MPO Policy Board Meeting   9/22/2021

There it is.

All right, now I'm ready.

Yes, I'd be happy to.

This meeting of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization is being held pursuant to the Code of Virginia Section 2.2-3708.2, which allows a public body to hold electronic meetings when the locality in which it's located has declared a local state of emergency, and the catastrophic nature of the emergency makes it impracticable or unsafe to assemble a forum in a single location.

And the purpose of the meeting is to provide for the discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities.

This meeting is being held via electronic video and audio means through zoom online meetings and is accessible to the public with closed captioning and there will be an opportunity for public comment during that portion of the agenda.

Notice has been provided to the public through notice at the TJPDC offices to the media, website posting, and agenda.

The meeting minutes will reflect the nature of the emergency.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So next on our agenda is matters from the public.

This is Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'd like to make a comment on the Ravenna River Bridge

pedestrian bridge advisory group formation.

That's a good question because I don't know what our policy is of taking public comment during the agenda unless it's a public hearing.

So let's do it now just to make it cleaner.

All right.

And we'll be ready.

OK, that's fair.

So I wanted to start tonight or this afternoon really by congratulating Christine.

Right.

Pretty exciting news.

And I think the planning commission is in, I mean, planning district commission is in great hands with you.

And I'm very excited.

As for the advisory group for the Ravenna River pedestrian bridge, obviously that's an incredibly important project.

It's essential that we get it right.

It has a lot of elements that are quite interesting and maybe somewhat unique for transportation projects.

So the advisory group ought to have some characteristics that are reflective of that.

So there's history, there's environmental considerations.

One thing that I keep also harping on is the important

role of economic development that this project has.

I think it's going to score well in the smart scale process precisely because it has this great economic development aspect.

So I would strongly recommend that there be a major employer.

And there are several that are impacted by this project.

And also there are

property issues related to that.

Some private developers whose land could be directly affected by this, they need to have an important role.

I'm not sure about, you know, how it works having someone so directly connected, whether they should be on an advisory group or someone that works closely with the body.

I'll defer to your wisdom about that as well.

You'll want to have a good balance of neighborhood representatives, youth or groups, elected officials, potentially staff from both localities.

And yet the group will also want to be like a dozen people.

So it's a bit of a balancing act.

I sent Sandy a list, like a detailed list of groups and bodies and organizations like to be a part of that.

and I could get into that later if you want to as you choose to run the meeting.

Then finally, I'd be really interested in being involved in some kind of way.

And I could see two different roles for PC and the Mobility Alliance to be involved.

One way would be to be on the committee, but then the other way would be to work to help manage the committee

or the process sort of the way that PC and TJPDC work together to create the Jefferson area master plan.

Either one of those models would work and I'll definitely contribute in every way that I can in ways that you all see fit.

So I guess that's it.

And you know where to find me if there are questions and I look forward to watching the rest of the meeting.

Thank you very much.

Is there anyone else who would like to address us this afternoon?

People wave their hands.

How do we find out?

All right.

I see no hands and hear no one yelling.

So I think we will move on.

And then if there are things marked with asterisks later, then we will welcome public comment then.

Item number three, general administration.

Sure.

Well, first of all, I think, Peter, mind of solar thunder a little bit, but I would like to make the official announcement that Christine has now appointed as the executive director for the TJPDC.

So very pleased to have her in that role permanently.

I did not know.

Yes.

So the first item on the list is the return to in-person mediums.

Right now, as you all are aware, we are operating under the City of Charlottesville's emergency order that is currently set to expire on October 18th.

So should they choose not to continue that to a further date, our next meeting will be in person.

So we'll plan for that.

If that changes and that emergency order is extended, we will certainly let you know.

We will continue to hold meetings on Zoom.

The second item is the review and acceptance of the agenda.

So I had sent out a message to the voting members of the policy board, but we did have one late request, which is the consideration of adding a resolution to support a technical grant request later in the agenda.

Very good.

So we would need to check under number nine.

We could, as before we adopt our agenda, we would modify it under number nine to consider and vote on this resolution.

Does that meet your needs?

All right.

Very good.

