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NVTA urges Manassas Park to embed two Bus Rapid Transit routes in local plans as regional BRT blueprint advances
Summary
Northern Virginia Transportation Authority CEO Monica Bachman outlined a 28-route Bus Rapid Transit action plan and asked Manassas Park to incorporate two routes (Route 28 South and a Manassas Connector) into local plans so the projects can compete for regional NVTA capital funds; staff and council discussed ridership, fares and local funding.
Monica Bachman, chief executive officer of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, briefed the Manassas Park governing body on the NVTAs Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Action Plan on July 21 and asked the city to integrate two identified routes into its planning documents to make them eligible for NVTA capital funding.
Bachman said the action plan is a 28-route regional blueprint developed alongside the long-range transportation plan and that it is needs-based and geographically unconstrained. "If all 28 routes were implemented by calendar year 2045, that means 47,000,000 riders on the system or a 143,000 daily riders," she said, adding projected daily car-trip diversion and emissions benefits.
She described two routes directly involving Manassas Park: a Virginia 28 South route from the Manassas VRE station to Dulles Airport and a Manassas Connector from the Manassas Park VRE station to the Northern Virginia Community College campus via Sudley Road. Bachman emphasized that NVTA can only fund projects that appear in local long-range or comprehensive plans and that the authority is legally prohibited from funding operations and maintenance; NVTA funds are capital-only.
Council members asked whether fares could be subsidized locally; Bachman said municipalities can choose to subsidize fares and noted some jurisdictions operate fare-free services. She also described the public-engagement and modeling work NVTA used to identify priority routes.
A local official, Steve, detailed the citys share of NVTAs local distribution funds and how Manassas Park has used those dollars. He said the city receives roughly $600,000 per year from the 30% local distribution (pro rata share) and that the locality has received about $7 million in local-distribution funds to date for projects such as parking, sidewalks and resurfacing.
Bachman said NVTA is proceeding with a second phase that will refine routes and work to identify operational funding sources; she said the authority is discussing state and federal options to support operations and that design and route typology (dedicated lanes, signal priority, limited-hour lanes) will vary by corridor. She asked the governing body to incorporate the identified routes and station locations into the citys comprehensive and mobility plans so the projects can move into NVTAs funding pipeline.
The council responded positively and thanked Bachman and Steve for the briefing.
