MPO Policy Board Meeting   7/28/2021

this process early.

Hold on, let me accept that, okay.

So I love how methodical it's all been to date.

There's been lots of public discussion and designing with a pencil.

The plans on record at both the regional and local level, they all address the vaccine boundary issue, boundary conditions where the city and the county meet.

I'm talking about those all the time.

and they'll all really, really improve how the community moves around.

And the MPO is the appropriate body to administer each of the recommended projects.

All of the projects would also benefit from the multiple ways that the TWA PDC can help with their expertise and knowledge and convening skills.

PC strongly endorses the Ragana River pedestrian bridge.

I've spoken many times about connecting the city, the county, multiple neighborhoods, at least two, if not three, of our top 10 private employers, enormous health and wellness benefits, and it'll be a keystone to a system of riverside greenways that'll be more than 10 miles long.

It will be a game changer for the community.

PC, Sentara, Maricopa,

Willow Tree and many others are ready to assist in the community conversations to refine that project prior to submission and thereafter.

Lots of good momentum and lots of people ready to help and have good conversations.

Avon and Fifth Street are also crucial connections and could significantly change the way people move around the community as well.

I've heard a lot about those areas and

If you look at my one community map, there's sort of a ring of fire of frustration that follows the city county lines.

So you're really smart to be zeroing on these areas.

My only tiny, tiny dissent with the staff recommendation would be this.

And this is someone who follows the city hall proceedings very closely, as well as the board of supervisors.

And that is to say that the 5th Street corridor project is going to be very, very well received.

But I do think there are actually a lot of strong opinions about what ought to happen with the 5th and Harris intersection.

So if you're looking for a second project besides the Raivana Bridge to have this increased public engagement you've talked about, 5th Street might be a good candidate for that.

That's all.

Just a tiny comment.

Thank you.

Mr. Condor's hand is up.

Hello.

I sent you all an email with some additional information about the US 29 hydraulic road flyover proposal I provided.

And there are a couple of points of that information that I would like to emphasize.

The first choice of the hydraulic planning advisory panel to improve traffic flow on US 29

in the hydraulic road vicinity was to grade separate the intersections of US 29 with hydraulic and Angus roads.

The design proposed, however, came with a cost well over $100 million, which was too expensive to be granted funding.

Rather than seek a more cost-effective design for a flyover solution, however, that concept was abandoned and the hydraulic planning advisory panel was presented with the at-grade solution submitted for round four

SmartScale funding, and the associated follow-on extension, follow-on projects of a roundabout at the intersection of Hydraulic Road and District Avenue, and the eventual extension of Hydraulic Drive, Hillsdale Drive to US 250, with a combined cost of approximately $60 million and a negligible reduction of traffic congestion on US 29.

Just because VDOT did not come up with a cost-effective

Flyover design doesn't mean that no such design exists.

And that, in fact, is exactly what I have provided you, a flyover design that costs $50 million instead of $120 million.

Finally, the design I'm proposing not only solves the traffic congestion problems on US 29 in the vicinity of Hydraulic Road, but by greatly reducing traffic volume on the at-grade portion of the roadway, it allows for grade level pedestrian crosswalks

at the US 29 hydraulic road intersection.

Consequently, I ask that you accept the US 29 hydraulic road flyover proposal I provided as one of the two perspective round five smart scale proposals to receive further analysis and public engagement.

All right, then I will

So the first item under general administration is just that I apologize for any confusion you all experienced.

We were anticipating that we would be returning to in-person meetings starting this month upon further review of the local ordinances that were adopted by the city of Charlottesville, which

is where the TJPDC offices are housed.

We realized that because Charlottesville is under a local state of emergency, we would continue to be able to host remote meetings as long as that is in effect.

So once Charlottesville lifts their local state of emergency, at that point, we would need to make arrangements to return to in-person meetings tentatively.

Are there any questions from the board?

Moving on to review and acceptance of the agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

All those opposed?

Thank you so much.

And Mr. Payne, if I may, before going on to the approving of the minutes, I apologize for interrupting, but can I take a very quick minute to introduce Ian Baxter?

He's a new planner here at the TJPDC.

I know you can see it says his name in TJPDC, but he is going to be mostly working on our housing programs here, but we'll also be supporting some of the projects within the UPWP and through the MPO.

So I just want to do all to know his name with his face before we moved on through the agenda.

Welcome.

and approval of the June 23rd, 2021 meeting minutes.

Moved approval.

I'll second it.

Whatever.

Okay.

So seconded by Councilor Snook.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed?

Motion passes.

Sandy, do you want me to give the update first and then we'll have the hearing?

Yes, go ahead.

So MPOs are required to have a public participation plan.

And last year, if you probably remember, we updated our public participation plan.

But we got some substantial changes requested by MPO committees and the public during that update.

So we went ahead in fiscal year 2021 and revamped the entire thing.

We looked at other MPOs, public participation plans, and really kind of mixed all of those together, but changed the formatting, added some goals and objectives to the plan and made it more meaty.

The CTAC was involved with giving us feedback on it, and it's been open for public comment since April.

So I just wanted to share the plan with you, and then I'm hoping that you will adopt it this evening.

Is there any substantive difference between the two versions that you sent out?

One has five paragraphs, the other has four.

I think, Mr. Councilman Snug, I think you're actually talking about the remote meeting policy.

So yeah, there were very kind of big changes to the public participation plan.

We changed the name to the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO engagement plan.

I think with the last plan from the public comments that we received, there was some confusion about what this plan was for.

and the engagement plan outlines the process and activities that the MPO uses to create opportunities for effective participation, communication and consultation with all parties interested in the development, adoption and amendment of its transportation plans and projects.

So we wanted to make that really clear of what the purpose of the plan was.

And then, as I said, we added the goals and objectives section

and we added a table that kind of shows like each of the MPO documents that we have like the long range transportation plan and the TIP and how the public can be engaged with each one of those.

We also had substantial descriptions of each of the MPOs

Are there any further questions?

If not, I will open the public hearing.

Anyone from the public would like to speak on this agenda item, you can raise your hand in the Zoom webinar and speak for up to three minutes.

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing.

Is there a motion to approve the public participation plan?

I will make a motion, but I also want the main takeaway that I have, and I want to make sure it's correct, is that you have formally stated that you're going to be making sort of broad brush invitations for people to comment on various projects as you go along.

And I think that's a really great step forward.

Any further discussion?

Supervisor Malek?

Yes.

Ms. Londrey?

Yes.

That passes.

Yes, so we'll see if I can preempt Councilman Snook's question here shortly.

What is happening right now is that we are currently meeting remotely due to the state of emergency, but the state legislature has also enabled local governing bodies to continue to allow remote participation in certain circumstances that we can adopt

to apply outside of the state of emergency once we return to having in person meetings.

So that's the remote meeting policy that we're discussing today.

I'm going to go ahead and share my screen real briefly.

And one of the advantages that you all have is that we have discussed this policy at quite a few committee meetings right now.

And so

Based on those discussions, there were some questions that came up that we were able to clarify for you all.

So that's why there's a revised version that I'm going to go through.

Basically, once we return to meeting in person, you all would have the opportunity to participate remotely in certain circumstances.

that would allow you to continue to be able to speak to the meeting.

