Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee (2013-2026) Meeting   7/16/2025

That's how it's set up for whatever reason.

But you can stop recording and go back there again.

Mr. Ethan Heil?

Present.

Mr. Peter Thompson.

Present.

We have no one in line.

So we have six people, we only need seven.

But I think you have the majority of the people you're supposed to have.

We're down to 12.

Thank you.

There's no remote members, so move on to matters from the public.

Yes.

Mr. Nathan just joined online.

So I'm just, I'm asking for your permission to make a presentation at some future date.

Do you have a debt in mind or?

No.

What log is the presentation?

Maybe 20 minutes.

No, I don't.

I would say probably in the fall.

Yes.

Or is that?

We don't have an idea of what it is to see if it might fit into an agenda.

And maybe if you want to, do you want to send an email maybe to staff and the chair and the vice chair and sort of discuss some of that for what you're trying to present and the ideas that you'd want?

I don't have your email address.

Okay.

Let's put it that way.

Thank you so much.

All right, all in favor.

Somebody has to have a reason for being in vote.

To state your location and reason for virtual participation.

My reason is that I need to multitask because of a work emergency.

All right, then you can be a voting member.

Thank you.

Does anybody have any comments on the meeting minutes from the last meeting from May 21st?

I don't think we have to do this all over at the next meeting, but the reporting secretary should probably just make those small adjustments if that's okay with everybody.

You know, I don't know how important it is.

and then when the record says, and Lee Kondor voted to say that, well not Lee Kondor, Lee Kondor voted certainly.

Does anyone have a motion about that?

Second.

Yes, I can.

So in case when we get to the fiscal year 26 calendar of meetings discussion at the end, if you want to also decide which meetings would be virtual, you could do that as well today.

That means that we could have three all virtual meetings because we have six a year.

So you can't have one and then the next meeting also be virtual.

All in favor?

Aye.

Yes.

My personal opinion is I think that should be there.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Lee, if you said this and it went through my ears, is that in addition to what's in the bylaws?

Yeah, there are three bullets there now.

I just want to be a fourth.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, let's let everybody have their turn and then we can come back to you.

So I'd be curious how this should, or does, or does not interface with those knowing that they have some of the restrictions, informal or otherwise.

I haven't seen that.

I do.

Yeah, Nathan?

And I just wanted to know if our charge was only for citizens or if it's for people.

Residents, yeah.

I think that speaks more about that.

Oh, I think that's the whole point I was making is change citizens to people because we are serving a whole population that's not just US citizens.

What is the sentence in question?

The last part of A, the phrase broadest range of citizens in the region, I was just suggesting changing it to broadest range of people in the region.

I mean, we are the citizens' transportation advisory.

Well, I think that the membership is all citizens of the region, and so... Can we change our name?

about getting intermodal trails by planes buses.

And I think, Marty, you had another comment to make?

you need to have the drawing more evenly than what's probably being done and sort of the evidence that I was working with people and not here to find people.

Just to say who schedules the, who decides to schedule.

So it can be more often than needed.

I don't think that could also play into the discussion that we had about the role of subcommittees too, and that subcommittees could be more formalized for special purposes.

Yeah.

But again, that is a consideration

The MPO Policy Board also only meets this time of year, so since we are advising them, you know, we're kind of on the same scale.

So I think we have kind of a spectrum of how many times a month the frequency for all of our committees that would really be up to you all, but most of our other NPO committees are just every other month right now.

And the agenda items vary.

Thank you.

Can you tell us more about what you think about operationalizing?

and how we can engage in those and how we can participate and contribute to those engagement events that are being hosted, especially like around the Long Range June.

We even talked about how long we have to be participating, and we found out as the world looks up, that we have somebody listening.

Yeah, something.

I mean, that was pretty time-consuming.

Ethan, I think there's a lot you have very ingrained.

That makes sense.

Yep, policy board, is that what it was that you and I have been meeting?

Advisory.

to speak more broadly about the role that CTAC is playing in addition to joining the dialogue discussion and so to think about how to build those tensions out as a group.

That might be a good thing to visualize, too, rather than us doing things, but hearing, well, people have resources and are staff to get focus groups and things like that on the table to help enlighten us and our special needs.

So that's all you do, and that's what you do.

And that would also help those groups be more aware of all of it.

Sarah, could you pass that over to Henry?

I think.

Is that there will be a conversation

Perhaps at the end of the meeting you can make sure you know what those are.

I don't know if that would have to be, would that be voted on like the proposal or would it just be agreed upon?

Okay.

There seems to be an informal quality to that where we could perhaps ask for volunteers to attend the next meeting or what have you and and that the second bullet

So does anybody want to bring that to a vote?

