Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee (2013-2026) Meeting   9/16/2020

Great.

We are now recording.

All right.

And here's the statement.

The governor has declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the nature of this declared emergency makes it impracticable or unsafe for the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee to assemble in a single location.

This meeting will be held utilizing electronic virtual communication with the Zoom software application.

In accordance with virtual meeting procedures and policies as outlined in item 4.0-01 of the Virginia State Budget, HB 29, as effective April 24, 2020, the meeting will be recorded and made available to the public at our website.

All right, so that's the whole statement.

Go ahead, Tristan.

Apologies.

I just said welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining.

It looks like we have quorum.

So stating the time is 7.02 on my clock.

And I think we can review the meeting minutes from last time, from July.

Is there any questions or concerns around them?

If not, we can move to approve.

Thanks, Travis.

All right.

So let's move the vote then.

Anyone have any issues with it?

Yes, that's what we're doing.

Cool.

So it looks like we approve.

No one's denying.

We can do a voice vote.

Or you can wave at me.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

I think it sounds like the yeas have it.

All right, meeting minutes are approved then.

All right, we're ready to move to I think the first item, which is matters of the public.

Anyone here besides us?

Jessica, Sandy, anyone see anyone?

I think it's just us.

Sorry, I was just saying we do not have anyone here.

Sounds good.

All right, well, then we'll move on to the first item, which looks like Alan, Alan Herndt will speak on electric vehicles.

Is that the case?

That is the case.

And thank you, Tristan, and thank you all for having me here today.

I can keep my comments pretty brief, and I would be happy to answer questions.

I'm with Virginia Clean Cities on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The State Energy Office got some questions regarding the motor fuels tax for

Electric vehicles.

And so I'm just here to say that electric vehicles do pay a highway use fee.

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, there was a $64 per year fee for electric vehicles, regardless of how small the vehicle was.

So like golf carts that were in use, but they would cross state roads would pay that fee.

There is now an $88 fee.

So in the last General Assembly, they ramped that fee up

The fee also applies to all energy efficient vehicles.

So any vehicle operating on the roads in Virginia that gets greater than about 25 miles per gallon will have a fee assessed to it associated with its fuel economy.

And that is a system that the General Assembly put forward in order to pay for the,

Gather just additional revenue.

They were looking for additional revenue and so they presented that fee.

It's a fee that's reviewed every year and every year that fee will change based on the mileage that passenger vehicles travel on average that year.

Although if that is similar to in the past, it'll might just stay pegged at $88.20 for several years.

So I just wanted to share that that program existed and I wanted to serve as a reference.

Virginia Clean Cities is the Commonwealth's US Department of Energy designated Clean Fuels Coalition.

We've been operating for 25 years and Charlottesville and several folks here today are members of the Clean Cities Coalition or we've worked with folks.

We work with the Department of Energy and with the State Energy Office

Alan, I just had one question.

There is a

legislative requirement for vehicles that are assessed this fee to be able to file for a for the first time essentially a vehicle miles traveled reduction.

That information has not been published by the agency by DMV and so that will probably follow either later in this year or by next July but that information is not accessible to

vehicle operators.

And right now it's just that raw fee of $88.20.

Yeah, this is Stuart.

This fee seems bizarre because if you, let's say you have an electric vehicle and you're just commuting locally and you go two miles a day versus someone who, you know, drives for Uber and drives a hundred miles a day, they're paying the same.

It doesn't seem like an equitable solution for trying to get revenue in lieu of the gas tax.

Stuart, I actually did a research paper on this a while back.

And so the answer is that yes, but the administrative costs of putting in something that is on a per mile basis is right now probably not worth it for the small amount of electric vehicles that are in the state.

Does that make sense?

Like it would cost them more to run a program that actually tracked how far you drove.

So I guess maybe that's why they're doing it as an exception.

If you want to file for an exception, you could.

Yes, this fee will be seen upfront with the purchase of a vehicle.

So it will be seen in the leasing and the purchasing as an additional cost.

And is this something that's up for review?

Yes, so any policy that's promulgated or that's laid out by the General Assembly is up for review every year.

In this case, this piece of legislation came through in the omnibus transportation package last year and that document was hundreds of pages long and it had a lot of different components to it It was pushed forward by the new majority that also was creating laws during an early pandemic and so there were bound to be some challenges

Interestingly enough, the nation doesn't have many hybrid penalties or efficient vehicle penalties.

And so this will punish or assess a efficiency fee on almost all new vehicle sales.

The pegging fuel efficiency at 23.7 miles per gallon does represent the thinking of a previous decade.

So vehicles are increasing in their fuel efficiency.

Yeah.

So that was, I think that was part of the idea is that they're raising gas tax.

There's a good point too.

This was part of a huge omnibus bill that had a lot of trade-offs.

I know overall there's a big increase in transit and rail funding and there were other trade-offs involved.

I will say that when we did the analysis for how much an average light duty vehicle in Virginia drives and pays in fuel taxes versus an electric vehicle, that for a pure battery electric vehicle, the sort of equivalence surcharge should be in the range of like $240 per year.

Yeah, that number might not be fully accurate depending on like

how often people do use their vehicles and so it's a very variable and the electric vehicles this legislation does talk about like 10,000 pound vehicles and electric vehicles do not necessarily weigh 10,000 pounds oftentimes they weigh a very similar to a passenger vehicle

But hearing no other questions, Virginia Clean Cities is happy to join at any time or provide further reference.

