You can reduce the speed limit to zero if you like, but since the city and its constituency (and this readership) have decided not to enforce any traffic code, it achieves exactly nothing.
And save the "muh cameras" canard - they do not work, as evidenced by the half-million outstanding fines currently achieving nothing. In that regard, camera fines are essentially like Metro fares - only honest people are paying them these days.
The President needs to order federal workers back to the office.
Word is that DC's downtown has a vacancy rate of 60% - that is totally untenable, not just for that neighborhood, but for DC's tax base. The solution, as you pointed out, is to order people back to the office. Unfortunately, that will never happen under Biden or any Democrat - the public service unions are one of his most lucrative and powerful constituencies.
It's not, but hopefully this is the start of the chicken-and-egg of slower roads. If DDOT has 30 MPH on their maps, then they aren't going to approve 25 MPH changes. Now that the road is designated 25 MPH, maybe they'll start accepting tighter tolerances.
Never mind that the environment already felt with 40 MPH..
Maybe this is what government agencies are already doing, but they may need to at least over 2 days of telework per week and quite possibly 3 days of telework.
I know it varies with agency and office, but I've worked in two different places where this was how it was as early as 2014. Large scale telework was already coming in. All the pandemic did was accelerate it by 5 to 7 years.
There are 11.5 million job openings right now. Remote-working federal workers have many options, and "ordering" them back to the office may be costly in terms of turnover.
As far as Metro is concerned, what's happening is a consequence of history, and Metro will have to figure out how to adapt.
However, if private industry counterparts offer employees the flexibility to mostly telework, it may become increasingly challenging for the government to retain employees if they don't also allow this level of work-life balance. Maybe this is what government agencies are already doing, but they may need to at least over 2 days of telework per week and quite possibly 3 days of telework. For those with alternative/compressed work schedules, that might mean coming in the office 1-2 days per week.
The President needs to order federal workers back to the office.
While in fact, POTUS has asked to not get more than 60% of the workforce back into the office to save space, energy and the environment.
The continued shut down of Metro is a farce
For everything south of National yes. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to have 4 minute service downtown during a night I went out last week. I was not expecting that.
the president this weekend said the pandemic is over.
But why would that mean that people stop teleworking, considering how popular it is?
Momentum gains on Southern Maryland Rapid Transit Project
It's bonkers to built light rail for such a distance and create a transfer when you have a metroline pointing in that direction.
DC to reduce speed limit to 25 mph on some streets
Updating some speed limit signs is not gonna do anything if DDOT does not change the way the roads are designed. Also, 25mph is still too fast. It should go down to 20 or even 15mph. And it should be (mostly) district wide. This is lip service.
What leads you to believe that they were empty homes in Harlem and central Brooklyn just ready to absorb the demand of entire neighborhoods being demolished?
And even if there were homes available, what leads you to believe that banks and lenders were readily giving out mortgages to black Americans? The same people that suffered at the hands of systemic racist federal and local government regulations that made sure black Americans did not have the same access to opportunities as their white peers.
At the very least they could have put the proceeds from eminent domain into risk free government bonds. $2000 invested in government bonds in 1960 would be worth $950,000 today.
There is a serious lack of understanding of our history. It's like telling a homeless person to not use this money to meet their immediate needs, such as food, shelter, and healthcare for themselves and family, but instead forgo all that and instead save and invest.
I feel like given all I've read about the Southern Maryland transit project, there's a lot of other transit projects that should get funding first. That area has no density at all and is just sprawl, they want to use highway ROW to build the project, and then force a transfer to another transit mode that will likely have a separate payment system, just to get to the job/entertainment centers. Wouldn't the money be better spent on separating the Blue Line through downtown and into MD, extending the Purple Line to Greenbelt or National Harbor, better MARC service, or a dozen other MD improvements that would benefit MD and the region?
The President needs to order federal workers back to the office. The continued shut down of Metro is a farce, and the president this weekend said the pandemic is over.
For a quick run on the demographic changes in DC this is a good write up:
Thanks for bringing this report to our attention. It will take a while to digest. Time to get reading.
Rights of way are precious and hard to come by, but the most essential element in plans like this. I really can’t read the map. I don’t know what the newly drawn lines are lying on top of, or where they start and end. Thinking the suburbs will concert modes of transit without significant changes in rights of way available is a pipe dream. Looking forward to see reports ideas on this.
