Metro riders now can put more value on their SmarTrip farecards at some CVS drugstores and Giant Food groceries, giving them more options as the plastic farecards become the dominant way of paying for local transit rides.
The transit agency said Tuesday that 106 CVS stores began offering the new portable fare machines in April, then Giant added them to eight stores in a trial phase. The supermarket chain may expand the service to 42 more stores later this summer if the pilot succeeds, according to the transit service.
Metro is introducing the machines as part of an effort to encourage more riders to use the reusable plastic farecards instead of paper cards that easily bend or demagnetize.
Riders currently use SmarTrip cards for about 72 percent of all rail trips, compared with about 58 percent of Metrobus rides.
The new machines will be especially helpful for bus riders. All local public bus agencies — such as Montgomery County’s Ride On and Alexandria’s DASH — now accept SmarTrip cards, making them useable around the region.
Metro stopped accepting paper transfer slips in January, so riders need to have the plastic farecards to receive a discount when transferring between buses or onto trains.
However, the Metrobus fare machines only accept cash or Metrobus tokens when loading value onto the cards, so bus riders wanting to use credit cards have had to go to rail stations or a handful of commuter stores to add fares. The new store machines will accept cash and credit cards.
However, the in-store devices are not able to download SmartBenefits, a system that deducts fares from paychecks, said Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato. In the meantime, riders will have to continue downloading those at rail stations.
CVS customers loaded about $11,000 in fares in May, Asato said. She said the agency expected the numbers to grow as Metro began advertising the new service in buses.
