WMATA (Metro) is facing a $750 million annual operating budget shortfall in Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25), starting July 1, 2024, just 10 months away. If our state and local governments in Maryland, Virginia and DC don’t step up to address the ongoing funding need, our region’s mass transit would suffer from catastrophic cuts.
At the same time, we’ve seen a lot of press attention to potential public subsidies for a new football stadium for the Washington Commanders. So, the Coalition for Smarter Growth compared the cost of closing the WMATA budget gap to recent Maryland and Virginia stadium subsidy proposals.
Category: Regional and Federal
TAKE ACTION: Tell your elected officials which projects to delete and which to add
Our region’s road building isn’t reducing traffic. In fact, it’s fueling more spread-out development (sprawl) and even more driving and traffic. The regional long-range transportation plan includes 900 more lane-miles in proposed road expansion!
But you have a chance now to speak out against wasteful road expansion and FOR smart growth, with better transit, safer streets for walking and biking, and also better maintaining the roads we’ve already built to handle climate change. With so much at stake, including our regional goals for climate, equity, safety and reducing sprawl, your voice is critical.
CODE RED: A Call to Action for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
With the approach of your annual retreat this week in Cambridge, Maryland, our 41 organizations in Maryland, DC, and Virginia call on you to take urgent action to address the great challenges of our times – climate change, housing, racial and economic inequity, sprawl and unsustainable transportation policies.
RELEASE: Wider Roads Fail and the Public Knows This
In short, the public understands that “induced demand” is real, even if they are not aware of the term itself. Today, when officials in the DC region are planning for at least 900 more lane miles of highway and arterial road expansion and amid the ongoing debate over high-occupancy toll lanes for 495/270 in Maryland and 495 through Alexandria, the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) urged officials to reconsider these plans.
Induced Demand: an overview for Metro DC
induced driving, induced travel, and generated travel, is the widely documented phenomenon in which widening major roads and highways results in more driving (vehicle miles traveled) that generally cancels out any congestion-reduction benefits in as little as five to ten years.
COMMENTS: Union Station SDEIS (Support)
Today, the new project vision defined in the FRA’s Supplemental Draft EIS (SDEIS) Preferred Alternative F presents a bold vision for the next century of Union Station’s existence and success, and will gain broad public and political support. The revised SDEIS Preferred Alternative includes major improvements we support the FRA including in the Final EIS:
CSG RELEASE: Failure cannot be an option for Metro funding
Metro’s projected $750 million fiscal cliff for FY25 would dramatically reduce service: no service after 9:30pm, only 37 (out of 135) bus lines, and 20- to 30-minute wait times. We are calling on elected officials to take immediate action and come up with a long-term and dedicated funding solution for operating needs.
CSG Comments: TPB June Meeting Comment
Climate change is here. Two weeks ago, we suffered through Code Purple air quality from increasing wildfires. The health of your constituents is at stake.
CSG Letter on Better Bus Visionary Network Redesign
Among the many changes proposed in the draft Visionary Network, CSG would like to highlight and commend the recommendation of higher frequency bus service and increased use of dedicated bus lanes. In addition to higher frequency bus service, the Visionary Network would expand weekend, overnight, and off-peak service.
TAKE ACTION: Fix our region’s multi-billion $ transportation plan
You have a chance now to speak out against wasteful road expansion and FOR smart growth, with better transit, safer streets for walking and biking, and also better maintaining the roads we’ve already built to handle climate change. With so much at stake, including our regional goals for climate, equity, safety and reducing sprawl, your voice is critical.