I really want to also make a shout out to the next presenter and the rest of the team.

You guys have been doing excellent work on these vehicle technologies and I just really, I really appreciate you here in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

We're grateful for all the good work that Charlottesville and the whole TJ region is doing, so thank you.

Great.

Lucinda, can I jump in?

Sorry.

I neglected to have us do introductions at the beginning.

We do have at least one new member of CTAC.

So I'm just going to back us up for one second, put you on hold Lucinda.

And Tristan, if you wouldn't mind going through the participant list.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Name's Tristan, your chairman for the CTAC.

I represent for Albemarle.

Sure.

I'm Jessica Hersh-Ballering.

I'm a transportation planner at the TJPDC and the MPO.

Thank you, Jessica.

Somewhere.

Great, thanks.

I'm Lucinda Shannon.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm the Public District Transportation Planner for VDOT, and I just support the NPO in their meetings

I'm Gary Heaton.

I represent the City of Charlottesville Planning Commission.

So I'm one of the planning commissioners.

Sounds good.

Welcome.

Hi.

Tim.

I'm Tim Keller.

Thank you.

Looks like the names are going up and down on me now.

Joe?

I'm Joe.

Thank you, Joe.

I am.

Thank you, Lee.

Hi.

I'm Lucas.

Thanks, Lucas.

Thanks, Ray.

And oh, no.

Everyone's bouncing around at me.

Hi.

Thank you.

Thanks, Donna.

And did we get everyone?

I'm down to the bottom.

Thanks, Travis.

Now, keep me honest, everyone.

I think I got everyone.

Am I correct?

I think so.

So thank you for letting me

Forget that part and come back to it.

So now we can move on to Lucinda talking about the EV study.

Thanks, everybody.

And a big shout out to Alan.

He's helped me a lot with this study so far.

So the MPO this year is doing a study on electric vehicle charging stations.

It's a needs assessment, and it's basically to support

Electric vehicle use in the TJPDC area.

So this includes the rural counties as well.

And so what we're doing is looking at the charging stations that are currently available, the need for charging stations in the area, and how we could support electric vehicles in the future as a community.

Alan's been helping me a lot.

And I am coming to you guys because I'm looking to connect with people and learn more about what you all want.

But also, mostly, I have a stakeholder list.

I don't know, Jessica, if you have the memo, if you could pull it up.

And I wanted to make sure that I didn't leave anybody out, any committees out or groups out.

So I'll read the stakeholder list, and it's in the memo in your packet.

And just let me know if I've missed anybody.

It's Albemarle County, the city of Charlottesville, VDOT, electric vehicle manufacturing,

the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, citizens and EV users, we already have had some volunteers, major employers like the University of Virginia, the Rideshare Commuter Lots, Virginia Clean Cities, the MPO Tech and C-Tech Committees, and the TJPDC Rural Tech Committee.

So I don't know if there's anybody that you guys know of that I've missed or you think that would be a good contact for me

I'd also suggest

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So actually, well, we have Alan here.

I had a question because the registration fee, the highway use fee for energy efficient vehicles is $88, but I was reading the legislation and it says that the registration fee for a regular car is $40.

So I didn't, it sounds like it's only

$44 more or $48 more than what a normal car would pay for.

So it's additive.

Okay, and that's charged every year?

Okay, thanks.

Does anybody have any other comments or questions about the study?

Well, we're looking at the number of electric vehicles that are currently in the area, projecting out how many vehicles will be expanding over the years.

We haven't decided that yet.

It's been mentioned, but yeah.

Well, I have some related data that may be easy to get to you.

So I guess it was a couple of years ago, we did a study on the statewide EV adoption pattern.

So now this was vehicle registration data that I think we only had up to 2018.

So you'll have to get the last two years.

But from 2016 to 2018, maybe 2015 and 2016, we've got EV registrations by zip code for the entire state.

Yeah, we also got that data and developed a model for that, but I'd love to see yours too if you wanna email it to me.

Lucinda, is there any way to track

I don't know.

I think you guys are so cool and so I just first off I want to just be a fan of everything that you're thinking about and one method might be to look at your permit applications as gas stations are permitting a facility they might apply for a permit for an electric vehicle charger and that might be a system that you could use in the area is to first to have a simple or easy permitting process but secondly to

So recently the county has had a Tiger fuel proposal that was not successful, but they were proposing either three or four charging stations.

And we have a Wawa and a Sheetz on 29 North that will be coming on soon.

So I think it would be interesting to know whether they're proposing that and maybe

That's a really good point that the MPO tech committee brought up as well.

And we had talked about it, but just looking at the zoning and regulatory requirements, as well as the land use functions when new developments come in.

So looking how space can be utilized where people might be able to access charging stations as well.

Tim, I believe Sheets is one of the stations that's had recent press announcement about partnering with charging infrastructure provider.

I think Sheets and Electrify America partnered, and they're going to be having charging locations throughout the country.

Great.

If I can, this is Chip.

It came up in the same topic regarding residential land use for the local governments too.

If a developer wanted to put charging stations within a public parking area, a common parking area of a residential development,

Most of the planners in the room said, we really don't know how that would be classified.

And is it allowable?

Is it not allowable?

We don't have rules on it yet.

Just one more piece on that, Chip, you get me thinking about this.

I think as the home stays come back online and are looking at ways to be competitive,

you're going to see more and more home stays offering a charging station to their guests.