Is that a new Potomac crossing? Thank goodness!
Any transit improvements: rail, BRT, or whatever, need to take into account actual transit times for people. Too often, the point to point transit solution is heralded as an improvement just by its existence, when the actual travel times are so long as to make them useless in practice for many.
Are you referring to Metroway? I've been taking it since the blue line shutdown and haven't been impressed with it. They need dedicated lanes in Crystal City and Pentagon City.
I've lived in Fairlawn for over 10 years and I don't understand the fears that the 11th Street Bridge will cause displacement. It connects to the NPS Anacostia Park and is adjacent to significantly sized highway interchanges. If DC was serious about building the additional housing needed to give people options so they aren't displaced, there would have been legitimate dense housing options in place near MLK Ave, Good Hope Rd, and Howard Rd some time ago. The Anacostia Metro doesn't have to be just concrete.
People overwhelmingly do not want to use transit....
...in places where transit is bad. Everywhere where transit is good, people overwhelmingly want to use transit.
The difference is that in places with good transit, people let their teenagers use transit independently, whereas in the US, people are afraid to let their kid play alone in their front yard.
People overwhelmingly do not want to use transit. And our regional highway system is still trying to recover from decades of interference by environmentalists. Population has continued to boom while 1500 lane miles of capacity was removed from forward looking transportation plans developed in the 1960s. Vehicles today are 99.7% cleaner than in the 70s - according to the EPA. Climate change is a contrived crisis pushed by the same dolts that demanded we eliminate planned capacity because "if we don't build it, they won't come". They were miserably wrong then and this article is more of the same. People choose personal vehicles because they provide flexibility and freedom. The goal of the transportation plan should be to move the most vehicles possible, as efficiently as possible. Buses for those that want or need to use them. There is no utopia and we must not pretend that collectivist mass transportation works, or is affordable outside and urban environment. The $7B metro extension to Dulles will prove that soon enough! Taxpayers and drivers on the Toll Road are projected to have to cover $100M or more operating deficit per year. Brilliant!!
No way will I be voting for CM Anita Bonds...did not do so in June and will continue with that. She has been there too long...Time to say "Thank you, Ms Bonds!
I will definitely be voting for Graham McLaughlin. His fresh ideas and energy could and will install some well needed new blood.
If you build a park in a middle class area, people will complain that it’s inequitable because people who already live some place decent are getting an amenity. If you build it in a poor area, you have to spend $86M on equity goals and people will still complain its inequitable.
Someone should write an article about the “ideal development” that takes a page from the Ideal Cyclist.
Great article, Bill, and kudos to you and CSG for putting it out there. I drafted a piece with a similar theme as an op-ed to the Post in response to their editorial page gushing endorsement of Gov. Hogan's interstate widening proposal, which they said showed the kind of forward thinking demonstrated by Virginia. Never heard back from them on the my submission, the essence of which was we've long realized that expanding highways to solve congestion and manage growth is an idea that history has almost universally debunked, and for logical economic reasons. I explain why in the excerpt below from my attempted post, which i think you will see directly supports and amplifies your observations in the Northern Virginia plan.
By effectively giving an economic incentive through fresh highway capacity to develop more land at the fringe, and not attempting to structure the subsequent growth, we encourage more and more development that requires reliance on private vehicles as the sole option for travel. Importantly, this shows up not only in more and longer auto commute trips -- which transportation planners tend to focus on -- but a dependency on driving for all the other needs of life: school, shopping, personal services, even social connections – which the National Household Travel Survey shows make up 84% of daily household trips and almost 80% of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Not only that, but these trips unrelated to work make up more than half of the vehicle trips on the roads during peak periods – much more in the PM period. There is a rational solution to this dilemma, which is to take greater advantage of the resource provided by our extensive rail transit system and direct more of the anticipated deluge of people and jobs into mixed-use communities around transit stations. In such a setting, households can satisfy many of their daily needs without extensive car travel – by walking or biking -- thus reducing demand on crowded roads and streets. The concentration of people, jobs and commercial activities in “nodes” around transit allows transit to become much more attractive and efficient for longer trips, like commuting, because you can reach the line by walking at both ends of the trip. Plus, with higher demand, transit agencies can justify higher levels of service and lower fares. This was one of the top strategies we identified and evaluated as part of a 2016 MWCOG multi-sector study to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions. Using data from the regional travel survey, the analysis clearly showed that households living in transit-served mixed-use Regional Activity Centers generated less than half of the daily VMT per person than those located in conventional suburban development settings, with the advantage growing more substantial as one moves further outward from the core. Importantly, designated Regional Activity Centers not co-located with premium transit service had VMT rates not much different from the typical background suburb, largely a result of lower density, insufficient mix of uses, and poor walkability. By locating higher percentages of jobs and housing in these transit-served activity centers, we calculated that we could actually reduce regional VMT by 11 to 14 percent over current projected 2040 levels, and between 1.3 and 1.5 million tons of CO2. These findings were presented to regional leaders but as part of the study, and while the conclusions were not contested, the study failed to find the political will to embrace the concept over other less contentious strategies.
