Local transportation leaders hope to entice commuters into sharing rides by paying them $2 every day they car pool in an effort to reduce traffic and pollution on three of the most congested highways in the Washington area.
The Commuter Connections Work Program, created by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, will start a three-month pilot program in the fall in the mornings on the Capital Beltway westbound between Bethesda and Tysons Corner, the Capital Beltway westbound between the Baltimore/Washington Parkway and Interstate 270, and in the afternoons on I-395 north from Northern Virginia into the District.
Program officials hope to attract about 700 first-time car poolers.
“We are looking to move the needle on the number of people changing their travel habits to and from work,” said Nicolas Ramfos, the director of Commuter Connections.
According to a recent transportation study, as many as 8,190 vehicles per hour take the Capital Beltway from Bethesda to Tysons Corner, the most congested of the three roads, during rush hours. The car-pool program could eliminate at least 247 cars per hour, the study projected. This, in turn, would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly one ton per hour.
Enforcing the program may be tricky. Ramfos said his agency would determine eligible participants through online registration, but he conceded that he would be relying on applicants’ integrity.
“You are going to have some people who may try to skirt around the guidelines,” he said. “We aren’t going to have ‘incentive police’ on the roads, but we are going to do our best to make the guidelines up front and take a very close look” at applicants.
Participants also must provide signatures from a supervisor verifying that they traveled by car pool.
Local transportation officials have tried similar initiatives during major construction projects. The “Bridge Bucks” program paid commuters $50 a month for opting to travel by transit or van pools during construction on the Woodrow Wilson and Frederick Douglass bridges.
Ramfos said carpooling efforts in other cities have been successful. Sixty-four percent of participants in an Atlanta commuter program were still using alternative means of commuting up to a year after the program’s end, the transportation study said.
The program is estimated to cost between $28,000 and $32,000 for each road and will be funded by the federal Department of Transportation.
