Commuter Choice Outreach and Engagement Toolkit

Monday, 26 Apr 2021

County News & Features

About NVTC

As the premier transit organization in Northern Virginia, NVTC's mission is to bring the region together to plan, coordinate, and secure funding for transit systems that are financially sustainable and high-performing. It funds and promotes transit in the counties of Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church. NVTC supports five local bus systems (ART, CUE, DASH, Fairfax Connector, Loudoun County Transit), Metrorail and Metrobus for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Agency (WMATA) and the Virginia Railway Express (VRE).

Founded in 1964, in part to represent the interests of the Commonwealth of Virginia during the establishment of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Agency (WMATA), NVTC is charged with the funding and stewardship of WMATA and VRE, which it co-owns. NVTC is the lead agency in the administration of the Commuter Choice program. This multi-decade effort leverages toll revenues from Northern Virginia express lanes to support transit and TDM activities along those corridors.

About Commuter Choice

Commuter Choice makes the Northern Virginia transportation network better for commuters by investing toll revenues into public transit and other multimodal projects along two expressway corridors, I-66 and I-395/95. The projects funded through Commuter Choice move more people, support the regional economy, increase mobility options and reduce congestion and emissions. NVTC, in partnership with the Commonwealth of Virginia, established the Commuter Choice program in December 2017. In a little over three years, the program has funded 43 projects, some of which have received multiple installments of funding support, totaling over $64.3 million of reinvestment of toll revenues into multimodal improvements. About half of this amount ($29.1 million) has been for long-lived capital assets, including bus purchases, park-and-ride construction and capital improvements to bus stops, that will continue to benefit commuters even after operations support ends.

The Commuter Choice program on the I-395/95 corridor is the result of a 68-year Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (PRTC) and the Commonwealth of Virginia authorizing NVTC to use the required annual payments for corridor transit improvements from Transurban, the 395 Express Lanes concessionaire, to fund multimodal transportation projects.

All projects supported through Commuter Choice aim to move more people and increase multimodal options for people who live, play and work in Northern Virginia.

About the Outreach Strategy and Ways to Comment

NVTC encourages members of the public to review the 13 project applications for Round Two (FY 2022-FY 2023) of the Commuter Choice on the I-395/95 Corridor program and submit comments on the eligible and scored projects. The public comment period will run from April 16, 2021 until 5:00 p.m. on May 17, 2021. After reviewing the project applications, members of the public can comment by: