MPO Policy Board Meeting   9/30/2025

Yeah, it's a lot of.

Hi, I'm Natalie Ostrun.

I'm the vice chair of the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO.

Ned Galloway, our chair, is on his way.

So I will be giving brief welcoming remarks and then calling the meeting to order before turning it over to Brad, who will call the other half of the meeting to order.

So thank you all so much for being here, for coming over the mountain to join us on this side and for coming all the way up here.

It is the week without driving, so also thank you to those folks who got here either by carpooling or biking or some other form of transportation.

For more on that, I know we have someone else mentioning that later, so I'll leave that description to Peter.

And then thank you so much for Taylor and all of the SAW MPO staff for coordinating this.

This is going to be a lovely meeting.

It's nice to see all these faces in one place.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

Councilor Ostrom.

Present.

Supervisor Mallet.

Here.

Okay, thank you very much, and good morning.

I'm Brad Arrowood, Vice Mayor of Stanton and Chair of the Stanton Augusta-Waynesboro MPO.

We considered the idea of biking or walking here, but many of us had schedule conflicts that we would have had to start last night, so I'd like to go ahead and call our meeting to order so we can get moving here.

We don't typically do a roll call, we just trust that you're here.

Thank you.

And I want to cover just a couple of housekeeping items before we get started on our presentations for the day.

So at the conclusion of today's meeting, thought lunches will be available on the tables right outside for those who have the opportunity to are speaking with Gretchen.

We have this meeting space until 1pm, so you're welcome to enjoy your lunch in this room.

Any of the chairs and tables outside are in the courtyard until that time.

Rest rooms are straight down the hall behind us and to the left, with water cooling stations there as well.

The Wi-Fi in this room is UVA guest with no password required.

Finally, there are three primary exits in here in the case of an emergency.

Good afternoon MPO policy boards from both our side of the mountain and from the other side of the mountain.

Thank you so much for coming.

Those of you, my name is Peter Krebs.

I'm from the Piedmont Environmental Council, and I provide backbone for our local mobility organization, which is called the Piedmont Mobility Alliance that unites bikers, transit riders, like all kinds of people who get along with or without a car.

Yeah, and those of you who work with me will know that I love when people work together and I especially love when these two ecosystems actually work together to create

the transportation backbone that makes it all work together.

As Natalie mentioned, our alliance is really supporting for the first time the city of Charlottesville embracing the weak without driving.

It's just an opportunity to explore sort of how the other half lives, how those who don't have vehicles do manage to get around.

And it's also an invitation to learn new ways to get around.

and so I'll circle back to that in just a minute, but back to the Mobility Alliance.

We are hosting our bi-monthly social this evening.

I was hoping to coincide it really well with this meeting.

You guys are finishing up around noon.

Our gathering starts at four.

So if you find yourself on this side of the mountain, still we invite you all to come.

That's four o'clock at three notch craft kitchen and brewery.

and so yeah so then I wanted to sort of circle back to the without driving thing and your joint agenda is actually super exciting I love the

love all three of the big items that are on it.

And they are going to be extremely helpful for folks getting around who choose to not have a car or who don't have that option.

And I'll just give a sort of quick life example.

So I'm trying to make it work without driving thing this week.

And yesterday, I had to come to, I was already in Richmond and tried to get back.

But then I have my car.

The only option for me in the end, I tried everything I could figure out was an $85 lift to get from Richmond to here and

At the time, you can probably imagine and you would have done the same thing.

I was jumping up and down and saying, I wish we had something like the Afton Express to get to Richmond.

So you guys are doing actual work that makes a big difference.

Going to someone's memorial service is kind of not an optional thing, right?

You kind of have to do it.

And so I did what it took to make it work.

Would have been easier if I were going to Augusta County than Richmond.

Good morning, everybody.

I have prepared remarks in front of me so I don't skip anything that I'm supposed to say.

I'm Christine Jacobs.

I am the executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

I would like to welcome chairs, vice chairs, members of both Charlottesville Albemarle MPO and SAW MPO for being here.

We're really pleased to be holding this biannual meeting.

As you all recall, we did not hold one last year.

We started doing it every other year.

So we're really happy to see you guys this morning.

I'd like to first begin by acknowledging the staff who made this collaboration possible today.

Taylor Jenkins, who led the organizing efforts with support from Paula Mellister from SAW-MPO.

We've got Gretchen Thomas standing in the back by the doors.

She organized our coffee and our lunch, made our name tags.

is ensuring that we have official meeting minutes today.

Ann Cundey and her team from CSPDC and the good work that they're doing alongside my team and then everyone who helped with setup and breakdown and of course all of you all as guests and our presenters today who you'll hear more about later.

Our two MPOs have been holding this meeting since 2015 when it was established as a way for us to communicate, collaborate, and share resources for transportation planning projects that benefit both of the Metropolitan Planning Organizations.

The meetings were formalized by a memorandum first signed in 2017 and then reaffirmed six years later, a copy of which is included in your packet.

The MOU identifies this 37-mile segment of Interstate 64 and the parallel route US 250 that connect the Piedmont and the Shenandoah Valley regions, functioning as a critical link within the state's transportation network, both for regional transportation, interregional travel, and interstate commerce.

The MOU states that the two MPOs will conduct multimodal transportation planning activities within the corridor in a mutually beneficial manner, including reviewing each other's long-range transportation plans, transportation improvement planning documents, and providing letters of support and comments specific to projects within the corridor.

But beyond the technical tasks outlined in the agreement, the document only formalizes the shared commitment that has fulfilled its activities for over a decade.

The MOU also represents something unwritten, which is the shared trust that each MPO values the expertise of each other, the priorities, and the community contexts with which we work in.

This partnership continues to prove that transportation challenges don't stop at jurisdictional and regional boundaries, so neither should our solutions.

It's worth pausing here to acknowledge that none of this work has happened in a vacuum.

Our success is the result of committed staff, engaged board members, and local leaders who understand the value of collaboration.

Thank you to everyone who has played a role in upholding the MOU and the countless hours that you all devote to ensuring that our regions move forward in a coordinated and thoughtful way.

The collaborative relationships built through the MOU and the joint meetings have not only improved transportation options for residents, but have also strengthened our ability to apply and compete for state and federal resources.

We look forward to our productive discussions today and to many more years of successful collaboration.

I'll now pass it over to Ann Cundey to talk about some of the work that has been completed together.

Good morning.

You know, before I read my remarks, I want to note that at our office, we have this long standing tradition of if you unintentionally twin with somebody else, you have to take a picture and put it on the side of our kitchen refrigerator.

And I just realized that Christine and I are twinning right down to our rolled sleeves on our blue blazers.

So that's the executive director uniform today.

So again, I'm Ann Kendi.

I'm the Executive Director of the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission.

And chairs and members of our two MPO Policy Boards, thank you so much for being here today.

I would like to thank members of our staff as well.

So that would be our Director of Transportation, Paula Millister, our Transportation Planning Team, Zach Beard and Gareth.

Will y'all please wave and back?

and then our transit team, Devin Thompson and Danielle Gannon.

We also have our JMU graduate assistant Kayla Dixon with us today.

She's doing work across many different programs for us this year.

And of course the TJPDC team who helped with all the coordination set up and break down as well.

Thank you for being the host MPO this year.

Along the lines of what Christine said, meetings like this are an opportunity not just to discuss policy, but to celebrate progress and set our sights on the future.

And in particular, I'd like to highlight a couple of the significant projects that have been completed or gotten underway since we last met two years ago along this corridor that we share, I-64 and US-250.

These corridors connect our two regions by way of Stanton, Augusta County, Waynesboro, Albemarle County, Crozet, Charlottesville, and not only is this corridor essential for residents but also for freight

for tourism, economic development, access to healthcare, and higher education on both sides of the mountain.

So several of these completed projects have addressed critical safety needs along I-64, I-81, and US-250.

On I-64, one of the most visible projects that was recently completed by VDOT is the Afton Mountain Congestion Warning System that you'll hear about more when VDOT shares their updates.

and alongside that you'll hear about progress on the Crozet Tunnel connector trail that Waynesboro and Augusta County have been working on for a long time.

