Joint Planning Commission and City Council Work Session   5/24/2022

Why don't we go ahead and we'll start the City Council portion of this first.

And I will call the meeting of this.

It's actually a real live meeting where we're going to take a vote.

And the only item on the agenda is the second reading on the grant proposal that we introduced at the last meeting.

First of all, I guess we should take the role.

We have somebody

from the clerk's office available.

Tell you what, I will simply note that all five of us are present.

I see Sina, I see Brian, I see Michael, and I see Juan, so we're all here.

Who is going to be presenting this, Mr. Divers, Ms.

I can present it.

I don't know if you want to hear any more than I gave you last week.

This is to have you folks sign off on the, I should say, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council, members of the planning commission, thank you for having me and thank you for expediting this vote so that we can go ahead and get rolling on this program.

This is to authorize the resolution that would

I guess create the new incarnation of the CHAP program which was formerly run under the auspices of the city charter and now is going to be run under a provision of social services code that allows localities to provide grants of assistance to needy people and so we're going to

to use that provision to provide grants of assistance to homeowners in the city of Charlottesville whose income is below $60,000, whose household income is below $60,000, and whose home value is $420,000 or less.

I should say that I got an email forwarded to me this afternoon where someone was asking where we got that number from, the $420,000.

That came directly from the assessor's land book numbers

for residential improved parcels.

That's the average number.

I didn't think that that was accurate, but that was what I got.

And then just for further confirmation, I used the assessor's exhibit 11 from the packet that he sends to city council once he does the land book and confirmed it.

And it was off by about $5,000.

It was $425,000.

if you use that exhibit, but we're still in the same ballpark there.

So that's it.

That's the number.

Is there any counselor have any other discussion beyond what we had last week?

It had previously been, it would have been stuck at $375,000 for a number of years because the charter provisions pegs everything to the

the home loan program, the BHDL home loan program parameter.

And that's been stuck at 375 for years.

It's not, the benefit that people derive is not gonna be tied to the value of the home or to their tax bill or anything else.

It's essentially gonna be tied to their income.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I move that we adopt the resolution that's laid out in the packet for this new program.

And just the title of the resolution is appropriating a grant of public funds for housing assistance to low and moderate income homeowners within the city of Charlottesville.

So that understanding, again, I'm not sure that we've got anybody from the clerk's office on the call.

Why don't I just go ahead and take the role then?

Just going across the top of my screen, Ms.

Vice Mayor Wade?

Yes.

Mr. Pinkston?

Yes.

Mr. Payne?

Yes.

And I will vote yes.

So that motion passes five, nothing.

And that is the only item on the agenda for us at this point.

So I will

adjourn this meeting of council and we will join the work session and turn it over to Chair Solla-Yates.

I thank you.

And I begin this work session of the Planning Commission.

Call to order.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, Mr. Mayor, members of the Planning Commission and members of the City Council.

We are here tonight to present our first item on the agenda to present tonight is about the fifth street plan.

Our consultant team and staff have been working for the last couple of months to expedite a design plan to improve transportation safety for submission to the state's smart scale funding program.

Now the deadline for submission to that is at the beginning of August.

So as you can imagine, we've been working under a pretty aggressive schedule trying to move this project along while also taking time to hear from our community and get feedback on the proposal.

Tonight's meeting, though, is a critical point in this process because we will be presenting a set of design alternatives for your feedback and ultimately for your direction so we can narrow down to one

plan to design, and then for our next step in this process, bring this back to City Council on June 21st for the authorization to move forward with an application for the SmartScale program.

So again, this is a critical point.

We're looking for feedback and ultimately direction so that we can narrow this down to one design plan.

So I'm going to turn things over to our consultant team and allow them to introduce the members of their team.

Brennan Duncan, city traffic engineer, and myself will both be available in addition to the consultants to answer your questions following the presentation, and then we'll take some time for public comment.

Amanda?

Can we get an audio test from you, Amanda?

How are you, everyone?

Hold on, let me get this into presentation mode.

Okay, terrific.

So hi, everyone.

Thanks so much for the introduction, James, and thank you to City Council and Planning Commission for having us here today.

My name is Amanda Ponce, and I'm a senior planner with EPR, and I'm joined here today with Bill Lynch and Jeanne Alexander, who are traffic engineers.

I'm just going to kind of breeze through some of this.

I know we have a limited amount of time, so I'm going to try to keep this to about 10 to 15 minutes so we've got time for question and answer and as well as discussion.

We're going to review the project scope just so that James already kind of went over that, but we'll give you a little bit of the highlights there, some of our data collection efforts and public engagement to date.

As well as review some of the draft design concepts and then finally discuss the preferences for the smart scale submittal and as James mentioned, you know, really the goal of this meeting is to get direction on what alternatives to pursue for smart scale funding so.

EPR was hired by the city in February to help with the development of that grant application, which is due on August 1st.

The segment of that we're looking at is between Oldridge Street and Harris Road.

Our scope of work really involved reviewing the crash data, conducting a speed study, developing concepts for public review, and ultimately arriving at a final

feedback that we can really flesh out with cost estimates and better understanding of some of the engineering issues and things like that for the smart scale submittal.

As James mentioned, our scope and timeline has been pretty condensed.

We've spent the last number of months analyzing data and engaging with staff and the community in various ways, and we're here tonight to get that project direction.

Also note, as James did too, we'll be coming back in June for that resolution of support before the application deadline in August.

So as some of you may know, this segment of corridor was studied back in 2018 as part of a larger Fifth Ridge McIntyre Corridor project and that study really resulted in a couple of smart scale projects which have already been funded and are kind of in our project pipeline.

So that's really exciting.

You'll see those two are in orange on the map and include

The Fifth and Ridge Southwest Corridor improvements, which is actually the Cherry Avenue turn lane noted on the number two there, as well as some Ridge Street improvements.

So that's north of that Cherry Elliott intersection up to Monticello Avenue.

And so those are some multimodal improvements.

A third project that involved pedestrian improvements at the Cherry Ridge intersection was also funded by VDOT outside of that project study, but is being lumped into these other two because there's some overlap there.

In addition to those previously funded projects, the county and the TJPDC are currently pursuing a project for the Fifth Street corridor that will improve some of the safety, congestion, and multimodal issues south of Paris Road.

So you can see our study area there in light blue.

and how that connects to some previously funded as well as potentially future funded projects.

So what did we find in some of the data?

A major impetus for this project was the recent crash history that has occurred since the 2018 study.

The number of total and fatal crashes has increased since the last study period.

And digging into that data, we found that a number of those crashes were intersection related.

So nearly three quarters of those, those are the ones that are in blue and yellow in that pie diagram.

We also found that the variety, most of those crashes are not related to speeding, but all of the fatal crashes did involve speeding at a rate of 10 to 45 miles an hour over the speed limit.

We reviewed all of the crash reports to identify some crash patterns.

So from 2017 to 2021, and you can see the crash density here on this map on the right.

Most of that crash happened at the, most of those crashes occurred at the Harris Road intersection along with a few at Bailey and Old Ridge.

Most of those involve left-turning vehicles, either coming off of Fifth Street onto Harris, well, in the case of Fifth Street, onto Harris, or coming out of the side streets onto the main line.

We also just wanted to note some of the characteristics of the fatal crashes.

Most of those included or involved excessive speed, like I said, 10 to 45 miles an hour over the speed limit, as well as other factors like distracted, drowsy, or driving under the influence, as well as the trees and the median.

So you can see the dots, the small little points on the screen, those are the ones that were the fatal and severe crashes and all of those involved the trees.

We conducted a speed study in March of 2022 over a three-day period to get a sense of the typical corridor speeds.

I won't go through all the trends here on the slide, but some of the highlights there, there does not seem to be excessive speeding based on the posted speed.

The highest speeds were recorded down on the south end of the corridor.

in the northbound direction between Harris and Cleveland and in the southbound direction between Bailey and Cleveland.

And it's important to note, while there is not excessive speeding based on the posted speed, 40 miles an hour still is not really a safe or comfortable speed for people walking or biking on the corridor.

So just something to keep in mind.

as we think about options.

Part of our study involved significant public outreach.

We did an online survey back in March.

We received over 700 responses and over 500 individual comments.

You know what we wanted to know, you know, how people are, how are people using the corridor?

What are the major transportation problems?

And what are some of the design priorities?

This was before we went into creating the alternatives, you know, getting feedback on what are some of the things that they see as top design issues.

So we heard that most people currently drive along Fifth Street, which isn't a surprise, but there really is a strong preference for walking or biking.

And I think you could see that in the survey results, which we included on the website.

The transportation problems, the top three were speeding, intersection safety, and high vehicle volume.

As far as the design issues that they wanted to address, reducing the crash rates was really important, as well as improving neighborhood connectivity and pedestrian friendliness, providing protected bike lanes.

And then we reviewed all those 500 comments and tried to

put some themes on them so that we could better understand what people were saying.

And really, the top thing we heard was concern about people's driving behavior, whether it's reckless driving or red light running or just poor driving behavior.

But many of those comments were also accompanied by concerns or desire to see additional enforcement.

We also heard about the need for approved bike facilities as well as congestion issues that weren't directly related to our study area, but you know the areas that we know right north of Cherry Avenue as you head into the city, as well as south towards the fifth street station parkway.

So based on the public feedback and data collected, the project team felt that, you know, there were a couple of tools that we had in our toolbox to address some of the issues.

I'll describe what a restricted crossing U-turn is in a little bit, but that is one tool as well as roundabouts and potentially guardrail.

you know this is something that might be employed to protect the passengers from tree impacts we recognize you know one an alternate to that would be true removal which we know is not politically you know it doesn't it doesn't reflect all of the policy direction that is in streets that work and other and other plans so we felt like guardrail was probably a more realistic option.

So each of these countermeasures were introduced in five different alternatives that were presented at a public workshop at Tonsillar Park on April 25th.

The first alternative really

reflected what we did in 2018 and included enhanced bike and pedestrian enhancements as well as that RCUT treatment that I talked about.

The second alternative included the same ideas from the first alternative but also added a two-lane roundabout.

The third alternative reduced the number of travel lanes from four lanes, the current four lanes to two lanes to provide a shared bus and bike priority lane.

And we did this within the existing pavement.

The fourth alternative included that same road we call a road diet where you reduce the travel lanes from four to two.

But that included a one lane roundabout.

And then we also had a fifth alternative, which we call low cost safety measures, which

are things that are like improved crossings and bus stops and additional signage, things that could be considered as a standalone alternative or incorporated into the other alternatives.

So as you can see, well, at the meeting, we asked people to tell them about what they liked, what they didn't like, and what would change.

And we got a lot of really thoughtful feedback.

We posted those alternatives online so that the general public could rate those alternatives.

And as you can see here on the graph, you know, there wasn't really a clear favorite.

They all were more or less in the same sort of average, average

Average.

That's all I can say.

But some of the things that we heard was there was a lot of support generally for the bus priority lane, but a lot of people really didn't like the idea of a shared bus and bike lane.

They felt like that was really problematic and wanted to see buses and bikes separated just for a variety of issues, but that made a lot of sense.

There were also some

ideas about increasing the transit frequency, as well as potentially exploring a park and ride near I-64 to really enhance some of the multimodal options.

There was mixed feedback on the roundabout.

Some people really liked it for the speed reduction, but others were also concerned about that it would be confusing or maybe difficult for pedestrians to cross.

There was similarly mixed feedback on the road diet.

People really liked the opportunity to promote alternate modes of travel, but also, you know, were concerned about congestion and potential negative impacts on the neighborhoods for cut through traffic and dispersion of traffic to other already congested corridors.

We also heard about concerns about Harris Road and Willoughby, as well as a desire for immediate intervention, recognizing that a grant application, we wouldn't see funding in the city until for another eight to 10 years, so

So the first alternative that we want to share is this idea that we brought forth in the 2018 study with the enhanced bike and pedestrian facilities, as well as the RCUT treatments.

