Legislative Program
2026 Legislative Priorities
Every year NVTA develops a legislative program to communicate our priorities to the Virginia General Assembly. This educational initiative allows us to advocate for our role in effectively reducing congestion and providing multimodal transportation solutions across Northern Virginia. The most recent Legislative Program was adopted in December 2025.
The Northern Virginia region relies on local and regional transit agencies to provide services that connect residents to jobs, education, healthcare and recreation and reduce single-occupancy travel. Safe, reliable and sustainable transit services are critical to Northern Virginia continuing to pace the Commonwealth’s economy. But the ability of local government to sustain transit services beyond the current level has reached a tipping point.
The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, the Joint Subcommittee Studying Northern Virginia Transit Needs and the DMV Moves initiatives have labored to identify the operations and capital needs of our local bus systems, the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA). These initiatives also include recommendations for cost efficient operations, desired services, sustainable capital improvements and state of good repair and greater regional collaborations among systems.
We support regional priorities to secure dedicated sustainable transit funding solutions funded through net new revenues that does not reduce funding from or uses of existing sources for transportation in Northern Virginia. The Authority alone manages a seventeen-year revenue pipeline with funding dedicated to projects out to FY 2030. In 2026 it will add additional projects for funding in FY 2031.
These net new regional and state funds for transit operations and capital needs should grow, support predictable bond capacity and complement policies and collaboration actions that increase operational sustainability and efficiencies.
We support efforts to address the $153 million funding gap in FY 2027 for Virginia’s share of WMATA operations by securing additional Commonwealth funding that supports the strong WMATA ridership growth in Virginia post-pandemic.
An additional $38.5 million in annual revenues is still needed to restore dedicated regional revenues to pre- 2018 levels. Previously diverted dedicated regional revenue sources could be returned to the Authority and its member localities if the Commonwealth were to take on a larger role in providing funding to the Metro Capital Fund. Efforts to restore previously diverted regional revenue sources should not come from additional taxes imposed on Northern Virginia.
With the 2018 action to create dedicated revenue for the Metro Capital Fund, the Northern Virginia region has absorbed an increase of twenty cents per $100 in the Grantor’s Tax and a three percent increase in the Transient Occupancy Tax to produce revenue to complete critical multimodal transportation infrastructure, and with local funds, provides 2/3 of the dedicated revenues to the Metro Capital Fund which supports State of Good Repair projects of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA/Metro) to improve safety and reliability.
The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Transportation Technology Strategic Plan (TTSP) was developed as a tool for establishing a proactive approach to innovation, which keeps congestion reduction top of mind. It is comprised of an Action Plan and nine strategies that address congestion reduction, accessibility, cybersecurity/privacy, autonomous vehicles (especially zero-occupancy passenger vehicles), pricing mechanisms, communications infrastructure, regional interoperability, enhanced mobility through technologies in transit, and advanced decarbonization of the transportation system.
| Strategies | Intent of Strategy (long term) |
|---|---|
| 1.) Reduce congestion and increate throughput | Support deployment of transportation technologies that improve performance and optimize efficiency of the regional multimodal transportation system |
| 2.) Maximize access to jobs, employees and housing | Support deployment of transportation technologies that increase travel options and awareness of them |
| 3.) Maximize cybersecurity and privacy for members of the public | Monitor concerns on behalf of Northern Virginian’s, and leverage NVTA processes where appropriate and feasible. |
| 4.) Enhance operations of multimodal transportation system through connectivity and automation | To maximize the potential benefits of Connected and Automated Vehicles, while addressing avoidable increases in passenger vehicle miles traveled |
| 5.) Develop pricing mechanisms that manage travel demand and provide sustainable travel options | Identify technology-related measures at a regional scale to dynamically address congestion, including incentives; revenues will be re-invested in equitable solutions |
| 6.) Maximize the potential of physical and communication infrastructure to serve existing and emerging modes | Support adaptation of existing resources to support desirable technologies such as CASE vehicles, travel apps, micro modes and robust data collection |
| 7.) Enhance regional coordination and encourage interoperability ink the transportation system | Leverage regional synergies in the deployment of transportation technologies |
| 8.) Advance decarbonization of the transportation system | Support deployment of transportation technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and synergistic technologies that improve resiliency |
| 9.) Enhance mobility in the region through innovation and emerging technologies in transit | Support an array of transit innovations, in a manner that is flexible enough to adapt to future innovation |
TTSP activity will be grounded in the Authority’s vision and core values including Equity, Safety, and Sustainability. The Authority’s TTSP provides a foundation for the organization and its members to participate in implementing federal and state plans and funding to advance use of low or zero emission vehicles for personal and commercial use in Virginia and expanding local authority to take advantage of Automated Traffic Enforcement technologies to enhance traffic operations and safety.