What benefits are offered?

You may have either a transit or parking account, or both. Transit covers public transportation and vanpools carrying six or more adult passengers (excluding the driver). Parking benefits must be used for parking at or near work, or at or near a place where you take public transportation to work (known in some places as Park & Ride).

To review the transit agencies in your area, please go here and follow the instructions for first-time user. Once logged into your account:

1. Go to the Commuter Tab
2. Select "Place Commuter Order" under the "Manage My Account" section
3. Click on the "Transportation" button to review your options

Only parking and mass transit costs incurred by you in connection with travel between your residence and your work place are eligible.

Examples of eligible expenses include:

• Mass transit fares, including tickets, passes, tokens, vouchers or other fares for riding buses, trains, Para-transit vans or other mass transportation vehicles
• Official vanpool fees
• Parking fees at or near your work place, or
• Parking fees at a location from which you commute to your work place via mass transportation or a carpool (ex: park-and-ride lot)

What expenses are not eligible?

The following is a partial list of Commuter expenses that are not eligible:

• Tolls
• Traffic tickets
• Fuel
• Mileage or other costs you incur in operating a vehicle
• Taxis
• Payments to a fellow participant in a carpool or to a friend who drives you to work
• Parking at your personal residence
• Parking at your spouse's place of work
• Parking at a mall or similar location where you stop on your drive to or from your place of work
• Costs that have been or will be paid by your employer, such as for a business trip
• Parking at an airport for taking an airplane to work

Is my vanpool eligible?

Under Federal law, arrangements where you and other commuters share the cost of renting a van for commuting to work are eligible for tax-free transit benefits. A personal van or other vehicle that you or one of the other commuters owns or operates is not a vanpool. Also, the van must be primarily used for commuting (more than 80% of the miles driven must be for transporting people to and from work), and have a seating capacity of at least six adults excluding the driver and must typically be at least half full.

To enroll in your Commuter benefit, please go to the home page and follow the instructions for first-time user. Once logged into your account:

1. Go to the Commuter tab
2. Select "Place Commuter Order'
3. Either click on "Transportation" or "Parking" to review your options

I pay for parking at a park-and-ride lot, but pay for a bus pass separately. How do I use pre-tax dollars to pay for parking and transit separately?

You can use pre-tax dollars for parking and for transit by electing each commuter benefit separately. The bus fare would count toward the monthly $125 transit limit; the parking fee would count toward the $240 parking limit.