And then the

Okay, and then the next regular meeting December 7th.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

I'm jumping down the page.

Very good.

So we will.

We need a vote on the acceptance of the agenda.

First of all, are there any other changes to the agenda we need to consider?

Go back to my pictures.

I see no hands waving.

Thank you very much.

Any opposed?

No opposed.

Therefore, we now have an adopted agenda.

And Sandy will remind us when we get to number nine to get back to this.

Thank you.

Next is approval of the July 28 2021 meeting minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes?

Oh yes, thank you for reminding me about that.

Perfect.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you very much.

So minutes as corrected.

Any other things to change or add?

And a second.

I guess I can second.

Thank you, Stacy.

Very good.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Any opposed?

None opposed.

So therefore, oops, somebody's telephone is waggling.

Therefore, we will be, oh, I bet that's Michael.

We will be, we have adopted our official meeting minutes from July.

Very good.

Next on to number four, the North 29 corridor study update.

And Lucinda is going to help us with that.

So this is just an update on the US 29 North Corridor Study.

I've presented about this meeting before, about this project at this meeting before.

So VDOT's conducting this study with input from the counties of Albemarle, Greene, and the TJPDC.

And we have also included transit service providers in the study group.

The study area is from Airport Road and it goes up 29 to Deerfield Drive in Rutgersville.

And on September 9th, the study team hosted a virtual public meeting.

We had almost 60 guests at the meeting and the goals of the meeting were to review the existing conditions study, which is in your packet and also available on the project website and to review the vision goals and objectives and gather feedback from the public.

The process for the project process we're using is to evaluate the existing conditions and predict future conditions, which is the report that's in your packet, and then generate a range of solutions to address the study goals and then select the best solution from the area.

for the area.

So there will be several opportunities for community input.

We had that first public meeting and we will have a second public meeting once the preliminary alternatives are developed.

And we also have an online survey that is open now on the project website and I'll put the project website link in the chat feature so you guys can have that.

The schedule for the study, we're almost halfway through the study.

So we've begun, we've established the future no-builds conditions, which is that report.

We've finalized the goals and objectives, and we're developing the alternatives right now.

Developing the alternatives will go into late fall, early winter, and then we'll evaluate the alternatives with the stakeholders and the public, and that will be through the winter and then

We'll revise the alternatives late winter, early spring, and finish around June in 2022.

The next steps for the project are to ask people to fill out the survey and then ask people to come to our next public meeting, which will be in early 2022, and download and read the study documents.

All right.

I guess I have one and that is we heard a lot from people who had somehow gotten all been around the axle that there were already proposals being considered by the board of supervisors that we were closing the lighted phrase mail.

And so I wanted to just

Because I was behind, I guess, on my homework, I was not fully prepared for the fact that that intersection was being reconsidered again when it was already considered last year.

Yeah, so last year we had a smart scale application to do an alternative intersection design at Frays Mill Road, which is the intersection of Frays Mill and 29, which is also Burnley Station on the east side and 29.

That intersection right now has a stoplight.

The community in that area, the residents worked very hard and for a very long time to get the stoplight so they could get out of their neighborhood and on to 29.

And so last year with the round of smart scale applications, they had a huge public outcry to keep their stoplight and not have an alternative intersection put in there.

The alternative intersection being proposed by VDOT is a R cut, which means it would eliminate left-hand turns.

I'm sorry, is that better?

Yeah, so the R cut eliminates left hand turns, and so people would go right and then up and make a U turn and merge in to be able to go left.

So the communities on either side of 29 using those roads, Frees Mill and Burnley Station, don't want to lose the stoplight and the ability to turn left onto 29.

So when the public meeting was announced, I posted it on Nextdoor, just as I had presented it to you right now, and

Somebody in the neighborhood read the report and realized that that intersection was being considered for an R-cut again.

So they posted on Nextdoor kind of an alarming message and a lot of people showed up to the public meeting with comments.

asking VDOT not to propose the archive again.

And so VDOT is going to consider alternatives.

Some of the alternatives suggested were like low cost, low impact alternatives of putting in rumble strips or a flashing light to let people know that the stoplight is coming because

I think the major concern with that intersection for VDOT at the moment is that there's a lot of accidents and most of the accidents are rear ends of people speeding up to that stoplight and not being able to stop in time.

