Public commenters press NVTA for bus prioritization, a study of bidirectional I‑95 lanes and funding changes

At the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority's annual organization meeting, a string of public commenters urged the authority to prioritize bus improvements, reconsider how regional money is split, and pursue studies and funding changes for highway and rail projects.

Fred Hussain, a Prince William County resident, urged the authority and VDOT to pursue a 2020 recommendation to study bidirectional lanes on I‑95 between Springfield and Fredericksburg, saying, “what I recommend is that we follow with the study there…to ensure that can we justify building the bidirectional links.” He urged incremental implementation to reduce peak congestion and asked the General Assembly to seek funding for such work.

Bill Pugh, transportation climate director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, urged NVTA to focus on bus prioritization along arterial corridors, emphasizing queue jumps and signal priority as lower‑cost ways to improve high‑frequency routes. “We need to look at our other high frequency bus routes and really focus on the bus prioritization needs,” Pugh said, and cautioned that adding lanes alone was not the solution to congestion.

Jason Stanford, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, framed NVTA’s dedicated regional funding as a regional advantage: “A 100% of the money that we raise here in Northern Virginia stays in Northern Virginia,” he said, arguing the authority leverages local, state, federal and private dollars to advance projects and economic activity.

Remote commenters asked for structural changes to the authority’s funding approach. Mark Schreifel (Prince William County) proposed replacing the current biennial open call and the prevailing 70/30 funding split with a flexible, fiscally constrained 15‑year pipeline and a different local/jurisdictional share to give localities more timely funding certainty.

Ken Reed, a long‑time regional transportation activist, criticized planned NVTA investments in Virginia Railway Express (VRE) stations given what he cited as lower ridership since the pandemic, and urged jurisdictions to consider reallocating funds to highways or express‑bus service on new managed lanes.

Alan Muchnick, an active mobility advocate from Manassas, urged NVTA to adopt a Complete Streets policy, increase transparency on greenhouse gas and vehicle‑miles‑traveled outcomes for funded projects, and require public hearings before localities endorse MBTA/NVTA projects.

The authority circulated written comments and reiterated that public input will be reviewed as staff and members refine priorities for 2026.