So one of the questions that came up was regarding how much specific information had to be shared regarding the reasons that you were participating remotely and that kind of thing.

So those were really the major changes was trying to clarify that language.

For remote participation to be an option for any of the members, and this includes non-voting members as well, is there has to be an in-person quorum that is present at the meeting location.

And the circumstances that you would be able to participate remotely include that you have a personal matter and then you would need to identify with specificity the type of personal matter.

So that would be something like

You had a flat tire on the way to the meeting or something along those lines.

Or if you have a medical condition or disability or somebody in your family that you're taking care of has an illness or disability that prevents you from being able to participate, that would be allowable.

Or if you are, if your principal residence is more than 60 miles from a meeting location, so if we ever meet offsite and you travel for

that meeting is more than 60 miles away.

That would also be an opportunity for you to participate remotely.

If you would like to take advantage of an option to participate remotely, you would need to let the chairman of the committee or the policy board in this case know ahead of time, either the day before, if you know before or the day of earlier in the day, you can do that through staff.

We can certainly facilitate that process.

and then the members that are present in person that consists of the quorum would vote whether to approve your participation remotely.

So if you adopt this policy, basically the only real limitation, this was on the items that we had to clarify, is that if you are using that personal matter exception to participate remotely, you would be limited to using that twice per calendar year.

based on the number of meetings we have in a calendar year.

The rest, we originally thought that too applied across the board for any of those remote participation opportunities, but going back and looking at the state code, it appears that that only relates to the personal matter.

So really what we're just asking you all to do is if you would like to have this opportunity to be able to participate remotely, we're just presenting this policy for your consideration.

That is an expectation.

I know it continues to be a topic of conversation to continue to explore how expansive this type of policy could be.

Yep.

I mean I'm not opposed to the policy, it seems to be a little bit more expansive than what existed prior, knowing in the past what, how you could, there were ways to participate by telephone and electronically, it was probably more by telephone before.

This has a few more exceptions in there to allow the participation than what previously existed.

Just, you know, the point is is that I think we've learned over the last 18 months that obviously public participation I think has increased but for those people who

Perhaps are in elected office and can participate in these things.

It's made it easier for them to, especially if they have full-time jobs.

So it's something that when people consider running for elected office, they have to consider if their schedule allows them to meet the demands of the role and electronic participation makes those demands a little easier, which could allow more people to participate.

It also makes it possible for us to have back to back meetings, which I have on a number of days this week alone.

All right.

I have an email out to Mr. Blunt.

Any further discussion?

Let's do a roll call vote.

Supervisor Mallek?

Yes.

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and pull up.

I'm going to share.

All right.

All right.

So, there we go.

So just as a reminder, we've been working through the smart scale process to identify the projects to be able to prepare and develop some public engagement opportunities early on in the application development and make sure that those are informing the applications that are developed.

So as you'll recall, in our last meeting, we reviewed the

complete list of projects that were going to be presented to you for consideration.

Um, excuse me, Sandy, I think you're in preview mode.

I think it's sharing my wrong screen.

No, thank you.

You would think that we would have the technology down at this point.

Is that better?

Yes.

Yes.

Great.

All right.

So again, tonight we're just asking you to select the actual projects that we would move forward and develop into the applications.

So just as a reminder that when the staff, which included the MPO staff as well as the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County staff and VDOT, when we started meeting to really identify the opportunities for projects to move forward, we identified the goals that we used to

create the slate of projects that we wanted you all to consider.

So our goals were to submit projects for smart scale applications that would be competitive based on that cost benefit evaluation that occurs during smart scale, that have been vetted through a public process, that have demonstrated public support already, and that we're continuing to move projects forward through the pipeline that starts with our existing plans and studies.

So that's where the slate of staff generated projects came from.

You'll recall that the projects that we identified by staff are shown with the red arrows and then this US 29250 flyover that's shown in blue was added later at the suggestion of a CTAC member.

So the projects that staff started with were these two projects that are the last two remaining projects from the MPO area that are in our prioritized list of projects in the long range transportation plan.

So starting out with the District Avenue roundabout and the Hillsdale Avenue extension, which were part of that hydraulic small area planning process.

And then we had also identified these other three projects, which had just recently been

then studied in further detail.

That included the Ravana River bike and pedestrian crossing, looking at the Avon Street corridor to identify some multimodal improvement opportunities, and also looking at moving some of the projects forward from the 5th Street corridor study that was recently completed.

And then the US-29-250 flyover again was later suggested by CTAG.

So we included that on the list for you all to consider as well.

I'm just going to briefly go through each of these projects in a little bit more detail.

Just to give you an idea.

So again, we wanted to really identify those criteria that we talked about of being used to evaluate it.

The District Avenue Roundabout Project was developed as part of the Hydraulic Small Area Plan.

At that point, when it was added to the LRTP, the Long Range Transportation Plan, in 2019,

It was estimated at $8.4 million.

So the actual costs that would be submitted for a smart scale application is going to be more than that because this was developed a couple of years ago.

We have to factor in things like contingencies and inflation, those kinds of things, but that's an estimate that we can at least use as a gauge.

Again, it was recommended through the small area plan.

And because there has been some engagement at this point, staff recommended that we maybe did not need a lot of engagement moving forward.

However, when we talked about this project with the MPO technical committee,

One of the members pointed out that the project likely would involve the loss of a duplex as part of the development of this project.

And so if it moves forward, they recommended that there probably should at least be a greater level of outreach to reach out to the people that would be affected by the loss of that duplex.

The second project we talked about again is the other project that

is left on the long range transportation plan of one of the prioritized projects.

And that's the Hillsdale Avenue extension.

So this is extending Hillsdale Avenue so that there's a connection all the way from hydraulic down to 250.

And then part of that project would also close these ramps between 250 and 29 and redirect those traffic movements to the local street network.

This was submitted in round four of SmartScale for the estimated project cost at that point was $34.3 million.

The challenge with this one is although there's a lot of support for it and it meets the other criteria, is that that $34 million price tag makes it unlikely to score competitively.

So for that reason staff felt like there were other projects that would probably be more competitive and smart scale and the suggestion was maybe not to prioritize this project at this point let the MPO identify other projects that they may want to see moving forward that were likely to be more successful but that if there's an opportunity as we get closer to that application deadline

that perhaps we use one of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission's application slots to submit it at that point if we just happen to have that opportunity and see what happens.

The next project that we've been discussing is the Ravana River Bike and Pedestrian Crossing.

So we completed a feasibility study last year that looked at some potential configurations and did some high-level cost analysis.

And those cost estimates came back at between $11 and $15 million, depending on the configuration that you use.

Again, those costs are likely to

to inflate more as we move forward just based on adding additional contingencies and inflation costs as well as better finalizing the construction details for what would be applied for.

This is recommended in several of our planning documents, including the Long Range Transportation Plan as a vision project in the Jefferson Area Bike and Pedestrian Plan, as well as in the Pantops Small Area Master Plan for Albemarle County.

The two configurations that were shown in red here were what was developed out of the feasibility study that was developed through VDOT consultants.

And then this configuration in blue is an additional configuration that was suggested by a CTAC member.

