Letourneau Becomes 1st Loudoun Supervisor To Serve On WMATA Board

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — Loudoun County Dulles District Supervisor Matthew Letourneau was appointed by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) Thursday to serve as a principal director of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), becoming the first member of the Loudoun County board to serve on the WMATA board of directors. Letourneau, NVTC's immediate past chairman, joined the WMATA board of directors as an alternate member in 2019.

With Loudoun County becoming a funding member of WMATA as part of the planned extension of the Silver Line, a representative from the county became eligible to sit on the WMATA board. Virginia, like the other WMATA jurisdictions, is allowed to appoint two members to the board. Under Virginia law, the NVTC chooses one of those members and the governor's office chooses the other WMATA board member from the state.

Letourneau is “a true regional thinker, who understands how critical a sustainable, effective WMATA is to each of our Northern Virginia jurisdictions," Katie Cristol, a member of the Arlington County board and chair of the NVTC, said Thursday night after the NVTC voted to appoint Letourneau to the WMATA board.

The appointment of Letourneau comes at a time of uncertainty over the timing of the opening of the Metrorail Silver Line extension into Loudoun County. Originally scheduled to open this summer, the operational date of the new Silver Line phase has been pushed back to sometime in spring 2021, Letourneau said Friday in an interview with Patch.

The WMATA board of directors determines agency policy and provides oversight for the funding, operation, and expansion of transit facilities within the D.C. area. The board is composed of eight voting and eight alternate directors. Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and the federal government appoint two voting and two alternate directors each.

“There is nothing more vital to the region than the Washington Metro system, and I am honored to serve as the voice of Virginia’s jurisdictions on the Metro Board of Directors,” Letourneau said Friday in a statement.

The supervisor said his first experience riding Metrorail was as a 12-year-old tourist. He then became a regular user of the system when he was a college student in D.C. "I have watched the system deal with many challenges since that time, and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to work on ways to improve it, especially as we prepare for Phase II of the Silver Line here in Loudoun next year,” he said.

Paul C. Smedberg, the other principal director from Virginia, was elected WMATA chairman in June 2019 and was appointed to the WMATA board by Virginia's governor. Smedberg first joined the WMATA board as an alternate director in 2016 representing the city of Alexandria where he served on the Alexandria City Council from 2003 to 2018.

Letourneau was elected to the Loudoun board to represent the Dulles District in November 2011 and was re-elected in 2015 and 2019. He serves as chair of the board’s Finance/Government Operations and Economic Development Committee.

In 2018, he served as chairman of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments board of directors, becoming the first person from Loudoun County to chair the COG board since 1983. He was the first Loudoun County supervisor to serve as an officer of the NVTC and served as chairman in 2019. He also represents Loudoun County on the Route 28 Transportation Improvement District Commission and the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board.