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BONUS: Explaining HB 1541, the dedicated regional transit funding bill

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What’s the deal? Here’s the deal: One of my 2020 goals is to expand the scope of Good Morning, RVA by including more thoughtful, deeper coverage of topics I find interesting. This could take the form of an interview with a fascinating person over on the GMRVA podcast feed, a long explainer on a complex topic, or something else entirely. The idea is for my work to grow a bit beyond the morning update and become a more useful resource to readers. With that in mind, here’s the first of what I hope to be multiple...bonus contents? Still working on the name.

This is literally some of my favorite stuff to do, but does take a long time to put together. If you’d like to see more of this sort of thing, please become a GMRVA Patron.


Last week, Del. Delores McQuinn submitted HB 1541, a bill that would create a Central Virginia Transportation Authority and provide a dedicated regional funding stream for public transportation in our region. That’s exciting! However, without (at least) three changes, this bill, at best, preserves the unacceptable status quo for a generation.

Before we get into the very in-the-weeds details, here’s a quick, high-level summary:

Using revenue from a new sales tax and new wholesale fuel tax, HB 1541 creates a pot of transportation money that is split three ways: 35% will go to a new regional authority, the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, for regional transportation projects; 15% will go to transit and “mobility services”; and 50% will, proportionally, go back to the locality in which it was raised.

And here are the three things that, in my opinion, must be changed before the bill is worth considering (which, of course, are all explained below):

  1. Localities must be required to maintain 100% of their 2019 public transportation funding.
  2. “Mobility services” must either be removed entirely from the money dedicated to transit or narrowly defined in a way that benefits public transit—no Uber pilots, no scooters. This is money for actual-factual public transportation only.
  3. Confusing/conflicting language specifying how the majority of this money can be spent needs to be updated to allow the CTVA and localities to use their share of this money however they choose—on construction or maintenance, especially, for non-car infrastructure like sidewalks, trails, and transit.

If you’re passionate about transit, or would just like to see the region avoid making a generational mistake, consider emailing your state legislators and asking them to make these necessary changes to HB 1541.

OK! Now, on to the details!

Where’s the money come from and how much is it?

To pay for millions and millions of dollars of needed transportation projects (that’s roads, sidewalks, bike lanes, bridges, transit—all sorts of things), the region will need a new and recurring way to raise millions and millions of new dollars. Luckily, Central Virginia is not the first region to attempt to create a regional pot of transportation money—NOVA, Hampton Roads, and the I-81 corridor all have their own dedicated sources of transportation money. Important data point: Out of those three, only NOVA uses some of their regional money for public transportation. In fact, Hampton Roads must use their pot money on roads and bridges. That’s just plain terrible, and would be an enormous mistake for Richmond to follow the 757 down that particular road.

The Central Virginia region, similar to some of those other regions, will create a new 0.7% sales tax and a wholesale fuel tax. The latter is 2.1% of the statewide average wholesale price per gallon and has a floor price set on February 20, 2013.

OK, so! How much money will these new taxes raise for transportation projects? Actual economists, who I mostly avoid talking to because they terrifying me, would know better, but I think we can make some estimates using publicly available data. In 2018, the nine localities that would participate (more on that later), raised $15.8 billion through sales tax. That means an additional 0.7% would generate $110 million to work with.

HRTAC (the authority that handles Hampton Roads’s regional money) projects that in 2020 they’ll see $145 million from their 0.7% sales tax and $55 million from their fuel tax. Because I can’t find Central Virginia’s wholesale fuel sales numbers, lets just say that since our sales tax is about 76% of Hampton Roads we’ll see 76% of their fuel tax revenue. That’s $42 million, and gives us a total of $152 million, per year, to work with. I’m intensely guesstimating here, so please take it for what it’s worth.

That’s about three of GRTC’s current annual budget, so it’s a lot of money. Unfortunately, and I guess I’m biased here, but not all $152 million gets funneled straight into more and better bus for everyone.

So what can we spend this money on?