So the community suggested that VDOT consider the rumble strips as flashing light or police enforcement at that intersection before they consider a larger, more costly alternative design.

And I think that VDOT is going to look at it.

So the diagram that was shown in your materials that just showed where the light was, was just geography.

There is no intention on the original study to reopen that intersection.

And I think that's the information in addition to these low cost things, which were all suggested two years ago and last year.

And I think people were particularly offended that none of them were taken seriously.

They were just blown off in favor of this thing that was going to put especially agricultural trucking into a really big bind.

with this R-cut.

So if those things, the simple things are going to be reconsidered then that's great, otherwise we are safe to say to people this is not part of this, bringing back the R-cut is not part of the original of this study.

Well, hopefully they will direct their consultants to not poke the hornet's nest without a really good solution because people get really irritated about having this on an annual basis when it's just somebody from out of the area who comes in and says, oh, this looks good.

So please be thoughtful about how these things, this information is gathered so that we all can be moving forward in a productive way instead of

Just going round and round.

So I thank you ever so much.

Any other questions about this?

Or you may have more presentation to do.

No, I don't.

OK. Other questions to listen to?

I would like to note that Albemarle County did ask for alternatives to the R-cut and the intersection improvements to be considered.

for this project.

So TJPDC, the community and Albemarle County have all asked VDOT to consider lesser impact alternatives.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Lucinda?

All right, I see no hands waving.

Very good.

So we are now down here.

Appointment of Ravana Riverbank Bike and Pedestrian Crest and Small Scale Stakeholder Committee.

All right, yeah, I'll go ahead and share my screen.

So we're all looking at the same thing.

So just to go back.

All right, just to go back to the timeline that you all are seeing, I'm moving right along.

So now we are, we collected the project at our last meeting.

And so now for the one project that we were going to, that you all identified as wanting to go ahead and do some additional stakeholder investment, we are at the point where we need to go ahead and appoint that advisory committee that's going to facilitate that process.

So just to give you a little bit of an overview, again, we have three configurations right now that we are considering as far as the development of a smart scale project application for the Ravana River bike and pedestrian crossing.

Right now, the process that I am envisioning is that there will be a stakeholder advisory committee that will meet monthly and that they'll work through a list of various project considerations to help us determine

which of these configurations and how we can adjust any of the additional potential proposed designs to better meet the goals that they identify through this engagement process.

The stakeholder committee will consist of a variety of stakeholders that include local and state government staff, citizens, non-profits, and potentially private developers or landowners or business owners.

The meetings will be open to the public and recorded and posted online.

So I really want to emphasize that while there will be an appointed stakeholder committee, we want to do this whole process very transparently.

And so we will have an opportunity for the public to engage, to ask questions.

We may not be able to respond at each meeting, but we will certainly make sure that if we're not able to respond within the meeting itself, that we bring any questions or concerns back.

to a following meeting to open the meeting by addressing those concerns.

And then there will be additional opportunities for engagement with the general public that will develop in collaboration with the Stakeholder Advisory Committee.

So that could be something like a survey or it could be additional public meetings to get feedback.

We'll have to work through what that process looks like as we go.

And then, like I said before, there'll be a number of factors that the Stakeholder Committee will work through to determine

I'm going to skip ahead.

So in the memo I sent out, there was an initial list, which is the list on the left of some of the factors that will need to be considered and evaluated.

Some of these are not necessarily things that we can have a lot of compromise on or non-negotiables like the ADA accessibility firm.

For example, that's really important to make sure and it's also required to make sure that we provide that with any new projects.

But there were a number of other considerations that were identified by CTAC in addition to the initial list that I had created and so those are shown on the right in blue.

And so part of this process will be looking at how we really prioritize or rate how important each of these consideration factors are as far as determining which of the project is going to help us meet the goals that are identified through the stakeholder engagement process.

I had developed a draft list of potential members of the Stakeholder Advisory Committee that I included in your packets.

Unfortunately, the way the meetings worked is we didn't have time to get feedback from the Citizens Advisory Committee and the MPO TAC prior to sending the packets out.