Given the ominous trends in climate change and the folly of thinking highway expansion – even with tolling -- will solve as complex a problem as traffic congestion, it’s time to seriously "look at the science" and take meaningful steps to manage our future.
Many homeowners whose houses were seized by eminent domain and destroyed by the government were also denied the ability to purchase new homes in whites-only suburbs. Displaced residents often had no choice but to move into shoddily maintained public housing,
Redlining was terrible and very unfair but why didn’t they buy homes in black neighborhoods like Harlem and central Brooklyn and instead moving into public housing?
At the very least they could have put the proceeds from eminent domain into risk free government bonds. $2000 invested in government bonds in 1960 would be worth $950,000 today.
I agree that pricing mechanisms like the various HOT lane projects and land use changes are good, cost effective solutions. In fact, they shouldn’t cost much at all. So the question becomes why do we need to pay NVTA taxes when there are low cost solutions we could pursue instead?
It’s entirely from general sources, mostly the added sales tax in NoVA.
And who primarily pays that sales tax? People who primarily drive because they are the vast majority of people (and an even greater share of income) in NoVA.
Just because the cost of the listed transit projects is higher than the cost of the listed highway projects does not mean that NVTA will allocate more money to transit projects than to highway expansion.
Fair enough but the author is lamenting ANY spending on roads, even if it’s just potential spending on a preliminary wish list.
You are not the only one who stares at this race with mouth agape, LOL! My dentist needs only remind me of GGW's endorsements of questionable candidates to make me open wide and say "aah"". Works every time!
No Democratic nominee in the history of home rule has ever lost an election. Anita Bonds will come in first place, and this is a race for second place, with the overwhelming favorites for second place being Elissa Silverman and Kenyan McDuffie. GGWash calling Silverman and McDuffie "two candidates with the best chance to replace Bonds" shows GGWash is either completely ignorant of DC politics or misleading its readers. These two candidates will not replace Bonds. One of them will be elected, alongside Bonds. It's a shame GGWash either doesn't understand how DC politics works or decided to mislead its readers.
I look forward to this bridge being in place, even though I don’t care for the design. It should not, however, become a model for any future projects as it was proposed over 10 years ago and they still haven’t gotten around to beginning construction despite the piers already being in place. When it was initially proposed, construction costs were estimated to be between $25 and 35 million; now it’s $92 million for construction plus at least $86 million for their social goals. Not many cities across the nation would look at that as something to emulate.
The elevation from the rail yard to the Post Office and surrounding area is anywhere from ground level to about 60-80 feet about ground level.
Im counting the ground as the level that 5th Street NE is on and also New York Ave NE near the Hetch building and the Target as those are the closes spots to the area that hasnt really be flattened unnaturally.
The land between them is a trench; there is no possible way to have a functioning grid connected between them without putting the trains and rail yard underground and adding which would be billions of meters of dirt alone before anything else.
You would essentially have to build a hill from Fedex to Montana Ave then reconnect the streets straight across to get a functional grid otherwise you are just creating a large culdesac and to deck the place over and not have super step roads it would have to be around 500 feet back like how the 9th Street bridge starts south of New York Ave.
If someone has any photos I would love to see what the area looked like before the Rail Yard and the Postal Facility to get an idea of what the natural landscape over this.
Whatever increased and mix-used density is eventually approved and built within the City of Manassas, including along Mathis Avenue it is likely to be fairly modest and take decades to achieve.
Presently, the Route 28 corridor in Prince William County, Manassas, and Manassas Park has essentially ZERO bus service of any type.