Well, the bill, as written, is kind of confusing, conflicting, and not super-clear. But, I think the gist is, the region can spend this new money on: highways and bridges, maintaining and expanding transit and “mobility services,” and the administrative and operating expenses of a new Central Virginia Transportation Authority (CVTA).

Specifically, the money raised by the new sales and fuel taxes and will be divided into three differently-sized buckets:

35% will go to the CVTA to pay for regional transportation projects. I’d imagine this will mostly likely be used as local matching money for the State’s Smart Scale process. That means roads, roads, and more roads, for sure, but also things like the Ashland to Petersburg Trail. Smart Scale scores projects on a bunch of criteria, which include congestion mitigation, safety, accessibility, economic development, enviornment, and land use. Here’s an example scorecard for a new bridge on Lombardy over the railroad tracks, which scores 4.9, or #96 out of 433 statewide projects. So, yes lots of stupid road building, but not necessarily just road building.

15% will go to transit and “mobility services.” Mobility services is not defined and neither is where this money goes or who’s in charge of it. The inclusion of “mobility services” should terrifying you down deep, to your very bus-riding bones. This money, just 15%!, should go exclusively towards public transportation. Not Ubers, not scooters—nothing but buses, baby.

50% will go back to the locality in which it was raised and may be used “to improve local mobility.” So, yes, more roads, roads, roads, but the bill also specifically mentions construction, maintenance, and expansion of sidewalks, trails, “mobility services” again, and transit.

So, assuming that mostly made up $152 million total, each bucket looks like:

  • $53 million for regional transportation projects
  • $22 million for transit and “mobility services” (which will always be intentionally scarequoted)
  • $76 million going back, proportionally, to the locality in which it was raised. Assuming (big assumption) that the proportionality of the fuel tax number in each locality mirrors that of the sales tax, Henrico, Chesterfield, and Richmond would each see $27 million, $21 million, and $13 million annually, respectively.

Hold up! One super-important caveat to all of this: The bill has very unclear (at least to me) language about how the regional transportation money and the money coming back to the localities can be spent.

§ 33.2-3701 A, says:

The moneys deposited in the Fund shall be used solely for (i) new construction projects on new or existing highways and bridges in the localities comprising Planning District 15 as approved by the Authority, (ii) maintaining and expanding transit and mobility services in Planning District 15, and (iii) administrative and operating expenses as specified in subsection B of § 33.2-3706.

While § 33.2-3701 D says:

Fifty percent shall be returned, proportionally, to each locality located in Planning District 15 to be used to improve local mobility, which may include construction, maintenance, or expansion of roads, sidewalks, trails, mobility services, or transit located in the locality.

Because I am not a lawyer, lobbyist, or elected official, I don’t know how to reconcile these two sections. The language must be updated to allow the CTVA and the localities to use their share of this money however they choose—for construction or maintenance, including, and especially, for non-car infrastructure like sidewalks, trails, and transit.

But who decides??

How that 35% bucket gets spent is up to a newly created Central Virginia Transit Authority. The proposed CVTA covers Planning District 15—aka The Richmond Regional Planning District Commission aka Plan RVA—a large nine-locality region comprised of: Chesterfield, Henrico, Richmond, Hanover, Goochland, New Kent, Powhatan, Ashland, and Charles City.

The Authority will have 11 voting members: the chief elected officer from each of the nine localities plus a member of the House of Delegates and the Senate who live in the region (appointed by the House Speaker and Senate Committee on Rules respectively). I think this means the Mayor and the Board Chairs from the counties but am not 100% sure on that. It’ll also have five non-voting members: someone from the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, the Commissioner of Highways, the Executive Director of GRTC, and the CEO of the RMTA.

However! Not all members are equal when it comes to voting on how to spend this new money. Votes are weighted by population, with reps from larger localities getting more votes:

  • Chesterfield: 4
  • Richmond: 4
  • Henrico: 4
  • Hanover: 3
  • Goochland: 2
  • New Kent: 2
  • Powhatan: 2
  • Ashland: 1
  • Charles City: 1
  • Delegate: 1
  • State senator: 1

To get anything done, the Authority needs YES votes from localities representing at least 80% of the region’s population. Basically, this means the larger jurisdictions, those with more than 20% of the population, can veto regional decisions.