County, significant interchange improvements and many projects related to safety, including new roundabouts and a truck arrestor on 250 on the Albemarle County side.

So since we last met in 2023, we've also leaned heavily into multimodal planning.

These corridors additionally serve as vital routes for public transportation, and we've seen the exceptionally successful launch

of the Afton Express, as well as construction beginning on a new park and ride in Crozet.

As we look ahead, there's the planned Virginia Breeze route that will connect the Shenandoah Valley to Hampton Roads with stops in both of our regions.

That kind of work exemplifies the inter-regional connectivity that our partnership was designed to support and facilitate.

None of these projects would have been possible without partnership and leadership from our jurisdictions, our state agency partners, VDOT and DRPT.

and many public and private stakeholders.

That work ensures that projects move from planning to completion and that the benefits are realized on the ground.

Beyond individual projects, what's remarkable about these efforts is how they fit together and are coordinated as part of an overarching regional strategy.

Rather than working in isolation, our two MPOs have been intentional about aligning priorities, sharing data, and coordinating stakeholder engagement.

Since we began these meetings over 10 years ago,

The partnership is as strong as it's ever been, and we look forward to continuing the work of previous NPO leadership.

I want to thank each of you for your role in this partnership's success and emphasize that I-64 and US 250 will continue to be an important piece of our region's mobility, our quality of life, and our economic strength.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm going to turn this over to.

Appreciate everyone's patience this morning.

Thank you for the opening remarks.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

I'm going to introduce some of our presenters this morning.

We have a wonderful curated assortment of presentations.

I hope you'll find both informative and engaging.

Our first presentation this morning, you're going to invite Devin Thompson up to speak about the Vaptan Express.

Devin is the transit program manager at the CSBC.

She has been with us since she was a undergraduate intern and has been

served in many, many roles over the last decade plus and has worked on just about every program, but it's really our transit master and guru of all things related to our right bus system, including our math and express routes.

Devin's responsible for managing our turnkey contract with our service provider to keep both of these services running.

And she facilitates all the planning and studies that go into making these things possible.

Good morning.

Again, my name is Devon Thompson.

I am the Transit Program Manager at the CSPDC.

As Paula said, we oversee and administer Bright Bus Transit with Afton Express Commuter Bus as one of our routes.

So I just first want to start by thanking you all for your continued interest and support of Afton Express.

In September, we marked four years of operating service.

County, Augusta County, Charlottesville, Stanton, Waynesboro, and University of Virginia along with the Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

Through the years of studies and financial commitments, you all have brought to life a vital service that connects our communities.

Through DRPT, we were able to start service with demonstration grants, which come at an 80%, 20% match.

So thank you, DRPT.

And then from there, the funding switched over to 5311 Rural Funds, which is a 50-50 partner match.

Last year, we applied for and received transit ridership incentive program funding.

Then that works to ease the local match requirements while expanding service.

So through TRIP, we can keep the local partner match low while executing these planned expansions incrementally increasing the cost to our partners over the next few years.

So just a brief overview of where we're going.

So trips originate in the western side of the mountain.

So at the Stanton Park and Ride Lot at Stanton Crossing, Augusta Health, and Waynesboro Park and Ride Lot.

And then after traversing the mountain, the buses stop at UVA at both academic stops and medical stops, West Main Street at Amtrak Station, Downtown Transit Center, the Omni Hotel and Downtown Mall, and Wegmans and Fifth Street Station in Albemarle County.

As you can see, we have some ridership growth that we enjoy seeing and hope to continue seeing.

In 2021, when we first launched for the first four months of service, we saw just about 2,000 passenger trips.

and then jumped up to about 10,000, 16,000 and 19,000 in subsequent years.

And then as of 2025, January through August, we've seen nearly 16,000 trips generated.

So hopefully we're on track to see that bar graph grow next time we give this presentation.

And again, I would go over some highlights that we've seen throughout the year.

First off, Wahoo Commute.

We were immensely excited when UVA implemented their new Wahoo Commute program.

So under this program, all UVA affiliates ride out and express for free.

And UVA's Parking and Transportation Department subsidizes these fares.

But beyond just being beneficial for employees and bolstering Afton Express ridership, it also sets precedent for how employers can deploy commuter services and benefits.

Employees get free rides and can log their trips and receive payment directly to their paychecks for those trips logged.

And it's not just bus trips, any alternative mode trips count.

But I will say to be eligible, the folks must forfeit their yearly parking pass, which I'm sure they're heartbroken to depart with, but they still get a special daily pass that they can use.

This program also helps UVA reach their goal of carbon neutrality.

Also during the year, we relocated two stops on the western side of the mountain, Stanton and Fishersville.

In Stanton, we had been stopping at the Stanton Mall, or former Stanton Mall.

It's less of a rubble pile, but it's getting, it's getting prettier.

But we did relocate to Stanton's new park and ride lot at Stanton Crossing, which is right off the interstate of 81 and 64.

This lot is also served by the Virginia Breeze at DRPT.

and will be futurally served by Bright Bus.

In Fishersville, we moved the stop from Fishersville Park and Ride, which was the Bright Transit Facility, over to Augusta Health, which is an established Bright Bus partner.

They requested the change as they have some of their workers making the reverse commute, so starting in Charlottesville and Albemarle and heading over to the western side of the mountain.

We also launched our mobile data collection system, which made the change over from manual data to electronic, giving staff access to helpful performance data more easily.

So the system also includes GPS on the buses, which will be used as back end information when we are ready to implement a third party Where's My Bus app.

And then looking ahead, we have some exciting plans on the horizon.

In the summer, we issued a notice to proceed to a consultant for technical assistance for analyzing ridership data and rider input to consider possible service changes to the Afton Express schedule to better align with work schedules and passenger needs.

Since the inception of Afton Express, those work schedules have shifted in a way that we wanted to revisit and improve upon the schedule that utilizes the potential of all of the fleet continues to serve our current riders, but also opens us up to new potential riders.

and serves the commuters needs in their best way.

A new proposed schedule is out for public comment through October 11th.

So if you know any riders, make sure they get their piece in before we look at implementing that new schedule in November of 2020 this year.

So as long as there's no mutiny on the bus and they seem to enjoy that specific schedule, we will move forward with making that change this fall.

And this will modify some of our start times and better align with those work schedules and include a fifth trip in the morning.

For the Crozet Park and Ride lot, like Ann mentioned, while we await construction of that park and ride, we are coordinating with Albemarle County and John on how to best serve that lot and expand connections.

And then lastly, we made application for and were awarded DRPT's Commuter Assistance Project Grant for transit marketing.

So we are in the process of launching a multi-prong marketing campaign that includes photography for updated photos to use in campaigns, a graphic designer to develop marketing and advertising materials to be used in those said campaigns,

and then advertising through TV and digital ads like geofencing, weather app ads, and social media.

And so I'm just going to end on this note of some two very kind words that were expressed by writers through our annual survey.

And this is just two blurbs of many that we received through our annual survey.

Most of these comments center around saving money, reclaiming their time, environmentalism, open job opportunities, reduced stress, found community, praise for the drivers, and they do have their favorites.

and saving wear and tear on their vehicles.

Any questions or remarks here?

I will say that I often any chance I get in particular championed this particular

commuter route, I wish our region would be taking, having other ones that would serve from different directions, because this has proven to be such a success.

So I appreciate all the work that everybody's doing.

All right, keeping us on track.

Statewide rail plan update is, is that Taylor?

Oh, you got to go for Carter, we skipped one.

Not keeping us on the right track.

I'd like to introduce Taylor Jenkins, who most of you probably already know.

But Taylor is the Director of Transportation for the TJPDC.

And in this role, she oversees regional planning initiatives for rural transportation, the Charlottesville Albemarle MTO, and multimodal programs.

Thank you, Paula.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm happy to be one of our transit presenters to kick us off today, specifically talking about the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority, or CARTA, as it's lovingly known.

While today we will discuss the activities that are currently taking place with the authority, we will also talk about the long and sustained progress that really got us to this point today, especially with the regional transit partnership.

Several of you have worked in this region for many years.

Conversations about regional transit planning stretch back nearly two decades, if not more.

