CATCHING THE BUS JUST MAY CATCH ON

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 4, 1993                   TAG: 9301040243
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Staff
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CATCHING THE BUS JUST MAY CATCH ON
ONE OF the state's largest agencies, the DMV, is a monument to Virginians' enduring attachment to their cars.
But DMV doesn't stand for Dated Mobility Vogues. It's the Department of Motor Vehicles - and the word "vehicles" includes more than private autos. So it's not inappropriate that the DMV will conduct a test run of an innovative concept to get Virginia workers out from behind the wheel and onto public buses.
Beginning this month, employees at DMV's headquarters in Richmond will get an extra $20 a month if they agree to leave their cars at home and ride the bus to work.
Initially, DMV expects only about 50 of some 950 workers at the headquarters to be enticed by the bus-fare subsidy. That figures. Old habits die hard. And habitually, Virginia workers - as in most other states - view their drivers' license almost as a mandate to commute alone to work each day, in his or her own car.
But the hope is that the DMV pilot project will set an example for other state agencies and private businesses to offer similar incentives for workers to use mass transit.
This makes sense. Our dependency on the automobile is wreaking havoc on American society in countless ways. Nerve-wracking traffic jams. Traffic fatalities each year by the thousands. Increased noise pollution. Increased air pollution. Continued - and precarious - overreliance on foreign oil. And the paving-over of land, for roads and for parking lots, that could be put to more productive use.
Employers, of course, pay a goodly share of the costs of these societal ills. But they may also contribute to the problems. Many, for instance, provide free parking or subsidized parking for employees, which encourages Americans' driving habits. Moreover, in the past 20 years, many businesses have fled inner cities for office parks in the suburbs, where mass-transit service is often limited or non-existent.
This not only adds to environmental problems stemming from car dependency. It also feeds chronic unemployment among minorities and others in the abandoned inner cities. Many of these people are potentially productive workers - except they don't own cars and have no way to get to work.
To its credit, Congress is now pushing a mass-transit agenda. Gov. Wilder also is trying to end Virginia's institutional bias in favor of road building for more cars and trucks. Recently, Wilder established a new state department to focus on mass transit.
The DMV pilot project, which the agency hopes to extend soon to its field offices, dovetails nicely with other efforts to adjust Americans' drive-alone mindset.
Recent changes in federal tax law, for instance, should make it more attractive for employers to fund incentives for workers who commute by mass transit. Under the law, which went into effect Jan. 1, employers can deduct up to $60 per month per employee for mass-transit subsidies. The current allowble deduction is $21. (In addition, any amount up to $60 will not be treated by the federal government as taxable income for employees.) Also, Congress for the first time has put in the tax law a limit on the amount employers can contribute to workers' parking costs.
Because of car dependency, dozens of American cities are in violation of federal clean-air standards. In 11 of the most polluted cities, larger employers face a federal mandate to reduce substantially the number of employees who drive to work alone.
Traffic and pollution problems in the Roanoke Valley may not be so manifestly critical as in many urban areas. Even so, many Roanoke Valley employers might find a mass-transit subsidy program for workers merits serious consideration.
Valley Metro buses are comfortable and convenient. It's fun, too, to ride the bus - chatting with other riders or reading or just looking out the window - while leaving the driving to someone else. And if bus-riding is good enough for Bill Clinton and Al Gore . . .
With a bit of encouragement from employers, catching the bus just might catch on here - and that would be good for everybody's business.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB