Hector Julio noticed a problem when he took the bus early one morning this month. Metrobus wasn’t crediting him for a transfer from his recent train trip and instead charged his SmarTrip card a full fare.
It had been just over an hour since the 67-year-old retiree got on his first bus, then took Metrorail, so he should have been within the two-hour transfer window to receive a discount for his second bus.
His theory was that daylight saving time was to blame. Clocks sprang forward an hour on March 13, but he guessed some of the Metro fareboxes hadn’t.
When he called Metro to complain, he said the customer service representative insisted that he had boarded at 5:29 a.m., not 6:29 a.m.
“At 5:29, I am still sleeping,” he said.
Riders who transfer between buses within two hours are supposed to get free rides on the second leg of their trip, while those who transfer between trains and buses get a 50-cent discount.
But the problem kept happening to Julio. About three times a week, he takes the 7W bus from his home in Alexandria to catch a Metro train, then takes the E2 or E4 bus to a part-time job in Chevy Chase.
He kept calling Metro to no avail. It took a lot of time, he said, but he knew that if he had been losing out, so were other riders — who likely didn’t realize it.
“You really trust that you are charged correctly,” he said. “I don’t know how many buses have the same situation.”
When contacted by The Washington Examiner about Julio’s case, Metro looked into it and determined that Julio had been overcharged. The agency planned to credit him $1.50, said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.
And now the agency is checking out all the buses at the maintenance garage, she said. “They’re looking into what happened and whether it was related to daylight saving time,” she said.
Julio said he was pleased to hear the issue was resolved but said the money didn’t matter whether it was $1.50 or $150. He was just glad to know the fareboxes will be examined.
And he said he doesn’t take the second bus anymore. Now that the weather has started to warm up, he walks the five blocks or so.
