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Wake Transit Vision Plan Update Progress Report
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, determining remaining financial capacity for additional transit investments through 2030, soliciting public and stakeholder input on investment priorities, prioritization of investments, and reprogramming investments through the new 2030 horizon.
Due to the economic uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, our forecasting of revenues through 2030 has changed significantly. Our final financial outlook for the plan involves projected revenue reductions through 2030 when compared to more optimistic assumptions that preceded the onset of the pandemic. The new financial outlook reveals that the revenues collected during the three (3) years to be added to the planning horizon will likely need to be used to rebalance expenditures previously programmed through 2027. The final financial outlook also reveals that some cuts to planned expenditures within the 2030 horizon may be necessary such that some investments that were previously planned within the 2027 horizon will need to be deferred beyond 2030.
Within the context of these financial projections, CAMPO and its Wake Transit partners solicited input from the public throughout the month of August and did the same with our targeted stakeholder group in mid-September. This input and other factors were used to provide guidance on prioritization and reprogramming of currently planned projects through 2030 at a reprogramming workshop held in early November. A second workshop was held in early December to finalize a project programming alternative to carry forward for the final plan update. A second set of stakeholder engagement sessions was held in mid-November to circle back with them on how their input in September was used to guide project prioritization and programming and to solicit further limited input on whether the plan update assumptions are going in the right direction.
The plan update is now nearing its final step, which will be the production of the final plan update document. The TCC and Executive Board will receive the final plan update and associated document as information at their February meetings. CAMPO staff will provide an overview to the TCC of plan update progress made to date and next steps for plan update finalization at its January 7th meeting.
Requested Action: Action Receive as information.