Financial Plan

CLRP Revenues (Top) and
Expenditures (Bottom)
for 2011-2040
$222.9 Billion

A comprehensive financial plan was prepared for the 2010 CLRP. It reviews and updates projected transportation revenues and costs for operating, maintaining, and expanding the regional transportation system through 2040. It includes forecasts of transportation revenues and expenditures for the Washington Metropolitan Region for the 29-year period of 2011 to 2040. The forecasts were prepared by the transportation implementing agencies and jurisdictions, with technical integration and documentation provided by consultants.

The total $222.9 billion in revenues for the CLRP are projected to equal the estimated expenditures. The projections are in year of expenditure dollars of revenues and expenditures though 2040 for the total region, Suburban Maryland, Northern Virginia, and the District of Columbia by mode and category.

The financial plan demonstrates that the estimated revenues from existing and proposed sources that can reasonably expected to be available equal the estimated costs of expanding, while adequately maintaining and operating, the highway and transit system in the region from 2010 through 2040.

Comparison To 2006 Expenditures

The last time a comprehensive financial analysis of the CLRP was conducted was 2006. Since that analysis, the highway expenditures (expansion as well as operations and preservation) declined from 43 to 36 percent. Local transit also declined from 14 to 13 percent, but expenditures for WMATA increased from 43 to 51 percent.
CLRP Expenditures

 

Transit Ridership is Constrained

As in prior analyses, the post-2020 shortfall in WMATA capital funding for system capacity investments will be addressed with a transit ridership constraint for trips to or through the core.  Because funding has not yet been identified to accommodate all of the projected WMATA ridership growth, a method that has been applied since the 2000 CLRP is used to limit the projected ridership to be consistent with the available funding for the capacity improvements. 

The funding uncertainties affecting the Metrorail system capacity and levels of service beyond 2020 were explicitly accounted for by constraining transit ridership to or through the core area to 2020 levels.  The transit constraint method is applied during the travel demand modeling process as part of the air quality conformity analysis of the CLRP.  First, unconstrained origin and destination trip tables are produced for the years 2020, 2030, and 2040.  Constrained transit trip tables are then created for 2030 and 2040 by inserting 2020 totals for the transit trip patterns that correspond to trips into or through the core area containing the maximum load points in the rail system.  The transit person trips that cannot be accommodated are then allocated back to the auto person trip tables, resulting in increased daily automobile trips and vehicle emissions. Despite an 8% increase in funding levels for WMATA, that will not afford enough capacity to meet the projected ridership levels on MetroRail and MetroBus in the coming decades.

In 2008, Congress passed the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act which provides an additional $3 billion in revenues ($1.5 billion in federal and $1.5 billion from dedicated sources in the District and states) for WMATA's future capital needs. This legislation is set to expire in 2020. Currently there is not any federal legislation in place to extend that act beyond 2020, nor is any agreement in place by the jurisdictions which would match these federal funds.

To address this situation where funding has not yet been identified to accommodate all of the projected WMATA ridership growth, a method that has been applied since the 2000 CLRP was used to limit the projected ridership to be consistent with the available funding for the capacity improvements.

The funding uncertainties affecting the Metrorail system capacity and levels of service beyond 2020 were explicitly accounted for by constraining transit ridership to or through the core area to 2020 levels. The transit constraint method is applied during the travel demand modeling process as part of the air quality conformity analysis of the CLRP. First, unconstrained origin and destination trip tables are produced for the years 2010, 2020, 2030 and 2040. Constrained transit trip tables are then created for 2030 and 2040 by inserting 2020 totals for the transit trip patterns that correspond to trips into or through the core area containing the maximum load points in the rail system. The transit person trips that cannot be accommodated are then allocated back to the auto person trip tables, resulting in increased daily automobile trips and vehicle emissions.

Related Links

For more information on the financial plan, see the following pages: