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- Regional Transit Advisory Panel (RTAP)
Regional Transit Advisory Panel (RTAP)
About the RTAP
During the 2020 General Assembly session, the legislature passed House Bill 1726 and Senate Bill 1038 which created the Hampton Roads Regional Transit Fund (HRRTF).
The bills created the Hampton Roads Regional Transit Program to develop, maintain, and improve a regional network of transit routes and related infrastructure, rolling stock, and support facilities. The program is funded by an additional (i) regional grantor's tax at a rate of $0.06 per $100 of the consideration for the conveyance and (ii) regional transient occupancy tax at a rate of one % of the charge for the occupancy, both imposed in localities in the Hampton Roads Transportation District. The bill also dedicates $20 million of revenues from existing recordation taxes to funding the program. The monies would be deposited into the HRRTF, created by the bill. Use of the funds would require a two-thirds vote of the localities in which the new taxes were imposed. The bill also includes local maintenance of effort of public transportation funding.
As part of this action, the General Assembly included the following provision:
That the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization shall establish a regional transit advisory panel composed of representatives of major business and industry groups, employers, shopping destinations, institutions of higher education, military installations, hospitals, and health care centers, public transit entities, and any other groups identified as necessary to provide ongoing advice to the regional planning process required pursuant to §33.2-286 of the Code of Virginia on the long-term vision for a multimodal regional public transit network in Hampton Roads.
To address this requirement, the HRTPO staff has worked with Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) staff to develop the Membership Roster for the RTAP.