And what this alternative does is it expands the current right-of-way footprint to provide protected bike lane in both directions on Fifth Street, as well as a shared use path

and sidewalk to connect with opportunities to existing and proposed trails.

It also provides some pedestrian crossing opportunities at different intersections along the corridor, as well as ADA and transit stop improvements.

And I've alluded to this RCUT treatment in a couple of cases.

And what this means is that people coming from the side street, so for example, Bailey Road or Old Ridge,

they would first make a right turn the median openings that are currently there would be closed for through traffic and people coming out of the side streets would first have to make a right hand turn and then go up to the next median opening to make a U-turn to go in the direction they wanted to travel.

The other the other thing that is included in this alternative is a

Slight reconfiguration at Harris Road where we'd be removing the slip lane on that currently exists and the westbound direction to provide a more conventional four way intersection that would make it easier for pedestrians to cross.

So some of the benefits of this alternative are that it improves safety for people walking and biking, as well as the intersection safety issue, which was, you know, really one of the primary safety concerns on the corridor.

The downside of this alternative is it doesn't address, it doesn't alter the roadway profile to address some of the speeding concerns that people have.

And the arc cuts also create out of direction travel for neighborhoods.

The second alternative was a variation of what we presented in the public meeting, but it was revised based on the comment.

And rather than try to limit the road diet to the existing footprint, we're acknowledging the fact that we could provide separated facilities in a modified environment.

So it would expand the current right of way to provide two 10-foot travel lanes, so one in each direction, as well as the bus priority lane in each direction.

as well as the separated bike lanes, sidewalk, and shared use path.

This option also has the pedestrian crossings, ADA transit stop improvements, and also incorporates the RCUT and Harris Road improvements that I described just a bit ago.

So the benefits of this alternative are that it does provide some consistent speed.

So whoever sets the pace, that first car in line as you head out through the intersection kind of sets the pace for the whole corridor.

And it does provide separation from bikes, pedestrians and transit, which is great.

But the negative of this alternative is that it really

really affects traffic congestion.

And so the image on the right shows the red lines there in the AM, in the morning peak hour commute, the traffic spills over based on our model results all the way to the 64, I-64 interchange.

And in the PM, in the afternoon peak, when everyone is commuting out of town, that spillover occurs almost all the way up to the 250 bypass.

And that's under current conditions.

So what we know is that traffic volumes, well, based on development, we expect that traffic will continue to grow over the next number of years.

And you can see in the little graph down on the bottom, it might nearly double by 2040.

And so what we don't know is how driver behavior will change given these increasing congestion under this option.

and that could shift some of that congestion to other routes like Fontaine or Pantops or Route 20.

Another thing that we want you all to consider is the roundabouts.

So these are proven safety countermeasures.

They not only reduce speeds, but they also reduce the number of conflict points and intersections.

And based on the topography and crash history, really the only location where this would make a lot of sense is at Bailey Road.

And so what we're showing here is a conceptual sketch of what the single lane roundabout would look at Bailey Road.

That's on the left.

as well as what a conceptual sketch of a two-lane roundabout would look like on the right.

What you can see in these two images is that while the benefits are great, there are some negative impacts as far as the property impacts and right-of-way needs that would be required in order to make these happen.

And I do also want to note that because these are conceptual, some of the exact alignments might shift and it could even necessitate having to

acquire the entire parcel on the southwest corner there where you can see Bailey Road, the Bailey Road label, you know, that might need to be acquired fully in order to be able to construct this roundabout, either one of those.

Lastly, I mentioned some enhancements that could be considered as a lower cost alternative.

So things like the guardrail, that's not a low cost alternative, I would say that's a lower cost alternative, as well as additional signage, lighting, the mid-block crossings, ADA, transit improvements, as well as potentially photo enforcement.

I put a note here that currently

The city is allowed to regulate, do photo enforcement at red lights.

We're not allowed to do, it's currently not enabled by the state to do sort of speed photo enforcement outside of school zones or work zones.

So that would be something if you were interested in pursuing that would need to be changed.

You'd have to lobby the state to change that legislation to allow the city to be able to do that.

So I kind of breezed through that relatively quickly.

I'm sure there are questions.

We've got Bill and Jeannie here to be able to answer some of the technical traffic engineering questions that you might have.

But I do just want to note that we really are here to hopefully come to a consensus on what direction to move forward as we think about smart scale for the August deadline.

Thank you very much.

I'd like to run down the list to go for questions, and then I'd like to go again to talk about answers to your questions, if that works for you.

Is there any idea what happened between the first study and the second study?

Why did the numbers go up?

Do we do the analysis to figure that out?

Is it a cultural thing?

Is it a demographic thing?

So we don't know.

I mean, the traffic patterns,

have stayed relatively the same.

The data on the crash reports does not give any indication of race.

So we don't know.

We don't have data from that perspective.

A lot of the comments, and I don't know if this is true, but many of the comments in the survey hinted at drag racing that's happening at night on Fifth Street.

Again, I don't know if that's true, but that is something that was mentioned many, many times.

And I'm peaked by the interest in more protection of bikers.

um yes, so I have information from the survey I don't have it specifically on hand, but I can get that to you, but it was predominantly.

White.

There were, I'd say, maybe 10% of our respondents identified as a person of color, however you define that.

And we did break out some of the comments.

We did analyze the comments just based on those factors to see if there were differences.

For the most part, the top concerns were the same.

Protected bike lanes was not in the top three of that demographic.

We have that information as well, I believe.

A general idea.

I mean, what do you think?

Yeah, I really can't answer that.

I apologize.

I was more focused on the other.

When you were talking about alternative number one, you suggested that one of the reasons that we might not want to go with that alternative is because it does not

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Mr. Chair, I don't think I, oh yeah, one other thing, when you guys were thinking about the road diet and frankly the roundabout and frankly I don't like the two-lane roundabout because I hate driving in DC and those things always frustrate me, but when you guys were thinking about the roundabout and the road diet, did you think about the impact of a road diet and maybe even a roundabout

Bill's here.

So it was a question.

My point is that the traffic patterns are a little different in September, October, November, doing UVA football games.

And I want to make sure that we think the

what the road diet might do, shifting traffic elsewhere, making Fontaine even more difficult.

Well, that is a concern.

I would recommend that you take a look at that.

Yeah, I'll just add that, you know, typically traffic planning just looks at typical conditions.

Event traffic, whether it's Christmas time or special events is usually handled kind of outside of that.

Thank you very much.

Ms.

We do have Ms.

Dahl with us.

Maybe we don't.

Mr. Hibab, please.

Thanks, Chair.

I just had a question.

You mentioned 40 miles per hour was still not safe for pedestrian traffic or comfortable.

What is the speed that is comfortable?

Well, I mean, I think as far as the safest speed is

for pedestrians and bicyclists is going to be less than 25 miles an hour.

There are different figures that show at certain speed limits how pedestrian fatality, the percentage of pedestrian fatalities that occur at different speeds.

And so 25 seems to be like the safest, 35 is a little bit better.

And then beyond that, the fatality rate is pretty significant, especially given the fact that there are so many large vehicles on the road

these days.

Nothing to add.

That's it.

I don't have any other questions.

Thank you.

Just a couple.

The improvements that are planned for Fifth Street at the north end and the south end already, how do they integrate with the alternatives that are being proposed for the study section of Fifth Street?

Are they...

Yeah, so I was actually on the part of the city team when

when the city and county were developing their recommendations.

And so we were using the 2018 study results and they were trying to mirror those as far as the bike and pedestrian improvements.

They were not changing the number of travel lanes.

They were trying to improve traffic flow at the Fifth Street Station Parkway intersection and things like that.

This would definitely change, I think, how those two interacts if you were to choose the road diet option.

Okay, thank you.

For alternative one, I noticed in the cross section that there are no trees shown in the medium.

That's not.

That was just, no.

We can put the trees back for sure, show them in the drawing.

Okay, I'm glad to hear that because there are studies that show that having trees do does help to calm the traffic.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Thanks.

I had a

A few questions, Amanda.

Maybe just some clarifications first.

I thought I heard you say that all the fatal crashes involve trees, but that's not correct, right?

Yeah.

So it might not have been the first harmful event as they categorize them on the crash reports, but it might have been something that happened after the first impact with another car that they hit a tree or something like that.

There was one prior in the 2018 study that did not.

So that one was a drunk driver.

That's correct.

Right.

I would not say that trees cause the fatalities, no, but every, all of them, except for that one that involved the drunk driver in the intersection, did have some touch with the tree.

Just to

Drilled in a little more on what Commissioner Habab brought up.

When you say the sort of safe speed for walking and biking, my question is, is that based on a fatality rate or perception?

Because you're saying safe feeling, but then you're saying it's based on fatality rate.

Yeah, that's a good question.

And I mean, truly, you know, there are people who don't feel safe with 25 miles an hour, you know, just depending on the design of the road.

So that number, that 25, 35, the data does show an increase at higher speeds, an increase in fatality at higher speeds.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay.

Okay, I didn't really understand, nor could I clearly read the traffic data slide.

It seemed like something, and I'm sorry if I missed this when you were presenting, it seemed like there was like a part of it that didn't show up on the screen.

So like, what are we looking at there?

What is that screen with the red and the blue?

Can you tell me

And I can go back to that.

The, so what I was trying to show there all a lot in one screen, currently the traffic volumes are about 18,000.

And that is a reduction from the pre-COVID times where we went up to about 22,000.

So between 2018, 2019 traffic

Volumes rose to about 22,000.

We dropped in 2020 to 18,000.

The 2021 numbers are still not out, but based on the development patterns and the known developments that are planned for the county, as well as sort of the growth projections that we do, we are anticipating that the traffic on the corridor will almost double up to about 35,000 in 2040.

So what I'm showing here with the road diet volume thresholds is, you know, what the Federal Highway Administration as well as VDOT consider appropriate thresholds for to consider for a road diet.

So the Federal Highway Administration

believes states that 20,000 vehicles per day is a comfortable number to consider a road diet.

VDOT considers 16,000 vehicles a day a comfortable number to consider a road diet.

But there are some other studies that are out there that suggest you could safely consider a road diet up to 25,000.

Consider it appropriate for a road diet?

So like, I'm not getting this, like you're getting so many, a certain number of vehicles a day, you can

Yeah.

So if you think about it in terms of like pipes, right, like water pipes or something, there's only so much water that you can fit through those pipes to make them flow.

And if you start to put too much water in those pipes, then they're going to start to back up and the water won't go through as efficiently.

So VDOT and Federal Highways

put out those thresholds.

They think, you know, 16 to 20,000 vehicles a day, that water, that traffic will move pretty smoothly still.

But once you exceed those numbers, the traffic will start to back up and it'll start to cause congestion issues, which is what we're showing on that diagram with the red and the blue.

So the red shows the congestion levels under current

volumes, 18,000 vehicles a day roughly in the morning.

So that traffic, what that looks like actually backs all the way up from Cherry Elliott to the 64 interchange in the morning as people are coming in.

Yeah, got it.

So what we're seeing is reflecting what VDOT says is an appropriate road diet threshold because we exceed that with 18,000 and then we see backed up traffic.

But if we were to look at it under Federal Highway,

you know, it would presumably be fine.

Yeah, and there are other conditions and I will let Bill and Jeannie jump in as appropriate because this is definitely more there.

more their area of expertise than mine, but, you know, other factors like the number of intersections and how the lights are timed and the number of left turns and those sorts of things also factor in.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, cool.

Thanks for staying with me on that.

Just two other questions I think are pretty straightforward.

Do you have thoughts on people, you know, like, were there to be a bus lane?

Is there data on people that illegally use it?

Like, is it separated?

