MPO Policy Board Meeting   6/24/2026

Good afternoon everyone, I'm on a policy board here at Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization MPO policy board for our Wednesday, June 24th at 4 p.m. meeting.

And by actions down on this end, it's eventually our live meeting.

Thanks so much.

All right, we'll do the roll call.

Hi, we'll do it.

Brianna's out.

You see where I'm going.

Where is I?

This is Councillor Oschrin.

Supervisor Malin?

Here.

Congressman Fleischer?

Here.

Sean Nelson?

He's outside of the building.

Here's Tim.

He's right outside of the building.

Stacy Londrey?

Here.

Christine Jacobs?

Here.

Ivan Brucker?

Daniel Koenig?

Wood Hudson, Julia Monteith, Mike Murphy, Jason Espy representing online.

Thanks, Jason.

Great, thank you.

All right, we will move right to matters from the public.

Is there anyone who wishes to get in public?

We have one.

Anybody else?

All right, you have a podium, and you have three minutes.

My name is Paul Rady.

I live just outside of Crozet at least for the next year.

I have to say that I am disappointed that City Council approved the bad design for the West Main Bridge, water, etc.

intersection.

I attended the public information session where that item was presented alone with a roundabout option.

The only problem was the roundabout design was even worse.

I have

I've been an advocate for a roundabout at that intersection for almost 10 years.

I asked one of the VDOT employees who was there what they thought of a roundabout design and they said that it was awful.

That's two bad designs that got presented to the public to choose between.

I could create a better roundabout design having been an amateur transportation planner for almost 40 years.

When you make car movement in the city more difficult, you risk hurting your tourism industry.

I have lived here for almost 60 years.

I have always hated driving in the city, and I do it as little as possible.

Traffic lights have never been forwarded.

I hope you don't get the fun of it.

Anything less than a roundabout and a two-way water street is a waste of money.

Thank you, sir.

And I didn't check.

Is there anyone online that wishes to do public comment?

And no one else in person.

All right.

We will move to item number three.

And we have our review and acceptance of the agenda.

Is there any modifications or changes to the agenda that we need to do today?

So moved.

Moved and seconded.

If all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

All right, great.

The agenda is approved.

And we will move to the April 22nd, 26th meeting minutes.

Any changes or edits or concerns about those minutes?

And then I'll also ask about the, well, I'll just push all the way over there.

Is there a motion to approve the April 22nd, 26th meeting minutes?

The second?

Second.

Right, motions made and seconded.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

And those are, within item number C, we have the Campo bylaws and public engagement plan revisions.

There were a memo and track changes and the clean documents all divided.

This is mainly language change for the CTAC, the synonym.

Is there anything else there that we need to comment on?

As a longtime member of the CTAC, before the CTAC was called CHARG, they, our CHARG was members of the community and the university architect and not who else from VDOT, this is how all of them felt, Stacy's laughing.

And this was when the group was charged with making contact with the public.

I do sense the CTAC is supposed to be trained

county staff, city staff, not members of the general public, as they seem to have some on their map, who are not highway folks or pedestrian folks.

I don't know that that's a fair assignment for that.

So I'll just leave that for others to chime in on.

I know that there was some discussion about standing up an engagement group that was truly representing the public

of when it was needed.

Yeah, I think the Ad Hoc Committee was when the long range transportation plan comes around again.

We have the ability to stand up an Ad Hoc Committee before the act and have a conversation about how the citizen engagement would happen as part of that process.

We have plenty of leeway to have that discussion

All right, so we need to adopt the plan revisions if there are no other comments.

But we're still leaving all this public engagement and responsibility on the staff of the two jurisdictions in the technical advisory committee.

They have a lot of work to do on it.

So I just, you know, I'm the only one, I'm the only one, but I don't think that that's

I don't have anything else to add.

Well, we're not looking for a motion to adopt the bylaws and the public engagement plan of religions.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

The motion has been made and seconded.

Would all in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Right.

Those are very good.

So we'll go to item number four, new business.

And for a smart scale round seven, Campo and rural projects.

And Taylor, Taylor, you switched your name on this.

I'll introduce myself and Taylor Lowry, everyone.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

All right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

So I'm going to give a brief update on this part to go around seven.

Oh, yes.

I don't know if Chris shared his screen.

All right, so I will give an update on SmartsGo round seven, and then I will also give an update on the three applications that were submitted in our rural jurisdictions in the TDAP region.

This is the request that came out of our SmartsGo workshop that we had back in March.

For SmartsGo updates for the NPO, on June 1st, we received three new decisions from the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment, or BLIPI,

When Woodby does their screening, they are looking at three different items.

They're looking at if the products that you submit are eligible, if they are ready to receive funding, and if they're meeting of maturity.

All of the feedback that we received for our projects were specifically related to product readiness.

This is something that we weren't anticipating because we had some planning studies that were still in progress that weren't yet complete, and we still needed our revenue to support when we submitted those.

It's like that.

When will you get confirmation that we are now complete?

about the timeline?

It's just everything gets there, essentially.

Unless you had an application that was developed previously that had everything, it's been updated, it's screened out at this point.

So it's the normal.

There's a more severe screen out.

I don't know that I've ever picked up on that before.

So as far as next steps, June 1st, the full application officially opened in the SMART portal.

So staff have been working on getting those revisions in there that were requested from WICI and following up on the final documents and making sure that we have all of those.

We did receive resolutions of support earlier this month.

So Charlottesville City Council provided a resolution on June 15th and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors provided a resolution on June 17th.

And the next deadline that we're working for it is July 15th for all of that supporting documentation to be completed for applications.

August 3rd is the official final application deadline.

So that's the date by when VDOT has to go in and say, yes, all of these documents are complete and they just have to confirm and offer concurrence that our application is done.

January 2027 is when we see the staff recommended funding scenario.

That's when we see we'll go to the CTB and they will present based on how the project were funded, here's how they recommend, the ones that should be funded and the ones that shouldn't.

And then June is when projects are officially selected for funding when the CTB adopts the six-year improvement program.

Any questions on this front, Ms. Martingale for the NPO?

And I also included this in here just to tee us up a little bit for a couple of the presentations that we will have later on in today's meeting.

So where are we in this big process of transportation planning and funding?

So I circled June for where we are as far as where we are in the SmartScale cycle.

So this is a two-year cycle that happens for SmartScale specifically, but outside of that, there are a lot of other processes that are also going on at the same time.

And so you'll see further down in the year as you get to that next June color, after projects are toured,

We will get ready to kick off new planning studies for STARS and for Project Pipeline.

Project Pipeline is listed on this graphic.

That's sort of an elo that you see toward the right underneath the odd years.

In Project Pipeline and STARS, those directly feed into the projects that we're going to be able to have ready for the next round of SmartScale.

So I wanted to provide this for you all kind of visually just so you could see where we are in this timeline of the process.

I have been told that

Selection for project pipeline might be a little bit earlier this year.

So it says December is where the CTB will go.

That could be a little bit earlier this year.

All right.

Now for the rural jurisdictions, for the pre-applications that they submitted,

So these are for projects that are outside of the MPO's boundaries.

So in Albemarle, Louvanna, and Louisa, outside of the MPO, no free applications were submitted, but for Greene County and Nelson County, they each submitted two applications.

