Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordination Committee Meeting   4/15/2021

And since we've got a few more people joining us, let's just go ahead and do quick introductions.

Today's fun question of the day is, what is your favorite park in the region?

And I will start.

I'm Jessica.

I'm a transportation planner at the TJPDC.

And my favorite park is Riverview Park because it's just far enough away from my house that it becomes like a big outing for my kids.

Yes, Sara Pennington with the TJPDC, particularly the Rideshare Program.

And my favorite park, Riverview is a nice one because it's flat, which you don't find often for running.

But I think my favorite is Pretty Creek up in the northern part of Albemarle County.

Dan Butch with Albemarle County Planning.

It's on a rotating basis right now.

It's Ragged Mountain.

Bill Palmer with UVA.

There's so many, I guess Walnut Creek.

Hey, I'm with Cambic, the mountain biking club.

I'm also on the RTF board and

I'm in agreement.

I love all the parks.

I wish there were more.

And currently my favorite where we're spending a lot of time is the Hayward Community Forest in the Ragged Complex.

It's so great.

And we're actively building trails there to try and spread the load, if you will, because it's such a nice area.

Thanks, John.

Hi, I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Liz

Hey, everyone.

I'm Liz Russell with Monticello.

I think I'm obligated to state the Saunders Monticello or the Kemper Park, I suppose, as my favorite park, although I really like the secluded area of the Saunders Monticello trail system.

And my favorite county park is probably the old Mills Line and particularly its potential for future expansion.

Michael Geiser.

Hi, Michael Geiser.

I'm Carsbrook resident in Albemarle County.

And my favorite part right now is Beaver Creek Reservoir, just to hang out and watch the boats and the water.

Michael Barnes with VDOT Mobile Assistance.

Well, okay, so we'll move on.

So before some of you joined us, staff had the opportunity to update each other on one map.

Just a real quick update to those of you who just joined us.

Everything is going along super well.

Everyone's doing what they said they were gonna do, and we should have more information about one map at our next meeting.

So thanks, Bill and Dan, for all the work you guys have been doing on that.

The next thing I wanted to talk about real quick is the spring bicycle and pedestrian counts.

So that is going to be starting next week.

We're running the last two weeks of April, so like the 19th through the 30th.

We've had some volunteers, lots of people returning from last time, and we're really happy to have them back.

But we still need more volunteers, so if you can spread the word to your networks.

We need people to sign up, especially for the mornings, so those are from 7 to 9 a.m.

Ideally on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, although we'll be flexible, and also we're hoping to get weekend counts this time around, so if someone would like to do

A morning count on either the 24th or the 25th of April from 8 to 11 in the morning.

That would be super.

And then, of course, if people are not early risers, we are still looking for a few slots for the afternoons.

So again, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays of those last two weeks of April from 4 to 6 p.m. We're counting at the same 10 locations that we did last time.

That includes Riverview Park.

and lots of other fun places that are super important to count at.

One little anecdote I was going to share is I had someone reach out to me from who had counted the first time and she counted with her kids.

And she said that every time they drive past that count site now, her kids, you know, they talk about it as their count site and they are always looking for more bikes and pedestrians as they're going through that area.

So

I don't know.

I'm just really excited that the public is excited about this project.

So I think that that's just something I wanted to share with everybody.

For the training for this count, back in the fall for everyone who signed up I had like a one-on-one Zoom meeting with people and walked them through how to use our brand new count sheet, walk them through their special cases.

This time I've made a video, it's not the greatest video but it's a video that goes through all the details, it's on our website so this time people will be able to do that training

completely on their own time.

They can reach out to me with questions afterwards.

But, you know, for folks who don't love having Zoom meetings or phone calls, this is, you know, a much easier way of doing it for everyone.

So keeping that in mind as you're spreading the word, asking for volunteers.

Are there any questions about the bike and food count?

All right, cool.

So if you need anything from me to help spread the word, I have like a

like a call for volunteers email that I can share with you.

The next thing you're going to talk about is bike month.

So we talked a little bit last time.

Amanda had a lot of stuff going on at the city.

Just with the county, I'm not involved in planning with any initiatives.

Yeah, same here.

Not too familiar with what's going on with that.

I know Patrick Clark

He was at the bike summit.

I don't know if he is a part of that.

Yeah, that was actually kind of a different thing, but it would have slotted nicely in with bike month ideas.

Well, thanks for the updates.

John, Peter, and Liz.

