You can now use pretax dollars to pay for Lyft carpooling

Lyft is partnering with a handful of employee benefit services to allow people who receive pretax transportation benefits through their employers to use that money for carpooling trips. People who live in New York City, Boston, Seattle, and Miami will soon be able to use pretax dollars to pay for Lyft Line trips to and from work, the ride-hailing company announced today.

Lyft said that it was teaming up with WageWorks, Zenefits, Benefit Resource, Commuter Benefit Solutions, and Navia to offer the new benefits. This comes after Uber announced a similar partnership with WageWorks for employees who live in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Like Uber, Lyft says commuters can save up 40 percent on their carpooling trips by using pretax dollars. By partnering with more benefit providers, Lyft theoretically can offer these discounts to a wider swath of commuters than Uber. Both companies have been pushing their carpooling services as a form of mass transit, which raises questions about privatization of public transportation. Uber has struck partnerships with several cities and townships to offer reduced fares for commuters.

But the fact remains that while they may be popular with riders, Lyft Line and UberPool are still enormously unpopular with drivers. A recent survey found 56.5 percent of drivers disliked driving for UberPool.