We do not.

This would be a first.

So we don't really have any good information.

I think a lot of that would depend on how frequent is the service?

Is it convenient?

Is it getting people to the places that they need to go?

A lot of different factors.

And finally, why not just simply lower the speed limit significantly?

Sure, I can answer that one.

So you have to do a speed study.

State code says you have to do speed studies in order to lower a speed limit.

It has to be a reasonable speed limit for the design of the road.

So if we just lower it to 25 miles an hour,

and no one obeys the speed limit because the roadway isn't built to really force people to go that speed, then the way that it's kind of set up is, you know,

You don't want to make it so that the majority of people driving on a street are breaking the law, just driving what the road and all of the cues that they're given by the roadway, the setbacks, all that kind of stuff is telling them that they should be driving faster or that it's safe to drive faster.

Okay.

Yeah, that makes total sense.

Appreciate you explaining.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I guess my first question, I'm trying to put these cross sections into context.

80 feet.

And we're talking about raising it to 91 or 94.

So it looks like in both alternatives, we have that median reduced to a 14 foot median.

Do we know if that's okay for the trees?

Is there room to spare?

That's a great question.

I will say that what we saw on the field is that there are

You know, root balls that go all the way to the curves in some places.

Some of those trees are tremendous trees.

They're quite large and the root system goes all the way to the edge.

Okay, and then I'm trying to better understand these bike lanes, and I think we've said in both alternatives, they're separated bike lanes.

What does that mean?

Are those protected bike lanes?

Yeah, that's a great question and definitely a detail that we still need to dig into a little bit more.

The idea is, yes, they would be separated physically in some way.

My guess, just based on

You know, the fact that this is a pretty important corridor coming in and out of the city, similar to the Belmont Bridge, like it would have to be something that would provide protection, but would also be mountable for fire apparatus and emergency vehicles and things like that.

Perhaps not, because you already have the transit lane there.

So again, that would just be something that we'd have to flesh out a little bit more in the detailed design.

And so physical separation means more than just painted.

Potentially, yes.

OK, yeah.

Is that enough feet?

You can go down to 18 inches.

So, yeah, especially without having any parked vehicles or things like that, you could put something to physically separate or raise it up as a curb, you know, have some sort of a mountable curb with the bike lane at a higher elevation roadway.

Okay, great.

And then I'm trying to better understand, I guess, this slide with those delays.

So, I mean,

not a traffic engineer, but it seems to me that, you know, of roads in general, Fish Street and this stretch of Fish Street is one with relatively few intersections, you know, no lights.

It would seem to me a relatively good candidate, you know, obviously, except for the volume for a road diet.

So I'm trying to understand why these impacts are so bad, especially if we'd be adding our cuts and things.

Would the congestion here happen because of intersections?

And like, is it because of specific configurations of those intersections that it's becoming so bad?

Like, are we removing turn lanes as well as the through lanes?

So, you know, what happens at these intersections is that

Delay is almost exponential, right?

So once you start getting cars backing up and not making it through the signal, it just starts stacking and then it just grows throughout the peak hour.

So to answer your question, these are model results from taking away one travel lane in each direction and the delay and it's really the queue is what you're seeing here, just extensive queuing throughout the corridor is a result of

The car has not been able to make it through the intersections, you know, cycle after cycle.

So they just start to exponentially back up in peak hours.

So that's really what you're seeing here.

And what was asked earlier was, well, will people want to route to other, you know, take other routes?

Because, right, we choose our routes by how much time it takes.

It's typically, right?

Route selection is driven by, you know, time.

So chances are people will divert versus experience extensive queuing and delay as indicated by the models and how much that is that it's really hard to predict.

So to be clear, the model inputs that generate these queues is not changing anything about any intersections, not adding any R cuts.

That is correct.

Yeah.

Yeah, those were optimized.

Well, there were variations on the theme, right?

So this shows just getting rid of the travel lane in each direction and using that space for something else.

But we also looked at a roundabout at Bailey as a means to break up the speed, kind of a physical change in the corridor there, where you'd have to slow down at that point, which could maybe interrupt this drag racing phenomenon that seems to be happening, as we hear.

So that was really the only other change.

And Amanda, correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Yeah, I do just want to clarify in terms of the R cuts, you know, the benefits of those really has to do with the reducing the conflicts at those intersections for the left turning vehicles that are occurring at the side streets.

They don't really do much for congestion on 5th Street.

They do perhaps help with congestion on the side streets because it's easier for them to

get out because they're just making a right turn rather than having to wait and wait and wait for a safe time to make the left turn.

Sure, maybe that's a bad example.

Maybe a better example of a mitigating factor would be longer turn days, right?

Like, I guess I'm confused why these delays or these queues seem to be emanating from Cherry Avenue when Cherry Avenue is already a one-lane road when you go through, right?

So what?

Yep, that's right.

But Cherry's already one lane, right?

I should look back and see what we did with that right turn because it does drop that lane turning onto Elliott.

Bill, I'll jump in a little bit on this one too.

I think part of the issue is, you're right, going northbound, when you hit cherry, yes, today there's only the one through lane and there are the turn lanes, but there's more queuing area you get out of those lanes so it doesn't ripple back quite so far.

Does that

I think that makes sense.

Interesting idea.

Challenging to simulate.

I think it's another consideration for drivers.

And Amanda, I'm sorry if I cut you off.

No, go ahead.

That is not something that would specifically show up in the results that we're showing here with the cues, that behavior wouldn't be reflected in that type of analysis.

But driving, yes, I think

We all had that experience when you are turning right at an intersection, but you have to get into the right turn lane and there's a bike lane between you.

You have to be very aware of what's going on to make sure there's not a cyclist present.

And likewise, the bicyclist has to be very aware of the turning vehicles that are crossing.

And so, yes, there are more conflict points when you have that merging that's happening at an intersection and trying to accommodate a bike lane.

Right.

So, to be clear, though, certainly we'd have to, you know, carefully design these intersections to allow for through bike traffic.

No?

There's only one through.

Well, in the typical section, there's two lanes in each direction, right?

So instead of two lanes in each direction, there's one lane in each direction.

But where we have a left turn lane, there's still a left turn lane.

And part of the issue, too, is you're losing that capacity southbound also.

You're going into a single lane, so you have to reallocate some of your green time, so you have less green time to your northbound.

So there are a lot of pieces.

I understand why it's counterintuitive that that queue northbound is so long, but it's the full impact of both directions on Fifth Street being a single lane per direction and how that operation at the signal works.

Yeah, I've been trying.

I think you're still losing me a little bit on, I mean, again, if the congestion comes from the intersections and the queues building up there, but the intersection is already currently one through lane and we're not changing any of the turn lanes.

Oh, that's still the case, but I don't know if we can get any further on that.

My last question, sorry to take so much time, Mr. Chair, but is there any possibility of doing sort of a low-cost trial of something like Alternative 2 and seeing what happens so that we can get real-world data on things like mode shifts

So Amanda, if I can go ahead and jump in.

Rory, you kind of hit on a point I was going to kind of bring up to Council and Planning Commission towards the end of this.

And that would be like, from my perspective as the traffic engineer and the results of the cues that are on the screen, I don't know that I can necessarily recommend option two without doing some kind of trial or pilot.

What that may mean is because of the timeline, we would most likely have to defer this application until the next round so that we would have time.

But to be clear, though, the pilot would be so...

Between now and the 2024 cycle, because once we make an application, it's very difficult to change that.

So it's not like we could be like, oh, we're going to go with option one, but then when it comes to design, we're going to switch it to option two, or we put in for a road diet now.

and we do the pilot and then we find out it doesn't work, we can't really go back and change to option one.

So that's kind of, I guess, where I'm at is really we've got three options.

We can do option one, we can do option two, or we can defer.

And I would opt for, you know, if it's planning commission and council's

if they're leaning towards the road diet option, I would ask that we defer and that we look at actually doing a study with the pilot to make sure that this actually works.

Because the model is what it is.

It has its limitations.

It can't really model

how many people are going to change their route.

Or with teleworking as an option today, you could change the time of day that you go in, you could change whether or not you come in, or you could change your route.

and the model has difficulty, you know, picking all of those factors in into the equation.

So I am concerned as well, like we only have 19 separate ways into the city.

So if we take one of these that, you know, is one of our larger, if not the largest, you know,

Thanks, that makes sense.

I mean, given the second half of our meeting today, I wonder if staff would, it would be easier on staff to have

It deferred to the next cycle.

So there's kind of less on their plate.

And then I guess one quick follow up is given, you know, the COVID has shaken things up, maybe to some extent permanently, like would a pilot be, you know, good, useful data?

And like for this model, I think you guys said it was the current levels, right?

So is that like the 18,000 on 2020 levels or is that

I mean I I guess to answer the first part of that I think yes like we're basically back to as normal as we're going to be you know I think it it might change slightly but originally when COVID hit we were seeing you know 50% drops you know on all of traffic all over you know we're back up to

85, 90, 95% of pre-COVID on pretty much every street.

So, you know, it's hard to say, you know, we do know that there's more development and stuff that is going to be happening down in the county.

Yes, thank you.

I had a question on the bus priority lane.

Thanks.

Well, I think the idea with making it a bus lane and promoting it that way is that there then could be like that's really

Yeah, so the priority, the priority bus lane would merge back into traffic prior to those intersections.

So it's more a way for them to kind of, I guess, bypass the queues.

And again, if the thought process is, is if you're a pedestrian or if you're a driver sitting in traffic and the bus is continually going past you while you're sitting there that you may

think about changing your mode and getting on a transit bus instead because it can actually get through the corridor faster.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I've got a couple questions.

First comment on Hosea's

talk about the football days.

That's obviously really important.

But I think over around UVA, more generally, those are handled more operationally.

And I would imagine if any changes needed to occur here, it would be an operational thing rather than a design thing and could be accomplished with signage and personnel, perhaps.

So my first question

was about emergency vehicles, just from UVA perspective.

This is, I think, a pretty major corridor for emergency vehicles coming to the hospital down Fifth Street onto Cherry, whatnot.

We actually anticipated that the bus lanes would be used in emergency, you know, conditions.

So whether it's an ambulance, fire truck, police, whatever, like they would still be able to use and access

that bus lane in a single lane option, as well as, you know, again, speaking, like Bill said, we're talking about the general days, but, you know, if there was a special event, if there was a huge football game and it was decided that, you know, we needed that extra capacity, there's really no reason to say that we couldn't open up that bus lane for that special event as another travel lane to get people in and out.

You know, police do that on

on Emmett Street today where they'll, you know, it doesn't matter how it's striped, they'll, you know, they'll move the center line around and, you know, have more vehicles going in one direction than the other.

Sure, thanks.

So then my other question is more of a general question musing, I guess.

I know that we have a recently adopted future land use map, and I'm not sure what the exact designation for this area is, but I was just thinking,

if any of these alternatives mesh better with that, you know, if that's a consideration for which, you know, alternative ultimately gets promoted.

I don't know.

I guess I'll go ahead and say that, you know, this has definitely come up.

I know some other people have asked about that.

Yeah, I was just trying to pull up the future land uses so I could see exactly what what it was showing along Fifth Street.

All right, thank you.

Ms.

Miguel, questions for the team?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

I was shaking my head trying to figure out my stuff.

I'm sorry.

I am concerned about backup onto 64.

I just think that's sending up.

I've been on 64 when various exits back up.

and it is incredibly dangerous.

And at those speeds on 64, you're looking at a lot of loss of life.

So I am concerned about that.

I'm also concerned about how this, to go back to somebody else's plumbing analogy, in plumbing, you've gotta be careful of going from big to little.

And it looks,

if we have a designated transit lane, which I'm for, how is it gonna merge on both ends without causing backups or I mean, without causing congestion and like a funnel effect on both ends?

