Photo by Kevin Harber

You will soon have 15 minutes to leave a Metro station once you’ve entered it… free of charge. This grace period is in Metro’s FY17 budget that was approved today by the WMATA board’s finance committee.

Currently, when riders enter a station and leave that same station, they are charged $1.75. If it’s peak time, they’ll pay $2.15. These same-station entry/exit transactions account for about 0.5 percent of all rail transactions each month, according to WMATA. Metro will lose nearly $2 million annually, due to the change.

“This is all about refocusing on our customers and recognizing that everything we do should be focused on safety and customer service reliability,” said Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld in a release, adding that the policy is in direct response to customer feedback.

The grace period program starts on July 1.