One of the major studies that explored the idea of a regional transit authority was the Charlottesville, Albemarle Regional Transit Authority Report that was completed in 2008.

This study explored creating a regional transit authority to improve transit services and provide an alternative to driving in the region and resulted in the draft legislation that was approved in 2008 by the 2009, excuse me,

by the Virginia General Assembly.

That legislation specifically authorized the creation of CARTA with Charlottesville and Albemarle as its first two members accompanying legislation that would have allowed for revenue generation by referendum vote was unfortunately not successful at that time.

So these conversations continued over the years, and there was another study that was conducted in 2017 called the Regional Transit Coordination Study.

This study again explored the idea of a transit authority and led to a recommendation to create the Regional Transit Partnership as a committee of the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO.

So it was really intended to serve as that first step to getting us to a regional transit authority, and it served a critical role in the region for consensus building, communication, and coordination among transit providers.

Our region has quite a few transit providers.

So Charlottesville area transit is operated by the city.

John operates demand response and commuter services in seven jurisdictions and university transit service at UVA.

Not to also mention their school system transportation.

We have micro transit services in our region now and other various forms of micro mobility.

So there have always been a lot of transit partners in the region and the regional transit partnership really has provided that forum for regional discussion that we've needed.

So starting right after they were established, the RTP really got to work.

And so there are a lot of studies on the screen that they've completed since then, a lot of plans, as a lot of people like to joke.

But what you'll see is that all of these led to direct action and the region taking

action on those recommendations that came out of that.

So in 2018, one of the first deliverables was the RTP strategic plan that identified goals, objectives, and the scope of the RTP.

So what do we want to accomplish?

What's going to get us from A to B for our regional transit authority?

In 2022 the Albemarle Transit Expansion Study was created or was completed and that resulted in the launch of microtransit service and we have microtransit service in zones along US 29 and also in Pantops in the county.

In 2022 the Regional Transit Vision Plan was also completed and that established our regional transit vision.

In the region we had an unconstrained and a constrained network that was developed in that plan but we then had to step back and say well how are we going to pay for all of these services that are identified in this plan.

and so that led to the transit governance study that was completed in 2024 that guided the formation of governance structure that explored revenue sources.

It looked all around the state to see what other transit and transportation authorities are that exists and it talked about funding structure for how we could fund those services and the transit vision plan.

So the recent activities, since the governance study was created, one of the recommendations that came out of that was that we activate the existing authority that was already on the books that was approved by that legislation in 2009.

And so in March 2024, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Transit Authority working group of staff members from the PDC, from Albemarle County, and from the city started to meet and started talking through, well, what would individual bylaws look like?

What does our enabling legislation say?

What would the steps be if we wanted to activate this transit authority?

Not long after, in December 2024, there was a joint meeting between Charlottesville City Council and the County Board of Supervisors where they both voted to activate that authority and officially join it, appointing two members each.

February of this year, we had the first meeting of the Regional Transit Authority, and then in September, we received a letter with our first non-voting member being appointed, and that is DRPT.

County Board of Supervisors.

It also identified that

It also identified up to four additional non-voting directors representing interests of agencies or institutions that can join, so DRPT is the first one of those.

And then the bylaws additionally allow for finance and technical committees to be set up at the time that those are ready.

One of the first major activities of CARTA.

So earlier this year in January, the TJPDC applied on behalf of CARTA for a technical assistance grant with DRPT to really take the services that were identified in the transit vision plan and other recent plans that have been completed to get us a cost estimate and implementation plan for each of those services.

So what does implementation look like in the short, mid, and long term?

What would that cost?

Anything from operations to capital for actually getting new services on the road.

So we were awarded that as of July 1st.

And so that study, after it develops the implementation plan, some of the tasks that were included in that include service identification.

So what other plans have been completed since the vision plan to make sure all of the priorities are still the same.

Task two would get us that implementation plan and then task three would be the draft and the final plan.

And so we are shortly about to kick off notice to proceed for that, hopefully next month.

And then after that, we have a 20 month schedule for completion.

That's my last slide.

Next week, now we've got the statewide rail plan.

Taylor Holden is a Rail and Planning and Data Manager with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

In his role, he supports statewide rail programs and leads the development of the Virginia Statewide Rail Plan, which he's going to talk about today.

And he's been with DRPD since 2022.

Hi everyone.

Thanks for having me.

My name is Taylor Holden.

I'm a rail planning and data manager, and I'm here to talk about the upcoming Virginia 2026 statewide rail plan.

So I've cut this down quite a bit from my usual, so hopefully I'll make it within the time, but I'll cover kind of what is a state rail plan, cover our previous one, the 2022 state rail plan, just kind of

We get this question a lot, kind of what is DRPT versus VPRA and what are our different functions, particularly going into the rail plan and then looking ahead of kind of what we're looking at for the rail plan vision.

And then if there's a little bit of time, which probably not, but we can talk about kind of what information we'll be looking for you all when we do begin the engagement process.

So statewide rail plans.

This is the guidance that you can see here from the FRA, but states at their own election may prepare and maintain a state rail plan.

There's various reasons for this.

In the past, in order to qualify for certain federal grants, you had to have an active state rail plan.

that's changed a little bit in recent years.

However, many states are continuing with this process to kind of maintain that continuity.

They are updated on a four-year cycle, which is why we're getting started next year.

So kind of our rail plan purpose is it records progress and charts our path forward.

We always try to make it data-driven and align it with VTRANS, the Virginia Transportation Plan.

2022 was the first rail plan that we had, our sister agency, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

So they spun off from us in 2020.

So that's kind of a new element of coordination.

Rail plans work on a six,

and 20 Year Horizon of kind of all our data that we're looking at.

And then they are meant to be comparable state to state and year to year.

So this is the general outline that the FRA provides.

It's fairly loose.

You know, they've got these chapters that they want.

However, states can really kind of put as much as additional information into it as you would like.

One of the biggest pieces is the public engagement piece, which you'll see later.

We're hoping to kick off early next year.

So to look back at the 2022 rail plan, kind of our big accomplishment with that one was that we built it entirely in Esri story maps.

So it's all fully digital with multimedia applications, so interactive maps, dashboards, that sort of thing.

We really thought that that kind of brought it to life and made it a little more accessible for people.

and FRA did say that that was kind of the first one in the nation and they accepted it in that fully digital format.

So we're going to continue that.

And then kind of some of the other major things happening.

during the previous rail plan.

Like I mentioned, the creation of VPRA, we were still in the infancy of figuring out, you know, who's doing what, how do we work together, you know, when our projects are kind of going from our planning stage to their implementation stage.

Transforming Rail in Virginia is their big project through deals with CSX and Norfolk Southern.

They have acquired, oh, I should know off the top of my head, over 200 miles of right-of-way though.

and their kind of Keystone project there is building the second long bridge over the Potomac which will connect, allow for much more service, passenger rail service.

And then also kind of right around the same time was the passage of IAJA and some of these new FRA funding programs that I'll also talk about.

So just kind of briefly looking at the StoryMap platform, we really liked it because it had a nice centralized web page, chapters across the top so you could easily navigate between them, links that you can send to a direct page or section of it and make it a little more accessible.

And then you can also dynamically filter all this data in terms of like the rail network, passenger rail, that sort of thing.

The project lists and tabular data kind of could become more interactive things that you can edit and sort of change around with.

Explore, you know, what's happening in your region instead of just statewide, that sort of thing.

And then it also gave all of our data reporting in one place.

That you can also download those ArcGIS layers and use it for your own purposes as well.

So the Virginia rail landscape.

I think most of you are fairly familiar with DRPT and what we do, but this is kind of our broad overview slide.

We are the catalyst to connect and improve the quality of life of all Virginians through innovative transportation solutions, and they like it when we include that.

So I am on the rail side, so you all are very familiar with our transit side.

Our rail side is a little smaller in particular because

we, the Virginia passenger rail authority kind of branched off and took a lot of those responsibilities with them and added a whole bunch of new responsibilities.

So we do still maintain three freight rail grant programs.

And then on the planning side, we do kind of the statewide planning and long range planning, which is what I just hit there.

and stakeholder coordination like this.

