Virginia’s state and local governments would be required to come up with $136 million annually in additional funding for Metro rail and bus service starting in mid-2027, if recommendations from a key regional task force make it through a still-uncertain future.
The DMV Moves task force approved a nonbinding framework yesterday (Wednesday) for increased, dedicated capital spending in support of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). It recommends $460 million in additional funding split between Virginia, Maryland and D.C., starting in fiscal year 2028 and rising after that at a rate of 3% per year.
“This is a real milestone,” said D.C. City Council member Charles Allen, who cochaired the 22-member panel with Virginia’s Paul Smedberg.
If the proposal wins eventual support from all the required government bodies, the additional funding “will move us from bouncing from crisis to crisis to crisis” to stability, Allen said.
Smedberg called the vote and process leading up to it a “turning point” in regional collaboration and transit planning.
The vote taken by the panel was to support the executive summary, as the full document is not yet available. It is expected to be ready when the WMATA board and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments hold a joint meeting on Nov. 17 to consider recommending the plan to member jurisdictions.
Not having a fully fleshed-out proposal in front of them unsettled a number of DMV Moves members, who were charged with identifying dedicated funding for Metro and other transit agencies in the region.
“I do not really understand why we are forcing this … when we don’t have a plan. It’s not helpful,” said Malcolm Augustine, who represents a portion of Prince George’s County in the Maryland Senate.
Augustine was one of three DMV Moves members who abstained from the vote. A lone panelist — Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation director Tiffany Robinson — voted against it.
Among Robinson’s concerns were the plan’s call for a guaranteed 3% funding increase for Metro annually, and ambiguity on whether state governments would be required to match any new federal funding that comes in.
D.C. City Council Chair Phil Mendelson, who abstained, said he supported the intent of the package but took issue with the funding formula that divides up financial responsibilities.
Under the proposal, the District would be responsible for $173 million of the first year’s costs, Maryland for $152 million and Virginia for $136 million.
The percentage splits are the same as for other funding of WMATA operations. Mendelson, who has questioned the split in the past, reiterated his objections at the Oct. 29 meeting.
“The District of Columbia has for too long paid more than its share. We just can’t keep doing that,” he said.
D.C.’s share would be 38% of the $460 million, while Mendelson said it would be “unfair if we have to come up with more than a third.”
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said he understood concerns about who pays what, but that should be a separate discussion at another time.
“If you surveyed everyone around the table, we’d probably all have gripes with the funding formula [and] all of us would fix it differently,” McKay said.
McKay said time is of the essence in addressing Metro’s financial future.
“We don’t have a couple of years,” McKay said, acknowledging that “this resolution doesn’t do everything for everybody.”
The Fairfax board chair said he appreciated the panel recommending that each jurisdiction — Virginia, Maryland and D.C. — take its own approach to raising the additional revenue, as he had previously advocated. In Virginia, that likely will require action at both the state level and by Northern Virginia localities.
“We are going to have a big challenge tackling this,” McKay predicted, citing current economic challenges across the region.
A Virginia legislative subcommittee chaired by Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-39) is working on funding possibilities for Virginia’s share. Ebbin also was in Richmond on Oct. 29, but Northern Virginia Transportation Commission executive director Kate Mattice conveyed his belief that his panel and the DMV Moves proposal are in general alignment on goals.
Ebbin’s panel is expected to produce its recommendations before the 2026 legislative session begins in mid-January.
DMV Moves panelists opted this spring against mandating specific regional funding streams. Instead, its adopted recommendation suggests a range of potential funding sources, which could include increases in any of a number of existing taxes and fees.
In something that would be new for Northern Virginia, its list of possibilities included a local income tax dedicated to transit.
Mendelson indicated support for a single regional tax of some sort, saying the panel had “taken the easy way out” by leaving it up to jurisdictions to determine how to fund their share.
“We’ve punted,” he said.
McKay countered that having local or state autonomy over revenue options is potentially the only way the proposal could win broad support.
“Each of us is probably going to have a different answer,” he said of how Virginia, D.C. and Maryland would fund their shares.
At the DMV Moves meeting, representatives of a number of advocacy organizations expressed a mix of support for the intent of the effort and concern that the recommendations remain somewhat nebulous.
Bill Pugh, speaking on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said the package represented “real progress.” But unless firm commitments could be made among jurisdictions, there’s no guarantee that the effort won’t have to be eventually revisited, he said.
“The region should not have to continually embark on these costly task forces,” Pugh said.
Emily West, representing the Greater Washington Partnership, also hoped to see more specifics, but praised what she termed a “pragmatic approach to funding.”
“We look forward to remaining engaged,” West said.
The panel also received dozens of comments from the public in advance of the meeting for consideration.
The DMV Moves initiative began 18 months ago as a joint effort of WMATA and COG. Initially, the additional annual revenue needed was projected at $700 million to $750 million, but was whittled down after Metro scaled back operating costs and agreed to a capital plan less robust than it once had sought.
The final request for $460 million is a manageable number, McKay said, while the earlier, higher figures were not.
Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said the level of regional collaboration that has emerged is “a big deal, but much more work lies ahead as WMATA, COG, local and state governments work at turning recommendations into action.
“It’s just the start of a long, complicated process between now and the end of the spring,” he said.
Inaction really wasn’t an option, Clarke told members of the panel.
“We don’t want to go backwards,” he said.
Co-chair Allen acknowledged that the approved package was the product of compromise and consensus.
“Some will say we did not go big enough,” she said. “We will also have folks tell us it’s too big.”
Like others on the panel, Allen said failing to propose some form of change would imperil Metro’s long-term viability.
“Doing the same old thing is not going to get us where we need to go,” he said.
