Article Text

The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority adopted a $776 million package for 21 transportation projects across the region on July 9.

The projects make up NVTA’s fiscal 2026–2031 Six Year Program. The package covers transit, roadways, transportation technology, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, intersections and interchanges.

Among the awards is $30 million for the City of Falls Church’s Annandale Road Multimodal Improvements Project. The supplied information does not specify the project’s boundaries, design, schedule or total cost.

“This program represents a significant investment in Northern Virginia’s transportation future,” NVTA CEO Monica Backmon said.

The program is the eighth funding package adopted in the authority’s history. It follows an application and review process that involved eight Northern Virginia jurisdictions. Together, those jurisdictions submitted 27 applications seeking a combined $1.265 billion.

Under the Code of Virginia requirement described by NVTA, candidate projects had to be included in TransAction, the authority’s long-range transportation plan. NVTA said it evaluated the eligible projects through quantitative and qualitative measures, considering technical analysis, public engagement and committee review.

Public participation included a 45-day comment period that began in April. NVTA received 702 comments on the candidate projects during that period.

In June, NVTA committees reviewed and endorsed staff funding recommendations that had been developed from the project evaluations, public input and available funding. The amount available for the program was established that month when the authority unanimously approved a $776 million fiscal 2030–31 pay-as-you-go Regional Revenue Fund amount.

The authority then adopted the six-year program in July, committing the full $776 million to the selected 21 projects.

“Our goal is for all NVTA-funded projects to help keep Northern Virginia connected, competitive and resilient for years to come,” NVTA Chair Phyllis J. Randall said.

NVTA reported that its regional-revenue funding programs have committed nearly $4.5 billion to 153 projects. It also separately reported investments of more than $5.8 billion toward more than 400 multimodal projects.

Those cumulative figures appear to describe different sets of investments, but the supplied account does not explain their relationship. The $4.5 billion figure is specifically associated with regional-revenue programs, while the broader scope behind the $5.8 billion figure is not detailed.

The supplied information also does not provide the names, individual costs, locations or schedules of the other projects included in the newly adopted program. As a result, the precise distribution of the remaining $746 million among projects and jurisdictions cannot be determined from the available account.