But I did go through this list with them.

And so the changes are reflected here.

MPO tech thought that we could remove these bottom stakeholders that are shown crossed out in the gray.

And then MPO, the Citizens Advisory Committee had added these in blue and the MPO tech committee thought that these would be good additional stakeholders.

So if you look at the numbers of the list where I think we're at 13 instead of 12, but we're really close to that ideal number.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that you all as the policy board will be updated regularly as the stakeholder advisory committee meets.

So if you think of the way this process has been developed and other studies that we've done, pretty similar to a steering committee.

So you all would be getting information regularly and of course you'd be able to attend any of the other meetings, but

Knowing that everyone has a lot of time commitments, we weren't necessarily sure that we would want to suggest committing you to participation on another committee, but of course we are open to your feedback.

So this is the list for the Stakeholder Advisory Committee that was recommended by MPOTech with the feedback from DTAC Incorporated.

And I would be happy to hear any feedback or comments, but just keep in mind that we are asking for you all to vote for the committee appointment tonight.

Yeah, they'll keep the list up would be great.

I have a couple questions if I can.

No, I'm actually not sure.

If you could go to that picture of the three proposed crossings.

I would think, however, I don't, I see some things crossed out and I see some that I'm not, I don't need to rehash cross outs or additions.

I don't know the Woolen Mills Association to know what geography that covers, but I would think you need reps from at least the areas that all three of those points touch on the side of the river opposite State Farm.

And if that association does that, that's fine.

It looks like the side where the brewing is that, I don't know if that was one of the crossouts for the development,

I would just imagine property owners over on that side of the road would need some avenue in to have some participation, whether that's your citizen representation or some other fashion.

So you can go back to your list.

I mean, if that's encompassed under one of the groups that's listed, I would think that would be fine.

But one of those areas gets boxed out that that's just going to create problems down the road.

So I would recommend that.

And then

I am presuming this is just one representative from the Planning Commission and the El Camaro Planning Commission and they can volunteer and vote in.

Thank you.

I agree.

And also that the longer southern route is actually goes from county to county.

So that's a little different than the other two, but would still, I'm sure that the general area of the city nearby the Woollen Mills would have some impacts and some benefits along the way.

So I'm okay with, I guess, with this starting list.

How about others?

If I could ask this question, since you're doing, this is something you want us to take action on.

You know, let's say that we just approved this list and we're like, oh, we forgot a group or we want to add this group in.

So we could approve this with the notion of, if others were agreeable to it,

The entities that I was talking about can be included based on the action we take today.

I agree, and I think transit perhaps needs to be expanded to whichever elements of our transit would potentially be coming down there.

Well, that's good.

I didn't even catch that.

I would certainly think that

Well, I nominate you, Ned.

Oh, well, I missed my chance.

OK, very good.

That's right.

Those are the best nominees.

Other comments and questions from people in the gathering?

What else do we have?

Very good.

So is there a formal motion then regarding this list as corrected?

We seem to be getting some supportive notes in the chat.

So that's good.

Sandy, how should I word it that it leaves it flexible to consider if the people on the one side are included?

Others may be appointed later or open to appointment.

Something like that, does that generalize it enough too?

I could also, I could, we could also generalize this in the neighborhood association.

Right.

I think in many, as in many other committees which are formed, each representative on the committee is responsible for bringing the ideas of many others in their group to the table.

So hopefully that would be what would happen.

in these cases.

But I think the addition of the others may be appointed later is fine.

That's great.

It takes care of it.

All right.

And do we have a second?

I will second it.

All righty.

Thank you, Michael.

And any more discussion?

I see no hands being waved, so I will call for the vote.

We have five eyes.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Then that is adopted, and we will now get back to our gallery.

That's good.

Very good.

Terrific.

So number six on our agenda,

is the MPO Strategic Plan and that's how Sandy's named next to it as well.

Thank you.

As you all may recall in our FY22 Unified Planning Work Program, we reserve some resources to do an update for the MPO Strategic Plan.

So the previous one was done in 2016, and it was only intended to be a three-year strategic plan.