So if the policy board would like to move this project forward, this is the project that Stafford Green needed quite a deal of additional support and engagement to move forward.

both because there is some concern that the cost estimate is going to be a little bit too high for the project to be competitive.

So staff suggested first and foremost, we focus on determining if there are any opportunities to reduce that cost before submitting an application and then following that up with some additional public and stakeholder engagement.

So this would be one of the projects that staff would recommend is that higher level of involvement moving forward.

We've also been looking at the Avon Street multi-modal improvements, which have been identified as a priority for the City of Charlottesville as well as Albemarle County.

We did hear from Albemarle County staff that Albemarle County is planning to submit some revenue sharing applications for some of the projects that were identified down on the southern end of this corridor.

We started out looking at the entire rectangle in red, and after having some conversations with the local government staff, there's really this consensus that the greatest need is really between Jewett Avenue and the city, making some extensions of the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure south into Albemarle County.

There's a bike lane at Jared Avenue that drops off at that point.

So the idea would be to continue to find an opportunity to pick that bike infrastructure back up and eventually transition on road improvements to a shared use path going into Albemarle.

The staff really thought that ideally this infrastructure, this project would go down to the 5th Street Station intersection down here, but there is concern about the overall cost of the project.

So we can evaluate whether there's an opportunity to continue it that far south.

And then we're looking at the 5th Street multimodal improvements, which Mr. Krebs mentioned earlier today.

Again, we started looking at this entire corridor thinking that there could be an opportunity to develop multiple projects, but there was pretty strong staff consensus that the priority was really going to be looking at the intersections improvements at the 5th Street Station Parkway, and then extending the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure through

on street bike lanes as well as an off street sidewalk going north towards Harris Road.

This would connect the proposed infrastructure to the 5th Street Bike and Hubs Trail project that was approved during this last round of 5th Street, or excuse me, this last round of SmartScale.

And so it would help continue to develop a continuous bicycle and pedestrian network.

And again, this has been the subject of a recent corridor study and so staff felt that while we want to make sure that we do continue to engage the stakeholders that have been engaged in the development of these corridors so far, that this did not necessarily need a lot of additional engagement.

We mostly just wanted to be able to inform those who have already been involved that this project is moving forward and continue to get feedback as we move through the process.

So that brings us to the U.S. 29-250 flyover project, which was suggested by a CTAC member.

So basically this is a grade separated ramp that starts over here on 250.

west of the intersection with 29.

So this would be the entrance and exit point onto 250.

And then once a car gets onto this ramp, they would basically stay on this ramp going above the 29 intersection.

And then they would either enter or exit at this point, depending on which way they were going.

Up here, north on 29 near Seminole Court.

The estimate was prepared by the CTAC member as well for $50 million.

And this was not recommended to move forward for SmartScale.

First of all, it's not recommended in any of our public processes or planning efforts.

It's not documented in any of our adopted plans.

And also because of the cost, it's not likely to score competitively with SmartScale.

What this did open up the conversation about though is that basically the projects that were developed as part of the hydraulic 29 solution small area plan are really looking at circulating traffic through the local area.

Whereas this type of project is really looking at moving traffic that doesn't necessarily need to circulate through the hydraulic area that needs to pass through that area

to continue on to 29 or 250.

So if there is interest in studying that kind of traffic movement, it really makes sense that we would need to go back and do a much more robust study and start a lot, you know, go a lot farther back and start at the beginning where we assess the concerns and develop a comprehensive approach to identify what the best solutions could be, which might include a design such as this flyover.

So this last slide just shows the recommendation.

Again, these were the recommendations that were developed by staff.

So what they are recommending again is that the four projects that the policy board

that they think the policy board should move forward, which were echoed by the MPO technical committee, should include the District Avenue roundabout, the Ravenna River bike crossing, the project identified for Avon Street and the project identified on 5th Street to move forward, and then understanding that

They would like to see they're recommending additional engagement for the Ravana River by cut crossing, as well as some, maybe not a high level of engagement, but some additional outreach efforts for District Avenue, understanding that we are going to do a level of engagement for all of the projects regardless.

Any questions from the board for staff?

Thank you.

So I was not the resident supervisor during the hydraulic process.

But I do not remember really thorough engineering being done on any alternative except the one that everybody wanted that we can't have, which was the good one, the one with all the parts.

And

I will feel pretty foolish if we go ahead and do something halfway only to find out that in the end we're going to have to go back and do all the rest of it and tear out some of the first stuff we put in.

So I don't know whether Chuck or somebody else can address if sufficient looking has been done to this new project to make sure to be able to advise the non-engineers such as myself about this.

I don't want to look away unless we've really, somebody with the knowledge has looked at it.

Supervisor Mallek, just to confirm, you're asking if there's been any review or assessment of the flyover that was proposed.

Yes.

Has there been sufficient look by engineers to answer one way or the other if it should deserve further investigation?

Because I know that quite a lot went into the original print plan that we're now not going to be able to do.

Yeah, I can go ahead and try to give her.

We did consider this, but for two reasons.

There wasn't a lot of public support for flyover type of option.

And I know it's been presented several times through various studies in the past without a lot of support from the jurisdictions as well as the public.

We didn't spend a lot more time looking at it beyond that.

It is a viable option that could be added to the corridor in the future if the locality wants to pursue it.

So it's not something that the current projects will prohibit.

It will actually probably enhance it like Mr. Condor said at the beginning.

But it's just a matter of

going that extra effort to study it if it's needed, if we think it's needed at some point in time in the future.

And that's normally we go through some sort of alternative analysis and look at different alternatives to see if it would work.

And this just hasn't been through that process yet to see if this is the best option for that location.

And that could be something that we could do as part of the long-range plan update, which we're going to be having to do starting next spring.

All right.

To sort of follow on to that, again, like Supervisor Mallek, I was not part of this process some years ago.

I mean, I actually, the first time I looked at this was probably 35 years ago when I was on the Planning Commission in Charlottesville, but I assume that the state of knowledge has advanced somewhat since that time.

I am concerned, number one, that obviously there's a lot of information that somebody has that I don't have.

And that always makes me uncomfortable, particularly if you're asking for a commitment to $34 million or $50 million or not solving a problem at all.

I'd like to have more information on that.

If that's going to be coming when some further evaluation is done next spring, did I understand that?

that there's going to be more development along this area.

If that's what's going to happen, that's fine.

But I really think this is the biggest problem that I know of for our traffic in this area.

If you draw a one mile radius around the center of this,

Yeah.

So first of all, I definitely sympathize with not being part of the process of developing the recommendations I'm making forward.

I think that's one of the challenges when we go through the planning studies that our opportunities to actually receive funding for them are limited.

So it does take a long time for these to come on board.

So I think at some level you know we're all kind of trusting the process to work but there are those who have been involved with this early on that are on the call like Chuck, Jeanette, I don't see Kevin as well but they were involved with this process all along and are still informing me.

The challenge that we're facing though is that

A lot of the projects that would really resolve the issues that we're talking about are not projects that there's an available funding stream that we can realistically access right now.

So that could change in the future, but right now we're trying to find the opportunities to make the incremental differences that we can, not just to improve

congestion and capacity and level of service, but also to improve safety.

