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Update on Wake Transit Vision Plan Development and FY 21 Work Plan Reassessment
Bret Martin, MPO Staff
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In August of 2019, CAMPO kicked off the development of the Wake Transit Vision Plan Update, which will be a tune-up to certain assumptions made in the original Wake County Transit Plan and an extension of the planning horizon for the Wake County Transit Plan from 2027 to 2030. To date, the focus of the plan update has been on reassessing cost and schedule feasibility assumptions for major capital projects, producing a countywide transit market reassessment, and determining whether there is financial capacity for additional transit investments through 2030. These tasks are substantially complete.
Due to the economic uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, our forecasting of public transportation sales tax revenues through 2030 has changed significantly. Financial scenarios that account for projected revenue reductions reveal that revenues collected during the three years added to the planning horizon will likely need to be used to rebalance expenditures included under more optimistic assumptions in the original Wake County Transit Plan. The financial scenarios also reveal that some cuts to planned expenditures may be necessary. The best way to characterize the overall financial impact is that some of the investments envisioned in the original Wake County Transit Plan to be delivered by 2027 will likely need to be delayed by up to a few years. Accordingly, our overall approach to the Wake County Transit Plan update that is currently underway is to continue to deliver the Wake County Transit Plan adopted in 2016 on a slightly extended timeline.
While we will continue to refine our financial projections as revenue data are collected, within the context of our current outlook, CAMPO staff will be working to facilitate a project reprioritization and reprogramming process that will adjust our strategic phasing of investments to be in sync with these new revenue projections. This process will be informed by our adopted Wake Transit Bus Project Prioritization Policy, project sponsors’ internal project prioritization, a thorough review of project readiness, and input received from public and stakeholder engagement. This engagement is currently scheduled to begin in early August and to run through mid-September and is being designed to solicit input on project delivery priorities through 2030. The public and stakeholder input received, in conjunction with the aforementioned prioritization guidance, will then be used by CAMPO and our partners to reprogram projects at a core design retreat planned for early November.
CAMPO staff will provide the TCC with an update on the results of our revised financial scenarios, what it means for our planning process, and next steps at its August 6th regular meeting.
Requested Action: Action Receive as information.