And while we have still gone back to refer to it, there's been a number of changes and processes.

There's been major staffing turnover.

We've gotten some new programs onboarded, all of those kinds of things.

And so it seems like there's good timing in the midst of some pretty significant agency transition to go ahead and do an updated strategic plan.

So we are actually recommending that we work with a consultant for this process.

The previous one was done in-house and it was done very well, but given staff capacity, we think it makes sense to work with a consultant to complete the strategic plan.

So what I have done is prepared an RFP.

That is a draft for you all to review that looks at some of the goals that we discussed amongst staff that we thought that this could help with looking at committee structures, thinking about some of the challenges that we've had over the last year or two, looking at how we've

implemented some new policies and building on the success that we've had, really looking to help us determine what our planning priorities should be or how they should be determined moving forward is really what we're hoping to get out of the strategic plan.

So we are asking for two votes from you all tonight related to the strategic plan.

One is the approval to go ahead and move forward with the RFP to send this out to consultants to get a firm retained to work on this with us.

And then the second one is, assuming you approve that, is to appoint a selection committee to make the determination of which consultant to retain.

The selection committee that we have recommended includes a representative from the city manager's office, a representative from the county administrator's office, a representative from the UVA Office of Architects, and then the TJPDC executive director.

Yes, you need to change it to county executive's office.

But other than that, it looks pretty clear.

It will need some, it's a very long request.

So it'll need some prioritization for sure.

I was trying to think who the hell's our county administrator.

Yeah, we are one of the two in Virginia.

So we're a little tricky.

But yeah, I think that plan of four and each one of those may, well, I think, yeah, I would hope we would get the top levels in these to help us with the selection as opposed to too much designation down the line.

And

There is, I know Stacy, this is putting Stacy on the ropes here, but are there sort of pre-approved groups that you already have on the list for VDOT who have done similar types of things in transportation?

I mean, we've worked with consultants to do that sort of planning, but I don't know that we have anybody on our pre-approved list at this point.

Just your comment about making sure the designee is not too down.

I think that's covered by county executive city manager's office that it's coming up.

Very good.

Other discussion about this plan and this framework for going forward.

Questions from anyone.

I see no hands waving.

All right, then I think we will, this is a vote also, right, Sandy?

Yeah, two votes.

And the second one is for the selection committee.

Okay.

All right.

I'm missing my asterisk, but that's fine.

I'm glad to do it anyway.

Thank you.

Any more discussion?

Very good.

Aye.

Any opposed?

I see no opposed.

Then we have adopted our framework.

And then I will move to approve the proposed consultant selection committee as presented by staff or with specified revisions.

And Michael seconded that.

Any more discussion about that one?

I see none.

Any opposed?

And none opposed, so that carries as well.

Very good.

Next on our agenda is staff updates.

VDOT pipeline, VDOT project pipeline.

Every time we say the word pipeline, it makes our hairstyle on end.

So we'll just say VDOT project list for Chuck Proctor.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Yeah, as we talked about last time, we've started a new study process called project pipeline.

and it's a way to take the identified priority one needs out of the V-Trans document, long range planning document and the tier one needs and identify those across the district and basically do studies on those locations.

And we reviewed the ones across the district and there were two locations in the Albemarle County area that showed up on that list.

One of them was the Pantops area.

and the other one was Shadwell, the intersection out there at Shadwell.

So we started those studies.

We had the kickoff meeting the end of last month or earlier this month.

And we've been working on getting the framework documents, collecting data and putting that stuff together so that we could start doing the study.

There's a website that's going to get pushed out with a lot of information and that should be coming out I think on the 28th of this month and we'll be doing a media blitz to get that information out there.

The locations are for the study for Albemarle County where the Pantops area, like I said, from Hanson's Road all the way out to

Hanson's Mountain Road by the interchange.

So it's that corridor 29 or 250 from where we had a project that was funded in smart scale last round all the way out to the interstate.

We're going to look at operations, safety, as well as transit and bike ped opportunities, park and ride.

The way the study is set up, it's set up in three groups.

that are analyzing the various things and getting together.

We also have stakeholders groups that meet periodically.

We've had one with the kickoff meeting.