Same thing with protected bike lanes, transitioning from protected bike lanes can sometimes be the most dangerous areas.

So I just wanna make sure

We're looking at those transition points.

And I mean, this is also just really pushing to me that we need a park and ride lot because if we had a designated bus lane going from a park and ride lot to two very key points where people could catch other buses or where the majority of work is happening,

we could have people parking away from the city center and utilizing transit system.

Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Were there responses for that one?

Um,

I think there were some questions in there.

I, I didn't, I haven't been writing them down.

No, not specific.

It's just more, more of my concerns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry.

To put some of your concerns for us as it say that road diet were to move forward.

Refining some of those details about the transitions is kind of the next step like that getting into those design details.

Yes, you're right.

Yes, a few questions.

I think this was discussed a little earlier, but I did.

did not fully follow it.

I think, I mean, there's two choke points.

There's one at Harris and there's one at Cherry.

I think Cherry is a difficult one because of the volume of traffic on the side streets, both Elliott and Cherry coming up.

So trying to give all of the directions enough time in a signal cycle to get them through with the volumes on both roads is difficult.

Harris is more of an issue because in the road diet concept, that would kind of be where you would be taking it down from a single lane or from two lanes coming from the highway to a single lane.

And so that's

Okay.

Would it at all be feasible to have like a road diet?

that's in place except during like a rush hour on either the north or southbound lane to deal with that specific congestion issue?

I mean, obviously they do things like that on highways where they'll have express lanes that are open at certain times and closed at other times.

I think enforcement of that is going to be extremely difficult in an urban area

scenario.

And also if you have that, like where you do have the roads coming in, you know, having people know when and where they're supposed to turn at different times of day, you almost would have to have like automated bollards or something that would like pop out of the ground to really channelize people.

Yeah.

And just two others.

One is there's obviously a lot of homes along the road that have driveways.

Yeah.

So, I mean, we had talked about, you know, buffered bike lane or separated bike lane.

You know, if it was any kind of mountable curb, like there would be breaks in that curb for the driveways.

They would still, at the very least, they'd be able to come out and turn right.

So, you know, many of the driveways today are right in, right out.

So you can only, you know, access them from one side of the roadway.

And then the final question is, I guess I'm thinking about it.

There's sort of like three different problems.

There's the ability to get to high speeds, which has created the deadly crashes.

There's making it a more pedestrian and bike

friendly multimodal corridor and then long term congestion issues, especially in the context of our future land use map and the high and medium intensity residential development that, you know, they're likely to be in this area.

When it comes to just that first problem of the high speeds is utilization of

Yeah, okay.

And then one final one, actual final.

We've not really looked at it in that sense.

Right now, we're trying to try and do it for which is the best project for the city, not necessarily which is the most competitive for VDOT.

With that being said, the congestion mitigation is one of the scoring criteria for VDOT, and so we will probably score lower on that with the

the road diet option.

So I would and all the other boxes would probably be checked similarly.

So, you know, we would probably score higher on the non-road diet.

That doesn't mean we wouldn't get the road diet option.

The other thing I would just add to that is we know that this is on VDOT's radar as far as an important safety corridor statewide.

So

You know, it already kind of passes at least the first screen, which is, is it on that map that VDOT is looking at?

And yes, it is.

Yeah, because that was my sense that maybe is wrong, but that it would be relatively high priority for VDOT.

And we shouldn't necessarily limit ourselves based on cost due to that, because they may look favorably, just given the importance of this corridor.

But if there was an option that seemed like there's really no chance in hell that it would actually make it through the smart scale process, that would obviously be important.

to inform our decision.

But that's it for me.

Yeah, I'll just add one more thing, and that is we haven't really looked at the total cost estimate as of yet, but more than likely with the length of roadway that this is, we're talking a mile of roadway between Harris and Old Ridge,

that this project would have to be split into two applications just to kind of stay competitive.

Otherwise, we may end up with like a $30 million project that, you know, just can't compete.

So just keep that in mind as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Mayor Snook, Okay.

Was there any discussion in any of this about a particular plan to help the folks?

I mean, one of the sets of people who have been complaining most to me are people who live in the Willoughby subdivision who say when they come out, they can't make a left, they can't go across without running the risk that somebody is about to run the light and then T-bone them.

Yeah, so we're still in the process.

I came to council several months ago about updates on, you know, kind of the near-term things that we've been working on.

The last of those I think that's still yet to be done is the installation of the flashing yellow arrows at the intersection there at Harris.

So essentially, like you've seen a lot, the VDOT's been putting them up all over.

Instead of just having a green ball that allows people to turn left on green, yield on green, it goes to a flashing yellow arrow.

So at that intersection in particular, what we see is a lot of the people coming off of Harris kind of treat that intersection as a T instead of a cross.

and so when they get that green ball they just go and turn left with without regard for the neighborhood up in Willoughby really.

So my next question deals with the notion of the road diet.

If we're reserving what is going to be the widest lane on either side for buses that at this point may go along there perhaps 15 times an hour, even if we get a fancier system, maybe we get up to 30 times an hour, and we're devoting the largest share of asphalt

to something that only takes 30 vehicles an hour.

What am I saying?

Like a couple of times an hour, pardon me.

So 30 times a day.

That strikes me as being a very difficult thing to justify.

And the only reason why we're thinking about it is really not for the buses.

It's to cut down to one lane so that all of the other people who would otherwise be tempted to speed won't be able to speed, partly because they will be too congested to speed.

One of the concerns that that leads me to is that I think what we would see is that we would get a lot of traffic directed either at the Bailey roundabout, if we have a roundabout there, they would go into the Prospect neighborhood to cut up to UVA, or they would simply turn left at Harris and JPA to go up into UVA.

And because one of the things that I think I've found after

Philip dOronzio, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg,

Let's see, are there criteria for deciding when to use the road diet approach?

Well, I think the slide up here is really the best guidance that we have as far as the thresholds and what are the vehicle thresholds for consideration.

You know, currently we're

within that threshold for between VDOT and federal highways.

But, you know, as the traffic volume continues to grow, you know, it's going to be really problematic.

So that really is the best guidance that we have.

Not really.

It's a good observation that I think we've kind of circled around all these points today is

If we can't get the volume in this corridor, it's going to go somewhere else.

You know, these are the thresholds that have, rule of thumb, thresholds-ish.

And keep in mind, you know, we know that the county is developing like crazy.

A lot of the people who work in the city live elsewhere and have to come and go somehow.

You know, you get to university and the hospital.

So it's a complicated corridor.

It's trying to do a lot of things.

You know, it's trying to be that regional connector.

It's trying to be somewhere where you can get off the bus with your pick up your kids and walk.

It's a complicated corridor.

Yeah, it seemed to me that the approach to

to put in, I guess there are two issues.

You identified sort of the maximum level of traffic at which point we say we can't do the road diet approach.

And that's what you've shown on this slide.

My question is a little bit different, which is when do we sit there and say, you know, a dedicated bus lane is really an important solution here.

Well, I'll offer that was touched on earlier that, you know, having a park and ride, you know, putting together with this with the system, maybe having a systems plan and kind of a systematic investment plan, you know, if you could pick those cars off in a big park and ride somewhere south on the corridor there and really increase the ridership of that, of the buses and the bus lane, you know, then you're really starting to put together something that could be effective.

Yeah.

That's all I've got for now.

Thank you.

Mr. Wade, please.

I believe he's also coming.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

So many of my comments have already been addressed, and I know we're short on time.

And, you know, Bill and Jeanne, I just have to say, just bring back some wonderful memories of my days of doing this transportation planning.

But done many of these.

And so I just have some comments.

First of all, I like the idea of the guardrail to kind of help to protect the trees.

A well-designed guardrail can really, you know, save a lot of lives.

So

I like that idea.

So, man, I really would like to get more input from some of the more adjacent neighborhoods.

I don't know if y'all made an effort to reach out to the Ridge Street Neighborhood Association, in particular the Greencroft and Fifth.

I know that they

Ms.

Cooper, I think she leads that up over there, the residents, because they're the ones that really walk it and ride it.

So, and they don't necessarily may have come out to the meetings, you know, and so if you didn't take an effort to kind of go to the neighborhood, that really, even if them walking by asking what they think, and, you know, that would really be worth its waiting goal as far as input.

And I just text a few of them myself.

And so it's a good way to just to get some input.

I'm also concerned about, Lloyd talked about this, with the road diet, which I was kind of leaning towards, but

The backup, man, I just really, I know what's going to happen.

They're going to filter through the neighborhoods, and then we're going to get complaints about cars speeding in front of the Jackson Viard and about Buford School, because that's where they're going to go.

If they see, they get off 64, they see the traffic, they're going to

back up.

And some people, the more savvy ones, they may even backtrack a little bit and go towards sunset and go through old JPA and old Lynchburg Road to get to UVA.

So we just have to kind of understand that, you know, Bill is correct, that we're just trying to do so much with this road and with the tennis courts.

Also, I think some schools use the tennis courts as

their, you know, their practice, daily practice facilities.

There's so much that's going on in that area.

So let's see.

Yeah, there's a lot of new subdivisions that's going south of 64 that's on 5th Street.

Because I work at the county office building on 5th Street, and over the last 10, 12 years, I've seen the traffic increase and the development.

There's a lot that's going on.

There's a huge apartment complex or whatever is going on right across

the street from where I work, and that's going to really increase.

So I just really want to make sure we get input from the adjacent neighbors, particularly Greencroft and Fifth, they used to call it Blue Ridge, and

Richard, those active people are always crossing that street there.

And I think it, you know, we want to get their input as well.

And for the sake of time, I'm going to let that all be my comments.

I just want to confirm one thing.

Gino, OBO, is that I saw that 91% of the traffic is essentially traveling at the assigned speed limit or less.

I need to defer to Amanda.

I think, Juan, I think you got that number from one of the slides.

And yet the data we collected showed that

And that's what we found in the last study too.

Yeah.

People are generally, you know, there's always outliers.

And if you're walking on the corridor, it feels different.

I think that was noted earlier.

But by and large, the 85th percentile, the speed that 85% of the people travel at or under has been pretty close to posted speed.

Just a quick follow-up question.

The crash, the serious and fatal crashes, have they been happening, have they happened during rush hour or what times of day are they happening?

I would not say there's a pattern, but they are happening like at times when other people are not on the roads, right?

So like 5 a.m.

on a Sunday or, you know, 1 a.m.

on a Thursday or Saturday.

So they're kind of random, but not during the day, except for the one that happened at the Harris Street intersection.

That was around 6.30 p.m., I think.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

I guess the conclusion I'm coming to is that this is very difficult to come up with one static solution for a road that has various issues that are prone, you know, are at different times of a day.

and we have different problems at different times of day, it's unfortunate that we can only consider one particular, one specific solution.

Hi.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I've been paying attention and just wondering what

So my own, without

sort of trying to go into a long discussion.

My own assessment, based off what I've heard and what I've read, my own views that we should go with the road diet study pilot, see if we can validate that that works, and then go from there.

So I think that meant that you'd be a year out in terms of being able to apply for smart scale.

But I think the road diet has a lot of, I guess, worth pursuing.

Thank you.

Can we get the questions up on the screen?

No.

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Thank you very much.

That's sensible to me.

Ms.

Sure.

We have the opportunity for public comment.

I think that's reasonable.

Okay, for those who are attending the meeting this evening, I am going to, okay, all hands are lowered currently at this time.

If there's anyone on the participant or the attendee list who is interested in speaking for three minutes, please raise your hand.

I'll take

individuals in the order that they come.

Chair, our first speaker is Edward Menendez.

Mr. Mendez, are you able to unmute?

Edward?

Mine's a very quick question.

And I tried to email it to you guys.

Thank you guys for taking this opportunity.

Per the study's findings, three out of four accidents have occurred at intersections.