Oh, go ahead, Dan.

I just was looking on Parks and Rec.

I think they have classes that they do, and then they do have that free bike rental April to May at Darden Towel.

Great.

Then I was going to reach out

So we are hosting a evening book event with Ralph Buehler and John Puker.

Sorry.

That was not very nice.

But anyway.

On their new book, Cycling for Sustainable Cities, that's May 7th, sort of a semi-kickoff thing for Bike Month, and I am putting a link to that in the chat, and PC is going to host a bike there station on Bike to Work Day, so again, not just for people biking to work, people biking anywhere, haven't figured out when that's

where that's going to be.

Sounds good.

OK, well, thanks, everyone, for sharing what you're working on.

So Sara and I are actually working on one thing for Bike Month.

Sara, do you want to take over?

I will say really quickly, for everyone else who has any programming going on during Bike Month,

If you want to send me the details or whatnot, I'm happy to share all of that on the Rideshare social media pages as well to get more of the word out for everybody.

So just kind of keep that in mind.

Let me know.

Thanks, Sarah.

So what we're doing at the PDC, I want to first give some credit to Peter Krebs because he helped me come up with this idea.

So what we're doing is building off of the conversation that we had last time at our bike and ped meeting, we were talking about low stress routes, places.

And the idea is that the PDC is going to create some stylized maps that identify some low stress ways to get to some popular parks in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

And then we're going to share those on our website.

Sara is going to do all of that work to push them out via social media and online.

So the parks we've chosen, and these are tentative, and I really welcome people's feedback if these are the right parks to be featuring.

But these made sense to me because I could quickly identify a couple of low stress routes into these parks.

So the parks we're looking at are Riverview Park, Tonsler Park, and Washington Park in Charlottesville.

And then

Pumphress Park in Albemarle County.

I am open to any and all feedback that people have on those particular parks and any really fun low stress ways to get into those parks.

Yep.

So ideally highlighting streets that have, you know, low traffic volumes, slower speeds, just places that, you know, generally people would feel more comfortable, you know, riding with, you know, if you're not a confident bicyclist or if you're riding with kids or things like that.

So in my perfect world, I was going to have these maps drafted and ready for you to show you guys.

And you guys could comment on those maps.

But I just wasn't able to get those done.

So if you don't have any comments right now, I don't want to belabor the point.

Sara and I will get those drafted.

And I'll put them out by email.

And we'll take some feedback that way.

And then shortly after, you guys should see them on social media.

I see that Chuck has joined us.

So Chuck, we're kind of moving through our agenda pretty quickly.

We are just now finishing up talking about Bike Month and we are ready to go into just general round table.

So just letting you know where we are.

Bill, I know you have to pop out shortly.

I can't think of anything.

offhand right now.

Just kind of getting through this semester and seems to be going along pretty smoothly.

Thanks, Bill.

I know we're at kind of like a weird part of the year where, you know, a lot of us are wrapping things up at the end of the school year or the end of the fiscal year.

Dan, go ahead.

Great.

For the county, we will be going to the board mid-May for

Expected Grant Applications, Project Updates.

This will be May 19th.

So Kevin and I will be kind of seeing what applications we're going to be pursuing for transportation alternatives, revenue sharing, and then I think even

SMART SCALE kind of with what the PDC will be submitting, the MPO will be submitting since we're trying to take those early steps on what projects that would be.

And that's also the same as our rural program, rural paving program, which had a lot of discussion last meeting about these rural gravel roads and potential.

So I'm encouraging people to just make comment if

about any concerns about paving these railroads.

And there was something else I had actually that I think that covers it now.

I can't think of anything else I was gonna say.

Dan, that was May 19.

You were gonna do that presentation?

Peter, I'm gonna try and notify my constituency for one of a better word, but love for you to get that on your PEC thing, because I think that is a good time.

There's been a lot of chit chat on the various lists about, you know, why can't we treat paved roads like a recreational resource?

and not just as an inconvenience for cars.

So it's a safety thing and a recreational resource to be sort of pivoted, call it a recreational resource and it adds value to the counties, particularly the counties that have rural plan and et cetera, et cetera, it just may change the tone on it.

That's what I'm hoping as a fan of gravel roads.

The other question I had, Dan, was just curiously, is there anything on your radar that you're aware of that's referencing a proposal for a tunnel under the railway tracks at Greenbrier from a grant perspective?

Because that borders City County.

