Fairfax County leaders believe they and other Northern Virginia leaders are getting an unfair deal when it comes to state transportation funding.
The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday (May 13) to send a letter to Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sheppard Miller III, expressing concern about being passed over in the latest round of “Smart Scale” funding for transportation improvements.
The state program allows localities to submit proposals, which are then scored to see how they meet designated criteria. Final approval is given by the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB).
Fairfax officials submitted three projects for consideration in the CTB’s Six-Year Improvement Program, to be voted on in June. None are likely to get funding, as they ranked 109th, 225th and 261st out of 270 submissions statewide.
“It is unacceptable,” Board of Supervisors Chair Jeff McKay said. “The scoring process is skewed.”
Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman proposed writing the letter to Miller and secured the unanimous approval of his colleagues.
“We believe that the process needs to be reviewed so that larger projects can be more competitive,” the letter says. “Fairfax County’s travel needs require large projects. The county is securing significant funding from other sources, but the commonwealth must also be a partner in the efforts to fund these projects.”
Statewide, localities and transit agencies submitted requests totaling $8.2 billion. Available funding for the latest round is about $1 billion, with 53 projects proposed for financial support.
Four Northern Virginia proposals, totaling $88.7 million, have made the cut from 23 submissions across the region. They include one each in Arlington, Prince William and Loudoun counties and the city of Alexandria.
Fairfax’s requests for the fiscal years 2026-2031 Smart Scale program were:
- $70.5 million to support the $98 million plan for improvements along Braddock Road from Humphries Drive and Southampton Drive. The project ranked 109th in the state assessment.
- $71.5 million to support a $267-million project to extend Frontier Drive from south of the Franconia-Springfield Parkway to Loisdale Road, including access to the Franconia-Springfield Transit Center. The project ranked 225th statewide.
- $407.5 million in support of the $419.5 million project to extend Town Center Parkway in Reston approximately 0.4 miles between Sunrise Valley Drive and Sunset Hills Road under the Dulles Toll Road and Metrorail tracks. The project ranked 261st.
The Smart Scale program scores projects in six categories: congestion mitigation, safety, accessibility, economic development, environment and land use. It then takes the cumulative score in all the categories and divides the total by each $10 million requested.
In terms of overall benefits, Fairfax County’s Town Center Parkway project scored higher at 12.5 than an Alexandria request for funding to improve the Duke Street and Route 1 intersection, which rated a final score of 12.4.
But when factoring in cost, Alexandria’s $6.6 million proposal increased its score to 18.9 — the highest among Northern Virginia submissions — while the county’s request for nearly $420 million to fund the Town Center Parkway extension sank its score to 0.3. That ranked it 22nd of 23 submissions from Northern Virginia localities.
McKay said members of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission are aware of the program’s limitations.
“We’ve been talking about this for years,” he said, calling the 2025 package “glaring” in ignoring needs in Northern Virginia, especially Fairfax.
McKay argued that Northern Virginia is put in a bind by the additional costs involved in construction projects.
“Just the land-acquisition costs alone are significantly different” than localities in other parts of the state face, he said.
The supervisors’ letter suggests that Northern Virginia as a whole is adversely impacted. Total funding for Northern Virginia projects represents less than 10% of the available funding pool, it notes.
Fairfax still won’t come away empty-handed in the six-year plan set for adoption by the CTB. Other revenue streams will support Fairfax Connector, the planned Richmond Highway bus rapid transit project, rehabilitation of county transit facilities and several transit-outreach initiatives.
Metro is also slated to receive $491.7 million from Virginia to support its nearly $5 billion fiscal year 2026 budget, which was adopted on April 10 and will take effect on July 1.
Map via Volkert study
