In 2006 the gross domestic product for the Washington, DC region (the sum value of all goods and services produced regionally that year) was $367 billion. That includes the suburbs, but not Baltimore nor its suburbs. Assuming 2006 was a fairly typical year:

• Metro’s request for $11 billion in maintenance money over the next 10 years equates to about three-tenths of one percent of the regional economy.
• The approximately 190 miles of streetcar lines BeyondDC proposes in our Transit Vision, costing a very very back-of-the-napkin $6 billion, equate to less than two-tenths of one percent of the regional economy over 10 years, or about 1.6% of one-year’s economy.
• The Washington region alone could pay off the entire federal economic bailout in about two years.
• Each of the 5.3-some million people in the region produce, on average, about $70, 000 per year in economic activity.

Of course, these aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons. We physically can’t spend all our collective economic energy in one place (gotta eat, after all). The amount of money available to the government to spend discretionarily is much, much smaller than the overall total gross economy. But still, interesting stuff.