I know Chris Gensic and the RTF have been talking about it for a while, but I don't know if the three

bodies, if you will, RTF City and County have talked about that recently.

And whether it's are we ready for just to get coordinated so we can talk about because that's like potentially a million dollar project.

Right.

You know, I'm not sure where what what we have in the regional bike plan for that.

But right now, I mean, we're not having any discussions.

That would be the time to get the ball rolling with that.

Some other projects have taken the lead, but I think I have not had any discussions with Chris.

I'll see.

I'd love to get us all together so we can get coordinated on that.

That's like the key linchpin in connecting the whole Greenway system and Greenbrier with the Parkway trails.

And it's just a major link in the long-term planning for Greenways.

And it's such a massive roadblock right now.

It's not legal to cross that area.

It's a huge detour.

And I think it'd be a great opportunity for the region.

That's all.

Just building on that, so I was at the TAP grant presentation yesterday and that project actually seems like it might be a good candidate for TAP as compared to SMART SCALE because it's much more alternatives but it still is squarely a transportation project and

It touches a lot of the buttons that they like to have.

They like inter-jurisdictional cooperation.

The thing that they went to great lengths, my big takeaway though, and I think it's also a takeaway that we have locally from the experience at the Trail Hub is identify what issues exist and say so.

And say, you know, say what,

your thoughts are and what you're going to do about what those issues are in the application don't have them come up in the later stages that's reasonable but if so Chris Gensic has conducted a sort of top level feasibility study like cost estimate type thing

So to answer your question in the chat, the Greenbrier Greenway that the city put in as part of the Greenbrier stream restoration goes right up to the train tracks.

And there's an underpass and on the other side of the tracks is the bridge with the John Warner Parkway and Greenway across that Greenbrier stream.

So the tunnel would be somewhere there.

VDOT, currently bikers use the underpass illegally and walkers cross the train tracks illegally.

But it's well used by a lot of people to connect as a Rivanna Trail.

Rivanna Trail has a formal bypass that sort of circumvents that, takes you all the way down to Melbourne.

It's really inconvenient.

So that's where it would be.

And the railway tunnel didn't want us to just pedestrianize the existing, whatever you call it, underpass because of the stream traffic through there.

I was going to say, I'm just going to reach out to Chris probably for that feasibility study.

kind of gather more information and kind of see.

I know from the county, we're looking at projects that have been kind of on hold for potential transportation alternative, you know, looking at Avon and, you know, but any

Collaboration with the city, you know.

And RTF is happy to act as a bridge to help coordinate that.

I think this is just, it's interjurisdictional.

So having support on both sides, whoever takes the charge, if it's the city taking the charge, it's great.

We just would love to get it on the county's radar so that if needed there's support and whatever is required to.

push it through.

So I appreciate it.

I just wanted to get on your radar, Dan.

We make calls or talk about it.

You know what we're talking about.

And I'm going to get Tim Petalino in as well.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thank you for

I feel like you're offering a lot right here, Dan, and I want to acknowledge that and thank you for it.

So with that, so I understand properly, it sounds like the May 19th public hearing on the rural paving program is a normal thing, happens, you know, about once a year.

Is there like a

I'm guessing it's probably a discussion about a specific list of priorities.

It's not a vague conversation about rural paving.

It's about a specific proposed list.

It's a public hearing.

This went to the board in March as a consent item, but usually it's a work session, but it was more of a just agree upon this list.

And these lists are roads that were petitioned by property owners on these roads.

They were ranked according to traffic counts, but rural rustic is a type of paving.

It's called a secondary road paving, secondary six year plan.

So it's basically

Yeah, thank you.

Right, they could hear a comment and they could choose to remove any roads if they want to from this priority list.

And it's usually like two roads that get paved a year and then it's renewed every year.

The five years out are projected.

I'm sorry, and then, sorry, it's a two-part question.

Then the other thing that's happening also on the 19th is talking about the grant applications.

Is this like a one-for-one thing, like we have a TAP grant,

Basically, this could be our potential revenue sharing in TA.

It's not how we every two years do our priority update.

This is more saying this is the direction we're gonna take some of these priorities we have and pursue grant funding.

So we're asking basically for the board's agreement.

I see.

So it's not that resolution.

I mean, I can shoot you an email, confirm if we're going to have resolutions.

I don't I don't I'm assuming not not this early.

It's basically saying you support us applying for these.