So maybe the slower speed, but still a charging station nonetheless.

So again, how would we even begin to track that?

I will chime in here and offer a resource, which is the Alternative Fuel Data Center.

We do track all the stations and have it down to the GPS location, including those homestay locations.

They are often already up on those websites.

So there's a downloadable database that's accessible for your planning purposes.

I would go a little further with regards to the building code.

There are going to be changes in the building code nationally requiring pre-conduit or pre-designed for electric chargers for residential facilities.

And in Virginia, homeowners associations cannot stop

Alan, can you share the link to that database?

All right, any other questions for Lucinda?

Well great, well thank you Lucinda.

As you all are aware at this point, we were working on doing some updates to the public participation plan and a couple of you all have responded with your comments and I really appreciate those.

We got a couple others as well.

And so this is just a summary of public comments.

So just as a refresher, the public participation plan is the plan that we use to state what we are going to do to satisfy the federal requirements for engagement when it comes to adopting different planning documents that are important to guide how transportation decisions are made.

So the idea all along when we started this update was just to do a really minimal update to make sure that we were in compliance with our current operating practices.

to update references to things like to account for online meetings and that kind of thing.

And as we started getting some of this feedback back, it looks like there is a need for us to do a more comprehensive and robust update.

I think Travis, you had made several comments, not to call you out, but you had made several comments, but I think we're really good and really helpful, but we're just beyond the scope of what we were trying to do right now.

with the resources that we had accounted for.

So I divided it up into, I divided the comments up.

This is just a summary of sort of simple and easy revisions to make and then also more substantive revisions that would take a little bit more time for us to go through and do well inappropriately.

So what we are suggesting at this point is that we look at what these simple revisions are, recommend going ahead and adapting the document so that we can make sure that as we move forward with any of our required public outreach that we are

in compliance with our own plan as far as the procedures.

And then we're going to look at some opportunities to reprogram the unified planning work program to put more resources into doing a more comprehensive update of both the public participation plan and probably also the environmental justice plan, which also feeds into this to make more meaningful changes.

So the second page is just those recommendations going through all of that.

I'm going to leave it on the first slide just so you can look at what some of the changes were, adding some of the abbreviations to the acronym list, making sure some of the

sections match.

There's a section for adopting a new plan and making amendments to major plans.

So we would include that, make sure that those two sections are in agreement with each other as far as the content that's considered as well as the procedures that are followed.

There was a request to include SMART SCALE in the list of documents and plans that utilize the public participation plan, references to social media,

and community events as well.

And then there were also some more minor updates that we had reviewed before.

Jaunt had requested being added to the appendix as far as utilizing this public participation plan process and their grant funding requests basically for the TIP.

By adding them, including them in the appendix at the end, it allows them to satisfy their federal public engagement requirements as part of our process to adopt the TIP.

And then we had also made some pretty minor changes to include online meeting practices when those are enabled by state legislation, as well as

Going a little bit farther and not just agreeing to or not just stating that we would post procedures in places that are frequented in neighborhoods or communities of people that are of minorities or reduced income areas, but also to develop relationships and email lists with organizations that would be interfacing with those people to also get

Information available more broadly that way.

So at this point, we have advertised the public hearing with the MPO Policy Board for this month.

And so there will be an opportunity for the public to weigh in at that meeting with any additional comments.

And then the Policy Board will determine whether or not they want to make a recommendation to go ahead and adopt an amendment

to the plan either with or without revisions or if they want to table the discussion and give us some direction for what to do moving forward.

The staff recommendation at this time though would be to go ahead and adopt the simple revisions and then understanding that we're going to continue to work on this once we are able to allocate additional resources.

So if you all would like to vote, you can make a recommendation that we would take to the policy board one way or the other, we'd be happy to

Just a comment, but I think the words of people like Peter and Travis really resonated with me on this.

And I was just sort of going through, like there are multiple occasions on page 19, 21 and 22.

where the government regulations on what has to be done or what the extent is seemed very short in comparison to how long the scope of the projects were.

So there were two public hearings before the long-term plan.

And two public hearings and a 30-day comment period doesn't feel like enough for the scope of that, even if it's something that gets revised every four years.

and then the public notice for major documents for changes to major documents like one meeting to hear back from the people is not enough.

I don't know if there's a like obviously this is another huge substantive revision that needs to happen but

I feel like it would really help our community if people had time to, or people knew that there was like a scheduled meeting maybe once a month where they could go to hear about what's happening with that kind of thing.

Like if there was an MPO monthly at a certain defined place on the bus route that people could go to and hear about this kind of thing.

I don't know.

I just know too to kind of explain some of my comments a little more.

I think when I was reading through this, you know, I just thought it, I know that I thought it read very legal and technical and, you know, it definitely is necessary in some respects to comply with the legal requirements but, you know, both the city and county have been really trying hard lately to make

Their public engagement process is more accessible and understandable to the general public and it seems like this could use the same kind of update to make sure that the public that will be referencing this is able to understand it and I think it could just use a little sprucing up in that respect.

Yeah, I think if we're going to do an overhaul, we want to have the resources set aside to do it well and to do it appropriately.

What would the timeline on that look like?

Mm-hmm.

You know, I haven't scoped that out exactly yet to know how much time and resources.

Probably I would say maybe February, March would probably be at the earliest what we would be looking at because we would not be able to reallocate resources for the work program to dedicate to this until at least November.