We're going to have another one early October to basically present the existing condition material and some preliminary alternative recommendations for solutions to the corridor.

We have had a recent operations study that was completed on the corridor and they have done some signal timing changes that was implemented late summer.

So that's basically addressed a lot of the operational issues that we had on the corridor.

So we're gonna focus mainly on the safety and the access and transit for what we're gonna be looking at.

We're hoping to have these studies wrapped up for SmartScale, comes around in March.

So like I said, we're gonna have a stakeholders group meeting, a media push coming out.

And then we're gonna have, once we identify some alternative solutions, we'll be having public outreach and doing a survey similar to what Lucinda said about the 29 North study.

It'll probably be in the December, January timeframe.

And then we'll come up with some final recommendations

So right off the bat, I'm confused because Hanson's Mountain Road comes down to 250, just 50 feet west of the exit ramp.

And then there's 64.

And then you get back on the interstate on the other side, 50 yards away.

We're studying the section of Hanson's Road.

Hanson's Road is on the east end of the giant shopping center east of Rolkin.

Hanson's Road is there where, what is it, CarMax is at the top of the hill, where the wide median

Okay.

That makes much more sense.

Thank you.

I thought I was losing my mind.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Other questions for Chuck?

And since we already have been working for

More than a year on our SmartScale things for this coming spring, this is something which would be two years away, I would assume.

By the time you've done your study and improved it, we're not looking at a 2022 for any of these projects.

Well, if the county wants to try to submit something for next round of SmartScale, they'll be available to submit.

Yeah, 2022.

All right.

Well, that's fascinating.

All righty, thank you.

Other questions for Chuck?

I don't see anybody.

Thank you.

What's next on our list here?

Let's see.

Joint meeting of the SOA MPO.

Yeah, so I confirmed with them that they are still making plans to move forward on that meeting will be on November 9th.

I'm not sure of the precise times, but I wanted to get some feedback for you all to make sure that you still wanted to move forward.

What they have proposed is they said that they toured a facility either yesterday or today that it would basically be a restaurant and they would put four people at eight top tables so there would be plenty of room to spread out and have everybody masked too.

provide social distancing, those kinds of things.

I will go last.

My naysayer comment is, oh, go ahead.

Who was that?

Lloyd?

Who was saying something?

Oh, no, that was just me saying, likewise, I would be fine.

I may be the only one but I am still very concerned about getting 50 people in a room anywhere.

And we are a long, long way from

not having a point where even among all vaccinated people, one person who's a carrier doesn't get 20 other people sick.

So I would be thrilled to have an outdoors and a pavilion meeting.

I think that would be spectacular.

And we will just have to wait and see.

I guess people will have to keep planning, but they're just every single day we learn about some other crazy thing where people thought they were fine and then they weren't.

So I will just, that's my reluctance to say fine and go forward.

I know we have to try to get organized, but keeping those alternatives in mind is important.

Very good.

And regular meeting on December 7th, and that will be,

perhaps in person, perhaps virtual, but are we, I assume that we are working as in the county, we're working to have hybrid, be a positive, have the hybrid approach where some people can be in the room if they're able and others can be virtual.

And I think that is a very important takeaway all across the Commonwealth from state level all the way down is that nobody is willing to give up the access for people in Bristol and far away to meetings.

without having to travel.

So I hope we will be considering that as well.

Very good.

Other comments, questions, discussion?

All right.

Do we have anything else to add to the agenda since we didn't vote on it earlier?

We'll give one more chance of a sweep idea.

We did skip over the roundtable, I apologize.

Very good, and then we have to do our vote on number nine, duh.

All right, thank you.

This is what happens when I've been at this too long every day.

I can go through and call on the agencies if you would like.

Yes, please.

I don't believe that John is here today, am I correct?

Ms. Monteith?

Oh, he is here.

I was just going to share that your power went out.

Yeah, we just lost power, so we're trying to get it back.

He said no updates at this point.

OK, got it.

Thank you.

Got it.

Thank you.

I'll share a number of DRPT related updates with the board.

First being the Transit Equity and Modernization Study that DRPT is actively working on.