For Greene County, the first is a Route 29 R-Plant project.

This is a resubmission.

This project addresses capacity preservation, safety, transportation demand management,

for transit access needs.

It also includes installing an R-cut, so the restricted prop and U-turn, extending the U-turn lane, and the preliminary cost for this one was $23,000.

The other project for Green County is along US 33 and the 1050 green prop intersections, so the V-train priority needs that were identified for that location were safety improvement and transit access.

This location includes a PSI segment, as identified by safety data along this corridor.

And this project would implement median U-turns by closing median crossings at different intersections throughout this corridor.

Do you want questions at the end?

We can take them as we go.

OK. Somewhere down there, it talks about 33 westbound to advance north-south.

Yes.

What is happening?

Is that one of the cross, the medians is going to be cross and closed?

It's the eastbound right turn lane onto Advanced Mills.

Eastbound.

Okay.

So right now you're right.

It's very short.

Okay.

Is there any change in design that would encourage AT wheelers to come down that road?

Because Carrie and Michael and many staff over the years have met me in the dance mills for the hairpin terms where the trucks fall off, tip over, spill the buildings all over the road.

So four or five years ago, there was supposedly an effort to talk about signage from the

the Green County, the intersection, or they used to make CVs like on their name north of here all the way to Burleysville Road.

That's not suitable for trucks similar to the one on Plank Road on 29 South.

That's a great big sign that says Route 732 or whatever it is is not suitable for attractive trailers.

Okay.

So a lot of star trailers going over the mountain.

We'll then have to go east to tractor supply and then cross over there and go west.

Does that sound right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

For Nelson County, the first product that they submitted was along Rockfish School Lane and Route 151.

This product actually met a custom V-Trans meeting.

So when I spoke with the planners and the VDOT Lynchburg district, they described that there is a policy in the smart scale technical guide, where if there isn't a V-Trans safety noted in a location, if there have been three or more crashes, you can reach out to AV and basically make the justification to be able to submit a project that addresses safety.

So that's how they were able to get this project eligible to be submitted.

For this project, we saw a dedicated right turn lane on the southbound and eastbound legs of Rockfish School Lane and Rockfish Valley Highway intersection.

This would provide additional space to separate turning vehicles from rear traffic.

And the cost for this one is $2.5 million.

This next project on US 29, corridor improvements, this is an RPEB project.

This was known as an RCI when they took it out to the board and to the public.

I do want to let everyone know that the Nelson County Board decided not to submit a full application for this project, but I looked at it for awareness that this was a free application that they submitted, but they will not be hearing this one forward.

The V-Trans needs that were noted throughout this quarter were capacity preservation, transportation demand management, and safety improvements.

And it also includes a PSI segment and two PSI intersections.

The preliminary cost for this project was $19.8 million.

Yes, that's the last slide.

Are there any questions about either of these projects?

This may be the answer later from

Stacy or Sean or anybody.

So if an area where the rural area comes and butts up against the growth area, such as middle school road and 250, two whole quadrants of that are rural area, would that intersection be able to qualify for any of these rural area funds?

So I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you are outside of the MPO boundary.

You're under a different area type completely for how your project is scored.

So they're still eligible for funding as long as there's a V-Trains need throughout the corridor or whatever roadway that they're doing an improvement on.

It just matters like the physical location of the project.

So if it's in the MPO, it would be scored using one area type, your area type B.

And if it was in the rural area, it would be scored with another.

So I got them out?

Yeah.

Then we are ready to move to the 4B, correct?

Tonight we're going to start, well not really start a conversation, but have a conversation about picking up our next round of study projects that are being administered through the VDOT study program.

So there's two different study types that we're going to talk about tonight, stars and pipeline studies.

And I know there's been a lot of discussions about, well, how do projects end up as parts of applications?

And one of the ways that they end up as parts of applications is that we start with identifying locations that will be good candidates for studies such as the ones for stars and pipeline.

The important thing to know about the study program that we're talking about tonight, project pipeline and stars, is that they're both administered

centrally by different VDOT or divisions under the Secretary of Transportation.

The Office of Environmental Planning and Investment works directly under the Secretary's Office and then STARS is administered through the Transportation and Mobility and Planning Division.

There are other ways to do planning studies.

These are the most widely used ones that are coordinated through VDOT and through the VDOT Department.

The patients are different throughout the entire planning division, or district.

So what that means is that we're going to talk tonight about study locations within the Charlottesville, Albemarle, MPO area.

Keep in mind that the Cold Cover District is looking at studies throughout our entire planning district, which includes not just the MPO, but the entirety of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, as well as the, is it Rappahannock?

So we are determining what are the needs and the locations, what is the capacity of each of the individual localities and regions that we're working within, and how do we make sure that we are providing good support for all of our local governments.

and the goal of both of these programs is to support future funding applications.

Typically, we're thinking of these as small scale applications, but it can also be identifying lower cost improvements that could be added into our ongoing six year improvement program as, you know, projects that can be incorporated into our ongoing budgeting processes, as well as things that could be submitted through revenue sharing or federal discretionary programs.

But our goal is to

Keep in mind that there's a goal to identify implementable projects.

So if you look at the program guidelines, they're separate program guidelines for SARS and they're separate program guidelines for project pipeline.

And you'll see that they each have identified the project purpose, the goals, suggestions for who should be participating as work group members, and what the process of conducting the study looks like.

So while there are some distinctions if you read through this line by line, they follow pretty similar prophecies.

So first of all, both programs are administered statewide.

And the managing entities of the statewide centralized process are determining what is an eligible candidate for each of these studies.

The purpose in STARS is defined by, again with a focus on the multi-modal improvements,

The purpose of SARS is to focus on projects that will meet needs at locations that are identified as having high safety and congestion needs.

And then the project pipeline is geared more towards identifying solutions at locations that have high needs that are identified in the statewide transportation program, which is V-Trans.

So the goals of the program, the eligible locations, are defined by the Admissions Story Agency.

Each of the programs requires collaboration, but it's among a wide variety of stakeholders, localities, VDOT central office, VDOT districts, other stakeholders that are identified, maybe schools or transit agencies, UVA commonly sits on our study work groups, and also across disciplines.

So you want to make sure you have your traffic operations folks, your location and design folks, your planners, your communication folks, maybe local law enforcement.

and make sure that all of these different stakeholders are represented so that we're addressing as many of the considerations as possible throughout the planning process.

Generally, they follow the same cycle.

It's about every two years.

There's a little bit more flexibility with STARS, but typically there's a big push every two years.

And then both of these follow standard established transportation study processes that include both the technical or data analysis

as well as public engagement.

The project pipeline is for

Cost-effective solutions to multimodal transportation needs.

So that multimodal piece has to already be part of that area that you're studying?

It has to be any of that is identified through V-Trans in the state system.

So the first step is to make sure that your identified project is sort of focused on addressing the need that is identified.

So let's say that there's a safety need based on vehicle crashes at an intersection.

That's not to say that if there's not a bicycle or pedestrian need or a desire for bicycle or pedestrian improvements to also be at that intersection that we put included, but we need to make sure that we're addressing the identified V-trans need at a minimum.

No, but both of them will address multimodal.

You can do multimodal with both of them.

Okay.

