What if the District gave its residents $100 per month on a SmarTrip card to pay for public transit on Metro?

That’s the proposal Ward 6 D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen is putting forward in new legislation expected to be announced before the D.C. Council this week. The plan, which also includes funding for better bus service in low-income communities, has support from seven of Allen’s colleagues on the Council, according to The Washington Post, which first reported it.

A $100 per month benefit for District residents may sound expensive, but Allen’s office says the plan is structured to manage its cost. Under the plan, the District would only pay fare for the rides residents actually take, and the benefit would not roll over from month to month. Additionally, students covered under the District’s existing Kids Ride Free program would not qualify, nor would federal workers who already receive federal transit benefits.

The money could also be put towards an unlimited Metro pass, Allen said on Twitter.

What Would It Cost?

Allen’s office estimates the program’s price tag could fall somewhere between $54 million and $151 million. That high-end estimate, according to a spokesperson, is how much the District would pay if every “likely Metro rider”— about 118,000 people — used the full $100 per month. But Allen’s office thinks everyone using the full subsidy is unlikely.

The low end — $54 million — is what the cost for the program would look like if the District successfully negotiates with Metro for the same steeply discounted rates it pays for the Kids Ride Free program. The District pays $367 per unlimited SmarTrip card for students.

“It’s probably going to land somewhere in the middle,” the spokesperson said in an email to WAMU.

The Kids Ride Free discount may not be attainable, but Allen’s office indicates in a one-pager outlining the legislation that the program “permits the Mayor to negotiate on rates with WMATA when buying in bulk.”

Allen told The Washington Post that the District could pay for the cost of the program using revenue that the city is not spending on services — revenue that has increased as a result of rapidly rising property values and economic growth. No tax increase would be required.

The subsidy could increase ridership and incentivize improved Metro service. Allen tweeted on Sunday that similar programs in other cities have yielded significant ridership increases. That could be good news for Metro, which has only just started to show signs of bouncing back from big ridership declines in recent years.

“By providing a subsidy to residents, there’s a market-based incentive for WMATA to earn riders. If service isn’t reliable, safe, and predictable, people with options won’t change their transit habits,” according to a statement from Allen’s office outlining the program.

If passed, the program would roll out in four tiers, starting with District residents who are Medicaid eligible, then moving on to families earning up to $96,000 per year, followed by families earning $155,000 per year, and then the remainder of residents. Specific grant funding would support nonprofits in helping homeless or vulnerable District residents sign up for the benefit.

While the subsidy would eventually be available to District residents of all socioeconomic backgrounds, the benefits could be felt more significantly by lower-income people. Data from Metro indicates that 65 percent of the highest-income Metro riders receive some kind of employer-sponsored transit benefit, compared to only 10 percent of the lowest income riders.

Better Bus Service

The plan also includes $10 million in funding to improve bus service in low-income communities that depend on public transportation. About 53 percent of Metrobus riders are extremely low income, earning less than $30,000 per year, and 82 percent of Metrobus riders are people of color, according to a report from Metro.

Right now, Metro’s proposed budget includes reductions or eliminations in service on more than 50 bus lines — 22 in the District — many of them serving low-income communities. Another budget proposal would charge riders 25 cents extra for using cash when boarding the bus, a surcharge that would fall disproportionately on unbanked or underbanked residents, advocates say.

Metro has endorsed the findings of the Bus Transformation Project, a regional framework to make local bus services, including Metrobus, the transit mode of choice in the next decade. However, the system has a long way to go to reach that goal, since bus ridership has steadily declined. Daily bus boardings have gone down by 100,000 across the system since 2014.

“The dedicated bus fund is meant to prioritize transit equity by investing in neighborhoods where riders tend to earn less and spend more on public transit,” reads the program one-pager from Allen’s office.

The money would be spent on “new buses, improved bus headways, bus lanes, bus shelters, and more,” according to Allen’s office.

Other Experiments In Free Public Transit

This isn’t the first time the District and other jurisdictions have experimented with steeply subsidizing transportation.

The popular Kids Ride Free program, originally championed by then-Council member Muriel Bowser, started in 2013 and made public bus rides to school free for D.C. students. In 2015, the program expanded to include Metrorail. Today, 46,000 students are enrolled. Montgomery County recently expanded the hours of its program that provides free rides on Metrobuses and Ride On buses to students in the county — and saw gains in ridership as a result.

In December, the Metro Board voted to allow the transit agency to work with the District on a pilot program for free or reduced fares for low-income D.C. residents. The program, which would run for half a year or more and include 2,500 residents, would grant unlimited SmarTrip cards to some residents and a discount to others.

But not all of D.C.’s programs aimed at subsidizing transit have generated consensus. Last spring, Mayor Bowser ordered the District Department of Transportation to stop charging fares on the District-run Circulator bus lines — until the D.C. Council reversed the decision in September over concerns that the move wasn’t actually benefiting those in need.

Other cities are also moving towards subsidizing public transit. In December, Kansas City, Missouri became the first major American city to decide to make its bus service free this year — a plan the city estimates will cost $8-9 million. Early projections in Kansas City suggest that region’s GDP could increase by $13 million or more as a result of free bus service.

The economic impact of a District Metro subsidy remains to be seen, though Allen’s office said the council member has been in contact with the Kansas City officials who led the legislative push.

And the D.C. program description does point to positive economic benefits.

The program would “[ease] the burden on our small and local businesses who have less overhead to offer many employee benefits and [ensure] their District-based employees can get to and from the job,” it reads.