NVTA committee reviews TransAction draft, clarifies emissions assumptions and next steps

Northern Virginia Transportation Authority staff on Tuesday briefed a committee on proposed edits to the draft TransAction long-range multimodal plan, seeking final feedback ahead of a request for committee endorsement in mid-November and Authority adoption in December.

The presentation, given by staff presenter Mr. Jasper, said TransAction is a horizon-year 2045 plan that includes 429 candidate multimodal projects and that the plan is fiscally unconstrained and geographically unconstrained by design. "TransAction is fiscally unconstrained, which means that it intentionally includes more projects than could be reasonably funded by the region," Jasper said. He added that inclusion in the plan does not commit the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) to fund any specific project.

Committee members focused most sharply on how the draft presents emissions results and how much of an emissions change the plan can legitimately claim. The draft included a model result that showed a 54% decrease in tailpipe emissions under one scenario, but staff said that figure depends on strong, regionwide assumptions about electrifying buses, heavy trucks and light-duty vehicles. "TransAction includes three…