Bribing People To Live Near Transit?

I’m going to join Lydia DePillis in expressing extreme skepticism about this idea:

The Office of Planning is trying to counteract that problem by throwing money at it: They’ve found $200,000 to spend on a pilot program that will match employer grants of up to $6,000 per person for closing and down payment assistance on homes near metro Metro stations and bus lines. Through a competitive process, OP will select three participating companies, which will dole out grants (or deferred-interest loans) to employees who want to move either to houses within two miles of their workplaces or to areas within a half mile of a D.C. metro Metro station or a quarter mile of a “high-quality bus line.”

You can’t knock the intention here. But the method raises questions: Will $12,000 actually convince many people to move closer to their jobs? The map attached to the request for applications makes clear that the eligible areas cover most of D.C., and the grants are available to people at any income level–might level—might this grant just throw free money at people who were planning to move somewhere else anyway? The program, which can help a maximum of 60 people at the minimum grant amount, is supposed to be a pilot, and pilots are supposed to be scalable–does scalable—does D.C. propose to solve its commuter problem by paying everyone who’s willing to relocate near transit or within walking distance of work?

It’s not even totally clear to me what problem this is supposed to be solving. But I guess the idea is to reduce automobile commuting traffic. So how about this as an alternative: Higher taxes on downtown parking garages, and the revenue reduces residential property taxes? Or if the problem is that affordable housing is scarce near Metro stations, how about rezone for denser building near the stations? Meanwhile, it actually seems to me that Metro is super-crowded at rush hours and that on the Red, Blue, and Orange lines we have very little ability to increase rush hour capacity. We really ought to be thinking about building more Metro lines unless we’re expecting population growth to halt.