That's one of the things that these last rounds of projects have really focused on is reducing conflicts between vehicles at key intersections and getting additional pedestrian facilities in place and those kinds of things to make sure that while the level of service improvements may not be what we really are hoping for,

We are making meaningful improvements to the safety of those who need to access the corridor both from the traffic and pedestrian standpoint.

There was some analysis.

I do have the matrix that was used to evaluate the options when we were preparing the last round.

And so if it would be helpful, I'd be happy to pull those up.

If you all think it would be a helpful part of the discussion.

But the other thing I want to go back to emphasize is that the projects like the flyover projects, again, are solving a different type of problem for the area.

So there's these local circulations.

There are people who need to get around the area.

They need to cross the road.

They need to get from the Fashion Square Mall area to the Stonefield Shopping Center areas, those kinds of things.

These are the kinds of projects that will support those local traffic movements.

And then the other set of problems that are being addressed by projects such as the flyover are the through traffic, are the people who aren't stopping in the area that need to go through the area.

So that's probably something we could go back and

and look at to develop some options.

But in case it's helpful, I'm just going to go ahead and share that matrix.

Sandy, while you're pulling that up, and Chuck, while you have a second to absorb this slide, since we're pulling it up without having put it in front of you beforehand, it might be helpful to hear

You know, if this flyover is something that folks want more engineering studies on, want to get a better idea of the costs and what the feasibility and all that is, and if that is something that we want to spend the time going back to, because it's been several years, even though it's come up several times over time, can one of you speak to the process of how that could occur moving forward?

So perhaps it's not ready right now for this round of smart scale,

But if we wanted to keep it as an option moving forward, what would that process be and how could people engage in that process?

You can do this first.

If it's helpful, I didn't mean to jump in.

The long-range planning process is what we're going to basically be kicking off in the spring at the MPO.

And in that process, we're going to be identifying, looking at the

the needs in the region and identifying solutions to those needs.

And that's going to be the place where we need to look at this as possibly an option to address a regional concern of traffic flowing through the area.

Just like the solutions 29 corridor study did where it looked at the corridor and came up with some solutions for

some of the problems on the corridor, but not necessarily all of them.

So we'll probably have to come back and look at some other alternatives for the other locations that weren't necessarily addressed.

And this could possibly be one of those.

As part of that long range plan update, we'll go through the process of identifying those needs, prioritizing them, and then coming up with recommendations for those locations.

And that would generally be the process that we would start

to address this issue for the flyover.

Hopefully that addresses your question.

Beyond that, we would have to do some sort of study, a follow-up study after that was adopted into the long-range plan to do some further analysis and develop, refine those concepts and then

developed cost estimates for submitting in a later round of SmartScale.

Hopefully that addresses the question.

Regarding the spreadsheet, this was the matrix that we came up and we had looked at the last round of applications for the Hydraulic 29.

And we compared the various items going across.

The biggest thing about the, like John Coler said in the beginning,

It does take traffic off of 29, but it doesn't necessarily do a lot of the other improvements to get people across 29.

So those would still have to be evaluated and added to the solution.

So what we actually are doing out there will provide some of those solutions.

And then if you want to do some sort of grade separated flyover later, it would

reduce the traffic and make those movements more efficient.

The spreadsheet matrix that we're looking at here, it just provides the different options that we looked at and compare those different options over the different criteria that we use to score them based on the evaluation process that we had agreed to early on in the process.

But as you can see, the ones that are circled in black are the ones that we ended up

submitting for the SmartScale application and are funded for this past round of SmartScale.

So those are the ones we will be moving forward with.

But the biggest thing was trying to come up with at-grade solutions that provide pedestrian accommodations as well as some relief of congestion on the corridor and reduce the number of, like Sandy said, reduce the number of conflict points thereby

improving the safety of the traffic that uses those intersections.

Could I ask just as a general matter, and I'm not asking for specific, you know, specific things, a vague recollection would be fine at this point, roughly how much of the traffic

through that area is through traffic as opposed to local traffic, the north-south stuff.

When we looked at this as part of the 29 solutions, there's about a 50-50 split at the intersection between what goes into the city and what goes south on the 29-250 bypass.

somewhere around 25,000 is the volume that goes in and out of the city versus the volume that uses the bypass.

But they may not necessarily be going to points outside of the region.

They could be just going around to Barracks Road or going around to Ivy Road or to Fontaine.

It's just a matter of where the traffic's to and from.

I think that the traffic that's coming from

Upwards northern part and going southern part, that's probably closer to 20 to 25% at the most.

I think that's what we looked at when we came up with those numbers before for the 29 solutions process.

Uh, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 22,000, probably.

I was just, um, I wanted to actually switch.

areas of study for one second and just bring to everybody's attention that the Avon Street Extension, the Avon study that you're contemplating, or the improvements for Avon Street Extended, there will be, hopefully in September, bi-directional transit service that goes to Fifth Street Station, but also goes and connects to high school.

And there has also been a request for

transit to make sure we have access to the regional jail.

So pedestrian improvements there.

It's not going to be a problem for us to drop people off in front of the regional jail, but they're getting home, they're going to have to cross the street.

So potentially looking at, you know, some improvements to safety improvements for pedestrians to cross the street to catch the cat bus.

It's going to be, you know, at some point in time, we're going to need to revisit that to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep them safe.

So I just want to put that on.

So if we're, if it's possible to look at the multimodal improvements, if we can kind of look at it as like the phase one and phase two, I believe that the area that you selected is totally appropriate at this point, whether phase two would be from that extension, probably at least connecting the jail for head improvements in the kind of the long range plan.

Mr.

Well, OK.

The only other question I had was $15 million for a pedestrian bridge from apparently from nowhere to nowhere.

I'm not going to be able to explain the cost estimate, but it is a bridge connection that comes up very often in a lot of the discussions looking at the area plans because it makes the connection across the Ravana River between basically the Pantops area and the Woolen Mills area and there's not a great access point other than, you know,

mingling with the free bridge traffic on a very busy, noisy road.

Can you can you speak to the I know Jeanette's on as well.

And Jeanette, if you if you want to pipe in, you're welcome to.

Yeah, I can a little bit.

I mean, we showed the estimate includes the trail that runs from the end of the bridges

all the way up to South Pantops between State Farm and there's an apartment complex that's underway.

So it would basically head to the lower part of the screen and that's State Farm on the right side.

And it's going to go around State Farm and come all the way up to South Pantops.

So that's included in the cost estimate in addition to the

bridges themselves.

This one bridge was one kind of design, the other bridge was a different kind of design.

Part of the...

When we did the feasibility study was to provide some options for types of bridges that you might wanna consider.

The option for the $15 million bridge was the cable stay bridge, which is a more expensive type of bridge.

So we could go with a less expensive bridge and bring the cost down.

There was a

Project that was just awarded up in Northern Virginia, just to give you an idea, it didn't go across the river, but it went across 495, the beltway, and it was in the neighborhood of $9 million.

So I think we can come up with something that's going to be less expensive, but like I said, it includes a long section of trail, too.

And that's part of what we'll do when we do this additional study.

is we'll look at what type of bridges you want to see in this area because there are a lot of historic things in this area that we might want to make sure we get some blend in with type of facility instead of just a normal truss bridge or something like that.

