip card at the kiosk."

If passengers who use SmarTrip cards must evacuate a station, they can phone the SmarTrip customer service center at 888-SMARTRIP (888-762-7874) or send an e-mail to smartrip@wmata.com to request an electronic refund.

If you have the opportunity when leaving a station after a disruption, touch your SmarTrip card at the fare gate to avoid delays the next day.

Which Way?

Readers said they enjoyed the recent Sunday "Which Way" commuter page feature [Nov. 4] comparing trips on Maryland's Route 29 and Interstate 95.

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

I love the idea of comparing different commuter routes. How many times have we stewed in our cars, convinced that the route we didn't take would have been faster?

Pitting Route 29 against I-95 from Columbia to Silver Spring was a good choice, and I was with you until the last bit of the I-95 driver's commute. He reached the Capital Beltway, then drove past Route 29, exited at Georgia Avenue and then backtracked to Route 29.

That part of the comparison was not realistic. A real commuter would have exited at Route 29 and probably matched your time getting to the restaurant.

Patty Hardee

Falls Church

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

Since I live on Burnt Mills Avenue, I was very interested in your "Which Way" feature.

I, of course, was hoping that the I-95 route would win so more drivers would not be encouraged to take Route 29. Although it does not appear that the I-95 route would have won, I was dumbfounded that Steven Ginsberg chose the Georgia Avenue exit off the Capital Beltway.

Why on earth did he do that? No one intending to go to downtown Silver Spring coming from the east would stay on the Beltway for one or two additional exits.

He could have gotten off at University Boulevard or Route 29 South instead of taking the farthest exit to his destination. He spent a total of 20 minutes on the Beltway, which could have been significantly reduced if he had not bypassed the other exits.

Kathy Pace

Silver Spring

These readers are quite correct about the shortest route. But we weren't racing. Ginsberg was always going to buy breakfast in downtown Silver Spring. We wanted to give you a couple of different looks at morning traffic in the area and avoid duplicating the drive on Route 29 inside the Beltway.

We'll do more of these comparisons, so please keep watching the commuter page in the Sunday Metro section.

Dr. Gridlock appears Thursdays in the Extras and Sundays in the Metro section. Send e-mails todrgridlock@washpost.comor write to Dr. Gridlock at 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. Include your name, community and phone numbers.