Vote on the proposed changes first.

I mean, I don't even, I don't personally feel like we need to vote on this, but it is.

I'm happy to do that.

I will share all of the information with the policy board.

They are all about bringing change or bylaws.

Thank you so much.

Is that typically yes?

I'm sorry, what was the question?

But I agree.

No objections from me?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Policy board.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's true, but you started growing.

This one?

Yes.

So good evening, everyone.

I'm the inventor CAT.

Hello, you guys.

Good to see you.

You came down to your building here.

So Bruce, can you say that?

I have an assumption, but I want to talk about the match.

So it's 20% from the city to make that happen.

We've got to have it.

We can't go back and ask for more if the number changes.

And Garland, do you want to say anything about Lot 3?

So that's why we wanted to make sure we included it in our scope.

Any questions while I'm up here?

Absolutely.

Have you been to Dominion site where it shows their grid load?

I was trying to envision where maybe there's nearest

And then it gets down to who's paying for it.

And then in terms of on the other side, the hydrogen, I guess, is readily available.

You want to talk about Champaign, all the trips you've made?

And that's hopefully very beneficial to transfer.

And your perspective, vendors for hydrogen?

And it gets very complicated very quickly right now with two manufacturers, Neuflier and Gillig.

Can you buy hydrogen from the same guys you buy?

The buses are a little more challenging.

Fuel cell or internal combustion?

I think the batteries are maybe 20%, 30% size-wise between the two buses.

West Virginia-based electricity is more emissions intensive than our electricity.

And if we're not tracking it, it's pretty easily.

I think it's okay.

Yes, it was submitted.

I'm really impressed.

As the grid gets cleaner, as the hydrogen production gets cleaner, I think we'll eventually get to that zero emission piece that everybody wants.

Every platform has a different issue, so you have to decide what's the most important.

Part of the concern, and I think I'll let this go, because you could spend all night talking about this kind of stuff, but the battery electric, if we were to go 100% battery electric, and this is the thing that we looked at, is that we don't have the capacity to do that, meaning that we don't have the space, because it's almost like a 1.2, 1.3, 1.6 now.

You can jump out and jump in a new bus maybe at two o'clock in the afternoon or something because the buses won't support the rail.

So the majority of the time you want to keep it at that 50% mark, which means you would change out pretty much halfway through its total hours of the day with a brand new bus.

The buses are a lot more expensive and the infrastructure is hugely more expensive.

And you still may not make it to the whole thing.

It's a requirement of us to track.

In terms of operations, not in terms of dollars, but in terms of turnaround time with the new buses versus the diesel buses.

Operationally, we don't know what it is, but that's why we're doing the pilots.

It might be ahead.

Yeah, so we're here.

That's really important.

The city has made a commitment to zero emissions.

They know where you're staying.

The county's not paying part of that.

Well, we're contributing to CAT.

You ought to contribute operationally but not on capital.

Not on this portion.

We would love for the county to contribute on the capital side.

I'm here to lead and you're restructuring of the schedule.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone.

Well, I just want to share.

It's not here.

Yeah, I mean, it's not here.

It's green.

It's not coming up on us.

Let's try that.

In this graphic, the thicker the line, the higher the trip volume.

Yes, for this graphic area.

We would consider the trip characteristics that we got from streetlight, consider any existing and planned infrastructure like bike lanes and sidewalk, and we would also consider existing and planned park and ride facilities.

It's not too much just biking and walking.

And we have access to that for not just the NPO area, but also for the entire TJPDC jurisdiction as well.

So how do you turn, you know, it's like, does anyone know if you're trying to figure out how to do that?

And is there a reason why you take this route instead of maybe what would be a preferred route for you?

Because that has roughly origin and destination and mode.

I appreciate the program, the platform, and I know that they're collecting a lot of data from that.

We can reach out.

What is the policy board voting on, on August 27th?

To basically say, we agree with how the study is scoped out, proceed to do the work for it.

Did I understand you to say the focus is on Charlottesville or is it not the general area covered beyond Charlottesville?

We didn't think that we didn't want to predetermine the solution to say we need more parking before we let the data kind of tell us that show us that you know we communicated with the policy board if the need is for a parking study we can certainly make it that but they did not say that it was a parking study but we would definitely be looking at the travel within the MPO region so Charlottesville, Urbanized, Albemarle and then also since we have access to some other data we can see the trips that are coming from other jurisdictions as well

I'm just trying to get you to clarify.

So Charlottesville and the urbanized portions of Albemarle.

I wish I had a map.

I'll show you.

We have boundaries.

You're a veteran.

