A new 1 percent regionwide sales tax should be implemented in two years to cover Metro’s urgent capital funding needs, a panel of local leaders said Wednesday afternoon.
“Doing nothing is not acceptable,” said the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments technical panel’s final report. But it acknowledged that the same urgent recommendations have been made before alongside similar dire warnings, and that nothing has changed.
“The Panel’s conclusion regarding the sales tax option is the same as one made in 2005,” the report said.
Now, Metro faces more than $15 billion in key needs over the next decade. Last week, Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said that $15 billion in projects could be a realistic goal for upgrades and repairs in that time frame, but that an additional $10 billion in needs would need to be put off beyond that.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Max Smith over at WTOP