So those are some of the things we want to probably consider when we're looking at this further.

But we will look at that and we will come up with some cost estimates based on

Yeah, I'll just stay there on that.

I'm sorry, Chuck.

It goes sort of southwards around State Farm and goes between State Farm and there's adjacent development.

I don't remember the name of it.

It's apartment complex that's been approved and it's under construction.

But it's going to go up the area between those two all the way to a trailhead at South Pantops.

And it's going to be built to ADA standards all the way.

So we're going to look at

Got it.

I mean, that particular, I also had, I appreciate Councilman Snook asking that question because it was a similar question I had about the expense.

So is there a way to get

You said there's different types of bridges.

I'm not a bridge person and saying the names of them is not going to help me.

We have some options that we have options that were included with the study.

And I know that we had some options that were included in the bike ped bridge that we had across 29 as part of the hydraulic 29.

So we have some photos of different types of bridges that we could

consider for this crossing.

But I mean, part of it is going to be, OK, we've got a bunch of different options.

What does the group of the localities and the public want to see out there as this preferred solution?

Right.

I mean, the access for the folks coming from the Pan Tops area to be able to have access other than by driving a car,

is something that we've heard quite a bit from.

But that's, you know, there's a lot of work to be done on Pan Tops to help make that happen, to even get to this point.

But other things are falling into place for that.

And Chuck, you might be able to help me with this.

The Hillsdale roundabout, I mean, I remember the, you know, we talked about the incremental improvements.

Can you just review what the upsides separate from the other elements were?

So just looking at that Hillsdale Drive roundabout project itself, the positives of that for the localized piece that you were talking about.

The flyover or the grade separated interchange solves the through issue.

But what does that help us do again, that roundabout?

And then there was also mentioned that the lookout, that there was a loss of something.

Sorry.

Yeah, you're referring to the District Avenue roundabout, I think.

It's a duplex.

There's some duplexes right here.

Duplexes?

You said duplex.

I was like, I could have sworn you said jukebox.

Well, that might not be too much of a loss.

I didn't know there was one out there.

All right.

But if you could, you know, this with the pedestrian or with the, not the pedestrian, with the crossing that would go over 29 helps navigate people from this section through and then stops, obviously keeps traffic moving versus stopping, which then carries over into the hydraulic 29 intersection.

This was one of the options when we were doing the grate separation.

This was one of the options that we were looking at.

Sorry, my dogs are barking in the background.

To try to accommodate the U-turn movement at the hydraulic intersection.

It will still provide that alternative

because we are looking at to eliminate those left turns.

So you could go through the roundabout, come back and make the right turn to go southbound on 29 from the east side of Hydraulics or east side of Hydraulics in the east.

The other thing is it provides better accommodation for the traffic at this intersection.

I know this is the main quadrant roadway that runs through the stone field development and comes out at 29.

So it will address that traffic.

The downside to it is it does, it's gonna impact some of those properties in the city.

And that's why I think we need to spend a little bit more time with public outreach so that we're gonna have to make sure that we coordinate that with those folks.

The other thing is the corner parcel

on the northwest quadrant is under development.

They have approved site plan and they're building there.

So we're going to have to really shift the roundabout around a little bit to actually make it fit.

Thank you.

So I asked Kevin about this right away for this roundabout last time, and he said that the applicant had saved the area there.

So I hope that that's actually going to be sufficient.

That would be great not to have to do that.

I know that people heading

into town or southeast on hydraulic will no longer be able to turn left onto 29 North.

And is it expected that most of those people will then go around this roundabout and go into Stonefield and come out at the light by the post office?

Because

I'm not sure that's I mean that that's what sort of the perennial questions for all these shifting of left turns that happened all over the last several years as the people are going to be going somewhere else and just want to make sure we're not creating a bigger problem somewhere else that's all.

And I'm very reassured that we're going to look into the next flyover thing at the LRTP in the spring.

And would someone official please put that on the list so we do not forget?

OK.

Oh, and the other question to please write down so we don't forget, when we come back to talk about the planning for the pedestrian bridge, I think the reason the trail probably is so astronomically expensive is because of the elevation change from the river to the height of land at South Pantops Drive.

So are there other options for the ADA entering the trail further to the north, perhaps?

that would help not have so many switchbacks, etc.

So someone who knows more about trail design can look at that.

Yeah, I don't think we have any switchbacks identified for that trail.

And so I think it was a pretty much straight shot up that grade.

In the original feasibility study, there's there's some diagrams that show

a lot of the more detail on that so that we can provide you that later if you guys want to see that, as well as those pictures of different bridge options.

Regarding the roundabout, when we were looking at that, removing those left hand turns on hydraulic, there's several ways that you can make those maneuvers because of the network.

Commonwealth Drive is a parallel road to 29.

They could go up District Avenue.

They don't have to.

They could go through the intersection and turn and go up Hillsdale.

So there's a lot of different options to make that same maneuver come back to 29 that you can do.

And that's why it wasn't as much of a problem because it's just finding a new way to do that same trip.

And I had a couple questions, comments, one on the roundabout of just whether it's known, whether that duplex is currently occupied and whether it's rented or owner occupied.

And just exactly what that outreach will be.

I know, you know, on paper, it can seem a small thing, but if it is occupied, you know, depending on their circumstances, that can be a pretty

I do not know the answer to that, but I will also mention that transportation program funding takes a long time to come on board.

So basically we would have six years to coordinate with them for that, to facilitate that movement.

I can follow up with that.

When we did the 29, the hydraulic 29 project, we had a lot of outreach efforts with the Meadows neighborhood and that's that neighborhood.

So we would probably reach out to them again to get them at the table for not only those properties on that quadrant, but the neighborhood itself, because I think I can't remember the neighborhood, Cedar,

Peter Driver, the road that runs into that neighborhood.

We probably need to reach out to them to make sure what we're providing is going to be what they're going to want to see for our connection as part of the design of that roundabout moving forward.

Sure.

So I just looked on our assessment website.

It appears that it is owned

and it's rented out.

That could be wrong, but the mailing address of the tax assessment is not the same as the property, which is what leads me to that.

If we do need to acquire the duplex, if it's owner occupied, of course they get compensation.

but they also get replacement housing.

If there's tenants in there as well, they are also compensated, they're given moving costs, they're given the amount, like if they can't find another rental of comparable standards and it's much higher, they get a replacement cost, I believe for up to three years of that price difference.

So there are numerous things that are done that help ease it.

And then the other more just comments I would echo what was said during public comment by Mr. Krebs.

I'm not sure, you know, how extensive it needs to be or what it would look like, but I know in the city, you know, we've gotten, certainly I've heard some feedback about that Harris Road intersection and, you know, that 5th Street corridor beyond the scope of that particular project, but even just that particular intersection is definitely something which has been of a lot of community interest.

And then

Just, you know, with the pedestrian bridge now that State Farm is not going to occupy that building, just curious, you know, whatever comes to that site in the future, how that may impact the importance of this project longer term, whatever that turns out to be as a consideration.

But those are the only questions, comments I had.

I guess I will just throw out that for all the staff going to Martha Jefferson Hospital who live in the city, they have been asking for this crossing since 2000.

That's how long it's been in the list that I know of anyway.

Sure.