You should definitely recommend talking with the low-income housing groups with PRHA and FAR, VHA, and make sure that there's a lot of engagement in those communities that I think they would be most effective.

And so that's what I would

We should go to some of the independent living homes where people still have access to cars and ask them what they're doing, how they're using their transportation.

I was also thinking going to like PTOs and schools in the urbanized areas because so much it's like dropping your kids off at school and everything and how to reduce that traffic.

But those types of algorithms, just to me, it would be really familiar to me.

And then they have all the back-to-school bashes, like enabling us to reach families too.

I mean, PPC, C3, a lot of those groups should be considered getting a voice because there are also a lot of those groups that are hearing from, because they're C3, particularly doing that outreach to underserved communities and hearing what the barriers are and what people are dreaming of for our future.

Awesome.

I appropriate a lot of those people.

I'd be happy to.

Thank you all.

All right, and then Taylor, I think you were going to talk about the unified planning work program updates.

And that additional money was just added to the same work tasks, the percentages that were broken up and shown to you previously.

And then, Gorjan, you were going to talk about the final plan for the patients.

So, we're eagerly awaiting a decision by Fishdellia, which we don't know when that's going to be, but keep you posted.

What was the funding for that?

So more of the funding is going to be allocated towards that part rather than planning, if it is so.

like your scope of work is ending soon but is that going to be part of the scope of work to continue to apply for funding under this or is that left to the jurisdiction?

Yeah, so that's left to the jurisdictions but TJPDC can certainly help all of the jurisdictions with application and grant management in the future.

And then Sarah, I think you're going to talk about the policy board activities.

So the policy board will be taking action on that one at the next meeting.

They're going to vote for a bit.

And so what you'll see on here for whatever the next meeting is, will be staff's best guess at the time for what's going to be on those agendas.

Was there any like action that we needed to discuss about the travel demand model update?

And it's really a technical data kind of piece rather than going out to the public and asking the public about it.

Thank you so much.

So this item is to basically decide on the meeting dates and times for this fiscal year.

But it can be the fourth.

It would always be two weeks until the tech committee and then two weeks after that until the policy.

OK.

I think, yeah, I think even closer to the other makes a lot of sense.

Quickly in November, that's the night before Thanksgiving, so I can't imagine that's going to work for me.

For our other committees, we've been kind of putting the dates in front of them, and then folks can move around as necessary, or.

OK.

We can also consider which ones will be virtual.

January.

Because nobody wants to come in the dark.

I would be happy to do, I guess we could do November or January, March.

So yeah, if you do January, you can't do March or November.

I'm happy with your suggestion.

Yeah, you are next in all sense to me, but that's fine.

OK, that sounds good.

And so for my notes, sorry, what was the one that we landed on?

January.

January is a virtual meeting.

me, easy for folks who are traveling maybe, like this late, it's already cast by the July one, but this one would have been great for me to do virtually, you know?

I guess.

July seems to be the time when most vacations can vary if we're going to pick a month.

Yeah, you can have three, so.

And then we could do another one, but I don't know that we need to.

I thought you said July, December, and January.

It was just January and January.

I thought you said December.

That's right.

November would have been the month.

Does the time still work for everyone?

I want to get out of here.

Yes.

Okay.

We'll get those calendar invites.

Any VDOT updates?

with the various localities across the district.

Yes.

And we're going to send out public outreach material and try to communicate and I know we'll be copying the MPO and they're going to be sending out notifications too for you all, as well as the other committees.

So if everybody wants to go around and say something, that would be very fun for me.

focused more on public transportation, but it seems like we've been in one of the most disruptive and transformative period of public transportation in Charlottesville's, I don't know, recent history at least, and we've had no, you know, that body has not met through that whole period of time, which is, I think, unfortunate.

Yeah, there's been a lot going on.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Mary.

Marty?

Nothing, we're just thinking for a second.

So I just think that's a, I don't know whether that's a VDOT and I think that I hear other complaints around the area, whether the MPO or whether they really take a hard look at the traffic flows, even though I said that was not my focus, but I do think there's gotta be something a little bit better than what we're seeing right now.

I don't think anybody, nobody's pushing the point from above.

A lot of times, it's about brightening your groundwork.

On top of that, it was election two years ago.

And it was impressive because to your point of sitting there for five years

One more.

Nathan has anything that you would like to add?

I've been listening mostly and just taking some notes to share back to the Planning Commission.

How do I answer?

I understand that.

old giant food side, I can't get my direction.

That's the real question that I must get at least once a week or so.

It's being built, but see how much it gets used.

Okay, peace.

Thank you so much for coming, everyone.

So the success.

Okay, well, thank you very much.