VPRA, alternatively, they took the operations oversight, so the actual Amtrak service, and then they kind of, we work on long-range planning, and then when it gets to design and construction, they're the ones doing that, like with the Long Bridge or the expansion into New River Valley as well.

They own right-of-way and infrastructure, which was a part of why they needed to become an authority separate.

And then in the future, particularly when the 95 corridor is separated between passenger and freight, they'll be able to do their own dispatching as well and provide higher priority for passenger rail in that corridor.

Other agencies that we do work with, safety, SCC is kind of the one who handles safety regulations.

VDOT obviously has intersections at the crossings and that sort of thing.

And then on our freight side, we work a lot with the Port of Virginia and VDP.

So one of the big programs that we have that we've been working on from the FRA is the corridor ID program.

The goal of that is to be a comprehensive intercity passenger rail planning and development program.

Kind of what that is is that in theory, it will create a pipeline of projects for these corridors that would be finished with NEPA and PE and ready to move on to construction.

Virginia applied for two corridors, both of which are relevant to this region.

There is the D.C.

to Bristol corridor, which is an extension of that Roanoke service that is currently being extended to New River Valley, so we'll be studying that.

And then the Commonwealth corridor is our first east-west connection.

As you all probably know, currently if you want to ride Amtrak, you have to go up to DC and then catch one of the connections there.

And so we want to make that east-west connection.

You will note we also do have, we're studying both the Newport News and the Norfolk routes in that process.

So we'll be starting step two, the service development plan in early 2026.

There are almost 70 corridors in the nation that were accepted into that program.

None of them have moved on to stage step two yet.

FRA is kind of figuring out exactly how this is still going to work, but we're expecting to see the needle move on that soon.

And then, so this work will kind of be occurring at the same time as the rail plan next year, but it will go on beyond that.

So looking ahead for the 2026 rail plan, our current schedule here is that we will enter procurement this fall.

We're going to put out an RFP hopefully this week for our consultant support.

And then late this year, we'll begin kind of the data collection element.

We're already updating all of our GIS layers right now in preparation for this.

and then the public engagement kickoff will be early 2026.

That will include public meetings, that will include direct stakeholder outreach to MPOs, localities, that sort of thing.

So many of you will be contacted during that and hopefully we'll also join the public piece as well.

Then we'll work on the plan and most likely get it submitted at the very end of the year.

FRA accepted the 22 plan in February of 23.

So we do have a little bit of time into 27 to kind of get that to them.

So the CID service development plans will be kind of starting during the rail plan.

They'll sort of kick off at the same time depending on

how fast we get moving on either one, and then it will continue afterwards.

So that means that we'll be getting that large public outreach portion for the rail plan and capturing that, but we'll still be working on the details of the service development plans for those corridors kind of as the rail plan wraps up and into the next year.

On note, our rail plan does not include specific policies, but they often evaluate and inform those changes.

So for instance, we're working with the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority right now on a statewide station's policy of kind of, you know, what is our station development policy as a commonwealth.

We also take information from the state rail plan process, and that goes back into our freight grant programs and how we sort of make those changes, tweak that, and then also sometimes smart scale changes, which there may be some changes into how freight rail projects have been scored in smart scale, which they have never been scored, but there is an interest in getting more freight projects through smart scale.

So our 2026 plan priorities are to kind of record and discuss Virginia's changing role in passenger rail with VPRA's creation and the acquisition of all this right-of-way.

It's a big change for Virginia.

Not many states own as much right-of-way as we do.

And that's kind of something to really

figure out how that's going to change in the future.

Currently they're building out their major projects and so they're very focused on that, but

something will have to be coming after that process as well.

We'll also discuss DRPT's renewed focus on freight rail kind of in our agency.

We'll build on the 2022 digital success so we will still be using the story map format.

We really liked that.

People gave us a good response to it so we will be continuing that

with an emphasis hopefully on creating more tools, dashboards, that sort of thing that can actually be useful for people outside of just our agency.

and then we'll also kind of evaluate the progress since all these major changes of VPRA, TRV, IAJA, post-COVID passenger changes and that sort of thing.

In particular, the IAJA reauthorization is coming up next year.

So that will determine if programs like corridor ID, the railroad crossing elimination program, if those receive more funding into the future.

and then that's kind of what I hit on with the changing landscape and then the Amtrak fleet renewal there's all these new corridors everyone wants more trains there's already a backlog and getting more train sets and so how do you kind of deal with that in expanding passenger rail and then artificial intelligence and other changes that are things that we can see or things that we can't even understand how to expect

So what we'll be asking you all for kind of in these meetings, we're going to set up various different meetings with stakeholders.

So how have you used the 2022 rail plan?

What worked?

What was missing?

Have you even seen it?

What real data do you need?

Ownership, contacts, future development.

As I've said, BPRA owns a lot of right-of-way right now.

In some places, those transactions have been finalized.

In others,

they're still, you know, the process is ongoing.

So we get a lot of those questions that we'd like to be able to answer, but then also how can we better support you?

What rail issues do get brought to you as planners?

And then what don't we know to ask as well as kind of the, you know, let us know what would be useful for you.

And with that, please stay tuned.

We've got, you know, as I said, we'll have a lot of engagement kicking off in the new year.

So for now, I hope that has got you excited for the rail plan.

And I did bring a whole bunch of the Virginia State rail maps that are out there if anyone wants to pick some up.

We've got a couple of questions here.

We'll go with Councilor Ockring and Supervisor

Is that how you want these questions to be answered?

Either is great.

Definitely a part of, you know, when we're having those meetings, please, you know, show up, provide that input, that sort of thing.

But also if there are things beforehand, my email is open.

So following up on your comment about how some of the right-of-way that's purchased from CSS is still in the process.

Does that apply to any negotiations on having rails and trails?

Because we've been waiting for years to have a process going on with that expectation that we were told.

I know I'm going to go on the spot.

If you need more time, I'll get after you, buddy.

The second question, for the Commonwealth Corridor, there is an existing track already from Charlottesville.

Is that a higher priority than places where they could start sooner than places where you have to go?

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

So for your first question, the rail trail question, that is something that we get often and VPRA does have a very nice one pager that they've created.

that kind of says what the contractual limitations are in the various corridors.

We will be fleshing that out in the rail plan.

In terms of up for debate, no, that piece is fairly set in stone, it seems.

And so this is more of the actual county-level parcel transfers that are still being sorted out.

And then for the Commonwealth corridor, yes, that Buckingham branch line, which is now owned by VPRA, that is the preferred route for the Commonwealth corridor.

It's single track the whole way.

So there will need to be a lot of sidings added, double tracking in certain areas as well.

So that is

That is the missing link, and that is going to be the most expensive piece.

But in some of the other areas, all of the other areas already do have passenger rail service on them.

Sign the railroad.

Thanks Corey, for this body, the joint body, the Daily Cardinal service is a big interest.

I recently heard a suggestion that people are ready and maybe DRPT are looking into a Virginia-sponsored Daily Cardinal if the long distance Cardinal program doesn't work out.

Is that actively happening under GRBT when you're driving that planning process?

That is not currently something I've been working on.

We're participating with Amtrak.

They're the corridor sponsor for Cardinal, and so we've been assisting them with that process.

You had very quickly mentioned smart scale and possibly putting rail programs under that umbrella, funding umbrella.

So in rural Virginia, we have a lot of problems competing already.

Is there going to be, I guess my question is, is there going to be additional funding to accommodate the rail program or are we competing now

for our projects with freight projects.

Great question.

The freight rail projects are currently eligible for smart scale.

They just, we have never had one submitted.

And so since those are kind of regional projects, those would likely come from an MPO.

I didn't know about this one pager.

I'm looking at it now.

I had conversations with the real authority right when they were in their infancy over our next prison presentation, but three nights trail.

and I guess that's something that I'm curious about maybe like how long do these leases last with like the CXX over like right away that the state owns sorry sorry if this is not a yeah as far as I know they are continuing on into the future yeah

than never being able to get that answer.

OK, thank you.

I just want to back up on Spragg's point about limited funding.

I would say that phrase from the standpoint of smart scale is a gross understatement.

Gross understatement that we're limited in funding.