If there are no further questions, is there a motion to approve the smart scale round five project selection that staff has recommended?

So moved.

Mr.

Chair, I do want to say to support what Supervisor Malek said, and the flyover option or the grade separated interchange, that through piece, as that's reevaluated for the long range plan, that's a very important piece.

But it should be all options at that point to help solve the problem that it's attempting to solve.

And I just have a question.

If we're approving this right now, what is the next step?

I mean, my recollection is I heard something an hour ago saying that we were sort of getting a jump on the process by doing something now as opposed to later.

Well, what this allows us to do now is to really invest the time and resources into developing well-vetted applications so that when the projects come to you while as a governing body for Albemarle and Charlottesville, that there's already a public support.

The public understands the project, there's already public support, and they've been a part of developing the application into what the final submission is going to be.

So the next step would be to basically start refining the projects.

Again, I think the only thing that you're really forgoing at this point is that we just don't have the resources to necessarily study everything that's potentially of interest.

So what we're saying right now is these are the ones that we're pretty confident we want to move forward with.

So District Avenue roundabout, the Rivanna River bike ped crossing,

Avon Street and Fifth Street.

And we don't have cost estimates yet on Avon and Fifth.

Is there going to be, I take it there's something that will happen before it gets submitted to VDOT or whoever that will include those kinds of cost estimates.

The fifth street corridor, I think we can give a pretty good estimate that we know that intersection improvements were estimated at $2.8 million.

We don't have estimates for the bike cut improvements, but ballpark back of the napkin estimate would probably be around 10 million.

That would be developed once we start putting the actual application together to look at how far that those bicycle networks are going to go.

I'm looking at what those costs are.

I'm looking at the table 2 smart scale project selection and application development schedule.

This is July 2021.

that we will make recommendations for up to two projects that would be selected for additional public engagement.

And we're recommending four.

Yeah, you're recommending the four projects that we are going to move forward for application of those four.

Two of those can be identified for additional engagement or technical support.

I think it's important to know there will be engagement on all four projects that we're moving forward.

And I can also add in the MPO Tech, the staff recommendation only included one of those two for robust engagement.

They only recommended that the Rivanna River bike-ped crossing receive that additional engagement, but that all projects receive obviously some level of engagement through the process.

Yeah, Councilman Stuckey, correct.

That was a typo.

The first sentence should be, yeah, I repeated the same sentence twice basically, but it should have been four projects total and two with additional engagement.

I apologize.

Thank you.

Sorry, I'd lost track.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, we can just call the question.

All right.

Supervisor Mallet?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Yes.

Thank you, Councilor Payne and good afternoon, everybody.

I'm going to go ahead and share my screen.

So let's see.

I just get a thumbs up that people can see a presentation.

Perfect.

So, yeah, I'm just here to kind of give a brief overview about the transportation equity study work that's ongoing.

Just kind of wanted to again go over defining what equity within the transportation planning process looks like, how the MPO has traditionally approached equity in the past, go over just some high level data that we're collecting to kind of start building into that analysis and discuss next steps.

So, when we're talking about equity in transportation planning, you know, we're wanting to make sure that the transportation system supports multimodal options that are affordable, efficient, sustainable, and also safe.

We want to ensure that quality transportation services are accessible to everyone, that the transportation decision-making process is one that is inclusive and reduces barriers to participation.

And then finally, making sure that we're looking at this holistically.

We all understand that transportation decisions do not happen in a bubble.

So having that inclusion of affordable housing, sustainability, resiliency, all of those different factors within kind of that decision-making matrix.

So traditionally, equity has been kind of within the realm of the Title VI and the Environmental Justice Plan, which is the guiding document for the MPO for Inclusionary Planning.

That is a federally mandated planning document.

It looks specifically at Title VI populations, which would be those that are minorities, low income,

Elderly disabled and unlimited English proficiency communities.

And the goal of that plan is to mitigate adverse impacts to any of those communities, whether that's through the planning process or through transportation projects and improvements themselves.

So most of the data within that plan is aggregated.

It's looking at kind of just spatially where those populations exist within the NPO.

So examples from the most recent update, we'd look here on the left with this map looking at the percent of minorities within census block groups.

And then to the right, there's that follow below the poverty line.

Well, it's certainly one way of looking at it.

I think with this equity study, we have the ability to go further and really push kind of our approach to equity in a much more thoughtful way.

So the goal of this study process was to identify best practices around inclusionary planning, identify data and processes for measuring those equity impacts would look like.

Extending our toolkit of available data resources, and then finally establishing a framework for incorporating those measures into future planning processes.

So with that, I'm just gonna kind of run through some of the high-level data that we've been looking at right now.

So again, it's kind of geared towards where are people going and how accessible are those, you know, trip generators or attractors.

Are they walkable and bikeable?

How safe is the system overall?

And what sort of efficiencies exist within that?

So we'll kind of start, this is zoomed into Charlottesville, just for the purpose of kind of fitting within the context of this PowerPoint.

So I don't want our Albemarle County folks to think that I'm overlooking them in this study, but

The areas in yellow we're looking at kind of shopping districts within the city.

We add parks and then we can start looking at schools and medical facilities and then looking at job centers, employment centers here in blue.

So we're starting to see like these are kind of the areas that people generally would be traveling to.

And we can overlay with that some of the data that we've got from our transit providers.

So within the blue lines that you see, we're looking at specifically CAT lines that during peak travel times or service times have service intervals of less than 30 minutes.

So we're looking at areas that have a fairly frequent transit access with along those lines and how those start lining up with sort of those trip generators

We can also start talking about what walking and biking and walk sheds look like.

So this again is just kind of a high level overview.

So using some modeling software, we're able to look at what a 10 minute walk from the schools, which are those blue triangles, and then what a 15 minute walk would look like.

So that's kind of the lighter blue under

So it's starting again to build sort of this analysis as to what is accessible within our region.

We also want to consider what safety would look like.

So we're looking here at just locations over time of where bike and pedestrian crashes have occurred.

So all of this again is really high level and it's kind of, you know, these data points, while interesting, aren't really telling us the picture that goes into kind of the equity approach.

So with that, you know, we'd want to take these sort of data sets that we've started to pull together and overlay that with some of the demographic and infrastructure data that we've got.

So looking at those specific Title VI communities, but also looking at those that have vehicular access or lack of vehicular access.

what sort of commute times and modes there are within various areas, looking at food and job availability and putting all of those things together to try and come up with some sort of kind of analysis and framework for how to move this work forward.

So this will help to build context as to where those gaps may exist now and how we can maybe drive investment more proactively in the future.

and then also enables us to start kind of thinking about what those smart scale projects and how those interact with certain findings within this work.

So kind of to move forward we've got to complete that GIS mapping work and that inventory.

We will establish the protocols for future data analysis and try and kind of create a framework then for

ensuring that those sort of data and entities are processed moving forward.

And then the final outcome will be the completion of the framework document that will help MPO staff to again incorporate equity considerations moving forward.

Any questions from the board?

Thank you.

Nick, could you provide your presentation to us in a link of some sort?

I sometimes have trouble getting it off the website, so that would be good.

Yes, so we've got all the information for the county.

It's just in terms of the presentation kind of visuals, it was easier just to zoom in on the city.