I think part of the discussion that we'll have as we go throughout the process is it's not that you necessarily want to design a project specifically just to get as many points

through a funding program as possible.

But you do need to be aware of the implementability of the project as you're going through.

And some of that is being aware of how projects will receive scoring points, what the cost of the project is going to be, those kinds of things.

And having a mindset of just trying to be really pragmatic as you're developing solutions.

People shouldn't, so here's the thing.

Okay, awesomely done.

No, you're still going to tell us.

I think the study, if it fits better than pipeline stars, a long case study.

It's just a flavor of money of where it's kind of.

And both of them prioritize or both of them include the bike pedestrian stuff as a bonus, not as a priority.

It depends on the needs that are identified.

They could, yeah.

And again, but you don't necessarily start off a project like that.

You start off a project by saying,

where are the highest needs?

And the statewide program prioritizes those needs.

We'll say this is a priority one, this is a priority two, priority three.

You'll look at what those needs are.

And you will try to make sure that you're getting concurrence on what the needs are as you develop your solutions.

So some of that could be, there are a lot of bicycle and pedestrian needs for bicycle and transit and pedestrian accessibility.

So that could be a key component of your project.

They're updated every two years.

Two years, that's what it's going to be.

But they're not always prioritized.

The priorities aren't necessarily that every two years, the priorities might be updated every four years.

If you could send a link to everybody for that, I looked all over the media website for it.

It's interactive.

It's a map.

It's not like a list.

We can send it out to all of you.

I just painfully remember the process, but 15 years ago Hannah did this and they never looked at the old studies.

I mean, it was, there we go.

But anyway, hopefully it's better now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we're going to talk specifically about STARS versus pipeline.

We're going to talk about, because like you said, there's more similarities than differences between the programs.

So we're going to talk about generally how they work.

And both of the programs will start first above the framework phase.

And so before we start talking about solutions, before we start data collection, before we really get into the meat and potatoes of what the study is going to be,

We start by working with all of the different stakeholders to make sure we have the right people participating in the process as part of the study working group.

And we're going to clarify the project goals.

So we're going to look at the VTRANS team.

We're going to look at existing crash data.

Sometimes we do a needs identification survey during this phase.

And then we're also going to agree on what the scope of the project should be in terms of the technical analysis and the public engagement.

We're going to make sure everybody's comfortable with what kind of modeling tools we're going to use with the future, with the future planning horizon is going to be, you know, do we need to have public meetings or just public surveys?

Is that sufficient?

We're all going to come together.

We're going to agree on that from the beginning so we have a shared ownership of the scope of work for the planning study.

And that occurs in the framework phase and then all of the different divisions and all of the stakeholder representatives are going to sign off on that framework document after they have a chance to review it.

and then we'll move into the study phase.

During the study phase, this is when we start doing more of the technical analysis.

We'll look at the cost history.

We'll do an operational review.

We'll all agree on what the growth rate is going to be based on the future planning year horizon.

And that's also when we'll start looking at what are some of the potential alternatives that we could consider that might start addressing the solution and again,

This is looking at multimodal.

We identify the problems.

We're going to be looking at what are the solutions that we can consider for trying to improve conditions from existing conditions into the future year conditions.

I want to emphasize that every time you go through this technical analysis, there's a series of trade-offs.

You can have 100% of this and 45% of this, or you could have 70% of this and 30% of this.

This is a process where we use the data, we use public information, and we're trying to weigh those trade-offs against each other to move forward and select which alternatives we think are going to provide the most benefits, be the most competitive, make some of those pragmatic decisions about which alternatives we select to move forward.

And so that's on the technical analysis side, and then this is also supplemented by additional public engagement.

At a minimum, we will have two points of public engagement for every study.

We will do a survey to identify the needs with the public and have the public tell us what they think the concerns are at the project study locations.

And then we'll do an additional survey at the advanced alternative space where we have some alternatives that we're considering and have the public weigh in with which of the alternatives they might have the most preference for.

That's at a minimum.

We can add additional engagement as needed that will be determined

with the study working group members during that framework phase.

The overall project usually lasts probably about 18 months-ish.

So the majority of the work is going to be spent in the study phase.

So she talked about how they're trying to start a pipeline

getting it approved early because 18 months, if you're looking at a two-year cycle for smart scale, by the time you spend 18 months doing a study, doesn't give you a whole lot of time between the end of the study to get ready for another application cycle.

Since your first one application round, you're enough for the next application rounds.

So the roles and responsibilities.

From the central office and the imaging agency perspective, WIPE or the Transportation Mobility and Planning Division, they are going to oversee the program.

They are going to administer contracts with the consultants to make sure that the consultants are meeting expectations.

They will approve the study scopes for each of the individual projects.

So we will all be working to scope the project, but the central office agencies are going to be making sure that

those folks fit in with what their overall program goals are.

And then depending on the project and depending on availability, the central office division staff will also attend the study working group meetings as they're able to.

Your main point of contact during the study is all your VDOT district staff.

So that's all the people at VDOT that are in this room that you're used to working with.

You will serve over project managers.

We will do most of the

Coordination to identify who the stakeholder working group participants are, who coordinate the review and provide the approval of any of the study deliverables that are needed throughout the process.

There are different technical memorandums that we'll need to review, so we'll coordinate with the other study working group members, make sure that they're meeting all of the technical requirements for those studies, as well as any of the public information materials, surveys, flyers,

Social media, there's those kinds of things.

We'll be reviewing the concepts, making sure that there's the VDOT standards based on our guidelines.

And we check in regularly with the consultants and provide any of the background materials that are needed.

Anybody who doesn't work for VDOT that participates in these studies have additional responsibilities as well.

So the most important thing is to show up, be attentive, and participate actively in any of the study work group meetings.

This is usually your locality staff, could be other stakeholder agency staff, such as the universities, such as transit agencies.

The project is near a school, it might include a school, or like we said, police or emergency personnel.

We'll decide in the framework phase who the stakeholders are that need to be engaged throughout the process of the technical working group.

The study working group members also need to be reviewing the materials and the deliverables, providing feedback to the district.

The district will coordinate those responses.

And then we need to rely on the study working group members to share information both with the public and internally within their organizations.

It could be that, you know, there's a project that might involve a different division that's not regularly sitting on the study work group.

And so it would be one of their responsibilities as a study worker to make sure that they're sharing information back and forth within their organizations and providing information out as needed to make sure that whatever the recommendations that come out of the study are supported overall by their governing bodies.

And then one of the expectations starting off early in the process is that these projects will result in funding applications for implementing projects.

Usually that smart scale could also be revenue sharing, transportation alternatives, discretionary funding grants, or like I said, we could potentially work with our traffic engineering and residencies to see if there are lower cost, shorter term solutions that we could also consider.

But our goal is to identify implementable solutions.

And so this just gives you the background of what the studies are, what the expectations are, high level of the process, but our next steps

At this point is to review the locations that have been identified for our next form of study locations.

Once there's agreement on those, we'll submit requesting depth studies to the appropriate basketball office agencies.

And then we'll be able to start moving forward with office studies, which we would expect to occur a little bit later this fall.

I think, I mean, it really just depends on the study, but I think that's not going to be the publicly facing part because a lot of those are not necessarily going to be big projects that are going to need action from a local governing board.

in order to support.

