SmarTrip has more to think about these days. (Photo: Jay Westcott)

Has it seemed to you that Metro fare gates now take a tad longer to read your SmarTrip cards than they used to? As Dr. Gridlock explained earlier this month, Metro has been updating the SmarTrip technology to perform the more complicated transactions required of it these days. As a result, Mr. SmarTrip is now in the same boat as the rest of us: He needs to know, for instance, when it’s the peak-of-the-peak hour or merely the peak hour of travel time on Metro. Deeper thoughts take more time, hence the slightly slower gates.

We thought perhaps this delay would resolve itself once all the updating had been done to the fare gates and SmarTrip system. But Angela Gates, of WMATA’s press office, told us yesterday that this relatively teensy time lapse is probably here to stay. “Our engineers are doing some checking on that, and they’re saying that it’s probably going to be a permanent change,” Gates said. “There’s so much information that has to communicate between the SmarTrip card and the fare gate. It’s a fraction of a second longer than what you’re used to.”

In the interest of keeping Metro running smoothly, we ask that you factor that fraction of a second into your commute time and plan accordingly.