Fifteen options are now on the table, as regional and state leaders mull ways to establish dedicated funding for Northern Virginia transit operations.
A full range of funding options for Metro and other public transportation systems was presented to the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) on Thursday (Dec. 5), including new taxes and fees.
“Efforts are heating up,” NVTC Executive Director Kate Mattice said.
Two separate groups have been working for months to narrow down options for dedicated regional transit funding — something the D.C. region, uniquely among large U.S. metro areas, doesn’t have:
- DMV Moves, a joint task force created by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), is taking a regionwide look at funding.
- The Northern Virginia Growing Needs of Public Transit Joint Subcommittee was established by the Virginia General Assembly’s passage of Senate Joint Resolution 28 (SJ28) to look specifically at new or expanded ways the Commonwealth can fund its share of local transit costs.
At its November meeting, the SJ28 legislative subcommittee proposed five new funding possibilities:
- Regional highway-use tax
- Regional income tax
- Tax on retail deliveries
- Regional car-rental tax
- Additional hours of tolling on I-66 Inside the Beltway
Those options have now been added to a list of 10 revenue sources recommended in 2023 by an NVTC working group tasked with developing a new financial model for Metro:
- Retail sales/use tax surcharge
- Transient occupancy tax surcharge
- Grantor’s tax surcharge
- Additional motor-vehicle sales tax
- Additional vehicle-registration fee
- Regional motor-vehicle fuels tax
- Additional driver’s-license fee
- Tax on trips provided by transportation-network companies like Uber and Lyft
- Sales tax on parking
- Sales tax on auto-repair labor charges
By next summer, consultants working for the General Assembly panel will come back with preliminary revenue expectations for each of the 15 options, according to state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-39), who chairs the subcommittee.
The subcommittee will consider the options and make preliminary recommendations around September, finalizing them two months later. A report will be presented to the General Assembly at the end of 2025.
Fairfax County’s Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said regional leaders need to begin engaging with the community, explaining the rationale behind higher taxes for transit.
“Most of us here are elected officials,” Alcorn said. “We need to start educating our constituents.”
The DMV Moves initiative also took “a big step forward” at its most recent meeting on Dec. 3, Paul Smedberg, a Virginia representative to the WMATA board, told NVTC.
As reported to NVTC, the regional task force continued looking at four future scenarios, ranging from maintaining existing transit service with consistent funding for maintenance to a swing-for-the-fences expansion effort.
Members appeared to generally favor one of the middle options that would enhance service but stop short of more ambitious and costly improvements.
In additon to Metro service, the DMV Moves initiative is examining funding for Virginia Railway Express and local bus systems. Annual cost increases related to the four options start at $645 million “and [go] up from there,” Smedberg said.
According to Smedberg, the panel also seemed to agree that each of the three component jurisdictions — Virginia, Maryland and D.C. — should be responsible for primarily determining funding sources on its own.
At their Dec. 5 meeting, NVTC members got a first look at a proposed resolution laying out the commission’s priorities and goals as the dedicated transit funding discussion moves forward.
The policy draft is “an opportunity to articulate our policies,” Mattice said.
NVTC members will circle back on the resolution at their next meeting, slated for mid-January.
“There’s a lot of wordsmithing that has to go on,” Falls Church City Council member David Snyder said, asking his counterparts to propose any changes well in advance of that meeting.
Local leaders are also holding their breath to see how a change in presidential administrations impacts both transit and the economy.
Echoing recent speculation by WMATA officials about the potential impact on Metro ridership, NVTC chair Matt de Ferranti, an Arlington County Board member, said the incoming Trump administration’s promised push for more federal workers to return to offices full-time might be beneficial for transit across the region.
“It could be a positive development,” he said.