But no, I have not overlooked anyone within the county.

So we've got it for the whole MPO area, just within kind of the PowerPoint constraints.

It's a little hard to zoom out and show all of that.

But I have all that information.

You can bring it to us at a meeting when you're ready.

Great job, Nick.

I would also say that if we will, Cat's been contemplating doing some significant adjustments to our schedules and our routing in September.

I think you probably need to get you those files, those shape files, so you would be able to see where we're hopefully addressing a number of locations.

But remember, the efforts that Cat

have to be endorsed and funded by the jurisdiction.

So if we want to get up, like you said, you saw our number of access points up on 29, that is technically beyond CAT's reach, unless the county allows us to have access and funding for services up on 29.

So we're working through this and I like the idea because I think this will help us set up for the bigger conversation that's happening right now for the vision plan.

So the data and the framework by which you're doing this

actually helps us with a different kind of conversation about making sure when we're talking about revamping the entire system that we don't overlook the activity points that are already key activity nodes in our system today.

Yeah, thank you.

Just to follow up on Mr. Williams points.

And when you expand out into the county, does this cover things on your overlays like future development or potential undeveloped properties?

I guess the idea being like we have a major, we have a couple of them in the urban ring.

that maybe sit on transit lines now, but they don't service as regularly as some other transit lines where you could start to see those as hotspots where if they were fully developed out to, you know, three, 400 units, et cetera, that this tool could help us understand what could be a gap that doesn't exist yet so that you get in front of it.

Yeah, I think,

The short answer is no, we haven't considered that yet, but I think it's a great point.

And it would be interesting if we had some of those land use information in terms of projects that are coming online to be able to kind of have future hotspots or future service points that we could certainly incorporate.

That's great.

Stuff like that could be very, very useful for when you're especially considering not just the land use applications, but then other strategic planning as well.

Like Mr. Williams was talking about the different access points along 29.

I mean, where you think of where Loaves and Fishes is located versus where, you know, some of the demographic populations in the different housing areas where they are at versus the shopping centers versus the employment centers.

There's a lot of complicated overlays out there.

I could see a tool like this helping us kind of conceptualize or figure out how to get the, get the solutions to folks.

I can just jump on the back end of that surprise Gallaway.

I think I agree with 100% of everything he just said.

Um, but I will say, I would also want to point out that equity is also in the transit world can also be measured in

accessibility, and that is a direct correlation to frequency.

So just because we connect an area and we're saying we're connecting to a 60-minute service, that may not be sufficient if we're really trying to entice folks to use the service.

30-minute service is kind of almost the bare minimum if you're really trying to build a ridership.

I know it becomes expensive, but when you get into the 15-minute model, it then becomes a tool for us

to prevent or allow folks to basically park their cars and use transit on a daily basis.

Yeah, I definitely agree.

My dogs are barking now.

I think also the tool could help

you know, whether fixed route is the solution.

When you get in and start looking at the complexities of it, you might go, well, yeah, fixed route could run through there, but is that really the, is that the answer?

It may need that on demand kind of concept to go in and help us start to figure out that as well.

So, yeah, I appreciate your point.

Any other questions from the board?

Yes, thank you guys.

And then Sarah, while you're doing that, Sarah, real quick, I just want to make sure that we do a quick time check on our agenda.

I know there are several people on this call that are trying to get on another six o'clock transportation meeting.

All right, so just wanted to update everyone very briefly on the upcoming activities that we have for Rideshare.

So many of you are familiar, we are on the DRPT grant cycle, where we apply for funding for operation of the program every year in February.

And in that application, we work on developing a work plan like most of the other programs here at the PDC, and then it goes to the Commission for Approval.

in March or April.

So some of the things that you guys will hear and see from us in the next coming year are some specific promotions revolving around the Afton Express, which I'll update everyone on that more specifically in just a second.

Tri-Transit Week, which usually occurs sometime in September, and we have already started coordinating with the transit agencies.

here in the region to do some particular promotions that are very local and regional focused in addition to the state-focused programming that DRPT will have with us.

We also do Rideshare Week, which is just a local program where we reach out to those folks who are in our Rideshare database and in Guaranteed Ride Home.

to engage them as well as looking at always working towards awareness and getting more folks to try alternative forms of transportation.

Telework will still be a very big component of what we're doing this coming year.

I think telework is here to stay.

The last 18 months have really solidified that.

And while we may think that all the telework

programming is done.

I think there's always opportunities where, you know, so many companies had to implement telework on the fly that we have resources that folks can take advantage of for free to really solidify and make sure that they're having the most effective and most efficient telework program for their agency.

Of course, we always partner with programs in the area during Earth Week.

And then come May we have our Clean Commute Month, which also coincides with Bike Month.

So many things kind of spread throughout the year that we will be giving you more information on as they are developed.

One of the big undertakings that we're going to have for this coming fiscal year is doing a marketing research and implementation proposal with a consultant.

So we are looking for some advice, some research to make sure that we are really putting the ride share message and the message of alternative transportation in front of the right people and giving that to them in the right type of messaging that they need.

So we're going to look at conducting some market research for the region.

Our region has grown since something like this was last undertaken.

We now partner with CSPBC.

So our market is quite larger and I'm sure much more diverse than it was many years ago.

We're definitely going to hone in on targeting some key audiences with very specific messaging that works more towards what they need and the information that will help them make decisions.

As always, we will continue to look at brand awareness and some strategies to help us make sure that the Rideshare brand

is synonymous with alternative transportation in this region.

And then with that, we were also hoping to get some materials created for some of our basic marketing efforts and some ideas of how we can really maximize our events and special promotions.

One of the big topics that is on the table for both the city and the county as well is climate change and climate impact.

And I think there's no better example than this past pandemic that transportation is vital in changing our environmental impacts.

So really looking forward to working with the climate action plans in both the city and the county, working with C3,

and other organizations to help get all of that transportation information out there so that we can really start to make some changes.

Again, I mentioned telework.

This is just a really quick overview of some of the free services that anyone can take advantage of.

You just have to reach out to Rideshare and we'll get you linked up with the consultants that will do a full needs assessment and look at the culture of your telework program, look at the goals of what you'd like to have out of your telework program and possibly help you structure that

Again, in a way that works the best for the overall company.

So those services are still there, still free.

Can't say it enough.

Let me know.

And also a brief reminder just of some of the other initiatives that we are ongoing at Rideshare.

And one of those, or the main one really, is our Rideshare app where we have partnered with the state and Agile Mile.

This app lets folks not only trip plan, search for carpool and vanpool matches as well as transit routes, but once folks have found an alternative form of transportation, if they will log those trips into the system, they earn points

throughout the way that they can then cash in for different rewards, whether it's coupons, monthly drawings that we have, and it really helps give us a lot of data as to how people are getting around in our particular area and region.

This is one of my favorite parts of the app is every individual who registers gets their own personalized dashboard.

This is a region dashboard and it is a little outdated I apologize, but it gives you ideas of

How many emissions were saved?

If you're a biker, how many calories you burned on those biking communities?

And so I think it really helps put into perspective the impact that individuals, as well as looking at the regional data, can have on on the environment.

And, you know, I think that can be a lot more motivating than we sometimes give it credit for.

