Metro News Release
For immediate release: December 17, 2008
Metro partners with CVS/pharmacy to sell SmarTrip® cards
Additional sales outlets give customers more locations to buy cards
Metro is making it easier for customers to buy SmarTrip® cards by partnering with CVS/pharmacy to sell the rechargeable plastic farecards in stores throughout the Washington region.
CVS/pharmacy will begin selling SmarTrip® cards on Tuesday, December 23, at 190 stores in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The cards will be sold at select CVS/pharmacy stores for $10 each, which includes $5 for the cost of the card and $5 of fare value preloaded onto the card so customers can travel immediately.
To help customers identify which CVS/pharmacy stores sell SmarTrip® cards, a decal that says "SmarTrip sold here" will be posted on the door of each store. Customers also can look up CVS/pharmacy locations that sell SmarTrip® cards by visiting http://www.wmata.com/fares/purchase/where.cfm and using the retail outlet search at the bottom of the page.
The availability of additional sales outlets for SmarTrip® cards will be critical when Metro eliminates paper transfers on January 4. Instead of using a paper transfer, riders will be required to use a SmarTrip® card to get the benefit of free bus-to-bus transfers and discounted rail-to-bus transfers within a three-hour window.
In addition to providing free or discounted transfers, using a SmarTrip® card eliminates the need for exact change on buses, speeds the boarding process and offers a 10-cent discount on regular Metrobus fares. Users can add a maximum of $300 in value to a SmarTrip® card and register it online so if the card is ever lost or stolen they won’t lose the value on the card at the time it is reported missing.
SmarTrip® also has the advantage of allowing riders to pay fares for numerous transit providers with just one card. In addition to Metrorail and Metrobus, passengers can use SmarTrip® to pay for travel on regional bus systems including ART, TheBus, CUE, DASH, DC Circulator, Fairfax Connector, Loudoun County Transit, OmniRide and Ride On, and for parking at Metro parking facilities.
SmarTrip® cards are currently available for purchase on Metro's Web site, at Metro sales offices, retail outlets and commuter stores, vending machines at all Metrorail stations where parking is available and select Giant stores. For more information about SmarTrip®, visit http://www.wmata.com/fares/smartrip.
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News release issued at 3:38 pm, December 17, 2008.