HD15 - Interim Report of the Joint Subcommittee to Study the Financial Needs of Public Transit, Ridesharing Programs and Other Mass Transportation Activities
Executive Summary: The Joint Subcommittee to Study the Financial Needs of Public Transit, Ridesharing Programs, and Other Mass Transportation Activities was created by the General Assembly by its passage in 1982 of House Joint Resolution No. 34 (See Appendix I). The Assembly charged the Joint Subcommittee, broadly, with a review of mass transit operations and programs across Virginia, and an assessment of their adequacy and financial viability. The Joint Subcommittee was asked to submit a final report prior to the 1984 Session of the General Assembly, with an interim report by December 31, 1982. The Joint Subcommittee divided into four working subcommittees: the first dealing with the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA), the second with non-WMATA systems, the third with ridesharing programs and the transit needs of the handicapped, and the last with mass transit financing generally. These working subcommittees set about informing themselves as to the major issues, needs, and possibilities for action by the legislature within. their particular spheres of specialization. Concurrently with the activities of the four working subcommittees, the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, in conjunction with the Department of Highways and Transportation, retained the services of consultants to analyze and make recommendations concerning the Commonwealth's mass transit programs and their financial requirements. The Secretary of Transportation agreed to put the results of the consultant's study at the disposal of the Joint Subcommittee upon the work's completion in the spring of 1983. In their reports to the full Joint Subcommittee, the working subcommittees attained a considerable degree of agreement as to what actions the Joint Subcommittee should recommend to the 1982 General Assembly for its immediate action and what items should be put on its agenda for 1983, following the presentation of the consultants' report. The full Joint Subcommittee unanimously agreed to recommend that the 1983 General Assembly amend the 1982-84 Budget to permit localities to spend funds, already appropriated to them for mass transit purposes, " ... to support a maximum of 95% of the costs borne by the locality for the purchase of fuels, lubricants, tires and maintenance parts and supplies for public transportation." This amendment would have the effect of permitting localities to apply state funds, hitherto restricted to capital and administrative costs, to local transit's fuel and maintenance needs. Localities which had been unable to spend all the funds appropriated to them, because of the "capital" and "administrative cost" restrictions, would be able more flexibly to apply state funds to meet local transit needs. |
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