The other update I had was next Thursday we had some conversations with Michael Geyser about connections in the Rowell area, bike ped connections.

So I'll be doing a quick overview with how the counties at the CAC meeting.

How we prioritize these projects and how, you know, get them into master plans and how the county pursues funding.

So it's a very just a general planning process on specifically for bike-ped connections.

That's the RIO 29C meeting.

Dan, kind of a follow-up question to that.

So Admiral County is doing the Rio Road corridor study and when I attended that first kickoff meeting for the public it seemed like there was quite a bit of focus on bicycle and pedestrian concerns.

That's still like in the consultant is you know data collection they did public taking the public feedback we have a like a project manager that's involved with that specifically with the consultants and so I haven't had too much update on that process so you know still in the early stages and I'm sure I'll be mentioning we'll be getting recommendations from that corridor study specifically in that area as well so

Thanks for that.

Chuck, did you want to jump in with any updates from VDOT?

Sometimes it takes Chuck a minute to get off of mute because he's on his phone, so we'll give him another minute.

No, I already mentioned the cycling for sustainable cities and the Piedmont Mobility Alliance is having its next meeting two weeks from today.

I'll put a link to that in the chat.

That's all for now.

Thanks, Peter.

And Chuck, it looks like you are off mute.

Yeah, I unmuted my phone, but not the computer.

So, yes.

Sorry I was late.

I had another conflict, another meeting that ran over.

I don't have a whole lot.

I know that we're looking to start SMART SCALE next round.

And I know that Tom Fitzpatrick in our LAP office is looking to the

They usually coordinate a lot of the TAP applications and stuff like that.

So they're steadily and we're reviewing a lot of those through the L&D section for concepts and cost estimates for some of the localities across the district.

So if you guys need some assistance, you can reach out to us on those.

I got an email, I just wanted to bring it up earlier this week about, let's see, where's it at?

ask if that's possibly something you guys might want to consider doing some sort of feasibility study for that area.

I know that since the TSX railroad purchase was included in that process of proof of funding so that it could give us a little bit more flexibility to run that trail along the 250 corridor.

Otherwise, we'd have to look at some other alternative corridors because of the conflict between 250 and a railroad.

But it could be something you guys might want to consider looking at going forward.

We don't have any new update on that.

I don't know if it was mentioned at the last meeting, but with the Crozet Master Plan, I think there will be language to include the potential for studying further a connection there.

I don't know how long that they would extend in that master plan update the wording, but just no specific route I don't believe will be called out, but just the idea of that may be included in the master plan update.

I don't

Dan Butch might have been on this email.

It might have been Dan Mahan, actually, that was included on it.

But just this morning, late last night, there was an email from Liz Palmer about the feasibility study that Chuck referenced.

So it could be a potential idea of talking about this some more.

That's Dan Butch's world.

Yeah, I was on that email.

Like I said, there's no update, but I think we're probably in a huddle.

And once I gather next steps, I'll know how to answer the next meeting.

And I asked specifically coming into this.

But I also want to put out there that I've been actively involved in conversation with our residency on our paving programs and how to help put signage or if shoulder is accessible on these railroads and not on paved roads, but roads that are routine maintenance type paving that are already paved on how to help just send the information about cyclists and users.

So, I mean, that was for some pavings that are for this fiscal year.

And we're going to continue the conversation earlier the better for next round of paving.

Dan, would it make sense for us to include Three Notch'd Trail as an agenda item at our next meeting?

If I have an update, I think I could let you know that in advance and then we could maybe put that on the agenda.

But as it is now, just the county is not, I have no update from what we've been giving about, we have additional priorities and

and so no new news right now.

Sounds good.

We'll follow up closer to our May meeting.

Great.

Chuck, I think you said that was everything.

Yeah, that was pretty much it.

I mean, there was an email that came out.

I guess somebody was in an accident on Garth Road, a bike pet, a bicycle accident.

And a lot of people use that as an alternative to other routes going east and west.

So that's why somebody asked me that question and I was bringing it up at this meeting to facilitate that going forward if you guys want to consider it now.

With the changes in the funding studies that's going on right now,

I would have to coordinate that with central office to make sure that we can get a consultant on board for that particular study because they generally they want everything to meet a V-Trans need and we'd have to see how that would operate I think it would meet a need but it would be a low tier need and whether that would be a something they would still consider looking at right now but I just wanted to reach out to you guys because I know that was something that's been

a hot topic in the past.

Great, thanks Chuck.