So it could be, for example, like updating signs or the language on signs or like restarting the road or something like that.

For instance, in Orange County, they're doing a study on 522 and a part of it that we're finding out is that people are really speedy on 522, but there's no location for enforcement.

There is no application

That was this kind of thing.

Okay.

So,

You looked at the star study and there's a chunk that really could just use this and okay, and stars can do the rest.

Okay.

Got it.

Yeah.

That needs to be defined in the framework phase as to what the expectation is for this body, city,

Council, Board of Supervisors, where they need to have updates, what their level of review needs to be.

Is the question you're asking is, is there an official ruling needed from this body on anything in this study?

There is not an official ruling.

Got it.

So at the beginning, we say, do we want them here to have any input on this?

I mean, I think

I don't think that that has happened in the past.

This was so helpful.

Any other questions?

Awesome.

I'm going to try it, but I'm wrong.

Thanks, Sandy.

So the next item is 4C, we've got starters, project, pipeline, study, locations, and it looks like city of Charlottesville, and Ben will be first, and then we'll move to Avar County, and Jessica, and then Saffman Hill, I don't know.

All right, so I'll be presenting the city's recommendations for the next STARS study's locations.

This was something VDOT engaged with us in, Sandy, this must have been back in February, we first started talking about this.

Our current STARS study that we're wrapping up was very fresh on our mind at the time.

That study is the West Main Ridge study that council adopted the application for smart scale on the 15th

a couple weeks ago.

So as we were looking at what's next, we were kind of trying to think of how do we build on our success from that SARS study.

So naturally the places that we looked were basically the neighboring areas because they show up in a lot of our plans as important places that we need to take care of.

So the first place I want to point to that rose to the top was Preston and McIntyre.

This should be pretty familiar to all of us, both in the city and county.

This location is basically the next block up from where West Main and the Ridge is.

And this was, you know, that west east connection was really what we were looking at in that study.

This needs to take care of how we do the north south.

This location is something that is identified to be transit as a need for bicycle and pedestrian safety and operations needs.

If you're a pedestrian who's crossed this intersection, you can understand why.

It's also identified in the city streets, the work plan,

This may be a plan not everybody is familiar with because it's really old.

We have had these needs since 2016 at the very least and identified them as priorities since 2016.

So it's unsurprising that we didn't fix anything.

We still have these needs to fix.

We don't have it listed here.

This is also something that's listed in the new Safely Blue Ridge.

So we have confirmed recently that this is still a need.

We've over the past nine years had 89 crashes here.

Part of the reason that we anticipate that this is going to be a project that will be implementable and useful is we've got a lot of space in this intersection.

We've got a lot of extra lanes, a lot of places where we may be able to make some changes.

We also have a partner who owns one of the large pieces of land on this intersection.

So we may be reaching out to the county for some support in how we deal with the land around that intersection.

This is one that we are anticipating that we would be the lead stakeholder involved since it's sort of smack dab in the middle of the city, but we would obviously want the county to be engaged in any discussion that's going around with that property.

As we were talking through what kind of projects that we need to prioritize, we're landing on this question of how much effort is too much for that lead stakeholder to take on.

And as we were talking through that,

sort of pointed us to maybe there's really only one project in the city that we can be the lead stakeholder on.

And if that is the case, this is going to be our key recommendation for what that project should be.

We had a second project that also rose to the top.

It's the area south of the West Main Ridge intersection.

So the Monticello intersection on Ridge and the Sherry Elliott intersection on Ridge and all of the corridor in between.

This is going to be a more challenging project for us to do a study on, in our opinion.

It is very warranted as a project, so we know that there are trans needs in this area.

We have done previous STARS studies at West Main and Ridge.

We're also doing study of this street south of this.

We also have a traffic calming study going on in the Fightville neighborhood just to the west of this.

and we have a construction project at Monticello and Second just to the east of this.

So having all of these different walls that we're juggling in the air all at the same time that we might want to step in and potentially study this might not be the best timing for that.

We recognize that there is a need there that we've identified for over a decade and it's verified through MOOC Safely Blue Ridge.

But we think this might need a little bit more time to cook before we study it and clean up some of the other projects that are neighboring to it.

As we were talking through these projects, we had a couple other potential locations come to the top, things that we talk about all the time in the city as issues that we need to figure out a way to address.

And then we'll probably need to come to either VDOT or federal partners to figure out funding to move forward with.

The first on this list is East High Street.

It's one that we identified through New St. Louis Blue Ridge.

We have a demo project that's designed and we're looking to deploy later this summer.

That one we looked at and said, you know, just looking at the implementation question, that might have some challenges as a standalone project.

Through SmartScale, we're looking to have scoring benefits through things like congestion and access.

There's not a whole lot of right of way here.

There's not a lot of capacity that we're going to be able to add to this section.

So our ability to get congestion scores out of just this section by itself, kind of limited.

We have been talking since the tech committee meeting about how we can move forward with this section of East High Street.

Later, Jessica is going to be presenting on one of the county's recommendations, which will be neighboring to that.

And we're hoping that the study area for that project will be able to encapsulate this.

So we won't be studying it by itself, which we thought was kind of a fraught endeavor.

We'll be able to study it as part of a larger package along with the county.

and so we won't have to sort of carry that burden on our own as the city.

The other two that are listed here are projects that, you know, we know that these corridors have heavy safety needs, that they are serving low-income populations that are really relying on biking and walking in transit, but these are much bigger problems than what we were probably going to be able to solve through the STAR study.

There are a lot of conflicts

in the Elliott area that we need to talk through sort of on a bigger scale of how that ties into the larger network.

Preston, also a very long border from 10th to McIntyre.

Obviously, we need to study that.

That's something that we have identified through our comprehensive planning and through our zoning change that we need to come back into that neighborhood and do small area planning and figure out how that neighborhood's network is really going to work.

I don't know that we really want to do that as part of the STARS study since it touches on a much larger land use and economic development sort of question that the city needs to probably tackle independently of that.

So our recommendation coming out of this as staff is to move forward with Preston McIntyre as our preferred city STARS study and then to amaze the county's

Brebridge, and Laura Pantop's study to include some of the city's East High Park.

Any questions on our recommendations?

Ben, well, she said that, you know, like we just got our experience, our total priorities list, Ben and Karen.

And when I'm talking to folks, like when you talk like one project in the scope of all these others that you're doing, what's the city's total list?

We don't have a total list yet.

And that's something we're working on through our utility plan.

So we have several lists.

We have

We have all these different plans that have different risks, but we have not consolidated them into a, this is the one priority risk that we're going to pull up.

So when we are going through, Hey, how do we pick a project?

Our lists in streets that work are much more constrained than that.

So we're talking like a dozen in each of these plans and there's lots of overlap.

So I wouldn't say 80, I would say probably less than 50.

But it takes work for us to figure out which of those 50 we're talking about coming into our time.

Hi everyone, I'm Jessica Dimmick, Principal Transportation Planner for Albemarle County and I'm going to talk about the proposed study locations that the Albemarle County Transportation Planning Team has been discussing with VDOT.

We identified several potential locations of interest and in talking with VDOT about which locations would be good candidates for these studies.

For these study processes, we narrowed it down to three.

So I'll be talking about the US-29 at Airport Road location, US-250 at Freebridge, and I-64 exit 118 at US-29.