100% of the fatal crashes were caused by excessive speeding per Charlottesville Police Department.

And 99% of road users travel below 50 miles an hour

even on Saturdays, why are we adjusting the road with road diets and other similar large improvements when the when and not addressing the safety at the intersections with incremental improvements like

Great.

Okay, sorry about that.

Yeah, my name is Josh Cron.

I live on North Avenue in Charlottesville, and I just wanted to voice my strong support

for a road diet as shown in alternative two.

I think as a community, we need to work towards a feature that encourages pedestrian, bicycle and transit trips and discourages single occupancy cars and trucks with emphasis on discourage.

I know we all want to have our cake and eat it too, but we'll never have a successful mode shift

without inconveniencing some drivers.

And I think that's okay because that's the cost of having a safe and sustainable community.

I think everybody on here is probably familiar with the concept of a strode.

It's like a combination of a road and a street.

It's a travel lane that can't decide if it's a road or if it's a street.

and I think that's kind of what we're dancing around with Fifth Street.

That's in the comp plan that is recommended to be, what did they say?

Medium density residential.

You can't have a road running through medium density residential.

That's a street that has to work for the people that live there and work there

and use that street every day.

And we can't look at that as a road that is just meant to funnel cars in and out of the city.

That's a different kind of infrastructure.

A couple of details, I wanna make sure that we keep in mind that the bike lanes are protected and not just separated

Also, I'm a little concerned about the guardrail idea.

Guardrails obviously will keep cars from crashing into trees, but they also can't be crossed by pedestrians.

I think everything we do in the design of this roadway should be geared towards making pedestrians especially as safe and comfortable as possible.

Thanks, please.

Our next speaker is Peter Krebs.

Hey, City Council Planning Commission, thanks for the opportunity.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council, also a Charlottesville resident.

I'd like to point out that road fatalities are increasing at a dramatic rate

It's gotten much, much worse everywhere in the country since COVID.

Since 2012, things have gotten even more worse for pedestrians and cyclists, and especially for people of color.

And that's what motivated this discussion.

And I hope that's where our focus stays.

The Fifth Street corridor improvements will

really do a lot to make the corridor safer and remove a significant barrier that really divides our community in half.

Furthermore, transportation is the most important way to fight climate change.

Quite simply, people have to drive fewer miles, full stop.

That's what has to happen.

The Fifth Street we have was designed to subsidize and encourage sprawl.

It was done with intent.

Our new comp plan has a very different intent about how land use should be and how our streets should be.

So our work should be really focusing on connecting communities, being safer, being complete streets.

So based on some of the things that we've heard today, I have a concern and a suggestion.

We're about to hear about how overtaxed our staff is, and I'm hearing from y'all all the time about how we don't have budget for stuff.

Do we have budget?

Do we have capacity for a pilot?

If we don't pursue SmartScale and we don't do the pilot, which I have to say is pretty likely, then that's a horrible scenario.

Maybe another way to approach it is that option one,

is kind of agnostic about how those two vehicle lanes are used.

It just envisions two vehicle lanes and a protected bike lane.

What if you pursue option one and do the pilot and have the pilot determine whether those two 11-foot lanes are two vehicle lanes or an 11-foot vehicle lane and an 11-foot bus lane?

I don't think a bus lane specifically needs to be fully separated like it is in the road diet option.

Thank you.

All right, that was our last hand.

Are there any other attendees who would like to speak on this issue?

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mitchell, please, I've been dying.

So for me, I am not piqued by the road diet.

I think the externalities that we have not thought about or better not

considered here are problematic.

The congestion on 64, the cut through traffic.

I appreciate Bill's suggestion that every two weeks in the fall is an operational issue, but it's an operational issue for UVA and the city.

And so things we need to think about.

So again,

The bike, the road diet, I'm not geeked about.

I'm not too geeked about the two-lane roundabout either.

I think, I mean, I've worked and lived in lots of big cities, and those two-lane roundabouts can be confusing, especially for an old guy like me, and it can cause accidents.

I would be willing to learn more and talk more and hear more about the single lane roundabout at Bailey or wherever that might make sense.

The low cost safety measures are, again, something I think that are relatively quick fixes.

I know that some think that the guardrail and those ideas aren't where we want to go.

And it does impede the pedestrians' ability to move quickly.

But we want the pedestrians crossing the roads where we've got markers to say this is the safe place to cross the road.

So I think some of the low-cost measures that are outlined in the report that we've got

are worthy of thought.

And again, respect Brian and Peter and Rory's desire to maybe defer this and do a study.

But I think we need to act quickly and not defer this.

We need to do something.

Alternative one is interesting.

Bottom line is that the only thing that I absolutely would not want to do is the road diet for all the issues that that's going to cause.

Alternative one we could probably talk about a little bit more.

The roundabout, as long as there's any two-lane roundabout we could talk about.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm for the road diet for the enhanced and encouraged kind of bike ped infrastructure that that brings and the level of safety, but not as is because the congestion that it causes is just, I don't think that's, you know, what we want.

But perhaps tied with, you know, an express lane or something like that, I just think there might be another option there if we could explore that.

For the roundabout, I...

I mean, I, I know those are, you know, great at reducing crashes or the severity of crashes at intersections and I'm for that for a roundabout and for all the low cost safety measures, they seem like easy hanging fruit, except for obviously removing the trees.

I guess I'm not delighted with anything that we've looked at tonight.

I would lean mostly towards the road diet, but I would strongly request that alternative or an alternative be looked at that somehow opens up the bus lane for during rush hour.

to traffic, as Mr. Habab suggested.

I just, I can't help but feeling that there's some way of doing that.

And I would ask that more research be done and more thought be put into that.

Roundabouts, they scare me, especially on the road.

With this many people, I can't imagine a two-lane roundabout during rush hour.

That's what scares me.

And the cost, safety measures, of course.

Let's do everything and anything we can.

So I think that covers it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Yeah, thanks.

There's a common theme tonight, and I think that we need more data.

Obviously, this is an important project, and we want to get it right, and we want it to be safe for all users.

But I think the fact that we're asking all these questions means that we need to do some more thinking about it.

So I'd want to see specifically data on evaluating all the anticipated outcomes.

I know you mentioned that the trees would stay, but like would the reduction in the median end up affecting the, you know, the longevity of the life of those trees?

And I guess some

Is it do we have time now between now and the next Council meeting to work through these questions and still meet the August deadline or are we like at this point it's either we defer or we make a recommendation it's not clear to me on that so maybe that's a question.

But finally, and okay another question if and Peter Krebs made this point and I think we need to.

discuss it, if we were to recommend a pilot or a study, does the staff, does staff have capacity and resources to actually implement the pilot?

Obviously we know we're strapped for staff and we have a lot of projects queued up and we're gonna talk about some of those projects coming up, but you know, is that a realistic path forward?

So I would maybe ask for an answer on the sort of like

What are we asking of this meeting right now versus the next June meeting?

Sure.

So the first of those two questions, yes, we kind of need a direction for this.

Again, just either move forward with one of these options or we hold off.

Like we're on an aggressive timeline already.

to take a month to try and figure out some of these unknowns.

We wouldn't be able to get an application together for August.

As far as your second question, more than likely we would outsource the evaluation of the

of a road diet pilot to a consultant.

So I don't know that we would necessarily do all that in-house just because of the number one, just because of the number of locations that we're likely trying to look at with this evaluation, because we're not just looking at how it would affect Fifth Street, but what other impacts is it having on

Thanks, yeah, and if one other thing, just, you know, if looking at a park and ride with TJ PDC is an option, I think that was a really good point from Councilwoman McGill.

Thanks.

I think fundamentally my problem with alternative one is that it doesn't really solve the problem that we're really trying to address here, which is that in off hours, Fish Street becomes a drag strip and it's just a wide open road, the total straightaway,

and people can speed recklessly.

Yes, it's a small minority of people, but road design is how we stop that.

And, you know, it seems to me like alternative one is kind of like saying that it's okay if people do that and okay if they crash, we're just going to catch them with guardrails and, you know, yank them back in so the crash isn't so bad and not fatal.

And, you know, I would at least solve fatalities, so that's a benefit.

And of course, we're grabbing an extra 10 feet right away on the sides to add bike lane buffers.

They're not right next to the road and that shared use path.

Those are nice.

I think in both cases, we're looking at a 14 foot median.

If we were to go with alternative one, which it sounds like maybe we're not, I wonder if we should grab that four feet back for the median by just narrowing those drive lanes to 10 feet, which I think we are now, which will at least narrow the road a little bit, make it a little bit harder to speed.

The road diet, it seems like it can be fleshed out a little bit better to solve congestion issues, which are driven by that queuing at the intersections.

I think the important thing that we're looking at here is that we want to choke down this road in the middle of that straightaway, not really near the intersections, so that it's harder to speed there.

And whether that means choking it down a little bit north of Harris to allow some space to merge, whether it allows longer turn bays at those intersections, I don't know.

But it seems like it's a solvable problem.

Other things, I agree the two-lane roundabout seems bad unless it's signalized.

I'm still a little unclear why anyone would go into the inside lane.

The low-cost safety measures are almost all good.

More speed limit time seems like an easy win.

We should do that now.

Guardrails, if we're going to do them, I mean, again, it's good for

Stopping the fatalities.

It seems like you could also add some permeability so that there are spaces for people to get through just by, you know, having short stretches of guardrails in a lot of places.

Lighting, I think, is a no-brainer.

Of course, that's going to be a benefit.

Mid-block crossings, I think, are a good idea.

Adding those RRFBs, the flashing lights, is going to really help.

But, you know, I have a hard enough time crossing at McDonald's on Ridge McIntyre, right?

So I'm a little afraid that cars aren't really going to stop.

I wonder if that's a place where we should look at a hawk where it actually goes to a red light when you cross.

Red light timers are great.

If that doesn't help with Bailey, I think we should probably do them.

I worry about the your speed signs.

I feel like that's just going to encourage drag racing and letting people see how high they can get the speed if they can max it out.

Jar Cuts, it seems like they're more about keeping the traffic moving than about, like, it's about making it a road for throughput rather than a street for people to go places on them.

And that I think is the real question here, whether we want Fish Street to be a road or a street.

I mean, in some ways roads make sense, right?

Because the whole east side, a lot of the east side of Fish Street is constrained from ever developing it because of the topography.

you know it's always going to be just a wooded hillside which helps contribute to those speeds, but on the west side there are a lot of neighborhoods and a lot of driveways and to me I think leaning towards street is the way to go.

So, I mean, to wrap up, I generally favor the pilot.

I think it needs to be funded and prioritized and not something we sit on and say it would be nice and then never do.

I'm not sure that the pilot needs to even have those bus lanes at first.

To Mayor Snook's point, you know, right now we're only running two bus an hour.

Hopefully we'll eventually get to, you know, at least one every 15 minutes.

But maybe for now, you know, you just take that southbound lane, uh,

on the

the west side, and you toss in some Jersey barriers to separate it out, and then all of a sudden you have a two-way bike ped path that's actually safe to go up and down and see what the mode shift is like.

And then lastly, if we're going to split the smart scale into two applications, are we doing that by distance, like south of Bailey and north of Bailey, or are we just making the roundabout separate?

And does that mean it would be two application next cycle in 2024, or is that one in 2024 and one in 2026?

Because then I think you're starting to push things out

and we need to do something in the meantime.

But those are my thoughts.

Not super coherent.

Sure.

I'll be brief.

I really think a lot of fellow commissioners and counselors' thoughts are just more well thought out than what I could probably come up with.

I would just reiterate that...

You know, this is an important corridor for emergency vehicles and wouldn't want to have any any future, you know, changes to the corridor kind of make that worse.

Hopefully it would make it better.

Thank you.

Briefly, I want all the things.

Road diet, yes.

Roundabout, yes.

