The new federal legislation allows employers to subsidize their employees as much as $230 a month, or $2,760 a year, in public transportation benefits. Or, an employee can receive the benefit as a pre-tax payroll deduction, or some combination of the two.

In the Washington region, more than 189,000 employees from 400 federal agencies and 4,000 private employers use the benefit and participate in Metro’s SmartBenefits program. The Metro program allows employers to assign a dollar value of each employee’s monthly commuting benefit directly to their individual electronic SmarTrip cards. Employees take the cards to machines in Metrorail stations between the first and last day of the month to claim the benefit.