That requires a public hearing as well.

So we would have to go through and do some restructuring.

So probably February, March at the earliest would be what we would be able to do.

And then if we wanted to have more meaningful engagement to get feedback from the committees as we go and to involve the public more and get more perspective on there, obviously that would extend it a little bit longer.

So probably to do it well at the earliest,

All right, any other questions for Sandy?

OK, so we're looking for approval here, or at least a recognition of it.

So with that in mind, I mean, do we want to move forward with that?

I guess we call it a note, caveat note, new caveat that you mentioned?

Second.

Thank you.

All right.

Yes.

Yay.

All right.

I think that carries it.

Jessica, I think we approved.

Yes.

Great.

All right.

I think we're ready to move forward then.

I see.

OK.

Thanks.

Do you want me to share that memo?

Yeah, sure.

It's in the packet.

There's a memo and the Title VI plan.

I don't know if that was in the packet too.

It's available on the website as well.

So this is also similar to the public participation plan.

It's a federally required document that needs to be updated every couple years.

And it's time for it to be updated.

So we just put in enough money to update it similar to the public participation plan and not do an entire overhaul.

However, when I started updating it, I realized that we really could do a lot more and make it more robust.

So this time around, we'd like to just kind of

Check the boxes, get it updated, and then put money in the budget for next year to go more in-depth and look into it and really make it more robust.

The Title VI plan is a federal requirement so that we can meet the Title VI and the subsequent non-discrimination laws.

So it's people with limited English proficiency and other minorities.

It's also helping us explain how we're going to meet the environmental justice executive order

like have not discriminate against people environmentally or with transportation.

So the updates that I did for this was basically going through and adding in the new census data.

And if you look at the draft plan, the changes that I made are highlighted in blue.

And it's mostly updating, like adding the new census data, updating the tables and maps, and then also adding in the new language from the public participation plan with the online meetings and things like that.

So those are the changes that were made.

Like I said, we'd like to do more.

We just need to add money to the budget and plan to do a more robust overhaul of it.

I'd like to present it to the Public Policy Board next week and ask them to approve it.

I guess that's about it.

You said that you were reading through this and you thought there could be a more robust change.

Yeah, so I was looking at other communities and their Title VI plans, and they went really in depth into public participation, outreach to minority communities, how they would do that.

and also like some communities did a study on comparing transportation funding and mapping it to where low income communities were and comparing like the funding that was spent on transportation projects versus the income of the communities that the funding was spent in.

So you could kind of see like, is the funding being spent equitably for transportation projects?

That sounds terrific.

Lucinda, if I could add too, one of the things we have struggled with, and it would require some structural changes to the way our transportation committees are

are filled.

We have usually just relied on the local governments to fill their openings.

And we have not had very good success in increasing diversity through that method.

So I think during this more robust process, that's one of the things we're going to want to take a look at is how can we help the local governments

Yeah, definitely.

You know, I have to say it's a little hard to get people, especially like low income and underserved people, excited about transportation planning.

and to come to meetings at night or during the day and read difficult technical documents and then make comments on them because it's just, it's hard.

I mean, it's hard to get excited about transportation planning, especially if it's not your job.

I mean, I get excited about it, but I know that a lot of people don't.

So I've had a lot of these public meetings for transportation projects and most of them, like one or two people show up and it's the people who like, it's in their backyard and they're really upset about it.

You know, it's just something that's going to happen 10 years from now and might affect you, might not.

So it's just hard to get people engaged in it.

So I'm involved with a community organization that has been trying to put together like pensions for to in order to find these kinds of people who like might otherwise who like really do want to be engaged with this work and care about the community want to do the work but couldn't unless they were like unless it was helping them pay rent right so and that seems to be working we got I think 90 applicants from different parts of the from different parts of the city

Excellent.

OK, that's interesting.

But that's such a strain on the budget, so understand.

Yeah.

And I think, too, in our past discussions about how to expand CTAC's role in gathering input, just trying to find ways where

You know, we're asking for different types of input, some of which doesn't require as big of a hurdle of understanding of the various plans and documents, like simply identifying where the transportation problems are in your area, or if you're a transit rider, what improvements could you see?

I think some questions like that seem like they're kind of easier to answer for a wide variety of people and maybe more accessible.

Yeah, and then we have another study that's coming up this year.

It's part of our work plan to look at like equity in transportation as well.

So that's like a whole nother, like kind of similar, it just kind of layers onto this.

It seems to be a theme this year and the staff is really engaged in it and motivated to have more equity and more public participation in transportation planning.

So we're definitely working on it and we've got, I think,

So Tristan, at this point, if people don't have questions, CTAC can again decide to make a recommendation to the policy board about how to move forward with

All right.

And then is that with the same kind of caveat in the public participation plan and the understanding that

Just to clarify, Lee, you can say that.

You can make a very clear motion about what it is you are recommending to the policy board.

So it sounds like what you're saying is that CTAC, you're moving that CTAC recommends the policy board accept Lucinda's recommendation for the Title VI plan update.

If I could just remind everyone too that the change in the resources that Sandy referred to earlier for the current fiscal year would be a change with our uniform work program.

That revision will come through you to take a look at as well as next fiscal year's UPWP as well.

All right.

Well, we have a motion.

Thank you.

All right.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes from me.

Is anyone else?

Jessica, I think we're good to go.

All right, cool.