Low-cost safety measures, yes.

Pilot, yes.

In general, we need to be thinking bigger, more systematically so that we can get at these connections of these cut-through issues, you know, regional movements, all 19 connections.

We have to be thinking about a larger regional circulation plan, not bit by bit by bit.

It's all connected.

It's a nightmare.

That said, can I please hear from Ms.

Keep putting me on the spot first.

I'm interested in a road diet.

I'm interested in learning, I mean, a little bit more about what it is too.

I like roundabouts.

I think roundabouts are actually logical and makes sense.

The double roundabout, not so, but I think we're seeing more and more roundabouts in the area.

So I'm not really worried about, I think a lot of the concerns that people have about roundabouts are more about not being used to them.

And as we're seeing more and more

arrive will become more used to them.

Low cost measures.

I'm also interested in, I know in some places they have like little bumps in the con in the asphalt they've put.

So either along the strips on the side that, you know, when you're going off this edge, but also as you're coming up to stoplights or to intersections.

And so if those were happening on the way to the Bailey intersection

and the various intersections that would signal people to start slowing down beyond just their eyes.

And people tend to break then and realize, think they're gonna hurt their car.

So, I mean, in general, I'm interested in pursuing this, obviously.

I think it has to be as we are looking at this, though, we have to be looking at how this is going, how our transit system is going to be supplementing and encouraging people to do something else because we cannot get away from the fact that we are the urban center for a large rural community.

and that's something that we have to plan with.

As much as I want us to be more walkable, more bikeable, more mass transit, there are thousands of people every day who come into the city and we have to be able to accommodate that safely.

Thank you.

I'd like to, if I can, just supplement that with...

something that's been on my mind since I saw the LUPAC presentation about Crozet.

And they're about to, they're thinking about a public-private partnership to build a kind of plaza in Crozet.

And the objective of that is to build a plaza that will keep people in Crozet and that incent them to come to Charlottesville.

I don't want to do things as regards to Fifth Street or anything else as regards to people moving through Charlottesville that will disincent Charlottesville not being a destination for Greene County, Albemarle County, Nelson County, etc.

So just keep that in mind as we're thinking through this.

We want folks to come through Charlottesville.

We want folks to come to our restaurants.

from the county.

Agreed.

Sure.

how coherent I will be able to be in terms of providing clear direction.

But as I said earlier, I see there being sort of two problems it seems like we're simultaneously trying to address.

One, the speeding, and then two, having a more pedestrian-focused multimodal street.

When it comes to that first problem of the speed, it does seem to me like having the roundabout is critical to breaking up the street from a just long distance straightaway where someone can speed either purposely or if they fall asleep by accident or whatever the situation may be.

Whether that is a one or two lane roundabout, quite frankly, I don't know enough to be able to provide any intelligent thoughts on that.

Other than saying I do think a roundabout in general seems important to have there.

You know, I think I would lean towards the road diet, but I do have a concern of us doing that without any

With the level of information we have now, it does seem that more study and information is needed.

I'm particularly concerned if there are unintended consequences that impact the surrounding neighborhoods in terms of increased traffic going through them, impacting kids or pedestrians in those neighborhoods.

These are obviously neighborhoods that have a long history of the city making top-down decisions that had unexpected consequences without their input and involvement.

and I am very concerned about that, which makes me wonder, I don't know, I think

one of the commenters, I think Peter Krebs brought up the idea if it was at all feasible to if option one precludes longer term pursuing a road diet.

I don't know if it does or doesn't, but that was an interesting idea to me, whether pursuing that doesn't foreclose our option.

As others have said, even with the road diet, which I would lean towards if we were able to have more information,

in a pilot program or study.

I'm not exactly sure the value we get at this moment from having a dedicated bus lane as part of it.

And when it comes to the lower cost safety measures,

Or the other thing is, I do think it's critical for the second piece of it in terms of having it be a more pedestrian oriented multimodal road.

I do think it's really important for us to plan longer term

Given the amount of existing housing in neighborhoods that are already there, and given that there's likely to be an increase of people living there, to think about how we can make it for pedestrians and even folks who are driving have the feel of something which is not just like a highway, which is intimidating to bike or walk on.

As part of that, I think protected bike lanes seem really important.

Having the sidewalks

have a stronger sense of there being a barrier between them and the road.

I think the mid-block crossings seem really important.

The lighting seems really critical.

Basically everything that's listed.

I mean, I think photo enforcement at...

lights could be useful, guardrails could be useful, but in particular, I think the crossings, the lighting in a protected bike lane and perhaps something being done with the sidewalks would be critical to have this feel like a more accessible, less intimidating road for pedestrians.

And I wonder, you know, I just wonder what else could accomplish that, you know, I don't know if increased tree canopy or, you know, some kind of signage or other markers on the road could be a part of that, but

Yeah, so I don't know how coherent that is in giving direction, but those are my thoughts.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

It's always a good thing to study things more and to try to get more information.

There certainly will be some unintended consequences to doing a road diet.

You know, that said, I think that we have a serious situation now.

In my mind, doing a road diet as a pilot program where we investigate, you know, what are the implications?

And it would be an experiment.

We'd see how well it worked and we could test all these things in terms of congestion and seepage over into the neighborhoods or whatever.

And

you come up with a different plan later if we needed to, but I I don't know.

I mean, if you if you look at where this road ends up at one point, there was supposed to be a highway to run all the way through the middle of the city, as I understand it, and then went with what's going to take what John Warner Parkway is now and and have four lanes the whole way through.

And there's two lanes up at John Warner Parkway now.

And so I I'm supportive of the road diet.

I think that

you know what's the other suggestions that have been put out in terms of short term or like more media things like guardrails and so forth those things seem to make a lot of sense to me but what I fear is that if we go into a long study cycle and try to fund a roundabout and all of those things that take a really long time when what intuitively to me at least makes sense is it's essentially match the

the road width that you have up at John Warner.

So that's where I'm at on things right now.

So a road diet, but do it as like a pilot study and investigate the possible issues that have been raised.

Get the data that it would take to answer those questions.

Thank you.

My overall concern, and I understand the theory behind the road diet is basically, if we do it, they won't come.

Sort of the backwards approach to field of dreams.

If we make it sufficiently inconvenient for people to travel by car, they won't travel by car.

We have a couple of possibilities.

And one possibility I've talked about really for a number of years now is the notion of park and ride lots.

And we actually have some study going on through the TJPDC that will help get some sense of how something like that might work.

My concern is that if we...

whatever bullet we fire right now isn't going to hit anything for six years.

And without some idea of

whether we are also going to be implementing a park and ride system six years hence or implementing it four years hence and getting it up and running so that when it hits six years from now we're ready to go.

Without some sense of that commitment and the ability to fund that, I'm not a fan of saying we're just going to make it so damned inconvenient for people

that they just decide they're not going to come into downtown Charlottesville.

That actually was the approach for a long time for the people who were opposed to the McIntyre Road Extended or John Warner Parkway or whatever you want to call it, the Meadow Creek Parkway.

And ultimately that view did not prevail.

But the sentiment is still there and it's still strong.

I don't want to be in the camp of let's study everything until all of our options have already passed us by.

But on the other hand, this is a situation, this particular road, this particular entrance to the city, as Mr. Duncan noted, is one of the few entrances to the city and one of the few entrances that has any size to it.

and has any capacity to it.

And if we end up saying we're gonna significantly cut down on the capacity of it, then we've got a problem.

I note, by the way, that if we were to implement the road diet approach, the road we would be left with is already projected to fail.

And that's just not wise planning.

I'm not sure what the wise plan is, but that ain't it.

So I will leave that to you all.

I'm sorry, I'm having some trouble hearing you.

We'll come back to you.

Yeah.

My question, I guess, for Mr. Duncan,

It seems like the question of alternative one versus alternative two road diet versus, you know, the other thing is separate from the question of roundabout or no roundabout.

There seems to be broad consensus that one lane roundabout at Bailey is good and will probably fix our problems with that Bailey intersection, which is a lot of those practices.

I think it would be difficult just in the sense that if we, I'm hearing a lot of, I think the consensus that I'm getting as I'm kind of writing down people's thoughts here is that the majority of both planning commissioners and city council like the road diet option.

Michael Koch- Gotcha.

Maybe I misunderstood.

I thought a single lane roundabout was also an option for alternative one with a two lane scenario.

Yeah, I think one has stepped away from his laptop.

He'll type his answer.

Fantastic.

Let's get that.

Sorry, I was not paying attention to see that we were that finished.

So good evening, commissioners, counselors, and members of the public.

This is the opening conversation, opening statement I wanted to make to you all before we turn it over to our city engineer, Jack Dawson, to give you an update as to where we are with our management of our transportation projects.

Some initial assessments when I first arrived here was that the development review process within NDS needed some attention.

And in doing that work since I've been here, I've discovered that it was more than just that.

was also looking closely at what was happening on the public works engineering side of the house and just following that trail as our mayor likes to refer to the work I'm doing is archaeological digging like this is my best Indiana Jones into a simulation I guess so following that trail I found even more things that need to be done and dealt with and a few months ago I settled on three priorities.

The first one was reviewing and improving our relationship with VDOT, the second being evaluating our financial management of projects with our project managers, as well as our budget and finance team, and assessing project management capacity.

Jack is going to present for you the results of where that work has led us, and while it is not an easy presentation this evening, being perfectly honest, it is important that we not simply focus on today, but consider what is really on the horizon.

This set of recommendations are aimed at rebooting our current portfolio, and better yet, it's properly right-sizing our portfolio.

A hatchet approach would have been to just attempt to kill a lot of projects and then try to go forward.

Tonight's approach is really a more surgical approach so we can not only get our arms around our challenges and reset budgets and timelines, we're also attempting to position ourselves for a share of the massive pipeline of infrastructure dollars that are coming in the near future.

We have already heard some disappointment in the advanced view of the presentation, and just know that the decision to propose what we're proposing this evening has not been taken lightly.

With no critical action, we run the risk of having projects canceled, future requests being considered very differently as we submit them, and we could very easily miss a share of the flow of those new dollars that I just mentioned.

So I'm going to turn it over to Jack, and I'll join you at the end for questions and a round of further discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Sanders, and good evening, counselors and planning commissioners.

Patrick, if we could get our presentation up, slideshow.

Okay, thank you.

So, as Mr. Sanders said, this is our Public Works Engineering Trans

presentation team project programming overview.

So we're going to touch on a little bit of everything here.

Next page, please.

This presentation is going to include an overview of our project portfolio, generally the grants and funding basics of how we fund and run the program, focused on our VDOT portfolio, scheduled overview, our current divisions and our project manager, specifically our project management team's responsibilities, our resource allocation staffing levels, and then potential changes to the program and projects moving forward.

Next slide, please.

So what you're looking at here represents our entire VDOT portfolio.

I'm going to go into sort of some of the different grant types here in a bit, but what you see there in the blue is smart scale projects.

Those are

We'll get into that.

The peach color down there at the bottom left is our revenue sharing projects.

The yellow project is SGR state of good repair projects.

The green are the TAP transit alternative program, which is primarily for trails for parks.

We don't get into that too much in this presentation, but we will in the future.

And then also the HSEP projects.

So you can see this totals, well you probably can't see depending on what your zoom looks like, but this is $183 million worth of projects that you're looking at right here.

I don't know that acronym.

That is Highway Safety Improvement Program.

So those are a little bit smaller.

I will explain that in the next slide, I believe.

No, I won't, but I'll get to that.

So just to touch on some other projects here, Stribling Sidewalk, which I'm sure you're all very familiar with, is not a VDOT project, but it is a significant project, so it does sort of come into the capacity discussion of this.

And then potential projects, as you just heard, the Fifth Street Corridor, which I've included here as sort of a maybe.

And we'll get to how that affects things in a little bit.