Yes, I think that's a reasonable inference. There are multiple qualified contenders, but voters must resort to holding their nose to strategically vote for someone they don't agree with in the hopes that it achieves the greater good of booting Anita Bonds from the council. It's too bad.
The city needs more than a (sic) one party.
That's your takeaway? I get being unimpressed by many of the Democratic candidates - and I mostly agree with you in that regard - but Republicans across the country haven't exactly demonstrated that they are superior legislators and executives in large cities.
If you load the article in an incognito window and hit "Stop" as soon as the text appears--but before the images and paywall loads--you'll be able to read behind the paywall.
NONE of NVTA's funding for transportation projects comes from motor vehicle user fees. It's entirely from general sources, mostly the added sales tax in NoVA.
Moreover, TransAction is an unconstrained project wish list with ZERO funding commitments. Just because the cost of the listed transit projects is higher than the cost of the listed highway projects does not mean that NVTA will allocate more money to transit projects than to highway expansion.
@Jasper
Updating some speed limit signs is not gonna do anything if DDOT does not change the way the roads are designed.
If there was only something we could do in the meantime to stem the bloodshed while we wait for DDOT to reengineer the entire street system.
Never mind - enjoy another decade-high pedestrian death rate!
You can reduce the speed limit to zero if you like, but since the city and its constituency (and this readership) have decided not to enforce any traffic code, it achieves exactly nothing.
And save the "muh cameras" canard - they do not work, as evidenced by the half-million outstanding fines currently achieving nothing. In that regard, camera fines are essentially like Metro fares - only honest people are paying them these days.
You get what you vote for.
Yup. I'm at HHS. I was doing 2 days of telework per week starting in 2013. Now I'm doing 3 days.
But what's really new is the prevalence of 100% remote work. Before the pandemic I knew 2 people doing it. Now there are dozens.
@Charlie
The President needs to order federal workers back to the office.
Word is that DC's downtown has a vacancy rate of 60% - that is totally untenable, not just for that neighborhood, but for DC's tax base. The solution, as you pointed out, is to order people back to the office. Unfortunately, that will never happen under Biden or any Democrat - the public service unions are one of his most lucrative and powerful constituencies.
This city is in for some very, very hard times.
It's not, but hopefully this is the start of the chicken-and-egg of slower roads. If DDOT has 30 MPH on their maps, then they aren't going to approve 25 MPH changes. Now that the road is designated 25 MPH, maybe they'll start accepting tighter tolerances.
Never mind that the environment already felt with 40 MPH..
Maybe this is what government agencies are already doing, but they may need to at least over 2 days of telework per week and quite possibly 3 days of telework.
I know it varies with agency and office, but I've worked in two different places where this was how it was as early as 2014. Large scale telework was already coming in. All the pandemic did was accelerate it by 5 to 7 years.
Why?
He's wrong.
In addition, there won't be much change if fines aren't enforced
There are 11.5 million job openings right now. Remote-working federal workers have many options, and "ordering" them back to the office may be costly in terms of turnover.
As far as Metro is concerned, what's happening is a consequence of history, and Metro will have to figure out how to adapt.
...may need to at least *offer*
The President needs to order federal workers back to the office.
While in fact, POTUS has asked to not get more than 60% of the workforce back into the office to save space, energy and the environment.
The continued shut down of Metro is a farce
For everything south of National yes. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to have 4 minute service downtown during a night I went out last week. I was not expecting that.
the president this weekend said the pandemic is over.
But why would that mean that people stop teleworking, considering how popular it is?
Momentum gains on Southern Maryland Rapid Transit Project
It's bonkers to built light rail for such a distance and create a transfer when you have a metroline pointing in that direction.
DC to reduce speed limit to 25 mph on some streets
Updating some speed limit signs is not gonna do anything if DDOT does not change the way the roads are designed. Also, 25mph is still too fast. It should go down to 20 or even 15mph. And it should be (mostly) district wide. This is lip service.
What leads you to believe that they were empty homes in Harlem and central Brooklyn just ready to absorb the demand of entire neighborhoods being demolished?
And even if there were homes available, what leads you to believe that banks and lenders were readily giving out mortgages to black Americans? The same people that suffered at the hands of systemic racist federal and local government regulations that made sure black Americans did not have the same access to opportunities as their white peers.
There is a serious lack of understanding of our history. It's like telling a homeless person to not use this money to meet their immediate needs, such as food, shelter, and healthcare for themselves and family, but instead forgo all that and instead save and invest.