Yeah, so the Transportation Improvement Program is how the localities track the funding that has been appropriated for transportation projects in our region in the TJPDC region.

So it's got a bunch of blocks in it that each block is a

a transportation project or a grouping of transportation projects that funding has been allocated to through the state so our regional transportation improvement program matches what the state has in their state transportation program and

Often money is moved around or things are adjusted and that has to go through the policy board and us so that everything matches between the localities and the state.

So the adjustments that we have this round are to adjust to maintenance blocks.

So it's road maintenance and it's all grouped together and it's just transferring about $6 million from preventative maintenance

to safety preventative maintenance system preservation.

So it's just going from one maintenance block to another.

And I've listed on the memo, there's the new adjusted table and the old table.

And then there's two adjustments.

So you can see there's four tables total, the old table and the new table.

and it just shows that the money moved from one year to another.

It's an adjustment, not an amendment.

So the policy, like we don't have to have a public hearing on it or anything.

Yeah, I'm on the call.

They weren't moving it.

They were moving it from system.

Let's see.

It's moving it from one grouping to another grouping.

And the reason for the movement was they were basically using it to cover the paving schedules.

And they moved it to maintenance preservation because that's where the maintenance schedules show up in the federal obligation.

Thanks.

Is anything, this is Stuart, is anything not getting funded as a result of moving the money from bucket to bucket?

No, nothing's not getting funded.

It's just a matter of moving the money to obligate as much money as we can for federal reimbursement.

And this basically is your document where you're asking the feds to reimburse you for the money you expended on projects.

And this is just to show what we're expending this year, or actually last year, because this is through FY20.

for this group.

Thanks for the run through there.

Anyone have any questions?

Doesn't sound like this needs to go for approval or anything like that.

All right, cool.

Well, if there's no other questions, I think we can move forward to SMART SCALE.

Oh, okay.

Sure.

Yeah, let me scroll down.

Basically, this was a project that's been submitted two rounds of SMART SCALE and hasn't done very well.

It was submitted as part of the interchange project, and then it was submitted as part of a standalone project last round.

And what it's trying to do is, last round, it was, I forget the cost, but it was around over $20 million.

And it didn't do very well from a cost-benefit standpoint.

So what we did this year is,

We wanted to look at it again to see if there's anything we can come up with that's less expensive that would still provide a similar benefit.

And that's what we ended up coming up with with this round.

And I don't see the concept.

Well, Jessica, do you have it?

Some other background information.

Last round, we had submitted a diverging diamond.

Similar to what you see at Zion's Crossroads, except it was underneath.

But like I said, that one had, where you have the signals, you have to flare the intersection out to allow for that crossing movement of the traffic at a diverging diamond.

And it just cost, the right-of-way costs were extremely large.

required extensive work on the ramps and required retaining walls on the ramps or sound walls on the ramps because this is a neighborhood back here.

So what we did with this one is it's still using the same space underneath the bridge at Fontaine, but it's crossing the left turn movements and the heavy movement in the PM are coming out of the city

out towards 64.

It'll cross them over so they don't really conflict as much with the southbound ramp, which is coming into the city.

By crossing them over, we can accommodate those movements more efficiently.

What this does, however, it relocates some of the movements at the interchange.

If you're coming from

Fontaine Avenue extended which is to the left side of the map coming in and you want to go north on 29 you can't make the direct left turn movement at the ramp.

Same way if you're coming northbound on 29 off of the 29 bypass and you want to make a left and go to Fontaine Avenue extended you can't make that movement directly.

That's the only slide I have.

Oh wait, no, you're right.

Okay, this is the next slide.

Those two left turn movements would be handled by the U-turn movement at this location, which is right at Ray Hunt Drive.

So this was a more cost effective way to do the same

and hopefully we can get it funded this time because we do have significant issues here with both congestion and safety.

The project also includes extending the multi-use path through the interchange and out to Fontaine Extended so currently it ends right there at the ramp.

on the east on the northbound side.

So this basically is what we came up with to accommodate all those movements.

The other thing it does is one of the reasons we chose the diverging diamond and we're looking at this one is the northbound left turn movement at I-64 is a unsignalized

left turn movement onto the ramp across the southbound traffic.

And it is unsignalized and we've had significant crashes there in the past.

So what this does is it relocates that movement through this interchange.

So you can come down the northbound ramp, make the left turn and go right up the ramp and get right onto the interstate without having to conflict with that other

What's driving the traffic at that intersection?

Is that people coming from the UVA stadium?

Or is that people, what's the- It's everything going into the city.

I mean, this, you get the UVA hospital, the campus, the downtown Charlottesville,

I mean, this is one of the main entrances into the city.

Clontane Research Park is right here.

The city of the UVA just took it back over from the UVA Foundation and they're planning to move a lot of their emergency services out to this location.

So you're gonna see a lot of growth here too.

And so, I mean, basically there's three, one, two, three,

Four major ways into the city, or really, you've got 250 coming in from the east, you've got this road coming in from the west, you've got 250 coming in, and you've got 29 coming from the north.

Those are your main avenues into the city.

You've got the interchanges off of 64 also, but they're all limited, they have all limited capacity.

So this is basically trying to,

fix some of the operations that have been going, issues here that have been going on for many, many years.

I remember when I was at the residency, coming out and sitting on this corner, watching the conflict in traffic between the, through traffic coming from the southbound 29 and the northbound two lane ramps.

And they would,

Weave right here and it's significantly a significant safety issue every day.

