A County Board member is urging caution around a possible increase in the cost of riding Metrobus.
With Metrobus ridership down across Northern Virginia and the broader region, Metro officials need to be “very, very careful about raising fares right now in the current environment,” County Board member Takis Karantonis said at a Nov. 5 meeting of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC).
Having rebounded from the Covid era, with work-from-home options becoming less frequent, “we have a very well-performing train system,” Karantonis said.
But Metrobus, which saw ridership return more quickly than rail service post-pandemic, recorded a 7% decrease in region-wide ridership year-over-year in Metro’s fiscal year ending in June.
“This is not a minor wobble,” said Karantonis, intimating that higher fares could cause further ridership declines — or cause more fare evasion.
Adam Hager, the Metro program manager for NVTC, said Northern Virginia’s decline in ridership over the past year was about half the regional percentage drop. But, he noted, the transit agency’s bills have to be funded one way or another.
“To maintain the system, it has to be paid for somehow,” Hager said. “Every dollar that is not generated from fares is going to have to come from subsidies — that’s effectively state and local taxes. It’s really a question of the right balance.”
At the Nov. 5 meeting, NVTC board members reviewed a draft of the organization’s annual performance report on the state of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) financial and operational performance.
The annual evaluation, required under state law, is expected to be finalized early next month by the NVTC board and forwarded to Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the General Assembly. It identifies several possible ways to maintain Metro’s financial viability:
- Revisiting existing fare policies and strengthening enforcement
- Creating long-term funding options
- Ensuring that funding growth is contained to 3% annually
- Negotiating sustainable contracts with unions
- Establishing a regional audit of local funding
Despite recent steps in the right direction, “the fundamental long-term funding question remains unsolved,” said Owen Williams, an NVTC program analyst.
While legislators gave Northern Virginia governments some of what they wanted in WMATA funding during the 2026 session — totaling $153 million more per year for capital costs — it was a two-year fix that, if not extended, could saddle localities with paying tens of millions of dollars more starting in fiscal year 2029.
For local officials, that balance involves the state government providing more financial resources. But some state lawmakers have questions about why the region isn’t doing more to either fund the service itself, or offer creative solutions for state lawmakers to consider.
Simply asking for more money from Richmond is “kind of like saying ‘find that rainbow with a pot of gold at the end,'” said Del. Paul Krizek, a Fairfax Democrat who serves on the NVTC board.
Krizek wanted local leaders to “tell us, like, these are three really good [funding] options — or five or 10 or whatever. The more, the better.”
Fairfax County Supervisor Jimmy Bierman, another NVTC board member, was on board with that.
“Give ’em a menu of options,” said Bierman, who represents the Dranesville District, including Great Falls and Herndon, on the Fairfax board.
Such a menu already is in the hands of state lawmakers, courtesy a special legislative subcommittee — known as SJ28 — that delivered a report on stabilizing transit funding in advance of the 2026 General Assembly session.
“A lot of this had been discussed and answered” in the SJ28 report, said County Board member Maureen Coffey, an NVTC board member.
Coffey acknowledged that the proposals are “maybe not as fresh in our minds anymore,” and asked NVTC staff to ensure that legislators receive reminders about possibilities.
The SJ28 final report outlined several funding options, and state legislators agreed to one. They gave local governments in Northern Virginia the power to send their voters referendums that would increase local sales taxes by 1 percentage point, with the revenue going to either transportation or education.
Leaders in local governments opted not to put those referendums on the Nov. 3 ballot, irking some lawmakers who asked why Northern Virginia wasn’t using a tool that could help.
Even if sent to voters and approved, the resulting funding would not get close to fully funding capital needs.
“Northern Virginia jurisdictions will need a workable way to meet the capital obligations,” Williams said.
The total expected cost of those obligations is $136 million across Northern Virginia for fiscal year 2029, escalated by 3% per year. Arlington officials have already estimated they would need to raise the county’s real estate tax rate 8 cents per $100 if the burden fell squarely on the county’s General Fund.
After discussion of Metro performance, NVTC members focused on plans for lobbying efforts during the 2027 General Assembly session, which opens Jan. 13 and is expected to run 45 days.