There were other locations that we considered and determined that they were not as good a fit for these study processes.

US 29 at Airport Road has been a location the county's transportation planning team has wanted to study for a long time.

This location is number six on the PSI intersection list for the Culpeper District, meaning that of all of the intersections in the entire VDOT Culpeper District, this one is the sixth worst in terms of crashes relative to expected crashes.

This intersection is experiencing a lot of traffic congestion, especially during the weekday peak hours.

It's also immediately adjacent to three different activity centers, Holly Mead Town Center, the Timberwood Shopping Center, and the North Point Activity Center.

And the employment center of North Fork is within proximity of this location along Lewis and Clark Drive.

So there's a lot of development going on and expected in the future.

Facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians are lacking and there are no crosswalks for pedestrians to cross the street.

The county wants to develop in a way that encourages transit, the Regional Transit Vision Plan.

Transit is envisioned to serve this area and

As part of the US 29 STARS study that's going on right now from Woodbrook to Hydraulic, the consultant did a transit propensity analysis and determined that even in that location, the development patterns are pretty far off from being ready for transit.

And so part of the items we'd like to address is to figure out how we can organize ourselves to encourage growth that is supportive of transit.

So we think that this would be a good place to do a study to look at all of those challenges and develop solutions that work to meet the various goals.

The yellow circle indicates that intersection of 29 and Airport Road would be the focus.

But we would like to look at all of the area in the dark blue dashed line.

How do those intersections along 29 work together as well as east-west on Airport and Prophet

On the east side, the extension of Worth Crossing north of Prophet Road to serve as a parallel facility would be something to consider.

And VDOT is working on the design for the missing link of the connector of Berkmar Drive to Lewis and Clark.

Also, the county is considering this area as one of the first locations to do their activity center planning for.

And so it's possible that

that activity center planning effort and this VDOT or pipeline study could, if not aligned in their timing, at least mutually inform each other.

This slide simply shows the V-trans needs on the left side.

You can see that at the intersection of 29 and Airport Road, it is a district

Construction District Priority 1 location and their Priority 1 and 2 segments all along this corridor.

And I mentioned the intersection PSI number 6 at the intersection of Airport and 29, but there are also other intersections and a segment that have been identified as having potential for safety improvements.

The second location is... Jessica, could you go back?

This is a good example of a question for perhaps the author or whoever might know the answer, if there is one.

So there's multiple things going on in the study area as Jessica just eliminated.

In the north side development, I think there's a lane expansion happening prior to and then past the intersection as they continue running forth on 29 that they're doing as part of that project.

When you decide or put whatever data in to determine that this is a good study area, are you already theorizing what's already in motion and funded is going to do?

And does that impact it?

Or are you just looking at the current conditions justified?

Because this is a great picture where those two red sections are on the left diagram.

Since Berkmar doesn't continue, that's where all the Berkmar spill out happens.

And once it goes up to Airport Road, it'll continue all the way up to Lewis and Clark Drive, so I expect that dynamic will worsen up there.

Or get worse.

I don't know if worse is the word.

It's a word on West Virginia, I know that.

And I'm from there, not knocking on West Virginia.

But what I'm, you see what I'm trying to get at?

So that will be done when the study, if the study comes forward, we take into account all the TIA that have been done in the area to project the traffic where it's going to be at and say the improvements that are supposed to be with it.

So it's all modeled with what it's supposed to be there and planned to be in the future.

So the roundabout at Berkmar,

We're at Airport Road and the continuation of Bertmar.

It's already trying to model how that traffic will flow through there.

In the study of wood.

And then it would only account for that approved land use that is not proposed or pipelines.

This might be something that I don't know, but what is the activity area plan?

So in AC 44, there were... That's our comment.

that's our recently adopted comprehensive plan.

How many activities?

30 some.

30 some activity centers identify.

And those are envisioned to be the centers where future growth is concentrated.

The county is talking about undergoing a planning process, those activity centers.

Sure, so we're, we've looked at three different locations across the county to start that activity center planning.

So this will be more like a small area plan, a little bit more detailed focus than you might expect from a master plan per se.

So we'll be looking at land use, we'll be looking at housing, we'll be looking at economic development,

as part of those plans.

Okay, great.

All right.

So the second location we've talked about is US 250 at Freebridge, and the county staff are interested in studying this location for multiple reasons.

The Pantops area includes multiple activity centers for future growth, including the regional center at the Pantops

of lower Penthouse, which could include the redevelopment of the Penthouse Shopping Center.

And that could accommodate significant growth.

There are other activity centers nearby like Ravana Ridge and Peter Jefferson Place and redevelopment opportunities with State Farm.

So this is a clear area of growth for the county within biking distance and served by transit.

The county is actually considering South Pantops as possibly one of the first activity center plans that they would do.

And our team actually facilitated an activity with our county's organizational leadership team to explore the strengths and weaknesses of this area.

And congestion, specifically congestion limiting the potential for growth, was raised in at least the group that I facilitated as the number one issue.

So it's about congestion, but it's not just about congestion.

It's also about how do we make meaningful bicycle and pedestrian connections and what are the opportunities for transit.

Improvements will be made in the next two to three years at the intersection of 250 and Stony Point Road with the smart scale project that is in design.

But we want to look at how this intersection functions with the adjacent intersections.

And as Ben mentioned, the city also has interest in continuing the area along High Street.

So it seems like this could be a good candidate to study.

The bonus is that it crosses the city and county line.

Is that so really that there are no scoping things yet?

As far as the geographical limit, for example, this is the second bridge on the list.

What is, and maybe it's too early.

Yeah, these are scoped right now.

So we would have that discussion as part of that framework phase before we would start the actual study.

and anywhere in the considerations, or is there anything for the bypass going west?

Or is it just at High Street and Lowndes?

Do you mean, the fact that the bypass is standing still for hours a day, because that makes people like me who has to go to a meeting, that's by now, come down

carefully in five miles an hour down East High and down and get in the right slip lane and go over the bridge and take a right.

But so I'm not helping the traffic on East High Street, but I also can't use the other one because it's not going anywhere.

So the limitations are just so great on the lanes on the free bridge that it's just standing.

Jessica, the dotted line for the study area on High Street, or I guess then maybe you have those.

As far as features needs go, there are priority one and priority two needs identified.

And of note, the bicycle access need shows up as very high.

both along 250 and along East High Street.

And I also have another question about the activity center plans for this area.

This is just because I'm not fully aware of the county's process, but if you're doing an activity center revision of this space, would that include, you mentioned land use, would that include like

I don't know what the current zoning is for this, but like rezoning this instead of all this parking lot and cardio, but it is more housing, which would then alleviate some of that congestion.

Is that something that's under consideration?

We do expect that we'll need to update our bottom of our future land use map.

We have not considered if we would need to rezone.

I think will happen.

That's part of the discussion.

It would be perfect.

Okay.

The last location that we think is a good candidate is I-64 exit 118 at US 29.

There is a project pipeline study that is currently underway.

And as part of that study, VDOT is developing a VISN model

not just to look at the interchange but all the way up through including Fontaine on US 29 to just south of the ramps at Ivy Road and also along I-64.

So this would simply be a continuation of the project pipeline study.