The cues from this ramp currently back out almost back out onto the interstate on a daily basis.

So this will hopefully address a lot of those issues now and into the future.

We did a future analysis out through 2045 I think and it still operates

How does making this intersection more efficient, if you continue east on Fontaine, doesn't that take you into, I guess that's the Fry Springs neighborhood?

And that's pretty tight area.

Just east of this intersection, it drops to two lanes.

As you see here in the eastbound direction, we only have one through lane at Ray Hunt Drive.

We have dual right turn lanes into the research park.

That's a significant volume of traffic that's going to go into the research park currently and in the future.

So it's not necessarily more traffic going into the city, because it's running at capacity right now.

But the research part's going to expand.

Just making sure I'm following.

Is this a modification to the diamond interchange that was previously being planned?

That work's already begun, right?

So is this help fund work that's already started?

This project hasn't started yet.

The project that's currently funded is some improvements on the northbound offering.

and it's widening it out to, basically you're gonna have a off, right now you have a single lane that comes off the ramp off of 29 Bypass.

You're gonna have two lanes that come off in the future.

One of them is gonna be a choice lane where you can go down the ramp or continue northbound.

And that's cause, that causes like that bottleneck causes significant weaving issues

and backups out onto the interstate right now.

Chuck, sorry if this is like a really basic question, but where the traffic is making a left turn and it intersects with traffic going straight, there's a green line on this slide.

What does that green line indicate?

There is a signal for the interchange.

Basically, you've got a free flow right turn, northbound free flow right, that only stops if the pedestrians actuate the crossing.

The second right turn lane is signalized, and it alternates with the left, the westbound left turn movement and the eastbound movement.

Those three, so it's basically a three phase signal.

And the green line is one of the signal poles.

So we're going to ask the policy board to support having the MPO submit this project for funding through SMART SCALE.

I have one more question.

In the last year or so, the Albemarle County Planning Commission has had a presentation on the sort of, what would we say, 30 year plans for Fontaine Office Park.

It's going to be dramatically different than the way we all see it and think of it today if those plans come to fruition.

There are lots of interesting things being thought about by the university that even involve interior university property circulation from the Ragged Mountain area back through and around to Birdwood and the orthopedic hospital on 250 West.

So there are a lot of interesting transportation and

Major square footage development that's going to happen.

I guess my question for Chuck is, is this going to lend itself to as an easier update to the divergent diamond or some such thing in the future, then what is involved with updating the way it currently is to that now?

The issue currently is how do we find any improvements here unless the university is

willing to step up and assist with the cost we can't really fund anything significant out here because we just it doesn't have enough benefit even with what the university is proposing I'm hoping that we can get this funded with what's happening right now but there's no guarantee that this will even be funded

And this is significantly less costly than what we have proposed before.

At some point, the bridges are going to have to be replaced.

And then at that point, we could really look at redoing the whole interchange again.

But we're not at that point yet.

Yes, well, that and then the

The northbound left firm's ramp F64 currently is an at-grade, unsignalized movement.

And we've had significant crashes there in the last probably five or so years.

And this interchange modification will address that concern.

I guess I have a question.

ramped for eastbound 64 from southbound 29.

No.

That one will be signalized, but it's a lower volume of traffic.

The northbound left turn movement crosses

All the traffic coming out of Charlottesville that wants to go east on 64, they have to go through, they have to cross that lane, those lanes of traffic.

And that's a significantly large amount of volume of traffic coming out of Charlottesville.

And that's why it's an issue.

The other movement is south of the interchange where that left turn is, and that would just be from the,

People coming up from southern Albemarle up 29.

And that's a very low, much less volume of traffic.

I mean, it's actually outside of the development area for the most part.

There is a little bit just south of there where the SIG property is.

OK.

That one will be, yes.

All right, let me ask you this then, why not signalize the

I mean, it's in the neighborhood of like 30,000 vehicles a day make that southbound to eastbound movement from 29 to 64.

And you'd be stopping all that traffic every time somebody wanted to make that left turn.

OK, I understand.

Got it.

Thanks, Lee.

All right.

If I understand it correctly, MPO is looking for us to approve or deny.

Well, it would be a recommendation for the policy board to approve or deny the funding.

Does anyone want to second it?

This is Stuart.

I would just say one thing before.

It's, you know, if we say we should move this forward, is there something else that doesn't get moved forward that should perhaps be considered as a priority over this?

Good question.

I can answer that really quickly.

The SMART SCALE applications have already been submitted.

So now it's just a question of whether or not it is endorsed by the policy board or not.

So everything that is submitted has been submitted at this point.

Okay.

So this is a supplemental low-hanging fruit, if you will, to get funding in hopes.

That made sense to me, so I'll second.

Let's vote then.

Aye.

Aye.

I'm with that.

I'm going to abstain too.

Yeah, so just to clarify, you would need a majority of the folks in attendance to vote in favor in order to

make this recommendation to the policy board.

Looks like the majority said they abstain, four out of seven it seems.

That's exactly right, Tristan.

So basically CTAC will not be making any recommendation to the policy board regarding the Fontaine project.

If you do, as an individual CTAC member, have comments or further questions that you think of later, please feel free to email Lucinda and she can pass those along to the policy board, which meets.

Lucinda, can you remind me when they meet?

It meets at four o'clock on Wednesday, September 23rd.

It's next Wednesday.

Do you want our individual comments right now if we are in support?

