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Washington, D.C.-area motorists now can determine how much money they would save by using public transit. Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) recently uploaded an online calculator onto its Web site at www.wmata.com/riding/commuting_tips.cfm.

The calculator is part of WMATA’s new online "Commuter Tips" that feature time- and money-saving commuting advice. Site visitors can compute daily commuting costs by entering daily parking fees, miles driven, current gas prices and vehicle miles per gallon, then determine WMATA fares to travel between similar locations.

As gas prices and D.C.-area congestion continues to increase, so does WMATA’s ridership. In September, the authority carried an average of 701,558 weekday passengers, a 6 percent increase compared with September 2004.