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<h2>Process</h2>
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Long Range Transportation Planning: The NVTA is responsible for developing Northern Virginia’s Long Range Transportation Plan, updated every five years. The current version, TransAction 2040, identified over 200 regional projects. The process to update TransAction 2040, the first update since the passage of HB 2313 (2013), began in August 2015. The updated Plan will be adopted in 2017 in advance of the Six Year Program starting in FY2018. The long range transportation plan takes into account other state, regional, local and transit agency planning efforts. To be eligible for funding using the NVTA’s Regional Revenue Funds, candidate projects must first be included in TransAction 2040 (or subsequent updates).

Periodically, jurisdictions and agencies will be invited to submit projects for funding consideration through the NVTA’s ‘Call for Projects.’ The submitted projects will be subject to the HB 599 Evaluation and Rating process .The HB 599 process assigns a numerical rating to each project submitted by the NVTA, which provides an indication of the relative level of congestion relief attributable to each submitted project. To be eligible for funding using the NVTA’s Regional Revenue Funds, candidate projects must have an HB 599 rating.

The ‘NVTA Project Selection Process’ takes into account each project’s HB 599 rating, among other quantitative and qualitative criteria reflecting the Authority’s priorities, to determine which projects will be considered for inclusion in the Six Year Program.

The diagram below provides an overview of the NVTA’s process for developing its first Six Year Program, covering the period from FY2018 thru FY2023. The Six Year Program will list the projects that the Authority intends to fund using its Regional Revenue Funds. While the Six Year Program covers a six-year timespan, it will likely be updated annually or every two years. The Six Year Program itself is the product of two key processes – long range transportation planning (top half of diagram) and funding (lower half of diagram). Each of these processes is summarized below.

Planning-Programing-Funding Process for Six Year Program NVTA

Funding: Projects included in the Six Year Program are funded using the NVTA’s Regional Revenue Funds. The amount of Regional Revenue Funds available each year depends on the performance of three specific revenue streams – Retail Sales & Use Tax, Grantors Tax and Transient Occupancy Tax.

Projects selected for funding may have additional funding sources however, including the NVTA’s Local Distribution Funds (allocated at the sole discretion of the sponsoring jurisdiction.) Other non-NVTA funding sources include Federal (i.e. CMAQ/RSTP allocations), State (subject to prioritization using the new statewide HB 2 process), Local and Agency funds.

Regional Revenue Funds can be directly used to fund projects (PayGo) or to finance bonds that have been issued specifically to fund projects included in the Six Year Program.

Note: Prior to the full implementation of the Six Year Program, the NVTA continues to fund regional projects through a combination of single and two year funding programs. Such funding programs generally adhere to the same process as outlined above for the Six Year Program.