If you have detailed comments, please email them to Lucinda.

Just think it'd be a shame to lose funding.

All right.

I think that concludes this part.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

If I could just jump in real quick.

I just wanted to let you know that we are not going to do item number six on the agenda.

So feel free to take your time.

I could feel free, but I'm not.

Thank you.

This is a process of a staff recommended process to the policy board that I think is should hopefully is very near and dear to CTAC with your mission because it really involves community engagement and that's how it came about.

During this current round of SMART SCALE applications,

We received a number of community input recommendations on a couple of projects that were sizable projects that they didn't feel that enough community involvement had taken place during the application process as well as the selection process for the projects.

And so as we gave it some more thought and one of the projects was actually pulled by the Albemarle Board of Supervisors because they agreed with that recommendation and they wanted to see more community involvement for that particular project as well as other similar projects.

And we do have a very good example of a successful public engagement process that we used for hydraulic in 29.

As many of you know, that process was over two years long, received both city and county planning commission approval, elected body approvals, had a

12 member community panel that worked on it for over a year.

They even came back and met several times to come up with an amended plan when the original application did not get funded.

So we've got a really good idea of what we can do.

Of course, as a lot of the topic has been tonight, it also comes back to resources and how much money do we have to put into a public engagement process.

But what we're recommending to the MPO Policy Board and we're working on the draft documents, we will be very, very interested to receive your input both tonight but into the near future because we do have a little bit of time to put this together.

is to create a process that will begin very early on when VDOT scores the SMART SCALE projects like the Fontaine and others that we've been talking about.

Right now, those are scheduled to be approved, not to be approved, but to be scored and submitted to the Commonwealth Transportation Board in January.

VDOT says January.

I always throw February in there just in case because you never know.

But in January or February they should be scored.

We should have a very good idea of which of our projects are funded and which of those will not score well.

As soon after that process, I would like for the MPO staff to begin putting together a list of those projects and begin looking at, do we resubmit them as they are?

Do we look at coming up and breaking the projects down perhaps into smaller segments that could be funded?

Do we revise the projects in some manner?

Or do we just forget about them and say, you know, these just can't be funded right now?

So we would do that, and I do want to say for our Charlottesville and Albemarle representatives, we're only proposing this for the MPO projects.

The four applications that Charlottesville may submit, the four applications that Albemarle County may submit, this would not affect the process that both of the local governments go through.

This is just for MPO projects.

But soon after those scores come out, we would propose working with CTAC, with the technical committee, and with the public to identify, do we want to go back with applications for these projects that didn't score well?

What other projects may be out there that are part of the state's V-trans and they have to be also in a regional transportation plan?

like the long-range transportation plan.

Which of those projects perhaps should move ahead of one of these others that didn't score so well so that sometime in the springtime, and I'm sorry I'm reading off of another screen, so that in the springtime after CTAC

technical committee, the policy board and the general public have reviewed, we will go to the policy board and have them of the four projects that we can submit, have them identify of those which are major projects and which are minor projects.

A major project could be a very high cost project.

It could be a project like hydraulic and 29 that crosses jurisdictional boundaries.

It may have been pretty sizable environmental factors.

It may have environmental justice factors, but they would identify it up to two of the four projects that we would classify as major projects.

The other two would then, two or three, would become what's called minor projects.

And they would follow the same SMART SCALE process that we've always followed, meeting the VDOT guidelines.

The two major projects, we would then ask the MPO Policy Board to appoint an advisory panel.

The advisory panel would work with the local staff, the MPO staff, and VDOT.

And according to the project, may require a consulting firm to come on and help with the transportation modeling.

And very similar to how we did hydraulic in 29, use that advisory panel to help steer the direction of the project, the design of the project, and the community engagement.

Again, just like the hydraulic, every meeting was taped, live streamed, it was open to the public.

So an extensive amount of community engagement occurred.

We would want that for these two projects so that by April, we have identified definitely what projects will be going for SMART SCALE,

The letters of intent can be sent to VDOT and then we can continue the process right up until August when the applications are actually due.

We believe this will really help to get the community involved in projects that have a lot of community

Impact.

And we've never done it this way in the few years that Smart Scale has been around, but I think it'll be a very good beginning.

It would be a first step towards this.

I think in future Smart Scale rounds, we would treat it differently.

One of the downsides to this, and especially in the first year,

is that very likely all that the MPO can do is facilitate this process.

We have resources that we can facilitate and we can provide community engagement.

We don't have resources to hire transportation consultants to do the traffic modeling and design concepts and cost estimating.

So the local governments will likely have to come up with funding for that.

Or we can ask VDOT to help with those resources as well.

But VDOT and Chuck and those have to get it within their budget schedule to do that.

So the earlier we can come up with this, the better.

But in the first round, it's not very likely that we'll be able to go to the local governments for help, because they will have already passed their budgets for FY22 when we'll be beginning this process.

So that's kind of the downside, but I'd rather get this started earlier and keep that in mind when we're selecting any, if any, of those major projects.

I believe it'll be a very big improvement.

I think it would help to solve a lot of the issues that we found with the Route 20 shared use path with Albemarle County.

And it doesn't affect the local governments in the projects that they're going to submit on their own.

So be glad to try to answer questions.

Could you go back and say why again, why you couldn't wait or like why one wouldn't be able to wait until the fiscal year 2023?

Like what like,

The benefits of holding off on beginning this process?