$30 billion in projects and $8 billion of brutal

and $1 billion in local match going to them.

Sorry about that.

Any other comments?

All right.

Kevin is the Deputy Director of Planning at Albemarle County.

Kevin has been with the county for nearly a decade.

I'll note, prior to that, he was with us at the CMC.

He wasn't partial to seeing him today.

His roles range from principal transportation planner, planning manager, and interim director of planning.

and his current role.

One of his responsibilities includes serving as the project manager for the three notch trade master plan, which he's going to talk about today.

All right, thanks.

It's great to see all my old colleagues and from the other side of the mountain.

I remember in 2015 working with Anne and the staff at the MPOs to plan the very first one of these joint meetings, so it's good to be back.

So today I get to talk a little bit about the Three Notch Trail shared use path.

It's an exciting project that the county has been

Working on looking at for a long time.

I'm going to go over the history of the effort with the three notch trail benefits of the trail, the project purpose project area, what we've been working on and what to expect next.

So to start out with a little bit of the history.

This was a long held interest.

by the county.

It's been put in our comp plan since 2015.

It was in the Crozet area master plan.

It's also in the TJPDC bike ped plan.

So all those planning efforts reaffirmed over and over how important this facility was for the county.

In 2021, a local group, the Three Notch Trail Group, there's an outgrowth of the Rivanna Trail Foundation,

had submitted a petition with over 4,000 signatures trying to get the county to move forward with this project.

So that's really what pushed us to look at the potential for a RAISE grant back in 2022, which we submitted.

And that was a planning grant to determine the alignment of the trail, and it was ultimately successful.

Some of the things when I think about what may be interested the folks that were making the decisions on race and the things I thought may have pushed them or attracted them to this project.

Just thinking about the trail system throughout Virginia.

So you can see right there at the red line where one

comes up to the Blue Ridge Tunnel.

I really think that the success of the Blue Ridge Tunnel put this project on the radar of the folks making those decisions.

We're working with the City of Waynesboro.

Right now they're on our team and their efforts with Augusta County

to extend that trail down into Waynesboro.

I think that struck some interest.

And then the success of the Capitol Trail from which Richmond to Williamsburg and that potential to have a future connection that you see go across the central Piedmont there from Charlottesville to Richmond.

I think all those things really played into this being selected.

the submittal talked about a lot of the project benefits, the improved safety for vulnerable road users.

Since I've been in Albemarle County, we have had a number of fatalities from bike and peds on this corridor.

It's really important for us to provide this safe facility.

We're also, that area, that rural area between the city of Charlottesville and Crozet, it's an aging population and people 65 and over are much more likely

to suffer severe injuries and fatalities from bicycle crashes.

So trying to provide a facility that is safe for those people to use was important.

It's important for the improved mobility and access for all the residents on this corridor.

We're not just looking at the people that are going all the way from the tunnel down into Charlottesville.

It's all those smaller connections in between that really make this an important project.

County climate action policies have looked to address and you know we know we're not going to change greenhouse gas emissions with this but what it does is it starts to

get people interested in biking.

And once you start biking, you really start biking more.

It opens up those opportunities.

So it starts to let people think about another way to get around besides the single occupancy vehicles.

And then, of course, the economic benefits in the community.

We were looking at the Virginia Capital Trail, which had a study that showed in fiscal years 18 through 19 that that trail stimulated

County has $8.9 million in economic development for the region.

So you know, we see that opportunity in Albemarle County.

In general, the project purpose that we're looking to fulfill here is to develop work with the community develop a master plan for this project.

It will connect Charlottesville to the Blue Ridge Tunnel through the community of Crozet, enhance those community connections that I

What is a master plan?

What are we really trying to accomplish with this?

We want to map preferred trail alignment.

It's been really hard to start this project.

When you have such a long stretch, we don't know where to start because we don't want to tell somebody build here and then find out it should have been built somewhere else.

So this this establishes that initial alignment that will be able to follow through the whole project.

It will be identifying segments of the trail for facing and design.

So if we find these

pieces that have independent utility, we're going to move forward with those first.

It'll outline those steps to make a reality and deliver the preliminary designs for those priority segments that we can quickly turn around and try and make applications to federal sources or state sources to start building this thing.

You can see it's a planning project.

There's no property acquisition or construction at this time.

This just shows you generally what the area of the trail looks like.

We're not really constraining ourselves.

We know we want to go from the city of Charlottesville through Crozet all the way up there to Blue Ridge Tunnel, but really any potential alignments in that area are open to consideration.

So I was going through some of our notes on this and I realized that two years ago, my former colleague, Jessica Hirsch-Ballerin presented to the same body on this trail that was back in September of 2023.

So I figured I'd just start there and tell you what's been happening since.

I think that probably Jessica is a wonderful optimist and probably assumed that that project was going to be jumping off within months.

of that September 2023 meeting.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite go like that.

Federal processes move a little slower than I even thought.

So since then, we did get a signed grant agreement.

The feds gave us a template for that.

We sent back our copy.

They came back with notes

three four months later and then so we sent it right back to them three four months later they sent us additional comments that's how that goes so you know it took almost a little over a year i think to actually get that signed grant agreement we then went through a competitive procurement process to identify a consultant team that could do this plan for us we had about nine applications

All of them.

Wonderful.

It was a tough decision, but ultimately we went with a team that consisted of VHB tool design group and EPR Inc.

EPR is a local firm over in Charlottesville.

So they're really helping out with those the local knowledge course tool.

Everyone knows is one of the premier by ped planning organizations.

and VHB is a great consultant here locally or throughout the state.

So we got them on board, we got the approved scope of work, notice to proceed.

I will add another delay right as we were about to get that notice proceed issued was right when federal funds were really getting pulled back beginning of 2025.

So we even hold held on to that notice proceed for a little while before we were ready to really say okay let's move forward just to try and make sure

We can be confident that this was going to be funded.

So since then we started out by creating a technical committee.

You can see some of the members of that technical committee here.

We do have Dwayne Jones from the city of Waynesboro on that committee.

I forgot to list the Piedmont Mobility Alliance here, Peter Krebs organization, the Rivanna Trail Foundation, Virginia Department of Health, the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau all have members on this technical committee and helping us move through the details of that

this process.

We've got a website on Engage Albemarle.

I'll show you the link to that in a little bit.

It would be great if you all get on there and take a look and follow along as we keep giving updates.

Our first public meeting was held back in May of this year.

at Crozet Elementary, we had 150 attendees, which, you know, for those of you that put on public meetings, that's a pretty good turnout.

We were really impressed with that and everybody was really excited.

We got a lot of great feedback about what people were going to use the trail for and what they'd like to see in the trail.

We put out a public survey and a web map.

The public survey was on for about six months, I believe.

We got about 600 responses to that survey.

And we also have a web map that was up there where people could go in and interactively add comments, add lines, tell us about things in the corridor that they knew about and give us a lot of good information for that.

We also brought together a stakeholder working group and with this we found people in the community that have been looking at this project for years.

People that knew what was on the ground and we were turned on to them by various others in our technical committee.

and brought them in and we rolled out maps and we did this with our technical committee to maps of the whole corridor gave everybody pens and said tell us what what's out there show us what we want to see and what we should identify the results of that are really sort of this spaghetti map you see here that shows a lot of the major corridors that we should be considering for this

alignment.

So you can see there's tons on here.

There's even more that our technical committee had identified.

So we had a lot of things to look at.

And the next step was for us to go out and do site visits.

So a couple of weeks back, the project team and myself, we spent two days just driving all over Nelson, Albemarle, Charlottesville, looking at all these places that people would identify.

taking pictures, noting whether or not these might be good alignments, what were positives and negatives about them.

We met a lot of people out in the field, some landowners that were very supportive of the project, which was great to see, and then people that were associated with say neighborhood organizations where they had open space that they were willing to let us possibly look at for alignments for this trail.

A really great time.

We've also, our consultants developed a trip potential analysis document.

So this document really looked at data like jobs, population centers, destinations that people might want to get to, whether they're

community centers, schools, parks, jobs, job opportunities, and use GIS to do analysis to see where could we place this trail where it would really be useful for more people.