It was interesting, I was doing some historical research on county project prioritization processes

And back in 2015, right after SmartScale was first created, the county's planning team developed their first, as far as I can find it, comprehensive prioritization list.

And this location was number one on that list in 2015.

So the county is supportive of continuing this study to develop feasible practical solutions that will work in that.

In addition to the interchange capacity, safety deficiencies, and the regional network demand and travel patterns that have already been documented in the prior studies, of note is the park and ride that exists on Teal Lane just off of 29 South of the interchange.

We would like to include that as part of the study.

potentially having better defined parking, looking at ways to serve this with transit.

And then finally, the sea development plan includes a new traffic signal at 29 and a pedestrian crossing across 29.

And we would like to look at ways to connect pedestrians across 29 and further to the east

potentially under or over 64 and connecting into the Granger property and just making further pedestrian and bicycle connections.

So we think this is an opportunity to explore pedestrian and bicycle connections in addition to the operations and safety issues of the interchange.

It has very high capacity preservation needs

We have discussed other ideas for locations.

Can I go back one quick second?

This is not what we got with studying and decided not to study.

Okay.

So is this one of the ones that is better split into two studies kind of thing?

Yeah.

It's just trying to figure out what is a practical solution to a really

I don't think we have done a study that includes the interchange as far as up to IV to look at this as a system

as opposed to independent sections.

So there may be things we can do on 29 to help with the issues at the interchange and vice versa.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Other locations that we discussed but determined were not ideal fits for this study process include

several of those listed on the screen.

And we are talking with VDOT central office, particularly the statewide pedestrian and bicycle coordinator, David Cook to study South Pantops Drive and Greenbrier Drive through the roadway reconfiguration study process that looks at within between the curves or edge of pavement, what can be done in terms of restriping,

or other lower scale modifications to try to find pedestrian and bicycle facility solutions.

Both of those were on the paving list for the next year.

So we're going to try to squeeze in the study to come up with some solution that can be then implemented with the repaving.

Thank you very much.

Well, because Hillsdale is on there, I just want to note that I commute up and down Hillsdale by life and the new roundabout's free.

I was hungry and I said, wow, is it done?

I went to there yesterday.

I think the rain stopped them from officially striking it, but it's in the configuration.

I literally drove them very, very to that.

People are loving it.

Yeah, I've seen that.

Well, I know that the people that live over in that area are thrilled because it's been a long time.

All right.

So the next item I'm looking forward to be.

Yes, and so the staff memo that was included in the packet was just a concise sort of summary of the action that's before you all today.

We are looking for a vote on the candidate study locations to recommend to carry forward with VDOT and what we see for the next round of STARS and pipeline studies.

And so you all received presentations from city and county staff on those today.

The only caveat that I will add is that we

have been communicated with to hear that the program capacity of STARS and Project Pipeline will only allow for one of the projects in the city of Charlottesville to be able to be completed.

So with the motion with the or, you can decide that later.

So the draft motion for consideration is looking for a motion to move that the Charlottesville Albemarle NPO Policy Board approve the following Canada's locations for consideration.

The upcoming STARS and Project Python Study Cycle, US-29 at Airport Road, US-250 at Freebridge, I-64 Exit 118 at US-29, and Preston Ridge McIntire Intersection or Ridge Corridor from West Main Street to Cherry Avenue.

Oh, did you say we have to decide?

So I just understood, I thought you wanted the org in there so that it covered which decision life.

All right, so I'll amend my motion and get rid of Orridge corridor for West Main Street and Terry Avenue.

Well, I didn't mean to make the motion.

I would have corrected the motion.

All right, if all in favor would say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstaining?

Very good.

Motion is gone.

Thank you.

Sorry, I missed that.

I thought I missed the answers.

Then 4D, US 29 star study update.

They're all ready together.

All right, it's been a little while since we've given an update on where we are in the current US 29 STAR study.

So I am going to go through this high level and then if there are specific questions, we can get into this.

As you recall though, this study is broken up into two separate studies that are running concurrently.

So we have one that is the US 29 corridor from hydraulics Woodbrooke and one that is focusing more

on the bypass area going a little bit south, but then in the middle.

Let me see if I'm getting my quizzes right.

So this started in 2024.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So what we've been doing behind the scenes is going through preliminary alternatives.

So what this means is that we did all of that data collection that we talked about early on, and then we started brainstorming what are different alternatives that we can consider at some of the key locations where we've identified that there are needs.

We started putting together high-level concepts.

We did a screening review.

So there are different types of analysis you can do.

One of them is just putting numbers into a spreadsheet and basically saying, well, these different types of intersection controls work.

Will this different kind of entertain groupovers?

This is really just to give you sort of an indication on, does it look like there's any viability to this improvement or not?

And it helps you narrow down the number of alternatives that you can

do further more advanced analysis on.

So we're doing all of this with our preliminary alternatives and started narrowing these down to our advanced alternatives, which were projects that demonstrated that they could be feasible based on that high level screening analysis and started moving those forward to do some additional analysis to see did it work when we do actual modeling and look at what they would look like operationally.

Do they work in terms of would they fit geographically into the area?

Those kinds of things.

So we've been narrowing down all the additional alternatives to our advanced alternatives.

That's the part that we're hearing now.

We've had meetings with the study work groups to make sure that the advanced alternatives would be generally consistent with goals that have been established by the localities.

And what we are getting ready to do right now is to take the advanced alternatives that have been identified

and prepare public surveys so that we can get public feedback on these advanced alternatives to see where public opinion lies on what improvements the public may be willing to support.

Once we get through that public input survey, our next step will be to go back and work with the study work group to identify what the preferred alternatives would be.

And those will become recommendations that could potentially go into funding, funding applications or

to determine if there are opportunities for some of these lower cost implementation strategies.

So that's where we are right now.

So just as a reminder, this is what the first corridor scope looks like.

We're looking again from hydraulic up to Woodbrooke.

We started looking with 10,

primary intersections, and then the additional data collection at another six intersections.

So there are a lot of data collection along this corridor.

And we established what our goals were going to be.

So from a statewide perspective, there are VDOT goals.

29 is the corridor statewide significance.

We need to make sure that we're maintaining throughput along the corridor, reducing congestion, or at least making sure that we're able to continue processing the amount of traffic

that process itself.

But we're holding that hand in hand with the locally identified goals for the corridor, which is that this is an important corridor for place making in Albemarle County.

There are high density land pieces on either side that need to be enacted across 29.

And we wanted to make sure that with the local and regional goals to improve transit services throughout the area that we were making sure we would consider what that could look like in the future.

And so we were trying to put all of these goals together and considering those all equally as we were developing our preliminary and advanced alternatives.

We started off with about 15 different recommendations.

The corridor was pretty challenging to get through because there were so many options to start with.

So it was a little bit overwhelming.

So our consultants developed this matrix to sort of help evaluate the trade-offs between

different alternatives that could be considered at each of the intersections that were being studied.

And from there, going through this additional review of the preliminary alternative, we narrowed it down to about eight or nine advanced alternatives that we thought could be implemented moving forward and would help address the identified needs in the early part of the project.

So a lot of the improvements are really focusing on reducing some of the terminiveness that are occurring at certain intersections.

So we're looking at things like through cuts, which would eliminate the through movements at intersections.