Yes, until... Yeah, I don't think it would be benefits to hold off.

The downside would be that

Charlottesville and Albemarle, they began receiving budget requests actually normally in early October for the July 1st budget, the following July 1st budget.

So we wouldn't be able to request money for a consultant for a transportation project until probably March or April.

and they've already been almost established their entire budget for FY22.

So that's the downside of it in the first year.

I think once we get this rolling, they will be anticipating us coming to them for funding for consulting services.

Hopefully Chuck and those out of Culpeper will be able to help us out and be able to provide those consulting services that will be required.

Okay, so the money that would have been used would

The project wait until fiscal year 2023 would only be used on consultants not on the projects themselves.

This is strictly to help put together as good an application as we can possibly do.

I feel like with that, we may stand a better chance of getting funding for SMART SCALE.

And when SMART SCALE funds a project, it funds it from beginning to end.

So it funds the design, it funds the acquisition of property, it funds the construction.

So it wouldn't affect

money for construction or anything like that.

I would say I guess one of the things I see it as an investment, local governments see it maybe as an expenditure, but if you spend money on a consultant on a project that doesn't get funded by SMART SCALE, some people may argue that that was a waste of money.

I just find it to be an investment into the future projects because most of our projects do not change over the years.

I was just going to note, Chip, going back to when you said the criteria you'd use for minor versus major projects.

I just think it'd be, in addition to the size and scale and cost of the project, make sure to include other factors like public controversy surrounding the project.

Until it was.

I didn't put in there, but you're right.

Coming up with a means just to gauge how controversial, how political.

It could be, as somebody referenced earlier, if one project may be pitted against another project because there's only so much funding, that could be a reason to make something major.

That's going to be one of the toughest parts I think of this is trying to determine which of the four applications to define as major.

I would love to have the resources to treat all four applications equally, but it's just not.

I think Chuck can probably correct me on this, but close to a million dollars was spent on the hydraulic and 29 process.

Now that includes the consulting costs too.

There was a lot more to that.

Yeah, it's pretty expensive.

I think we spent about $1.6 million total and that includes the additional work that we had the consultants do for that project.

But we're running like the Fifth Street study that we're wrapping up now.

That was like $250,000 for that study.

Zion's Crossroads study that I'm working on now is in the same boat.

So it's not cheap.

The thing about it is that includes a lot of the public involvement part of it built in, doing the MetroQuest surveys, in addition to doing all the other stuff.

Chip, this is Tim.

I think that what you're proposing makes a lot of sense.

But the question that I have, again, referencing 20 as the example here, is there a mechanism to get an official jurisdictional involvement in that

public participation process earlier on in what you're proposing.

It seems to me that that's really what the issue was on that case, in that case.

Well, actually, in that one, there was a much earlier vote by the Board of Supervisors.

That vote was part of a set.

Yes.

Well, yeah.

I'm sorry.

I shouldn't have muddled it with that.

And just for those, the way we have done this in the past from the MPO was we really relied on Charlottesville and Albemarle.

We would go to both local governments and say, OK, the MPO has four slots.

What projects would you like for us to consider?

And the city council and the board of supervisors would submit their list of four projects to us.

This past SMART SCALE round, Charlottesville didn't submit any.

And so Albemarle was able to submit four to us to consider.

We would still maintain that we would ask the city council and board of supervisors is much earlier in the process to say, here are the ones we would like you to consider, but we're also going to have our list and we're going to ask the public for their recommendations.

Um, but Tim, I think you're, you're, you're right.

Getting the local government buy in earlier,

And could you remind us all, was that for a bike-ped connection or was it specifically the center bike-ped connection in that original SMART SCALE group?

Wow.

Because I think that makes a big difference in all of this too.

I want to say that it had not, that the center

Median Design was one of many options when it was first approved.

The other, and I'll say I've kind of danced around it too, the other thing that has happened to us, the MPO and the PDC in the past is that

There are local projects that either Albemarle County or the City of Charlottesville have asked us to submit.

And I'm not saying it was orchestrated this way, but just by chance, they happen to be the most controversial of the projects that were being submitted as well.

If nothing else, it'll do that.

Yes, it'll do that.

And nothing we need from you tonight other than if you give this some thought, you know, just look this document over.

The months and the scheduling are really flexible.

We've tried to work things around with most of our transportation bodies meeting every other month.

So that throws a loop into getting things done as quickly as we would like in some places, but we can move things around a lot.

The big things we can't move around are starting as early as possible, being ready with the letter of intent in April, and being ready for the applications in August.

So Chip, for action for this group is to review and then maybe in two months when we meet next, we could provide some kind of recommendation.

We would love that.

And I would just say to whether you're emailing me, Sandy, Jessica, Lucinda, if you have any thoughts, the quicker you can get those, rather than holding on to them for two months, we can start using those toward this.

Well, thank you, Chip.

Anyone have any other questions for Chip before I think we're nearing the end here?

We're past the end of looking at 8.30.

Could we add your guys' contact info to post-memo?

Or is it already there?

Cool.

Great.

All right, Jessica, I think we got through all the topics.

Yeah, I just want to say really quickly, Tristan, thank you for facilitating the meeting today.

You did an excellent job yet again.

And thank you, everyone, for all of your excellent questions and comments.

Yeah, your engagement, everyone.

Thank you very much.

It was very appreciated.

All right, well, everyone, I hope to see you all in two months' time.

Stay safe and good luck.