I'll quick give some updates from the PDC and then we'll go to Sara.

So this committee is typically focused on bike and ped projects and issues in the MPO area, but just to let you guys know that we are considering

applying for a transportation alternatives grant for one of the rural counties.

It wouldn't be in the Culpeper district.

It would actually be in the Lynchburg district.

And right now it's just in the consideration phase, but just kind of updating you.

And if we do move forward with that, I'll probably bring some updates to this committee about that project.

The other big update is SMART SCALE.

And like Dan was saying, the MPO is trying to

get very much ahead of the game and ensure that we have a lot of public participation on projects that might be more controversial.

So we're looking at figuring out what those four projects that the MPO will be applying for, what those four projects are.

We're trying to figure that out now.

So in May, our plan right now is to have a public hearing at our Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee meeting, as well as our MPO Technical Committee meeting.

So this will be a public hearing

That would allow members of the public to make additional recommendations for projects for the MPO to consider.

So just kind of giving you guys that up that heads up that you know that is an opportunity for people in May to talk about projects that they want to be considered for SMART SCALE.

Really, as long as they are eligible for SMART SCALE, we're willing to hear them out.

So I will also come back to this committee in June with an update about what we heard at those public hearings, especially about projects that include any major bicycle and pedestrian components.

And in July, it looks like our committees will be voting on which projects to recommend to the policy board who will then

Make their vote about what projects the MPO will actually be submitting.

Hey, Jessica, before you go on, what's the date and time of the public hearing?

Those are two different meetings.

They're very close to each other.

Our CTAC is the third Wednesday of the month.

So that would be the 19th of May.

And that's at 6 or 7 p.m.

It's a late meeting.

And then MPO Tech is on Tuesday, the 18th of May.

And that would be at 10 a.m.

I don't know that that is 100% the plan.

A public hearing might get pushed into a different meeting or month.

I'll just note that Dan said that the county

is having its own discussion about that, that same day, the 19th.

So it's great that that stuff's close together.

I don't know, and it wouldn't be the exact same time, right?

Because I think you said the coming presentations in the afternoon, but the 19th could be SMART SCALE day.

Dan, is that right?

The agenda, I could send it, Jessica.

Having you all on here as I'm looking, what time?

It's the presentation, so it would be afternoon.

But we're having a meeting with Sandy next week.

Yeah, then CTAC would not be until 7 p.m. And Dan, I know you have a different perspective than the rest of the folks on here, and Chuck, you do too, but this public hearing and the opportunity for the public to suggest projects in no way diminishes the meetings staff, locality staff, are having with PDC staff about those projects.

And we'll be sure to clarify with the MPO Policy Board who's making the recommendations on these projects as they go into a vote.

Any other questions?

And like I said, I'm giving you guys the public hearing information a little bit ahead of schedule, but that's our tentative plan for how to move forward.

If you're trying to pick one or the other, Jessica, I would suggest you do it on the Tuesday one rather than the Wednesday one, particularly because Dan said that

Even if the SMART SCALE piece is in the afternoon, I think he's right, it will be.

There's another, the evening we'll have the public hearing.

That's good to know.

I'll just clarify that according to our processes that we've created for SMART SCALE, we'll do it at both.

Whether we're doing it in May or July, they'll be at both the MPO Tech and CTAC meeting.

Sarah, you wanna talk rideshare updates?

I don't have a whole lot to update on rideshare at the moment.

Obviously, Jessica talked a little bit about some of our bike month activities.

And again, we're happy to promote whatever anyone else is doing.

In addition to that, in May, we will also be doing some promotions

that the state that DRPT has come up with regarding telework activities.

I'm still kind of waiting on the details for that at the moment, but you will definitely see a lot of activity probably in advertising and social media on both of that in conjunction with by month in May and then continuing into June.

Thanks, Sarah.

John, did you want to talk to us about what Cambix is up to?

John might be a bit distracted.

Liz, do you have anything you want to share?

Not right now, thank you.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Michael and Bill, I just want to put it out there.

Well, I sent an email to Dan about some issues I was concerned about and he's responded nicely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

Great.

Yeah.

And I,

I saw that this is a tentative schedule.

It's 140 presentation on May 19th.

It's not official for the project updates.

Thank you everyone.

Bill told me he didn't have anything else to add.

So that really concludes our meeting.

Thanks so much for joining us and making it a great discussion and overall a quick meeting.

We'll see you guys in May.