The President needs to order federal workers back to the office. The continued shut down of Metro is a farce, and the president this weekend said the pandemic is over.
For a quick run on the demographic changes in DC this is a good write up:
www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/d...
from March of 2022, but backwards looking.
There is a continued drain, in particular of people in the 25 to 44 age groups this year.
Yes, I have made plenty myself and wish the comment system allowed us to make edits!
Was that supposed to be published?
Was waiting for that since I hit send.
No, obviously just a typo.
Thanks for bringing this report to our attention. It will take a while to digest. Time to get reading.
Rights of way are precious and hard to come by, but the most essential element in plans like this. I really can’t read the map. I don’t know what the newly drawn lines are lying on top of, or where they start and end. Thinking the suburbs will concert modes of transit without significant changes in rights of way available is a pipe dream. Looking forward to see reports ideas on this.
Is that a new Potomac crossing? Thank goodness!
Any transit improvements: rail, BRT, or whatever, need to take into account actual transit times for people. Too often, the point to point transit solution is heralded as an improvement just by its existence, when the actual travel times are so long as to make them useless in practice for many.
Freudian slip?
People overwhelmingly do not want to use transit....
...in places where transit is bad. Everywhere where transit is good, people overwhelmingly want to use transit.
The difference is that in places with good transit, people let their teenagers use transit independently, whereas in the US, people are afraid to let their kid play alone in their front yard.
So what cities do you think got this right that we should become more like? Houston, Dallas, Phoenix?
Tolls are being used to partially finance construction of the SL but not for its operations. WMATA will operate it, not MWAA.
[This comment has been deleted for violating the comment policy.]
No way will I be voting for CM Anita Bonds...did not do so in June and will continue with that. She has been there too long...Time to say "Thank you, Ms Bonds!
I will definitely be voting for Graham McLaughlin. His fresh ideas and energy could and will install some well needed new blood.
No idea if I will cast a second vote.
If you build a park in a middle class area, people will complain that it’s inequitable because people who already live some place decent are getting an amenity. If you build it in a poor area, you have to spend $86M on equity goals and people will still complain its inequitable.
Someone should write an article about the “ideal development” that takes a page from the Ideal Cyclist.
Great article, Bill, and kudos to you and CSG for putting it out there. I drafted a piece with a similar theme as an op-ed to the Post in response to their editorial page gushing endorsement of Gov. Hogan's interstate widening proposal, which they said showed the kind of forward thinking demonstrated by Virginia. Never heard back from them on the my submission, the essence of which was we've long realized that expanding highways to solve congestion and manage growth is an idea that history has almost universally debunked, and for logical economic reasons. I explain why in the excerpt below from my attempted post, which i think you will see directly supports and amplifies your observations in the Northern Virginia plan.
By effectively giving an economic incentive through fresh highway capacity to develop more land at the fringe, and not attempting to structure the subsequent growth, we encourage more and more development that requires reliance on private vehicles as the sole option for travel. Importantly, this shows up not only in more and longer auto commute trips -- which transportation planners tend to focus on -- but a dependency on driving for all the other needs of life: school, shopping, personal services, even social connections – which the National Household Travel Survey shows make up 84% of daily household trips and almost 80% of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Not only that, but these trips unrelated to work make up more than half of the vehicle trips on the roads during peak periods – much more in the PM period. There is a rational solution to this dilemma, which is to take greater advantage of the resource provided by our extensive rail transit system and direct more of the anticipated deluge of people and jobs into mixed-use communities around transit stations. In such a setting, households can satisfy many of their daily needs without extensive car travel – by walking or biking -- thus reducing demand on crowded roads and streets. The concentration of people, jobs and commercial activities in “nodes” around transit allows transit to become much more attractive and efficient for longer trips, like commuting, because you can reach the line by walking at both ends of the trip. Plus, with higher demand, transit agencies can justify higher levels of service and lower fares. This was one of the top strategies we identified and evaluated as part of a 2016 MWCOG multi-sector study to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions. Using data from the regional travel survey, the analysis clearly showed that households living in transit-served mixed-use Regional Activity Centers generated less than half of the daily VMT per person than those located in conventional suburban development settings, with the advantage growing more substantial as one moves further outward from the core. Importantly, designated Regional Activity Centers not co-located with premium transit service had VMT rates not much different from the typical background suburb, largely a result of lower density, insufficient mix of uses, and poor walkability. By locating higher percentages of jobs and housing in these transit-served activity centers, we calculated that we could actually reduce regional VMT by 11 to 14 percent over current projected 2040 levels, and between 1.3 and 1.5 million tons of CO2. These findings were presented to regional leaders but as part of the study, and while the conclusions were not contested, the study failed to find the political will to embrace the concept over other less contentious strategies.
