A longtime leader in regional transportation and former City Council member was honored by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission last night (Thursday) as he prepares to depart the organization.
This month, Paul Smedberg departs both the commission and the board of directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Before serving as the governor’s representative on NVTC, Smedberg had represented Alexandria, which has two seats on the 21-member body.
Collectively, his service on the body totals 20 years, including several stints as board chair.
“I don’t think there could be a more consequential member of the Metro board,” said Matthew Letourneau, who served on both NVTC and WMATA with Smedberg.
In remarks last night, Smedberg praised staff, from executive director Kate Mattice on down, for leading the organization to become “the go-to group for transit issues.”
“It’s really remarkable, the progress,” he said.
Smedberg joined the WMATA Board as an alternate director in January 2016, representing Alexandria, where he served as a City Council member from 2003-2018. In 2019, WMATA elevated him to a principal director representing the state government, and he chaired the body from 2019-2024.
WMATA’s board chair has to balance the interests of three participating jurisdictions — Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia — plus the federal government and each of the localities across the region.
“It’s like riding three wild stallions at a time,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors member Walter Alcorn (D-Hunter Mill), who currently serves on the WMATA board.
Smedberg’s time as chair includes the hiring of general manager Randy Clarke and managing the impacts of the COVID-19 era, which saw ridership plummet before rebounding.
In 2025, he served as cochair of DMV Moves, the regional effort to develop dedicated funding streams for transit across the Washington area.
The final plan proposed by the DMV Moves task force last fall won approval from both the WMATA and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments boards. Local leaders in Northern Virginia will attempt to wring support for the package out of the General Assembly during its upcoming 2026 session.
Though no longer directly involved in the lobbying effort, “I’ll be cheering from the sidelines,” Smedberg said.
Mark Sickles, who is leaving the legislature to become secretary of finance in the administration of incoming Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), said Smedberg’s leadership talents already were evident when he began serving on Alexandria’s City Council.
“Whenever there was anything hard [to address], Paul was in the midst of it,” Sickles said.
Having a long-term Alexandria voice on regional transit issues paid off when city leaders pushed for support of a Metro station at Potomac Yard.
“It took vision for 20 years,” said Sarah Bagley, the city’s vice mayor and newly installed 2026 chair of the NVTC board.
In his professional life, Smedberg has been a government affairs officer for medical organizations. Departing the two bodies will give Smedberg more time to focus on other interests, Letourneau said.
“There is life after the Metro Board, as I’ve discovered,” Letourneau said.
Virginia Transportation Secretary W. Sheppard “Shep” Miller III recently announced the appointment of Darien Flowers of Arlington to the boards of WMATA and NVTC. Flowers, a director of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, was sworn in as a new NVTC member last night.
Miller works for the outgoing Youngkin administration. The incoming Spanberger administration could keep Flowers in place or potentially attempt to make a different appointment.
While Flowers is likely to stay, Miller will be departing as state transportation secretary. Spanberger has tapped as his successor Nick Donohue, who previously served as deputy secretary and last year was facilitator for the DMV Moves initiative.