This is a General Assembly mandated study looking at a lot of different transit practices in the Commonwealth.

We are well into this study and are targeting having an interim report to the General Assembly in December with the final report in August of 2022.

We have just launched a project website.

Links to that project website are available from our DRPT page.

On the smart scale front, I just want to remind folks that are developing applications for smart scale round five that if you are anticipating including a transit element in your project or if it's going to be a transit specific application, please reach out to us so we can coordinate technical assistance needs for transit elements and transit projects.

I wanted to mention a new project, a new program that DRPT

has launched as of late.

This is the Transit Ridership Incentive Program, or TRIP as we affectionately call it in-house.

It is a new statewide grant program dedicated to improving transit's regional connectivity in urban areas with populations in excess of 100,000 and reducing barriers to transit use by supporting low income and zero fare programming.

The grant application period has just wrapped up and our technical team is starting their reviews of that process.

Depending on who's applied, MPOs may be approached by transit agencies to provide letters of support.

We're hoping to collect those by October.

The Virginia Breeze, we are in the process of launching yet another route.

This one is on the I-81 corridor and it's called the Highlands Rhythm and we'll be providing service from Bristol up through Nova to Union Station in D.C. where it connects to the National Bus Network.

In addition, on the inner city bus front, there is a one-time program out of FTA that is providing some COVID relief dollars to the companies that operate inner city bus programs.

Details and eligibility criteria are available on our website.

Additionally, kind of moving over to the passenger rail side of things, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority is scheduled to have their September meeting on the 28th at 10 a.m. Information on how to stream that is available at vpra.virginia.org, which is the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority's new standalone website.

On Monday, September 27, Amtrak will be restoring the last of the Virginia routes that was paused during COVID.

This is Route 51, and we've gotten a slight extension of the route from the Staples Mill Station down to the downtown Richmond Main Street Station, where the route will now terminate.

On the freight rail side of things, there's a new grant program that our freight team is working up.

It's called freight rail enhancement to increase goods and highway throughput.

Freight is the acronym on that one.

We're working with the CTB to review the program and it looks like that'll be going to CTB for adoption come December.

It provides funding on the freight rail side for planning and other things that won't be in kind of the purview of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

Very good.

Any questions for Wood?

I have one, but I don't always want to butt in and go first.

Anybody else?

All right, my question is an off-the-wall question.

So back in 2010, when we were trying to get our Colorado rail car going from either Crozet or Stanton to either the City or Zion Crossroads, CSX was able to squash us like a bug by demanding that we pay $50,000 a year to them to cover

our liability for having our lovely little self-propelled rail cars on their track.

And I know after that failure, I learned that the BRE had to go to the legislature many, many years ago to get a cap and the protection from this kind of thing.

Has there been any discussion about this topic?

Will it help that the state is soon to be able to take over the right-of-way and this may help us with things such as this?

Sure.

Unfortunately, I'm not purview to what the terms of the agreements are between CSX Buckingham Branch and the state are.

I do know that we are in the process, our rail team's in the process of doing their annual, well, the

Every four-year state rail plan, I can send out that website.

It would probably be really pertinent to include comments about that in the state rail planning effort.

I know they're looking generally at east-west connectivity and what that

perhaps could look like, you know, if there would be additional planning needed to identify stops and termini for east-west rail connectivity more generally in the Commonwealth.

So that would be, you know, crozet to Charlottesville would only be a small sub-segment of that entire corridor that's being explored for possible passenger rail in the out years of that planning horizon.

All right, well, we'll also hope that it'll be able to help us find more willing compatriots as we try to do rail and trail combinations for our connection out to the west.

When we were working with Gail Wilson of Buckingham Branch, his suggestion was since they were going to run it out of their computer station in Stanton, that we should run it from Stanton Designs Crossroads all day long.

And he thought that would be a tremendous success.

But anyway, 10 years later, maybe we'll have a little more chance this time.

Who else is here on our round table, Sandy?

I don't see that FHWA or FDA or CTAC is here.

We can do TJPDC updates.

Sure.

Before doing that, I'd like to share an update on behalf of Mr. Williams, who's dealing with power issues.

He sent me one.