And last but not least, this is my contact information.

Any questions from the board?

And it's me again for the beginning.

And I have a different presentation to share with you here.

And that is about Afton Express.

I promised an update and here it is.

So Afton Express is going to connect the Shenandoah Valley to the Charlottesville and Albemarle County region.

I'm sure some of you, this is something that you have been hearing about for many, many years.

And we are finally launching something September 1, so we wanted to get the information in front of you as soon as possible.

The service is going to be administered by the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission, so our counterparts across the mountain, and they are on a demonstration grant through DRPT to offer this service starting September 1.

So, just a quick timeline.

Again, like I said, this has been happening for a long time, even longer than 2017, but the study that they have used to base this particular start-up service started way back in 2017.

So some of the partners for the Acton Express, we have lots of great people who are supporting this program, including folks across the mountain and then of course over here both the city, the county, and UVA.

So here will be the stops on our side of the mountain for the destination part

for the Acton Express.

So we have two stops there at UVA, at the Amtrak station, the downtown transit station, as well as two stops at Fifth Street Station with one at the Wegmans end.

And I know I'm going through this part very quickly, but all of this information is on a website that we will send to you, but we wanted to get in front of your faces at least once before September 1.

So this is the schedule.

As you can see, there are four runs, both in the morning and additional four runs in the afternoon.

So this program is really designed for the commuter.

They specifically scheduled most of this to revolve around working hours.

So the fare will be $3 one way or $6 round trip, and there will be fare cards offered for 10 rides that will have some cost savings.

Now the first month in September will be free.

And I have been told that the folks over at Bright who will be managing the Acton Express have also applied for continuous funding to do a little bit longer of fare free.

We just don't know the results of that particular grant application just yet.

But regardless, first month will be free.

We did a wonderful photo shoot.

In this photo I just think it's fabulous with the Afton Express and the downtown transit station as a shining example and what to look for when you see the buses out and about shortly.

So the bus is going, again, like I said, it's designed for the commuter, so it is really going to be comfortable.

We want folks to want to ride the bus.

So there will be high back seats with seat belts, overhead storage for items, of course, a wheelchair lift and assistance from the drivers in loading with the lift, bicycle racks and wifi.

And what you can expect to see in the coming month, month and a half is lots and lots of marketing and promotion.

We have started already with a few things that will be taking place.

There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony next month.

The website is up and running.

That's where you can find again the schedule and to be fair information and information about the stops.

But hopefully you will be hearing news from us on TV, on the radio.

We're going to do some outreach to the park and ride lots.

So hopefully anywhere and everywhere we can get the word out about this.

And again, there is the website.

They are also on Twitter and Facebook for more information there.

Any questions?

You are most welcome.

Yes, Ann.

Thank you.

After the years and years of running over the mountain for these meetings, this is really exciting.

And as soon as we get the park and ride lot built in Crozet, then people will be able to pile on there as well and get off.

Thank you very much.

You are 100% correct, Ann.

Well over a decade and something in the making and they do have every intention that if and when the questions not if when that Crozet Park and Ride lot gets built that potentially roping that into part of that service as well.

That's me.

Thanks, everybody.

I want to update you on the 29 North study I presented back in the spring on this study.

It's the corridor study from the airport road to a little past Rutgersville.

We're working with VDOT and their consultants.

And since we started in the spring, we have

developed and refined goals and objectives for the study and a vision.

We've also developed a future no build memorandum.

I would say the study team has done that.

And we've had a couple of stakeholder meetings and we're going to be planning the first public meeting in mid September.

So I'm excited for that first public meeting.

We also have a website that's up on VDOT

and we'll be putting a website on TJPDC any day now.

Any questions?

I'll move on to my second topic, the electric vehicle report.

And I believe at the last meeting I presented on the findings from the electric vehicle report, it is now up on the website.

I can put a link in the chat for you.

Are there any questions on the electric vehicle report?

We got some really good feedback and comments.

Thank you.

Chuck Proctor from VDOT.

We're doing five studies across the district.

Two of them are in Albemarle County.

This is a new program that OIPI has instituted to develop recommendations on some of the tier one need locations across the district.

and across the state.

We're going to have our kickoff meetings for the two studies that we have.

One of them is the Pantops Corridor on 250, and the other one is out at Shadwell where the 22 and 250 intersection is.

Those are the two locations we're going to be studying moving forward.

Well, I'll go ahead and jump in with our next item, which is a discussion with you all just very briefly about your interest in going ahead and scheduling a joint meeting with the Stanton Augusta Waynesboro MPA for later this fall.

As Supervisor Mallek and Supervisor Galloway know well, I don't think

either Councilman Payne or Councilman Secke had the opportunity to do this.

A few years ago we started having an annual meeting jointly with the SALL MPO from Waynesboro where we alternate and take turns hosting and it's a really great opportunity to really explore some topics that are of interest to both of our localities.

So staff have met with their MPO staff to brainstorm some potential meeting topics so

We think we have some really interesting agenda items including maybe a deeper dive into the Athens Express and looking at what the service experiences are like as it rolls out, talking about the mudslide that happened on 250 and what the impacts have been for connectivity between our regions, as well as potentially talking about some multi-regional trail connectivity opportunities between connecting

a trail through Charlottesville that potentially they're looking at also doing a trail connection through their region.

So we have some pretty good topics, but what we really need to know from you all is your comfort level and interest in potentially working to coordinate obviously pending any sort of changes and the health environment.

a meeting with them in early November.

Tentatively, we've reviewed calendars that look like that.

What looks like my work would be the afternoon of November 9th.

So just real quickly, it would probably have to be inside.

feedback?

I even clicked it this time.

All right.

No, I am all in for this.

I've learned so much over the years.

And just to muddy the water even further, you have a whole lot of great ideas on topics already.

The multi

Regional trail idea.

Perhaps you can add as a sub under there that the tunnel, Blue Ridge Tunnel is now open and it is a perfect connection between east and west of the mountain and has trail efforts on both sides and might be a, I mean Veritas is a great place to have a meeting.

They have a huge room.

They have been very supportive of us in the past, the tunnel board meeting there for 15 years.

So

They might host us.

Who knows?

I have no idea.

Just lots of crazy questions.

So I'm really excited about it.

And I guess waiting till November is needed because you need that long to prepare.

Or can we have it sooner when it's warmer and just plan to have it outside?

So that's another problem for you to figure out.

Yeah.

Well, I've got no problems with that date.

If you do pick a date, please pick it soon so I can get it on my calendar.

Election is a week before.

Oh, well, nevermind.

And I think it's a good idea.

I know in the past there have been good conversations that have come out of that.

Great.

We will tell them, we'll go ahead and plan on moving forward at that point then.

Thank you.

Just in the interest of time, if there's not any objection or unless anyone has something they'd particularly like to bring to the attention of the board, we can skip the roundtable discussion if there's no objection.

It was a little late to unmute.

You know, I think we won based on our own scoring, but we're reeling from the loss still.

Pickleball aside, moving on to additional matters from the public.

If there's anyone in the public who would like to speak, you can click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar and speak for up to three minutes.

Seeing no one, I will close public comment and adjourn the meeting.

Thank you all.

Have a good night.

Thank you, everybody.