The region’s current population, from the 2018 Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service population estimates, stands at 1,089,805. That means you’ve got to have localities representing 871,844 folks to get anything passed through the CVTA. Richmond + Henrico + Chesterfield (900,269) passes this threshold. Chesterfield, Henrico, and Richmond are the only jurisdiction that can veto a project by themselves. If the more rural counties were to form a voting bloc, they would fall short of reaching the 20% required to stop a regional project (189,536). Interestingly, the bill does include this dont-be-a-jerk clause:

no motion to fund a specific facility or service shall fail because of this population criterion if such facility or service is not located or to be located or provided or to be provided within the county or city whose chief elected officer's or elected official's, or its respective designee's, sole negative vote caused the facility or service to fail to meet the population criterion.

Which, again, IANAL, seems to say that if, hypothetically, Chesterfield does not want the CVTA to fund a particular project and their NO votes drop the YES votes under the 80% population threshold and the project does not touch Chesterfield County, then the project can still receive funding. tl;dr don’t be a jerk and veto projects that don’t impact your locality.

New public transit money should be for new public transit

The bill also includes an incredibly flaccid maintenance of effort clause, allowing participating localities to reduce their current public transit funding by up to 50% of their 2019 levels. This is unacceptable, and, honestly, insulting.

For context, in 2019, Richmond City funded GRTC at $16 million and Henrico did so at $9.5 million (PDF). That means we’re looking at using $12.75 million, almost 60%!, of this new money to maintain today’s totally unacceptable status quo. Remember: The Richmond region funds public transportation less per capita than any of its peers cities across the country. That our region would take this once-in-a-generation opportunity to maintain a nationally embarrassing level of transit funding is shameful.

For this bill to move forward, localities must be required to maintain 100% of their 2019 public transit funding. Anything else is a deal breaker.

Other random stuff

The newly created authority is blessed with many other random powers and abilities, too. They can sell bonds, buy property, and, maybe most interestingly, implement variable tolls on a “new or improved highway, bridge, or tunnel to increase capacity on such facility or to address congestion.”

Variable tolls are an excellent way to reduce congestion and shift people out of their cars and onto public transportation—assuming public transportation exists, which, in large portions of Henrico and almost all of Chesterfield, it does not. I wonder how creative the new Authority would be willing to get with the definition of the word “improved” to try and get some variable tolling implemented on existing highways like Powhite and the Downtown Expressway.

What’s next?

Today, public transportation in the Richmond region has an incredible amount of momentum, and we desperately need a dedicated source of revenue to pay for our decades of disinvestment and backlog of needs. Y’all, I hate to be the transit guy advocating against transit funding, but this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We need to get it right, and, at this point, it is not right.‬

Before the General Assembly and our local leaders consider adopting this legislation and creating this funding stream, HB 1541 needs to change in (at least) three important ways:

  1. Localities must be required to maintain 100% of their 2019 public transportation funding. You don’t get to take new transit money and not use it for new transit!
  2. “Mobility services” must either be removed entirely from the money dedicated to transit or narrowly defined in a way that benefits public transit—no Uber pilots, no scooters. This is money for actual factual public transportation.
  3. Conflicting language specifying how the majority of this money can be spent needs to be updated to allow the CTVA and localities to use their share of this money however they choose—on construction or maintenance, especially, for non-car infrastructure like sidewalks, trails, and transit.

This bill was literally JUST introduced, so we’re early in the process—last I checked it hadn’t even been referred to committee yet.

That means there’s still time to turn HB 1541 into something we can all support, and getting legislators to make those changes starts with you! Please take a minute to email your state legislators and tell them to avoid a generational mistake and make the necessary changes in HB 1541. We’ve only got one opportunity to get this right!

 

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