Next slide, please.

So the grant fund category is very basically.

I'm not going to go into all the details of what's eligible for these things.

In the last discussion, we touched on a little bit of the smart scale, but our big two, our revenue sharing, which is typically a 50-50 share where we put up half of the money for the project and that matches that.

The next one is smart scale.

Obviously that sort of facilitates the larger projects that is 100% non-local funding.

Most of that money is state.

There's some federal money on that.

Then the HSIP, which is the Highway Safety Improvement Program.

That's a much smaller pool of funds that we're eligible for.

That is typically 90% federal and 10% local, but that's what VDOT typically calls a soft match and VDOT provides that 10% coverage.

and then there's the transportation alternatives program, the TAP program, which I'm less familiar with, but that's primarily things other than multimodal improvements, trails, pedestrian bridges, things like that.

And then there's the state of good repair, which other public works uses those funds for repaving and things like that, but that primarily serves our bridge projects.

And those are typically 100% state and federal.

Just before we move on, lots of our projects have been around for a long time and have sort of outlasted old grant programs and so very specifically the Belmont Bridge that has almost a little bit of everything thrown in there.

So some of the accounting does get trickier, but this is basically what we're working with.

Next slide please.

So this is my divisions and more specifically transportation teams responsibilities.

So looking at transportation groups specifically, the general categories are transportation planning is undertaken by the project management team, CIP prioritization of those projects.

Yeah, sorry, this is an engineer's PowerPoint and not

quite as polished as maybe it could be, grants, the project selection, application management of those grants, the administration of the sidewalk funds, and then the actual project management.

So under the transportation planning category, essentially the project management team with help as they can get it from the other folks in the group, work on the streets that work, the standards and design manual and bike and ped master plan implementation in regards to goals of the transportation network.

coordination with the MPO, that's Thomas Jefferson Planning District, VDOT coordination, obviously we coordinate with VDOT, you know, in depth on our projects as they provide oversight and help us with the administration and management of those projects, but also we're the primary point of contact for coordinating on VDOT projects, both within the city, VDOT and MPO projects on the outskirts of the city as they impact us.

as well as neighborhood project coordination.

That's the neighborhood ford's plans or project ideas to us.

And we sort of help streamline those and coordinate those with the master plans as well as private development coordination of transportation impacts.

Then other project management

aspics are the RFP and selection of consultants and contractors, accounting, grant management, reimbursement processes, consultant oversight, right-of-way coordination negotiations, and construction management.

We'll see the eye on those projects.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so based on that existing project workload, this includes those, the green projects that are not yet underway, and so you can see some none in regards to project managers that are assigned to those.

On average, we have 8.25 projects per project manager, which is

a little bit ridiculous.

And we feel like there's no good number.

There's no book that says thou shalt have X number of projects per project manager because these things change a lot and the projects are different sizes.

managing 10 $1 million projects is a lot more complicated than handling one $10 million project, if that makes sense.

And so as those scales change, there's not a great metric for this.

But this is pretty clearly ridiculous.

I had a question in chat.

That hopefully all my wordiness is done with.

So if we go to the next slide, hopefully they're not full of text.

What you're looking at now is essentially, so I'm going to have some more text here, but it shouldn't be.

Yeah, just a second, I'm trying to work through it.

So I'll go ahead and there we go.

All right, so this represents all of our active ACIP and revenue sharing projects that are underway.

It's pretty complicated to get into all of the

and the way that they're funding grants.

We've been working through this with VDOT to make sure we have a clear path forward on what funds can be used and on what project overruns.

You can see the Signals project is the most expensive project on here at $3.3 million.

That one's sort of exemplary of how we get into some of these situations.

That was conceived to use money from the leftover Solutions 29 money, which

You know, I don't even know what that is, Solutions 29, but that's what they tell me.

And in turn, since then, it's suffered from some scope creep without sort of adequate accompanying analysis of where those funds are coming from as that project grows.

But the city and VDOT sort of contributed to coming up with ideas of what to make this project do.

And so it sort of grew and grew and grew.

A lot of the other sidewalk projects here are victims more of escalation against

sort of the way we used to do simplified line item estimating when coming forward with the grants.

We're working on coming up with more of an analytical method of what is this project actually going to cost?

What is it actually going to be done?

How is inflation and escalation going to improve those things to make sure that we can do this in the future?

But a lot of this is scope creep due to the amount of time that the projects sit in our department in the city being developed, being debated, et cetera, et cetera.

Next slide, please.

So you can see that the takeaway here is that there's a shortfall across these projects of over $4 million.

So here's the active smart scale portfolio.

I've grouped, put a little box around the West Main projects.

One thing to note here before going forward, West Main Phase 4 is not a real project in that

We, my team, in the development of West Main Phase One, we sort of did some concept development of the full corridor.

So we think it's a real project.

It has not had any funds attributed to it yet at all.

But if you look at this, so that's where a lot of that $14 million comes from because that's the entire estimated cost of that.

But on West Main's one through four, you can see there's a $20.8 million overrun for that whole portfolio.

Going down the list, you can see Hillcrest and Barracks Emmett are both fully funded.

Again, in this market, in this environment we're in, when those go bid, Hillcrest is very close to going to bid.

We're going to blow through that $289,000, no problem.

It's a smaller scale project, so hopefully that'll work.

But again, the environment we're in now is also challenging.

And then you can see Emmett has quite overrun there.

We're hoping to work through some of that through negotiating right away with UVA, but that is a big number as well.

And I've got this yellow box around Fontaine because that 13.5, one thing to note on this, if you add up the, what we're looking at here is PE is preliminary engineering.

Rw is right of way cost that's both to develop the plans through what we call the right of way phase as well as actually acquire the right of way, which is a good chunk of money.

And then CN is construction.

Those are the three phases that VDOT use for that language.

A lot of different jurisdictions or different engineering practices can call plans, you know, different phases at different times.

But PE is essentially a 30% plan.

If you've heard that terminology before, where right of way is usually 60% construction, our final plans.

If you add up those numbers, they do not equal the total because some of those total numbers reflect our actual current bid estimates, either from our engineers or none of these have been to bid yet.

So those are from our engineers comparing against current bid prices out there on the street.

Whereas that PE right-of-way construction cost, if you look at finance,

and that adds up to, I think, 11.7.

Those are nice round numbers because that was what was in our Appendix A, which is essentially a contract with VDOT to say, here's the scope of the project.

Here's how much the costs are.

They give us the money.

It's on us to do that project with that scope under the budget.

but that 13.5 million is reflective of and that's not that's does not include PE that's the total cost to construct the project so looking at that it shows the 1.8 million dollars that's really escalated really over that 6.8 number and that's from February and our consultants are looking at running that number through what they're getting they were getting bids out another project through March and that number is going up significantly already beyond that 13.5

Now is a horrible time to price these things because there's just some construction materials out there that cannot be found and scarcity really drives that up.

That's not a pure inflation thing.

That's a larger supply chain issue.

Sure.

Yes.

I'm curious, why is West Main still in here?

That it is reflective, we will get to that.

It is, I'm sort of looking at what we have as, this is as of March 1st.

So that's kind of an arbitrary number, but that was before it was conveyed to us, us staff, that project, we've been hearing that this project may or may not be dead for some time.

So we're considering it's dead.

Again, it needs $20.8 million.

So unless we've got a magic, you know, it's, yeah.

Next slide, please.

Here's our bridge inventory.

So this is the SGR, which is State of Good Repair Funds.

And then I've added Belmont in here as well.

Belmont has a little bit of SGR.

There is lots of other money in that.

I think it's mostly SmartScale, some revenue share.

That's quite a convoluted history of how we got to the $36 million that's in there.

All of these are under construction at some level with the exception

of Dairy Road Bridge, which is our first design build, and that is in procurement now, getting ready to go out to bid for a design builder.

Yeah, so there are some issues with some of these projects, but they're more your standard technical project management issues that we can work through, and hopefully we don't need to, there isn't currently funding issues with those, as those are bid some time ago and are underway.

Next slide, please.

So what we're suggesting is here in the list, as you can see, we've used the term defund hold because if you look at the colors here, the whites are essentially the smart scale projects.

I apologize, I'm mixing my color schemes here because they come from all sorts of resources we've been using to track this stuff.

The green is the revenue share H-CIP portfolio there, essentially.

So if you go through our current smart scales, the only thing we're recommending to defund or hold.

And what that term means to us is that we put those projects on the shelf where they are.

A lot of them, not West Main, but a lot of the green ones are pretty close to being completed from a design standpoint.

And so depending on the project size, and I'll go through each one, we can either reapply for those in the future with completed plans, knowing we will have a lot more information

through other grant sources to complete those projects or some of them maybe look at accomplishing maybe the spirit, the intended spirit of those projects with local funds or scale them back and pull them together and go for grants.

The biggest one that I would put in that second category is Elliott.

that estimate got up there to close to 2 million it did not have the funding for that and that's sort of grouped with some other projects that use a similar funding source and so most of our recommendations coming from staff are especially with the revenue

We took the tact of we want to demonstrate to you that we can complete projects.

So the ones that are sort of closest to completion with limited risk to further inflate or escalate due to different causes that we thought we could fund and get on the street and build are the ones that we've advanced.

Elliott is a pretty large in scope for treating what really is sort of pedestrian safety issue primarily.

There was a lot of money to

give that street a road diet, essentially, and push the curbs in to reduce speeding there, but staff is going to look at other alternatives to solve the need there without with less money.

The signals project, as I discussed earlier, is on that list because that is just out of our reach.

It serves a good cause, but we need to revisit how we can do that, I think, in the future.

Harris Road is something similarly I'd like to look at from can we accomplish some of the filling the sidewalk gaps without a lengthy grant process or a more complicated project, or it's pretty much 100% designed, can we resubmit in a year other new revenue sharing program.

all the SGRs are under keep and then if you can scroll down a little bit I don't know if it's just my zoom screen but so I could see all that so those gallows are future we're already sort of hard at work at Preston Harris what did I skip so in the green this problem happens occasionally too Monticello Ridge that project is going away it is

It is sort of in the 5th Street, Ridge Street area there and is being totally displaced by a future smart scale project so it is unneeded and working with VDOT, we look to reallocate some of that money, how VDOT can move money around themselves or allow us to move money from one project to another without going to the CTB or getting various

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Monticello is second.

So due to funding complications with that, that project will be split in two.

And that has to do with how we can use different funds to do different portions of the project.

So the original scope that's funded by HSIP will stay.

Being funded by HSIP, there'll be some additional local money.

The other portion will use some of that multimodal funds that we talked about with Elliott.

And then

Due to how that works, it'll probably be a little bit of local money to meet the balance of the one that's not an H-CIP program.

And so we hope to get those funds from what will come back to the city out of the signals project, the local funds that have been allocated to that project.

And so from that, that puts Monticello Ridge, Harris Road, Elliott Ave, and signals of those green revenue H-CIP projects and those are a little bit smaller scale projects into the defund or holds category.

moving to the smart scale based on extensive conversations with VDOT.

Again, all this has been coordinating with them.

We're trying to earn their good graces, get back in their good graces and make sure everybody's understanding this moving forward because we all have processes to deal with and we want to make sure we have a good understanding going forward.

We've been very forward with them about what we're going to be bringing to you all today.

This has been an ongoing process through the last several months.

really longer than that.

It took a while to have our current leadership team in place really wrap their arms around and tackle this, but I think we're making good progress.

All that being said, based on all of this, staff recommends that we withdraw a grant request for West Maine projects based on council input, as we discussed.

Withdraw a grant request for the Preston Grady intersection based on council input.

I'm describing that as if you all recall, I think it was some council members ago

We were going to do a study for that area.

There was not enough community input on Preston Grady intersection.

We were tasked by council to do a study of that area before moving that project forward after the award.