Given the ominous trends in climate change and the folly of thinking highway expansion – even with tolling -- will solve as complex a problem as traffic congestion, it’s time to seriously "look at the science" and take meaningful steps to manage our future.
Redlining was terrible and very unfair but why didn’t they buy homes in black neighborhoods like Harlem and central Brooklyn and instead moving into public housing?
At the very least they could have put the proceeds from eminent domain into risk free government bonds. $2000 invested in government bonds in 1960 would be worth $950,000 today.
And who primarily pays that sales tax? People who primarily drive because they are the vast majority of people (and an even greater share of income) in NoVA.
Fair enough but the author is lamenting ANY spending on roads, even if it’s just potential spending on a preliminary wish list.
You are not the only one who stares at this race with mouth agape, LOL! My dentist needs only remind me of GGW's endorsements of questionable candidates to make me open wide and say "aah"". Works every time!
No Democratic nominee in the history of home rule has ever lost an election. Anita Bonds will come in first place, and this is a race for second place, with the overwhelming favorites for second place being Elissa Silverman and Kenyan McDuffie. GGWash calling Silverman and McDuffie "two candidates with the best chance to replace Bonds" shows GGWash is either completely ignorant of DC politics or misleading its readers. These two candidates will not replace Bonds. One of them will be elected, alongside Bonds. It's a shame GGWash either doesn't understand how DC politics works or decided to mislead its readers.
“Buses can use them” doesn’t make it a transit project.
A transit alternative was rejected out of hand by Maryland but never elaborated why.
@ cmc
The elevation from the rail yard to the Post Office and surrounding area is anywhere from ground level to about 60-80 feet about ground level.
Im counting the ground as the level that 5th Street NE is on and also New York Ave NE near the Hetch building and the Target as those are the closes spots to the area that hasnt really be flattened unnaturally.
The land between them is a trench; there is no possible way to have a functioning grid connected between them without putting the trains and rail yard underground and adding which would be billions of meters of dirt alone before anything else.
You would essentially have to build a hill from Fedex to Montana Ave then reconnect the streets straight across to get a functional grid otherwise you are just creating a large culdesac and to deck the place over and not have super step roads it would have to be around 500 feet back like how the 9th Street bridge starts south of New York Ave.
If someone has any photos I would love to see what the area looked like before the Rail Yard and the Postal Facility to get an idea of what the natural landscape over this.
Whatever increased and mix-used density is eventually approved and built within the City of Manassas, including along Mathis Avenue it is likely to be fairly modest and take decades to achieve.
Presently, the Route 28 corridor in Prince William County, Manassas, and Manassas Park has essentially ZERO bus service of any type.Question: Should the BRT along Route 1 in Alexandria be the "Gold Standard/Realistic Expectation for future BRT on arterial roadways in NOVA.
www.google.com/maps/@38.8290957,-77.0...
I do not like Route 1 BRT project plan in Fairfax County with 3 lanes in each directions instead of 2 at a cost of $1.2 Billion +
In most cases, the option to repurpose GP lanes for BRT needs to be on the table for all routes. If not, the cost of driving is too low.Yes, I think that's a reasonable inference. There are multiple qualified contenders, but voters must resort to holding their nose to strategically vote for someone they don't agree with in the hopes that it achieves the greater good of booting Anita Bonds from the council. It's too bad.
The city needs more than a (sic) one party.
That's your takeaway? I get being unimpressed by many of the Democratic candidates - and I mostly agree with you in that regard - but Republicans across the country haven't exactly demonstrated that they are superior legislators and executives in large cities.
NONE of NVTA's funding for transportation projects comes from motor vehicle user fees. It's entirely from general sources, mostly the added sales tax in NoVA.
Moreover, TransAction is an unconstrained project wish list with ZERO funding commitments. Just because the cost of the listed transit projects is higher than the cost of the listed highway projects does not mean that NVTA will allocate more money to transit projects than to highway expansion.