So this helps guide the potential alignments by looking at where we might generate additional trips.

The next steps for this.

It says ongoing data collection.

The data collection is really closing at this point and we're moving into the alternatives analysis and route selection.

So like I said, we've got that spaghetti map.

We're going to narrow that spaghetti map down to three potential alignments.

and the

reducing those down to about three potential alignments.

And then we're going to go back out to our technical committee and the public and say, what do you think about these three things?

That's the next step.

Then we'll be design development starting next year, developing the construction documents and steps for future implementation.

And then in 2027, when this project is finally done,

this planning project, that's when we'll move into implementation and seeking funds.

Some of the immediate next steps that we have here, the mapping of the three trail route options, like I've said.

Some of our public involvement.

We've been doing these pop-up meetings where members of the team, members of the county, actually go out into the community and they meet people where they are already.

We've been doing this at different events around the city.

Crozet Fourth of July celebration, telling people about the project and asking them what they think about it, getting a lot of feedback that way.

There'll be website updates and then a second public meeting scheduled likely in the early December timeframe where we can present and discuss those trail route options and get feedback to move to the next step which is reducing those three options down to one.

Once we get it to one, the next steps will really be identifying those key segments like I mentioned that have independent utility, figuring out where we want to start with this trail.

We can't build it all at once.

It's about 25 miles of trail likely.

So find out where we wanted to build them to start with and getting designs and cost estimates for those smaller segments.

There will be some things, some ways to stay involved.

There'll be three more public meetings.

Like I said, we have pop-up events will be coming to the board once probably in early 2026 to sort of present some of these alignments we've been looking at and get the board's feedback.

and then again towards the end when we're looking for final approvals.

There's the website that I mentioned to you.

It's engage.albemarle.org.

If you go there, you can see a lot of the projects that Albemarle is working on, but you can select Three Notch Trail Master Plan and you can come to this website.

This is a virtual room that we have where you can click on maps.

There's a storyboard up there that you can scroll through that gives you information about the trail.

Right now, the comment form is not open.

We're collecting data, and we'll open that back out once we have some additional information.

So that all will be back up there.

And then you can also sign up for newsletter updates on that website.

Thanks, Kevin.

Okay, so we have a joint presentation from VDOT today.

So I'm going to introduce both of our presenters and let them pass it off once they finish their slides for their respective districts.

So our first presenter will be Matt Dana, who is the Assistant District Administrator for Preliminary Engineering, Planning, and Investment Management for VDOT Stanton District.

which covers 11 counties and eight cities in the Shenandoah Valley.

With over 20 years of engineering and leadership experience, Matt currently oversees project development and design efforts across the district and has held previous roles ranging from project management and as the district location and design engineer at VDOT.

Next we will have Shawn Nelson, who is the Culpeper District Engineer responsible for over 10,000 lane miles in VDOT's Culpeper District, which covers nine counties and the city of Charlottesville.

Shawn first joined VDOT in 2005 and has held many positions before this one, including Richmond District Maintenance Engineer, acting as Deputy District Engineer for Maintenance and Operations in the Hampton Roads District, and Resident Engineer at the Fredericksburg Residency.

Like Taylor said, I'm Matt Dana.

I'm supposed to get that going.

I have a long title.

Most of my passion and where I started is in design and project management.

So that's really my passion, public involvement, and coffee too.

But outside of coffee, that's really where I am.

So this is a good day.

We can talk about some of our projects.

This first slide is kind of the basis for for why we're all here and you know this combined effort between the two, the Campo and Saw MPO is really to facilitate that communication and cooperation across this 64 and 250 corridor.

So we will talk about some of our projects.

The first one Anne referred to earlier is our Afton Mountain Congestion Warning System.

So that's a system that will, as we know, Afton Mountain

Today we experienced, or at least I experienced, some of the fog coming across the mountain.

It's a frequent area with not only weather events, but also congestion.

particularly westbound, the truck climb, and so forth.

There can be congestion.

So this will provide signs that will provide real-time status of congestion due to incidents, terrain, weather, and so forth.

Also at exit 99, there's lighting that will help mitigate some of the crashes in that area.

So that

Those projects are complete.

Lighting's in place.

As far as the warning system, we are working to integrate that with our Traffic Operations Center.

One of our big projects is about, I don't know, about $120 million is the 81 widening from mile 220 to 225.

That's essentially through the Stanton area.

That's the addition of another lane in each direction through Stanton.

There's also an auxiliary lane project that's from exit 221 to 220.

That project has been completed, which for me personally is a good thing because my bridge was closed for like a year and a half and I had to go around the other way every time I wanted to come to Stanton.

So that's a big project that's going on as part of our I-81 corridor improvements.

So that's exciting.

that's set to be completed in September of 2027.

We've got a project up at the 250 exit 99 interchange.

We're looking at a signalized green tea and I apologize, our graphics aren't a little better.

Fortunately, we're in here with a lot of folks who understand what a green tea is, maybe even better than I do.

but at the at the intersection of the ramps from 64 and 250 there's often a lot of congestion particularly with vehicles turning left as well as there's a lot of it's kind of a crash hot spot as well so this will allow not only will signalize it but will allow traffic

that is westbound to pass through the signal without having to stop for the signal.

There's also a Saul MPO study looking at the potential rebuilding of or redevelopment of the, I call it like where the abandoned Howard Johnson's is and the old Holiday Inn and so forth.

that property.

So should that, you know, we kind of wanted to have an idea should that ever come online or eventually the pressures I'm sure will at some point that will be developed.

We looked at potentially having a roundabout in that area.

And on 340 in Waynesboro,

We have some operations and safety improvements along 340.

One of the projects is a signal coordination and access management project.

So those signals will be better coordinated with each other.

We're also eliminating a signal there at, I believe it's like Lenox Place, which is kind of adjacent to the Walmart

to improve movement through that corridor.

We have some westbound off-ramp improvements.

So here's the off-ramp.

We will add another right turn lane there at the that's the 64 westbound off-ramp.

Those are under design.

Construction starts in 2026.

Our southern corridor project.

We don't do a lot of new location projects in the in the district so this has been a interesting project to develop.

It's a new two-lane roadway that connects 340 to Delphine Avenue.

Essentially it goes from

you know where the target is in Waynesboro parallel to 64 over to Delphine.

So that will provide another connection there.

It also provides access to the Nature's Crossing Technology Park where Northrend Groveland is investing 200 million in a new advanced electronics facility.

So that project was recently completed

A lot of us or some of us are in that actual picture there.

The other project, which is pretty exciting, is the Crozet tunnel connector in Waynesboro and Augusta County.

That provides a connection from downtown Waynesboro to the western portal of the Crozet tunnel.

So essentially it starts from, it's like across from where the Kombucha place is, if you're familiar with 250.

I'm not a big Kombucha fan, but it's not too far from a basic city there.

And then it'll go from there under the railroad, did I mispronounce Kombucha?

Good.

Sorry.

So it'll go from the kombucha place to the western portal of the tunnel.

And so you can tell my dog Spirit's pretty excited about that.

She is waiting for the VMI guys who stole the capstone to return it.

But you know,

Hopefully that'll be back soon.

And I think that's about all I got.

So that starts in March of 2026.

So that's pretty exciting, especially for those of us.

I like to run through there.

So we're pretty excited about that.

And I'll pass it off to Mr. Nelson.

So good morning, everybody.

It's a pretty exciting time in transportation.

At the department, we're really focused on delivering a portfolio of projects to the citizens.

We've gone through this thing now with SmartScale where projects are coming in a pipeline.

It is our job to get those projects on the street and deliver it back to the citizens of Virginia as fast as possible.

So we're running on a hamster wheel right now, trying to crank things out as quickly as possible in the most effective way we can.

But it really all starts with planning.

I think the efforts that both of these groups do, the MPOs, the counties, to try to look ahead to figure out what are the needs of the citizens and how can we impact multimodal modes of transportation, economic drivers, and a multitude of things.

Here in Culpeper, we've been assisting with these efforts.

And I like to call this is where we have our, our menu for smart scale, right?

What, what types of projects are we looking at for the future?

We've endeavored multiple performance planning type studies to look at the Ivy road corridor.

