Here’s what GGWash said at DC’s budget hearings for fiscal year 2024

On Tuesday, May 30, 2023, the DC Council will hold its second reading and final vote on the FY24 budget. Greater Greater Washington’s policy staff testified on behalf of GGWash and the coalitions we manage, the DC Transportation Equity Network and the DC Sustainable Transportation Coalition.

Here’s what we said with regard to agencies whose budgets directly impact housing, transportation, and land use in the District.

District Department of Transportation

Greater Greater Washington: Alex Baca, GGWash’s DC policy director, testified in support of fully funding Metro for DC, requested that the Committee on Transportation and the Environment find funding for the Vision Zero omnibus bill and related road-safety bills passed by the Council in its previous period, and noted skepticism of DDOT’s ability to deliver projects that it has planned with the intention to meaningfully redistribute road space away from drivers to other modes. While WMATA scuttled the funding for Metro for DC that defunding the K Street transitway was able to provide, those capital dollars were converted to operating funds, and are planned to restore cuts made to the Circulator, as well as restore cuts made to emergency rental assistance and permanent supportive housing vouchers.

Alex also asked that the committee find a way to work with, convince, cajole, or force DDOT and the executive to release a long-delayed report on road pricing. We are much obliged to the committee for accommodating this request with a proposed Budget Support Act subtitle requiring the release of the report by January 1, 2024.

DC Sustainable Transportation: Caitlin Rogger, who leads the DC Sustainable Transportation Coalition, testified in support of continued funding for the bus priority and bicycle networks, and asked the Council to allocate funding for the Circulator routes the Mayor had proposed cutting, and for Metro for DC. We commented that the K St Transitway project was worthy of funding with the right design. Observers will note that the Council looks poised to allocate substantially less funding this year for K St than the Mayor initially requested, now designated for planning rather than starting construction in FY2024 as proposed. We asked that the Council work with DDOT and the Mayor to find a path for releasing the road pricing.

DC Transportation Equity Network: Kai Hall, GGWash’s Policy Officer who coordinates the Transportation Equity Network, testified in support of fully funding Metro for DC, Vision Zero, the Bus Priority and Efficiency Initiative, the I-295 Reconnecting Communities Feasibility Study, the Parking Cashout law, and urged the Committee to reverse the Mayor’s cuts to Circulator.

Department of For-Hire Vehicles

Greater Greater Washington: Alex asked the Committee on Public Works and Operations to consider requiring the Department of For-Hire Vehicles to institute a surcharge for taxi and TNC trips when there is high demand to a certain area. Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, who chairs the committee, proposed such a surcharge, and GGWash sent an action alert asking our supporters to write the Council in favor of it. Nadeau’s proposal, for a $2 surcharge on ridehail trips into and out of downtown at peak times, was replaced during the first vote on the budget by one from Council Chair Phil Mendelson, applying a 25-cent surcharge on all ridehail trips in the District. Budgetarily, this is great—the 25-cent surcharge is anticipated to generate enough money to fund 24-hour bus service on 13 lines—but policy-wise, we are a bit bummed that the release of the road-pricing report will not be preceded by the implementation of an actual demand-management policy.

Office of Planning

Greater Greater Washington: The most important OP-budget-thing, for us, is that funding for a rewrite of the 2006 Comprehensive Plan, which was amended in 2021, is maintained when the Council passes the FY24 budget, so Alex asked the Committee of the Whole for that.

Department of Housing and Community Development

Greater Greater Washington: For the nth time, Alex said in a public forum—in this case, the Committee on Housing’s budget hearing on the Department of Housing and Community Development and the Housing Production Trust Fund—that the District should acquire land, and also that Housing Production Trust Fund dollars should be spent on affordable housing production only.

Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development

Greater Greater Washington: Alex got big mad about the proposed Housing in Downtown tax abatement—which would give property owners free money, in the form of not paying their taxes, to build…housing, in downtown—and wrote 13 pages probing whether capital flight is real. (Spoiler alert: We don’t think it’s real.)

For more information on how the District does its budget, refer to the Council budget office’s website. The DC Fiscal Policy Institute has numerous resources, including a “residents’ guide.” And here’s our 2022 information session on how the budget works, and how to best advocate for your priorities.

The budget process is always preceded by performance oversight, which is exactly what it sounds like: The Council oversees the performance of executive agencies. We testified at those hearings, too, earlier this year; here’s what we said then.