We did not get that money in CIP to do that study.

So the idea is that NDS is going to do their next small area plan for that neighborhood with a transportation focus and hopefully come out of that with enough information that we can reapply to address that in a more meaningful, comprehensive way.

with less just a note on a transportation grid style of fixing that.

We're going to give the 250 turn lane to Hydraulic to VDOT to manage with their current design build package in the area.

Of course, they're working very hard on that right now.

And so we'll get to some decision points that need to be made after this presentation, but that's something I'm sure VDOT would like to know sooner than later.

But the idea there is that it's a pretty straightforward transportation project and probably something that would work well VDOT handling.

We do, as a city, like to control our own projects so we can have input on the destiny of those projects.

And I think this is a good one to sort of ease the administrative burden on my staff in managing that and let that go to VDOT.

and then some other some other things we want to have.

We got that combined on there.

That's sort of an administrative trick.

We're just going to sort of analyze those projects.

Those are 33, five and six down there at Cherry, Elliott, Fifth Ridge.

And while those have three different funding sources,

We're going to hope to combine them into one project and then have a project manager that deals with those as one while we manage the finances and triplet to try and minimize overhead from project management standpoint, maybe bid them all to one consultant, that sort of thing to streamline the administration of the actual project itself.

And then we need to evaluate Preston, Harrison, 10th and Grady based on

giving back Preston Grady.

I think most of those are safety, pedestrian safety focused.

They're sort of in the same area.

It is almost certainly worthwhile to do those projects if council agrees that we're not going to go forward with Preston Grady so that we can solve a short-term safety thing while the bigger picture develops.

So what I got there on the screen, essentially, of

The West main portfolios have $18 million plus or minus of state funds on those projects.

Of that 18 million, about 12 million is smart scale funds.

When we tell the VDOT we're not doing these projects, here's your money back, those go back into the smart scale fund in our district, which is the Culpeper District of Virginia within the VDOT administrative program.

Those go to the CTB and all of the various groups there and they decide where that money goes back.

And I can't make any promises, but it is likely those will come back to the city so we can apply those to the overruns of our other active smart scale portfolios.

Again, not making any promises.

We've discussed a lot of this with VDOT.

They can't make any promises, but we're all having that same understanding that this is sort of the best way to tackle this.

So again, hopefully that will fill that gap.

We have approximately a $10 million overrun on the rest of our portfolio.

12 is greater than 10.

Hopefully we can reduce that 10 some with other measures and we'll be looking better for the smart scale side of things.

Next slide, please.

Here's just a brief schedule over where we are with some of all the projects.

Here's the HCID portfolio.

So Hillcrest is pretty well done.

That's actually in right of way.

So that is incorrect.

But Monticello second is in right of way and going to be bid imminently.

And then Preston Harris just started design right now.

That's in that Preston Grady area up there.

Next slide, please.

So this is the revenue sharing projects.

Belmont Bridge appears here, as you can see, because these are almost all under construction.

Now it looks as if they are under construction, but that is there in the construction phase.

So Harris Street, I think is gonna start

in a couple weeks.

Actual construction and then Rose Hill Drive and Rose Hill Rugby are out to bid, which is what puts them in the construction phase.

So we should be getting bids on those and putting those out to be built very shortly.

Next slide, please.

Here's the smart scale projects.

East High, Fontaine and Emmett are all the closest to construction with Barracks Emmett short behind those.

We're in right-of-way phase.

That's not a strict schedule.

Sometimes these things take longer than we forecast, but those are all actively being moved into the right-of-way phase.

Next slide, please.

and then here's the SGR bridges.

These are all, if you could scroll down a little bit, Patrick, all the SGRs are under construction now.

We're working through some issues on Norfolk Southern 250 right now, but I think those are manageable.

The rest are wrapping up, or two of them are getting close to the end there.

And then you can see Derry Road, which is that design build.

We're working through procurement right now on putting that design build RFP out.

Next slide, please.

So some staffing changes to help us out.

We already have three new positions.

One is posted right now.

So if you're listening and you're an experienced project manager, please apply.

We also are onboarding a transportation planner in NDS.

We need at least one transportation planner on NDS, but that's a good first step because we have not had a transportation planner here before.

And so by moving some of the functions that are on the project management team to a better place that helps us focus on delivering projects.

We're also going to onboard a Public Works Engineering Admin 3.

I have 15, 60 people on my staff.

We don't have an admin at all.

But even more important than that, this person is going to help us with the invoicing, reimbursements, all the processes that take a lot of time for the project managers to help put SOPs in place, streamline that process.

And then we're onboarding an accountant to the greater public works team with a focus on working with my team, the transportation team, to help streamline bridge gaps between us and budget and those sorts of things and help streamline that again, take things off the project manager's plate.

So adding all the staff members and sort of make the recommendations about holding projects, that'll move us to an average of 3.3 projects per project manager.

which is much more feasible.

Next slide please.

So,

Issues and concerns with all of this.

There's more issues and concerns than this, but here's the ones that I decided to talk about right now, and those are, one, hiring qualified individuals here is extremely challenging, especially in the current environment, and the importance of having sort of Department of Transportation experience to these things.

There's lots of project managers in the world.

This is a special kind of project management that real experience helps.

and then something that I think Sam alluded to and might touch on again is the future program expansion.

What we're talking about right now is righting the ship and that's we have a lot on our plate and we have limited staff to do that.

That doesn't solve the future.

Hopefully we'll be in a good position to impress VDOT, impress all the people that want to give us money to build roads and

VDOT's moving to a place where past performance will influence how much money you're awarded on these smart scales.

There is no scoring rubric for that right now.

If we don't perform on some of these things, we might put some of that stuff at risk.

The point with that bullet is that in the future, if all this money comes down from the feds that everybody's anticipating, we'll probably need more of the staff in order to do that.

That's both PMs, planners, the whole thing so that we can keep this program moving and streamlined.

And then other positions are needed.

As discussed,

There's a lot housed in public works and the transportation team.

New positions like the admin and account will help reduce the financial tracking burden of the project managers and allow them to focus on project management while onboarding at least one planner and NDS will add that capacity.

While the PMs focus essentially on the VDOT projects, there are other staff who assist, primarily civil engineers, especially in regards to technical assistance at the early stage of the design, making sure consultants understand expectations or delivering technically sound designs in compliance with the city and state regulations.

Our civil engineers are overworked right now with the private development review workload that they have.

They're largely unable to provide this much need technical assistance.

and that puts more sort of technical burden on the project managers is really outside of their professional ability and wheelhouse.

Having more technical involvement on this saves on both design costs and construction costs by heading off design hurdles or compliance with state code or design manual issues, as well as providing a built a bit of sort of built in discretionary value engineering to the project management process.

Next slide.

That's it.

That's my last slide.

So no, it's not.

Other future resources.

Sorry, I went through this so many times.

It's just, I've forgotten it.

Other future resources.

We're working on the GAP grant, which is the, I wrote it down.

I have to research what that means, even though I wrote that grant and I'm actively working on it, but it is for assistance planning, something assistance planning.

The point is, we're working on with VDOT's Office of Intermodal Planning on a system to incorporate all the existing resources we have, streets at work, bike and ped, mass

all that stuff into a process to help weigh potential projects against each other.

I can answer questions about that if you'd like.

That is a work in progress, but very generally, if you've ever seen the bike and pedmaster plan and all the lists of priorities, you know, if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority and making a decision.

You know, it's like that donkey between two haystacks, except you're like in a circle of 100 haystacks and you just, you know, there's no good option.

So that should help again in conjunction with transportation planning, growth and accessibility planning.

Thank you, Stacey.

And then acquisition of project management software, among some other tools to help streamline this as we build out the program.

Outstanding, thank you.

Mr. Chair, if we could.

Please.

Our public works director had comments as well.

Sorry.

Thank you, commissioners, and thank you, council.

Mr. Senator, just discuss how and why we got here and Jack just discuss our current situation.

I'd like to discuss how engineering will move forward in several ways.

One is transparency.

We would like to present on VDOT project status to Council on the Planning Commission on a yearly basis.

This incorporates accountability and transparency about our workload, the types of projects we are undertaking and what areas in the city we are improving with these particular projects.

We will look for additional ways to be transparent, including producing project pages on our website.

And finally, once a transportation plan is on board, we plan on participating community outreach to help inform our program.

The second piece is right-sizing for now and then ask for future growth.

Bill funding.

So kind of like what Jack talked about a little bit during this presentation.

The city has been working diligently with our partners at VDOT to develop a manageable program.

Through this partnership, VDOT has agreed to manage one of these projects.

They are in agreement with our recommendation of what projects to keep and what projects to defund or slash hold.

Right-sizing is important because of this relationship and the potential of VDOT weighing future scoring of projects based on past performance.

We want to right-size so we can perform now and then score well in the future.

Scoring well in the future brings possibilities.

With the increased partnerships, improved performance and project delivery, scoring well on applications for funding, we become much more viable for future

infrastructure bill.

Also, right-sizing the program enables engineering to perform presently.

As more funding and more opportunities become available, like Jack said, we will need additional manpower resources to be successful.

Finally, adding equity in the decision-making process.

Jack touched upon the growth and accessibility planning grant that we received from the state.

The Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment will help us develop a system like Jack Luke to help us weigh projects against each other.

It is our intention to add equity as a weight measurement to consider as we compare projects against one another.

So as we move forward, we want to be open in how we do business.

We want to ensure that we don't get in the type of predicament again that we are in presently.

And we want to be equitable as possible in how we choose projects for the city.

Thank you.

Sure.

For our attendees, if you are interested in speaking on this matter, please raise your hand in the chat.

are in the application.

If you are on the phone line, you would hit star nine, which would raise your hand.

We have one hand at this point, Peter Krebs.

Yes, thank you, Messia.

Thank you, Planning Commission, Council, and Staff, Jack, Stacy, and Sam.

I love this presentation.

Thank you.

I actually, I had the grid that Jack presented pinned to my wall, and I've had it for like five years just to keep my frustration at a certain boiling point to keep me showing up to these meetings.

And everything that Stacey said is really on point.

Really, this meeting has shown how good, frank, and regular conversations are so important.

And we have to be honest about where we are.

And I really, really respect that we're doing that.

Also, conversation leads to

Superior Programs.

Hopefully, Fifth Street will be a better project because we're talking about it.

I wish we had started sooner, but it's all good.

Let's keep going.

Obviously, the staff needs help.

If this is not clear before, it should be 100% clear now.

These great projects are only great if we can get them on the ground.

So council,

Let's see what we can do to help.

And then I just wanted to finish with one last piece, which, you know, I work in both the city and the county.

And tomorrow there's a, speaking of VDOT, a design presentation about a series of projects at Hydraulic 29, which also is something we've been following closely.

That includes a pedestrian bridge over 29.

and multiple intersection improvements.

That's going to be a live meeting up on Hillsdale.

If anyone wants a ride or anything or just needs more information, email me at pecva.org.

Thanks for the great work.

Thank you.

Yes, we do.

We have Edward Mendez.

Edward?

Yes.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of the planning commissioners and city council members and specifically Jack Dawson.

As I'm a citizen of Charlottesville and also interacted with many of the agencies in town, I don't think people appreciate the additional times that are necessary to chase studies and chase some of this work.

And I would like to suggest that we help

the engineering team get more staff and be transparent as Stacy talked about with our projects and make sure that equity is considered and articulated as part of the decision-making process because if we take a look at what projects are being kept and what are being put on hold, a cursory view might imply that it's inequitable versus the reality that what Jack was talking about was

Staffing is not helping deliver these projects, lack of staffing.

And so we need to make sure we message that to people that have concerns about these projects, because it does take a pile of work, time and experience.

And thank you.

Anyone else who is interested in speaking, please raise your hand.

I know, and this public comment, thank you very much.