We've looked at barracks road.

We're currently looking at exit 118, and we're looking at exit 120.

So the goal of this is to come up with a menu of projects that the region can get behind together, not compete against each other, but really get behind together to put forward in smart scale or other types of funding sources.

I think yesterday is kind of a testament to how fragile our transportation system is.

There was, unfortunately,

a truck that hit the 601 bridge right there at 29-250 which pretty much locked down the area for a majority of the afternoon rush.

Very thankful that we could get it open as soon as we did, but it's kind of

We need to use these planning studies as an opportunity to look at resiliency within the system also to figure out where we need to focus at on improvement.

So this is just kind of an idea to kind of go over the menu of options that the region has to pick through to determine what the infrastructure looks like in the future.

All right, next up, you want to talk about some of the projects that are almost getting ready to go out the door.

This is the Exit 107 Park and Ride that you've heard multiple people talk about today, which will also serve transit.

This project will provide 24 spaces right there at Exit 107 as you go into Crozet, and this actually project is going to advertisement in December.

It has left the district, is waiting on central office to put it out on the street.

Next one.

This is a pretty good project that is near and dear to me.

This project is the Fontaine Interchange, which is a portion of a bundle of projects that is in active procurement right now.

This project will relocate the 29 northbound to 64 westbound turning movement to the interstate up to the Fontaine Interchange.

Our actual technical proposals for this are due tomorrow.

We hope to have price proposals on the 3rd of November.

And the goal is to go before the CTB with good prices to have this thing awarded in December.

This is a design-build project.

It includes the Fontaine Interchange.

It also includes the city streetscape project and also around five smart scale project at District Avenue, which is at the border of the city and Albemarle County.

So we look to move this project forward.

The next one, this is a legacy project on the 250 corridor at the intersection of 250, 240, and 680.

This is on an active construction project that is a design-build bundle.

I call it a legacy project because it kind of sputtered out and it was on some churn where it was not being delivered.

We added this project to an existing bundle and we're able to move it forward.

So we hope that this will increase the safety at this intersection and some of the operations.

Project is currently ongoing right now and we hope to have it finished sometime this upcoming spring.

The next project that we've completed, this is the DDI right there at exit 124.

This project was completed in spring of 2024.

If you've driven through that corridor, you will notice that the operations have improved immensely through this corridor.

So we are grateful for our construction partners to deliver this on time, on budget, and I think it's a great project for the region.

Next project, this one was completed also in the spring, was a part of that bundle with the design bill.

This is at the bottom of Afton Mountain, right there at 251-51, a roundabout.

This is a fairly unique project in the fact of what came up while we were constructing the project, which I believe I talked about at our last joint meeting where it was a big safety issue where trucks that were descending the mountain coming down would lose brakes.

Well, we didn't know that really until we started construction because the construction workers were having to run out of the way of runaway trucks.

So as a part of this project, we went back to the drawing board because

I was concerned with a roundabout and runaway trucks.

A truck can really navigate potentially a signal or stop condition when coming down a mountain, but it's kind of hard for a truck to navigate a roundabout.

So if you're coming down a mountain and you hit a roundabout, it's a totally different story than coming to a stop condition.

So we installed, through a work order, a truck or restaurant, which from my knowledge is the first on the East Coast.

for this type of truck arrest around.

It's got these chains that actually stop the momentum of the truck as it goes down the ramp.

It actually caught its first truck earlier this year.

So the truck arrest route was successful at stopping a truck that had lost control coming down Afton Mountain.

This project itself just last week won a commissioner's award and the design build project itself has been

had accolades nationally at different awards.

So this is a testament to some of the work that the team has done to make sure that the infrastructure is safe within the region.

that's it for the VDOT Culpeper district.

As I said, it's an exciting time for the department.

We're looking at delivering probably over $170 million worth of work within my district to the Commonwealth within the next fiscal year.

So we are really trying to get the investments back out to the community.

And I'm here for questions.

All right.

Sorry, where was there a hand?

to the project.

And we, by partnering with our central office folks, they realized that it was a huge safety concern.

So I know there was some safety money that was put on the project to order, accommodate the extra cost on that.

So it was multiple millions of dollars in order to get that constructed.

Had to get right away, had to negotiate with the billboard that was there.

It was very complicated.

There was no,

And there was no other option.

I mean, it had to happen.

Thank you for the updates.

Finally, here to provide remarks on behalf of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation is Zach Chalkton, Chief of Public Transportation.

In his role, Zach leads statewide efforts to support and expand transit services with Virginia's 40 transit agencies, working closely with localities and regional partners to improve mobility options for Virginians.

With a background in both local government and transit administration, Zach brings perspectives from his previous roles as the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority Executive Director and Charles City County Administrator.

Can everybody hear me okay?

Um,

So yeah, it's great.

I appreciate all the multimodal talk and discussions we've had today already.

It makes us feel very much at home.

I don't know how many of you know, I mean, Taylor Jenkins used to work for us, Taylor Holden was in the office for a time, so we certainly had some.

And Taylor told me I was between you all and lunch, and so she hasn't really changed.

If you want to know what she's thinking,

She's going to tell you about it, but it's great to be here.

I'm here on behalf of DRPT.

Our director, Tiffany Robinson, couldn't make it.

She had a conflict, but I'm happy to be here.

I'm a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, so I used to come up here a lot, but I pretty much would

So 118 is about the only exit I would sometimes go to off of 64, but learning more about it.

So as the gentleman was mentioning earlier about getting between Richmond and Charlottesville potentially without having to pay $85 for a lift, there is an effort underway.

And Ann mentioned it also about perhaps a new route for the Virginia Breeze, which if any of you haven't heard of Virginia Breeze, it's the inner city bus system.

Intercity bus is something that is required by the federal government if you have some real funding that you get.

And so our actual intercity bus, which is again Brandon Virginia Breeze, started in 2017 and first served Blacksburg and it's been very successful.

There's something in Blacksburg that provides a lot of riders.

You all can make that connection to yourself.

And it gets them up to the Northeast and it's been growing every year and it's very popular.

So we also expanded service and found some other routes during COVID.

And we actually had some service suspended during COVID from about April of 2020 to July.

But then we instituted it back, you know, soon after the pandemic was kind of under control, if I could say that.

So it's something that we operate with, with Dillon's bus service.

We don't operate it directly.

You know, we're not experts at that.

We just provide it and fund it with our operator.

So this shows you the current ones again.

I mean, Richmond is the most westward area here.

Again, this is for rural counties.

If you all are familiar with the Golden Crescent, I mean, you know, Virginia west of that is very rural.

And so that certainly is where we're concentrated as you can imagine.

So 81, 29,

that area down to Martinsville and Danville.

So the Valley Flower was started about 2017.

Piedmont Express, which goes from Danville to D.C.

was about April, August of 2020, so was the Capitol Connector August of 2020.

And then down to Bristol was instituted in November of 21, the Highlands Rhythm.

They've all been

quite successful since the beginning.

I mean, there's changes going on that we have to adjust to as well as we try to keep the service successful.

So future routes, as I was just mentioning, so you see, we're looking at something.

We've been connecting to the Northeast, but we also have a large urban area down in Hampton Roads, as you know, millions of people there.

We're trying to look at providing this east-west route that will hook up the rural areas of the valley with the urban area in Hampton Roads and others, even Richmond, go see Richmond.

So we're working to procure the service, working on negotiations with schedules and stops and things like that, which is not always the easiest.

So these things do take some time to get.

I don't know if it'd be the most convenient option, but $85 versus maybe spending a day in Richmond otherwise, that's kind of the calculation you have to make maybe.

So certainly, and we also are working with, you know, a lot of things aren't just concentrating now towards the Northeast, if you all know, Raleigh, Charlotte,

all those areas are very much growing.

A lot of people moving there.

And so we've, we've established some, some relationships with North Carolina also has its own inner city bus service network.

And so, you know, Danville is right there on the border.

If you all know Danville and Martinsville, a lot of them are going to go to Greensboro and Winston Salem.

And there is already even a route that goes from Raleigh to Norfolk via, via Northeast North Carolina there.