So people at those intersections will be able to turn right or left, but not go straight through or the reduced conflict intersections or archives.

which again would eliminate left turns from the side streets onto the main line that still allowed left turns off of 29, wouldn't allow left turns off of the side streets onto 29.

These kinds of improvements would give more green signal time to the three movements along the 29 corridor so it would maintain and improve that throughput.

And then they also have the added benefit as they would accommodate

and improve pedestrian crossings.

So it helps meet both of those established goals of increasing the connection between the two sides of 29 as well as meeting the statewide goals to maintain the throughput on the 29 corridor.

We also looked at what was happening with some of the with some of the lane transitions that were occurring related to the Ryan Road overpass.

And so one of the things that we're looking at is how can we help

vehicles get positioned appropriately so they're not going under the rider mode overpass and then merging when they come out the other side to try to position themselves to turn right or left instead of getting in position before they get to the overpass.

So we've identified some opportunities to improve signage and also potentially looking at a median barrier that would prevent people from merging across the lanes once they go through the underpass.

These were not moved forward initially, but based on the information we got at the last study work group, there was support for at least moved us forward to get public comments on whether or not there would be support for the alternatives.

To put the surveys together, we are going to be putting together sketches of what each of these alternatives would look like, and then we're going to put together a matrix.

I don't know if I can use the mouse.

a matrix with the STAR system to help survey respondents sort of understand what the relative distinctions might be between different alternatives at one location.

So this is just a way to help provide context for survey responders.

Just a quick question about the point.

There were 16 intersections or places on the original map to address.

Yeah, this is where we identified either that there were issues at this intersection that we could correct.

or that could potentially be benefited or like some of the intersections just either would benefit from these other places having improvements or it's that you have to leave some of the intersections accessible to accommodate like vehicles that want to turn left, they have to turn left somewhere.

and so the eight that were selected are being left alone.

But I think that information is still there should the county want to do or look at other improvements along that corridor.

The other thing that I'll mention is that as I worked through this study, one of the early alternatives was to use Hillsdale on the parallel route to 29th so you would redirect some of the traffic

on to Hillsdale.

As we went through the study with the study work group, the preference seemed to be to try to not redirect the traffic to Hillsdale, but to try to keep the improvements focused along 29.

And so we did not continue to move forward with discussing solutions on Hillsdale.

But one of the things that we determined since the technical committee and getting the feedback from technical meeting discussion is that we will include on the survey, not improvements

Okay, great.

Yeah, that's what, that's what I do because I commute all the way up to Woodbrook and behind Lowe's on my bike.

And so it is an interesting, it's an interesting route that I have to take.

But when I get to the Hillsdale shared use path, it's like a really

Sure, yeah.

So having more of that would be great.

The thing that I was kind of curious about was spot number 14, the Rio fashion square mall intersection, because that is, traffic backs up along Rio in either way, and then there's people wanting to cross that, and there's a big flat space there.

And so I was stuck at the light there today, and curious about like,

Yeah, so that was included in the scope as like a supporting intersection.

So it was never our invention necessarily to focus on an improvement at that intersection, but it was kind of intended in case there was an impact at that intersection or we needed to do something at that intersection.

So we didn't look specifically at evaluating improvements at 14.

I will say that I think

at least in terms of marked scale, that location by itself doesn't demonstrate a high level of need.

So it would be looking at, is there another funding opportunity that would give us to do that there, but we certainly can see where there would be some benefits to.

I don't hear from there.

Well, but in the like the Hillsdale realignment

would have it behind Fashion Square Mall at the intersection before Port Tain, with also a roundabout treatment, because that's the entrance to the shopping center.

So there's other projects in play that the county could be going after that's outside of the scope that impacts those 16 things.

Sharing the roundabout just took care of number 12.

So there's things down there that are happening even outside of this.

And it could impact, you know, what the study is.

Right, right.

I know.

So, and this goes to an earlier conversation months ago about the leave that happens because folks are coming up and they get past Hilton Heights Road before they encounter a sign that says you need to be in the left to learn tournaments to go toward it.

And I made the point that if the signage was a mile or two earlier,

People have the room to start making the maneuvers before they're past Hilton Heights and slam into the two lanes.

And this is also like where, well, if you're traveling west on Ride Road and there's just some signage that says, Biodale Shopping Center straight versus turning right.

Like I never turn right to go into Croker, even Sunday morning when there's no traffic.

Go right across because it's just faster to go right across, take the right on Burke Marr and enter through

Kurt Woodbrook from Workmark.

So a lot of local people who live in that area do that habit.

Why?

Because I see them and I happen to shop on the same schedule as other people that lived on it.

And so that's where I'm like, we're spending lots of money on huge sites to factor in huge treatments where I think signage alone could be a low grade, low expense item that could change behavior in similar fashion to this

I don't know if it says that specifically, but we can include, I mean, I don't know what specifically it would say.

We can make sure that the recommendations include that.

Right now we're just getting ready for the public engagement.

I understand how to study.

Yeah.

I'm saying that there are sometimes low cost things that just step back.

And I understand data and quantitative data and all of that.

But sometimes we just have to go, what's human behavior going?

Just like everybody finds these just way to go.

And

If they don't know that's the easiest way to go, the signage helps them.

And once they do it a few times, they're like, holy crap, this is fast.

Just like I learned to do that, knowing the traffic patterns of crossing over and living with.

And I'm just watching people that are familiar there.

I don't need a study that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell me that some better directional signage properly plays to give people time to do what humans do.

They'll do it.

Okay, but a sign can be put up in three months.

Well, you're well, I mean, I've been through putting a sign up to beat up.

So I'm going to correct that.

And it depends on what type of sign.

But there are some of those now.

They're already there.

We talked about this in this room like two years ago, and we all refer to the fact that in a month, during COVID,

All this new information was put up there so that go here if you need to get to these 15 stores.

Now we just need new information on the signs that are there and to move them back in both directions for themself way beyond where they are now.

I write this all the time and I will tell you there are hundreds of people per hour who go guayo and go down slowly down that slip lane and creep across to the left side and

There's no reason not to.

I mean, I don't choose to because I go across to the Hill, to Burkhart because that's the road I've been supporting system down.

And it's fabulous and it has lots of pedestrians and it's great.

I'm not trying to undermine or undercut what this study's trying because the tree scents may be needed and are bigger, but in the meantime, there are low cost, low effort things that are there that need to be better placed.

Or like Ann said, the information changed that I think could be incredibly helpful in a world where you're looking at a locality that knows that we have 169 projects on our list and it's going to take forever to get through them all.

that if we could find solutions that are low cost, low effort for everybody, that those should be tried.

And even if it's just the county being able to say, we'd like to do X, Y, and Z, then we run into the barriers of making that happen and knowing how long it takes to get engineers to sign off on signs and colors and sizes.

I'll keep bringing it up because I know I don't remember the meaning.

Specific to the point of where the current signs that talk about after you pass Hilton Heights Road, it starts telling you what to do.

Yeah, right.

I guess one of the things that I'll say, not to answer your specific point, is that we're not precluding low cost solutions as part of the solution.

And I think, I think, and we're also not finalizing the recommendations right now.

We just want to get public feedback.

Keep, keep it in mind that you put a sign up, it takes 18 months to two years.

