VA: Virginia back at the crossroads on Metro, transit funding

Virginia lawmakers and a new governor will be looking next year for a lasting solution to the familiar challenge of funding the Washington Metro transit system — vital to the Northern Virginia suburbs and economy — without blowing another hole in a state budget that already confronts major demands on revenues in the next two years.

The General Assembly and next governor — either Democrat Abigail Spanberger or Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears — will face a request for up to $300 million in ongoing state and local funding for the $5 billion regional transit system. That doesn’t include $92 million local transit agencies in the region are seeking, including the Virginia Railway Express commuter rail service that extends as far south as Spotsylvania County.

Youngkin Metro

In this February 2024 photo, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Randy Clarke, left, general manager and CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority, get off a train at the Potomac Yard Metro station.

State lawmakers would like to find a solution that also addresses transit and other transportation needs across Virginia, without relying on general tax funds. Such funds will be in heavy demand as policymakers face big bills for Medicaid and K-12 schools, as well as food assistance and, potentially, health insurance as the federal government pulls back from some of its funding commitments to states under President Donald Trump.

“It’s important that we try and solve this so we don’t have to keep allocating general funds to Metro and other transit agencies,” said Sen. Adam Ebbin, D- Alexandria. He chairs a joint legislative subcommittee that is working on recommendations to the General Assembly.

High stakes

The stakes are high for Metro and the region it serves. Boosted by a $154 million annual commitment in capital funding that Virginia made in 2018 under then-Gov. Ralph Northam, Metro has rebuilt a transit system that was falling behind in repairs and safety, but now stands as a model for transit systems across the country that have struggled to recover ridership and revenues after the COVID-19 pandemic. It has led transit agencies in ridership growth for more than two years and now carries more passengers by bus than it did before the pandemic.

“We are safer, more frequent, more reliable, more cost-efficient than we were years ago,” said Randy Clarke, general manager and CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, in a presentation to Ebbin’s legislative subcommittee last week.

But the money that Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia each pledged more than seven years ago has not kept up with inflation. Now Metro is seeking $460 million from the regional partners to cover the costs of repairing and modernizing the 50-year-old system. It also wants to ensure that its funding is indexed to inflation in the future. Virginia’s share of the bill would range from $135 million to $150 million.

Otherwise, Metro says it will fall off a sharp funding cliff by the end of the decade.

“The simple fact is, absent action by the funding partners for WMATA, its capital program is going to shrink by $800 million a year, and that means they can’t sustain the condition of the system,” said Nick Donohue, a Richmond-based consultant who served as deputy secretary of transportation under Northam and his predecessor, Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

The money would not come from general tax funds, which would require Metro to return every two years with a request for the next budget. (General funds, derived largely from individual, corporate and sales taxes, largely pay for services that broadly affect the general public — such as education, health care and public safety.)

Instead, Ebbin’s subcommittee is looking at options that represent “non-general funds” — such as use taxes, vehicle-based taxes and fees — and non-traditional sources of revenue, such as retail delivery fees, according to a presentation to legislators last week by Kate Mattice, executive director of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

Silver Line Metro

People ride the Washington Metro in November 2022 during the opening of the new Silver Line Extension at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly.

“Northern Virginia’s transit network is about economic growth in Northern Virginia, but really it is about economic strength here in the entire commonwealth of Virginia,” Mattice told the House Appropriations Committee.

Clarke, Metro’s general manager, said the system needs a stable source of dedicated revenue that it can use to underwrite bonds to pay for its capital needs.

“General fund just doesn’t work,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “It needs to be done by statutory obligation.”

Last year, Gov. Glenn Youngkin agreed to a $145 million budget commitment to help fill a gap in Metro’s operating budget, but that was one-time money that will run out this year. Now, Metro is looking for $153 million a year from Virginia for its operating fund, preferably from a dedicated source of revenue that’s indexed to the rate of inflation.

“It looks like $300 million, but half of that is something they’ve already committed to,” Clarke said.

The Youngkin administration doesn’t necessarily see it that way. Administration transportation officials weren’t available for comment, but Metro officials aren’t counting on the money to be part of the proposed two-year budget that the governor will introduce in December, a month before leaving office.

“I haven’t seen any indication from the governor that will happen,” Clarke said.

Metro’s operating costs

Administration officials previously have expressed concern about Metro’s operating costs — from union contracts to low fares and high rates of people evading them — but Metro said it has reduced operating and capital costs by more than $532 million in the past two years. Those savings include contracts with Metro’s four unions that gave no wage increase in the first year, including for administrators, and limited raises to 3% to 3.5% over the next three years of the labor agreements. It also erased a potential shortfall of up to $140 million in the last fiscal year without additional state money.

Metro raised fares by 12% last year, with Youngkin’s support, and said it has reduced fare evasion by 82%, with barriers erected to prevent riders from hopping over turnstiles without paying.

Del. Mark Sickles

Sickles

Del. Mark Sickles, D- Fairfax, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is preparing legislation to address Metro’s needs, but he said last week, “We need to solve the (transit funding) problem on a statewide basis.”

Sickles and other state legislators say funding for Metro is part of a much larger outlook for transportation across Virginia, with more emphasis on passenger rail travel as work begins to build a new railroad bridge across the Potomac River next to Long Bridge, built 121 years ago. The construction of a new rail bridge, along with rail improvements on both sides of the river, will provide separate tracks for freight and passenger trains that now have to share the old bridge.

In partnership with CSX Corp. and Amtrak, the Virginia rail project is expected to open up opportunities for almost hourly passenger trains between Richmond and Washington by the end of the decade, as well as expanded rail service to Southwest Virginia and Hampton Roads.

“My dream is that when that bridge opens, we will be prepared to fully utilize it,” said Sickles, a senior member of both House Appropriations and the subcommittee studying Northern Virginia’s transit needs.

For example, he said, with the new bridge, Virginia Railway Express “can run seven days a week, not only be a commuter rail but have regular transit service on the hour for seven days a week.”

Del. Terry Austin, R- Botetourt, called Sickles’ comments “spot on” and said he has become a believer in passenger rail, which already serves Roanoke and will be extended soon to Christiansburg, as a financially sensible alternative to relying solely on highway construction for transportation.

“At $30 million a mile to add a lane on Interstate 81, we’ve got to move people some other way,” Austin said last week. “I think Metro and Amtrak can be a solution to a serious problem in the commonwealth.”

“But I think we also have to find new revenue streams and growing revenue streams, not stale or declining revenue streams for transportation,” he said. “With the efficiency of automobiles, electric vehicles and other things, I don’t think we have the revenue stream that is sustainable going forward.”

Va. voter guide: Candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general on the issues

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