So he just asked me to share that CAT has applied for the TRIP grant.

And CAT's application is focused on zero fare funding to keep CAT fare-free for three additional years.

Thank you.

All right.

OK.

I don't think so.

I think everything else we've noted already.

Just a couple things on funding programs.

We are currently in the cycle right now for revenue sharing and transportation alternatives applications.

Those are due October 1st and we're already working with the localities and agencies that submitted pre-applications back earlier in the spring, summer.

The other update is that last week the CTV did approve the policy for the new Interstate Operations Enhancement Program, which is a program that will provide funding for interstate improvements with an emphasis on operations, but also some capital projects.

Unfortunately, nothing on I-64

this round, but we'll be looking at that again likely in a four year timeframe.

That'll give us a chance to look at the same areas and what the needs are and identify any new improvements that are needed.

So that'll be another opportunity in the future.

We've been pushing a smart scale for next round two to try to get input from the localities.

I know Kevin sent some stuff from the county and so we have some of those items and we're coordinating those moving forward with the county to refine that list and to start developing those studies and alternatives for those locations.

Michael, how about you?

No, I don't have any MPO related updates to share right now.

Your power is on.

Sandy, I'll add that because it is related to transportation that we're in the process right now of receiving public input on the Rio Road corridor study that the county is undertaking.

And that obviously goes from the intersection of Rio Road and 29 to the Warner-Rio Road intersection then continues on East Rio Road to the city line.

So that stuff's online.

You can use the old Google machine for Albemarle County.

Right over a quarter study if you're interested in seeing what's coming of that.

But like I said, public input stays, it'll come to our board later this year.

All right, thank you.

That's excellent.

Very, very informative and exciting.

All sorts of good news.

All right, so now I think we are to number nine, where we need to take up the resolution for the grant, which is being applied for by the PDC.

Sorry, I created a really quick, really quick little slide just to give a summary.

So basically this is a program through the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment, which also oversees basically the implementation of the D-TRANS, the statewide transportation plan.

They have a program to provide technical assistance of up to $100,000 for regional bodies and localities for certain activities that will help meet the statewide transportation goals.

And basically the timeline would be that this would probably be underway if we are selected and approved in early 2022, and it would have a 15 month timeline.

We would be complying for Component 3, which is the development of an accessibility planning process.

And this is really to help us develop a process to use for the LRTP update.

So it's not really to do the LRTP update, it's to develop a performance-based

process that would be applied when we do go through the LRTP update, which would be really helpful.

We've had significant staff transition since the previous LRTP.

We don't have a well-documented methodology, so this would be really helpful to us as we go through the LRTP update to have this methodology laid out to

implemented as we go through.

It also dovetails very nicely with some of the other initiatives that we have identified in our FY22 Unified Planning Work Program, which includes the scoping of the LRTP of the next update of the LRTP in this fiscal year, and then we'll plan to start the update next fiscal year.

So it would lead in very nicely with the timing of our plan.

So I have not, it's a very quick turnaround from when I sat in on the webinar to get information about the requirements.

Very good.

Any questions for Stacy?

Sandy?

All right.

Do we have a second?

Thank you.

Any more discussion on the on this grant application?

I see none.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, it looks like it carries.

You've got your marching orders.

Pick up that baby and play with it.

Yep.

That's great.

I was completely taken aback, however, when you said that there weren't any documents about how we've done the LRTP since the first one I was involved in was in 2002.

And they've been like every five years ever since.

Holy mackerel.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Let me go back to my agenda here.

Now, are there any other, we've done the items.

Anything else we need to talk about before we go to the public?

And I see none.

All right.

Any additional matters from the public at the end of our meeting today?

Do we have any voices anywhere?

They're all very tired and worn out.

Or have no power, and they've lost their connection.

And I'm sorry about that, but that's fine.

All right.

So then we, if there's no more, will adjourn.

And we will meet again December 7th, 4 PM, hopefully in a hybrid situation.

And we will find out later on.

And thank you, everyone.

I hear big logs falling or tree branches falling on my roof.

So hopefully the rest of you will not have storm damage at your houses this afternoon.

Things, wild things are going on out there.

All right.

Thank you.