Transit Benefit Now Equal To Parking Benefit

[The Davy Crockett]

The 'cliff' deal that just passed has good news for public transit commuters who get the reimbursement benefit from their employers. The public transit benefit has been increased to equal the parking benefit for 2013.

Here is an article from APTA.

It never seemed right to me that the parking benefit was greater than the transit benefit :wacko: , but then we train and transit riders are use to getting the short end of the stick. :angry2:

 

[Trogdor]

I don't understand why there's a "parking benefit" at all.

 

[Texan Eagle]

This will help me, and several many commuters in SF Bay Area. Many Caltrain rider including myself buy a 2-zone monthly pass, which, for reasons best known to them, is priced at $126, a grand one dollar above the existing $125 commuter benefit available per month. I had to mix commuter benefit with one dollar out of pocket every month and although the value is small, it used to be an administrative headache at my workplace, now I can get entire monthly pass from commuter benefit funds.

 

[battalion51]

The parking benefit is there to help ease the burden for those who have to pay to park where they work. I've worked in places where I had to pay to park to get to work, and it wasn't a fun way to spend part of my check. In reality commuters on mass transit still have an edge since you should be able to finance most of (if not all) of your commuting expense through the transit benefit. If you wanted to really add insult to injury I'm sure there are spots on the NEC or in California where commuters have to pay to park AND a transit pass...

 

[Trogdor]

But why should having to pay to park be anything special and worthy of a tax break.

With transit, one could argue that the tax break is to encourage people to use transit by giving them an extra incentive.

For that matter, why not give a shoe purchase benefit for those that walk to work?

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I agree. In the DC region we need to encourage people to use mass transit to avoid gridlock, reduce our fossil fuel consumption, etc. Giving people a parking benefit only encourages them to drive. If only carpoolers got the benefit, I'd have less of a problem with it. The fact that until this year (And what was passed raises the mass transit benefit only for this year) people who drove got a larger benefit made absolutely no sense to me. But then this country has subsidized the 'car culture' heavily starting in the 1950s and as a country we are in complete denial (Much like an addict) about the true costs of that culture.

 

[Trogdor]

I will note that the transit benefit used to be equal to the parking benefit, but last year during all the budget squabbles, they failed to pass its extension and it got cut in half.

But why the transit benefit at that level is only a temporary thing, but the parking benefit is permanent, is totally bass-ackwards.

 

[sechs]

I had to mix commuter benefit with one dollar out of pocket every month and although the value is small, it used to be an administrative headache at my workplace, now I can get entire monthly pass from commuter benefit funds.

I guess that's really their fault for not using a program like Commuter Checks.