RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board has approved a six-year transportation improvement plan including more than $7 billion for public transi. Some $1.7 billion of that is slated for the Transforming Rail in Virginia project acquiring and developing rail lines for passenger service.
Other key rail-related elements of the plan for fiscal years 2026 through 2031 include almost $2.4 billion for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority; $110 million for Virginia Railway Express commuter service; and $63.6 million for Department of Rail and Public Transportation’s rail preservation and planning and freight rail programs.
For fiscal 2026, the funding would include $442 million for WMATA, $17 million for VRE; $20.3 million for DPRT rail programs; and $245.3 million for the Transforming Rail program.
More details are available at the DRPT website.
https://drpt.virginia.gov/data/fy26-syip/
If Virginia bureaucrats were smart (IQ measured with an irrational number seems to be a prerequisite for employment consideration.) they would take some of that money and develop a “Rollende Landstraße” to take trucks off the full length of I-81 and put them on the parallel railroad and make travel safer for all and improve the environment. Will that ever happen? Never! Government in Virginia doesn’t exist to serve either the common nor individual good.