So those just things we're trying to just give,

you know, Virginia citizens, the best ways to get places without having to get in their car.

I mean, if there's not rail there right now, certainly bus is much easier to put on the, on the, on the road.

And so just something else we're working on with our Southern neighbor.

So this is just where, you know, we're looking at, again, we're in negotiations right now, looking for those rural stops, you know, sometimes a lot of urban area between here, but there's also some rural areas that we want to connect.

And so that's where we're focused right now with this.

So one other effort going on, just to kind of tell you about, is if there's anything that we can say is important to all of us from every level, it's the importance of working with our seniors and our vulnerable populations.

And so that's what this is about, our Coordinated Human Service Mobility Plan.

It is something we're required to do as part of receiving certain funding from the federal government.

They call it 5310 funding.

that helps us to pay for some infrastructure for these human service agencies and area agencies and things like that to help transport these.

And so this plan is required so that we know we have something, a guide to go when we're spending this very scarce money, actually, there's not a whole lot of money that goes towards us if you ever looked at it for the needs out there.

So this plan is very important.

The 2025 update, this is what we go through.

Some of you, I don't know in this area who might've worked with them.

I'm sure you hopefully had the chance to put in some comments.

There's a process to this, and so we go through in five different stages.

As you can imagine, it's kind of a normal planning process.

Then the timeline for us is up through, we started in about early 2025, so it'll be about a year, it'll be a little under a year by the time we finalize this within DRPT.

So again, you see, we had surveys out there, looked at what's existing.

And again, these are things that are sometimes hard to crack.

It's not, you know, you have people spread out all over the place in rural areas, especially, I mean, you know, I see Mike out here with John, they do a lot of this stuff as well.

So this is something, you know, just trying to stretch our dollars as far as we can.

So very proud of this process, but it's something important that we're working on right now.

So look for that to come out in December.

Another thing we have going on is that we are looking at our MERIT capital and operating program.

Some of you may, MERIT stands for Making Efficient and Responsible Investments in Transit.

I can't believe I remember I was about to fumble that, but

I've heard it enough, but it's our program that we use.

It prioritizes and scores projects that are issued to DRPT.

So we are prioritizing the greatest things.

And so, I mean, the most important, what we feel the most important things according to our policies and the code and laws.

And so, again, it's heartening to see that we've talked so much about multimodal here today.

I mean, as part of this process, we've really looked and

I want y'all to know, Virginia really does invest a lot and I think we invest a lot in public transportation, especially if you consider like some of our neighbors to the south, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, maybe being some of our competitors, we really do put a lot more into it.

I don't know if I'm saying some controversy here.

I mean, some of the high tax States, maybe to our North, I mean, we really are close to trying to invest like they are with hopefully maintain a little less tax burden, but it's been part of this process really shown that to me more.

So as part of that effort, we've just been charged with trying to make sure we're still stretching those dollars that we are putting into it and putting them in the right places.

So as a requirement to review this, when we got into it, we really set some

some goals we want to look at as part of this.

One of them was that

Our current formula sometimes we think puts a little too much emphasis on some of the inputs, which is like you get operating costs, influences, some of what you get.

And you can tell on the face that sounds like it's quite inefficient.

The more you spend, the more you'll get.

That's not necessarily how it works, but that sounds bad.

It looks bad.

So we'll try to look at what comes out of these efforts more to reward agencies or to provide more funding.

Also, that's also the performance-based allocation.

So we want performance to drive this more.

Those of you that have worked with the formula know it's quite complicated and it's going to remain complicated in some ways.

So we're trying to simplify it some.

And then sometimes allocations can be unpredictable.

I don't know that we cracked that code looking at this, but that's another thing where you just, you know, sometimes it depends on the funding.

Sometimes it depends on what all these different agencies in the state are doing that can depend on how much your agency will get.

So those are some of the challenges.

Just to kind of show you what we're looking at, I mean, the capital assistance, I'll talk about that first.

Capital is where, again, we get projects in and we prioritize them and score them, and then we'll allocate or award projects based on how they score in our system.

So three things we look at, state of good repairs, just trying to keep your current stuff up to snuff so that you're not spending more on maintenance, you're not unsafe, things like that.

So that's our priority.

And I'll talk about all these a little bit in a second, but yeah, we basically have three types of categories.

So one change we're looking at as part of this review was just defining a little bit more about what we do.

We get a question all the time.

So I understand an SGR project, you got a bus that's 12 years old, it's time to replace that bus.

Boom, you're probably going to get that awarded.

But what if something doesn't have a straight out 12 year life?

You know, it's just you got an HVAC system.

You don't know how long that was supposed to necessarily last.

So people may last.

So that's where you get into these minor enhancements.

So we need to define that a little more and have a category for that.

So we don't get that question every year about a thousand times.

What exactly is a minor enhancement?

So that's more for our sanity maybe to make these change, but more transparent.

And then on the major expansion side, those larger projects that we get,

We're making it to where those can be more SGR now, because it was really like expansion before, but we really haven't gotten many of those.

So we're scaling that back to include SGR there.

So it's a little more transparent again.

And then we're also just trying to use the process to get some outcomes we need.

And this is

This is basically saying that we're going to be rewarding.

You can get a few extra points if you're managing your projects well, if you're managing your grants well.

And you might be saying, well, shouldn't people be doing that?

Yeah.

One thing I'll say is that these last, I wouldn't even say several years, in the past when so much money was being pumped through the system, this was a capacity issue sometimes and people were moving that stuff through.

And so sometimes

the capacity to manage some of these projects has been difficult.

And so we've had to just say, look, we need to maybe see about whether this project is going to get done or whether we should kind of refocus.

And so this is about saying, if you manage your projects well, if you're really putting stuff into applications, we can give you some, we wouldn't want to provide those incentives or our money gets put through efficiently.

Projects are applied for a good time and just adds a little bit of a

a carrot to that.

So that's what that's about.

And so those are some of the changes.

I mean, the operating assistance, again, it's kind of complicated right now.

It goes in.

I was talking about the size and metric a little bit.

So you go in with some of these things where how much service you provide and then that gets adjusted by some of your performance characteristics.

That's the way it goes now.

and we're going to to keep that but what we what we use now is what's called a trend adjustment so you're basically judged about how well you're doing against those those that are moving up or down versus statewide average the problem with that we found is that you can be a high performing agency but you're not going up anymore you've kind of hit you know a plateau of good performance but someone that was not performing well but that's going up because they're starting from a lower point they can get a performance boost while you actually get

knocked on that.

So that was something we started to see.

Probably COVID might have caused some of that because you saw these dips.

But that is something we want to move away from.

So we're recommending implementing this one where it's more direct.

And so agency A and B, as you see, agency B can still get some performance boost.

but it wouldn't be at the expense of agency A and so again very complicated how this works but it's just we've after these years we finally have seen there's a little bit of a perverse incentive some perverse outcomes there that we want to try to take care of and so that everybody's getting rewarded for good performance regardless of whether it's you know coming from bad performance

And so this is what the new one would look like.

Again, I'm sure this looks all like Greek to you all, but it's a little more direct.

And again, we can have, especially our agencies in here that are in the operating formula, we can certainly talk with you to try to kind of explain what's going on.

This will be up for approval at some point, but a little more direct in terms of measuring your performance versus saying if you're performing well, but you're not performing as well as some of those coming up, you shouldn't get punished for that.

and there's a timeline for, you know, just potentially how we'll go about that merit review.

There's one other thing I would mention very quickly, and I mean, like I say, Mike's in the room and others, we've been going through a 5311 study about, and I know there's a lot of rural ages up here that get some of that money.

And so just pay attention to that, I guess, again, some of you have been involved in that.

So 5311 is the rural money that comes from the feds that we then,

and so needs in the rural areas have been growing faster which is great service has been expanding and things like that and needs are being met but needs are also growing sometimes faster now than the revenues are growing and so we've been having a look at how we might

I would like to thank the staff of both MPOs for organizing today's joint meeting.

Certainly appreciate all the policy board members who joined us from across the mountain.

So now we will be transitioning to

Outside in the lobby, so you'll find it outside.

Thank you, everyone.

And with that, with Charles Albemarle, MPO Sanity Journal.