When Dave Taylor decided to buy a new home in Aberdeen a couple of years ago, he made a quick calculation to determine the cost of his commute to Washington as a program specialist for the Department of Homeland Security.
At the time, federal employees were eligible to receive a subsidy of about $250 a month to pay for public transit. He figured it would "just barely cover" his daily MARC trips between Aberdeen and Union Station.
Last year, the subsidy was cut to $130 a month, leaving him an out-of-pocket expense of about $120 per month. His fiancee, who just started at the Justice Department, is paying the same amount.
"Between the two of us," the 29-year-old said, "it's going to be about $250 a month" — money that would otherwise be going into savings or toward the mortgage.
"We never know if [the subsidy is] going to be the same or if it's going to be different," he said. "It would be nice if there was a standard year to year, but that's not how it is with Congress."
For years, unpredictable transit costs have frustrated federal employees and others — including local transit agencies — who say the government should be doing more to encourage transit ridership over commuting by car.
Users and advocates say the government should give transit riders the same subsidy of about $250 that it gives to federal employees who drive to work.
"It's an issue of fairness," said Mantill Williams, a spokesman for the American Public Transportation Association. "And that issue of fairness is important to us because we don't want to have a bias in our tax code that gives people an incentive to drive instead of taking public transportation."
If Congress can't find the money to extend the transit subsidy at the higher level, Williams said, it should introduce a cost-neutral policy that equalizes the parking and transit subsidies — even if that means reducing the former to increase the latter.
Lawmakers created the higher transit subsidy in the federal stimulus package of 2009, when they consolidated commuter and transit programs. They extended it in subsequent tax bills before allowing it to lapse last year.
Last month, Congress approved returning the subsidy to $250 per month for 2014, applying the change retroactively. But it has fallen back to $130 for 2015.
Federal agencies could reimburse employees for their 2014 expenditures under the retroactive rate, but employees, union officials and others don't see that happening, because many agencies are tightening their belts.
"It remains to be seen. Do agencies have the funds to go retroactive for all those previous months?" said Greg Stanford, government and public affairs director for the Federal Managers Association. "We are as unsure and uncertain as everyone else at this point in terms of what's going to happen."
Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which has lobbied for parity in the subsidies to transit users and drivers, said her organization is "working with federal agencies to make sure employees receive these retroactive subsidies in accordance with our contracts."
Parity, Kelley said, "would encourage more people to choose mass transit, reduce pollution and ease traffic congestion."
Changes in the subsidies affect thousands of Marylanders who commute to federal jobs. More than 100,000 federal employees in Maryland commute to Washington, the Census Bureau reported in 2010, with nearly 17,500 from Baltimore and its surrounding counties. Many ride trains or other transit. Some use the transit benefit to travel in van pools.
Syreeta Gross, a contractor who oversees the new commuter center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, said the transit benefit has been important in how the Army installation has accommodated the growth that came with the national base realignment and closure process of 2005.
"That was a huge driver, because we had people coming from Northern Virginia, a lot of young professionals coming from Baltimore, and then of course a lot of people coming from Fort Monmouth" in New Jersey, she said.
Before the realignment, about 60 people used commuter vans and buses to get to the base, Gross said. Today, about 400 do — using the federal transit subsidy.
Changes in the subsidy "make a big difference in people's bottom line," Gross said. She said she has heard widespread concern about the fluctuations and frustration that the transit subsidy is less than the subsidy for drivers.
"It's defeating the purpose of what we're trying to do as far as promoting mass transit," Gross said.
Non-federal workers who ride public transit to work are not eligible for the same subsidies but can use pre-tax dollars to pay for transit costs up to the amount allotted by the benefit program.
Users of the benefit make up such a large percentage of ridership on some area transit systems that transit agencies have expressed concerns about the lack of benefit consistency and parity.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates the Metro in Washington and the Maryland suburbs, blamed the subsidy cut last year for a reduction in ridership. The agency, which receives funding from Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia and the federal government, said suburban riders switched to driving to work.
Falling gas prices likely have also contributed to more workers driving. The federal government has set higher fuel reimbursement rates for 2015 for employees who drive their own vehicles for business.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority says up to 40 percent of Metro riders during the morning commuter peak are federal employees, and 60 percent to 70 percent of them make use of the federal commuter benefit.
After the subsidy dropped to $130, the agency reported in November, the number of riders who use the benefit dropped. The number of riders who take longer trips from Maryland and other suburbs, considered traditional commuters, declined by 1.5 percent from September 2013 to September 2014, even as the number of riders who do not use the transit benefit increased by 2 percent.
"It definitely does have an impact on the bottom line," said Mark Schofield, the WMATA's director of financial planning and analysis. "If not as many people are riding, then we're not getting as much fare revenue coming in.
"It's posing challenges for us in terms of fare policy looking forward."
The move to return the subsidy to its higher level retroactively does little to curb the problem, Schofield said: "It certainly doesn't bring back the ridership that we lost."
The Maryland Transit Administration, which operates MARC, said it supports a higher transit subsidy "because it makes transit a more attractive transportation option."
Lawmakers from Maryland have pushed for parity between the subsidies and criticized the fluctuations in the transit portion.
"Extending the mass-transit commuter tax benefit has an immediate impact, easing the burden on middle-class families and Maryland's federal workforce," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski said in a statement.
The Maryland Democrat has supported legislation in recent years that would have established permanent parity between the subsidies, but those efforts have been unsuccessful.
"As the region continues to grow, this [transit] benefit provides much-needed relief for everyone who uses the region's strained highway system," she said.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Benjamin Cardin said the Maryland Democrat was pleased that the recent tax extenders package included the retroactive return of the transit subsidy to $250 for 2014 but believes the delay "unfairly caused commuters to miss out on the benefit all year and has created an administrative headache for those employers who can provide the benefit retroactively — all because Congress failed to prioritize the use of public transit over driving."
Spokeswoman Sue Walitsky said Cardin wants Congress to act "early in 2015 to maintain the parity between transit and driving, which helps our workers, reduces traffic congestion on our region's highways, and improves air quality by taking thousands of cars off the road."
For Joel Benge, a Columbia resident who works in information technology and communications at a federal agency in Washington, the fluctuations in transit costs have given him quite a ride. When he first took his job five years ago, he was commuting from Harford County, and the subsidy was a major benefit. When it dropped to $130 last year, he said, it "felt like it was a step backward" — almost like a pay cut.
In May, when Benge moved to Columbia, the commute was again a consideration. He now drives to the MARC station at BWI Marshall Airport, where he parks for free with his commuter pass and takes the train into Washington.
With his commuter pass discount for being a student at the University of Maryland University College, his monthly cost comes to $127, he said, "right under the wire" with the $130 subsidy.
"I'm kind of just squeaking by," he said.
It feels great to have all the numbers add up, he said, but he fears the subsidy might be cut again.
"When the picture changes," he said, "you've got to take a look around and evaluate everything else."
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