Well, and maybe that, and maybe that's, I don't know.

I'm just throwing that out there.

I don't know.

Depends on the kind of sign, but, but the study, but you know, we don't want to go back and do another study if we find out that there's still something in addition.

So then we have the study that has,

and additional longer-term solution as already identified too.

That doesn't mean we have to start with a longer-term solution.

That's a good question.

I thought it was bringing it up for suggestion.

Now this one's new, the signage for the riot pill, but the signage for the traffic moving, which wasn't

I didn't see you out there.

The southbound traffic and the weave issues from Woodbrooke to the Rio 29 intersection.

It's seven and eight, so I'm assuming it's included somewhere between seven and eight in the details of the study, the content of the study.

Yeah, we do have some of those lower-cost sign improvement types of recommendations that are also included in the study.

That wouldn't necessarily go out for public comment, because it's not, like you're saying, it's not a project that would need to be an application.

It's something to be coordinated with traffic engineering or the residency.

So it sounds like process-wise for a sign movement, I saw a carry on mine.

Do I edit the carries list?

Is that something you bring up to carry?

when she becomes before the board, hey, we bought this sign to be moved a mile earlier, a mile north on 29.

Is that, and I'm asking like legitimately, like, okay.

But it helps that the recommendations are in the study to move the sign.

So these things are being discussed.

They're very complex conversations, I would say.

But what about

In regard to this, do we ever just add signage in another location?

Instead of moving it from one location to another, is that an option?

It all depends on the size of the sign and the demonstrated need for it.

Where's the sign?

And there's a difference between signs that give locations of roads versus signs that give locations of destinations of places, because we do not put those signs

That's the TODS program.

We don't do that.

But the prime consultant that's doing this has done studies in this area, you know, pretty confident.

I guess I was struck by all the white circles on Hillsdale because since 2002 Hillsdale was the parallel group waiting to get Berkmark put in.

and is considered inconsequential and that really shocks me because people drive it slowly like on the sidewalks or the paths or whatever and so this just seems to show a lack of awareness about what the reality on the ground is all I see.

I have a design question.

When you show this to the public comment, which is your next step,

This is just to show how the scale works.

So the scale is going to show that if there's two and a half stars, that's neutral.

Oh, that's your key.

I was not getting it.

Yeah.

So each of the improvements will have its own stars rating associated with it.

This is just sort of to show what

It looks like I'm not reading it.

I thought that was literally related to this content on the back.

So, and then next question about the showing it to the public.

Is there ever a simulated video of what it looks like?

It's, there may be like some standard graphics and visuals of what a treatment would look like, but not specific to the error.

That used to be part of a long race transportation plan.

The modeling would then, that was quite helpful actually.

I mean, I think, I think if needed, we could, we could provide that.

I don't think we would start with that though, because it would be a pretty intensive effort.

to make that available as part of the public.

And it wasn't scoped up front.

Yeah.

Thanks, Heavy.

I just wanted to clarify something you were talking about and I brought up that I was also confused by the illuminations that would be from the riot road as it were passed on the Woodburg Black Turn.

Are these folks coming

from Rio, turning right to go north, and then needing to go left to get the looks.

Yes.

And so there would be a barrier on 29 all the way toward Brook Drive from Rio, so that you could go left.

And so then

Correct.

So now you're getting the Woodbrooke neighborhood off before Rhine.

Correct.

Correct.

I don't believe the behavior is to go up over the interchange to turn right into Woodbrook.

Sure.

The behavior leaving Rio to go north and then turn left definitely exists.

Sure.

But I don't think people have found

because they're going to light up at the top of the room.

So that would have to be our worst behavior change.

Sure.

But the you get the dunk, it works great.

If you come out of Carter's Brook, if you turn

On to 29 at certain times.

Do we have a sponsorship opportunity?

Alright, so a similar process at the interchange area.

This one isn't that nice of a straight line, but we're looking at basically from hydraulic, looking at the connections to the bypass and then also going south on Emmett Street.

We did, for the analysis, we went over to the barracks for interchange, but we're not really looking at improvements at interchange.

That's to make sure that we're considering impacts at the barracks for interchange.

So again, the goals were similar.

Reducing congestion on the bypass.

Again, these are corridors of state bicycles.

Again, improving safety, improving the bicycle and pedestrian accommodations.

And again, making sure that we are considering what the future transit services throughout the region will look like and making sure that any improvements that we move forward with would be able to accommodate that future enhanced transit throughout the study area.

So we have fewer alternatives here.

We started out with about nine or so different alternatives, looking largely at different ways to improve the bypass center change up at Emmett Street and the hydraulic, as well as some improvements on the Angus Road intersection.

And so once we got many advanced alternatives reviewed and worked through the different alternatives with the same work group,

Hey Sandy, can I get through real quick?

This is just some lingo.

I wanted to double check back a couple slides.

It says do not include future enhanced transit on 29.

Is enhanced transit like either a dedicated bus lane or bus rapid transit or light rail or something like that?

Yeah, it's really

Yes, it's looking at improved transit service, whether that's additional stops, whether that's a dedicated bus line, whether that's increased frequency.

So as Jessica mentioned earlier, one of the things that the study found is that the land use development density ridership, all of their signs aren't pointing towards the proclivity to have some of the rapid bus transit types of services on 29 currently.

And so the recommendation is not focused around transit.

We just want to make sure that if the region is able to move towards being ready for that increased transit services in the future, that nothing we're doing right now will make it more difficult in the future.

All right, so we're looking at about six different

alternatives that we're going to move forward for the southern portion of the study area for the public to weigh in on.

I will say that while we're looking a lot at the different things that we can do at the hydraulic and the US-215-29 bypass intersection, I think most of the excitement and support within the study work group is really focused on this Hillsdale Drive southern extension.

There are lots of opportunities for us to provide a lot of the benefits that are supported.

There's a really high demand for movements at the hydraulic and bypass.

So a Hillsdale extension will allow some of those movements to be dispersed to another intersection as well as support better multi-modal connectivity throughout that area south of Hydraulic Road in the city.

So that ended up being one of kind of the

Operating principles that was used to determine whether or not other BSL alternatives should move forward is whether or not those would potentially be compatible with the hostile traffic extension.

But otherwise, these are the improvements that we're putting forward for public comment.

Are there any other questions?

Could you explain what eliminate the westbound on and off ramps in Hillsdale means?

And if I knew how to use those, I could probably pull it aside.

But it would be redirecting those movements to the Barracks Road interchange.

So you would actually close some of the ramps on Emmett Street and redirect those to other ramps.

This is the one where you're coming westbound and it dumps you right in front of the best part.

It's that ramp.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

That was a similar question is because I didn't have a chance to go find if there's visuals, because it was tracking as I read it, like, Oh, some of the systems

It seems to track and logically make sense to me

But I don't know if I was thinking of the right spot, so to stack the visuals, but okay, if it's out there, it's a lullaby.

And one thing I do not see, but maybe implied in one of these ones through 14 is extending the turn lane, which have been extended from three cars to six cars in the eastbound bypass to northbound hydraulic at the light.

It's still backing up in bypass all the way to the top of the bridge.

It would be paired with eastbound.

The eastbound left turn lane would be extended and the southbound left turns would be made to a triple left.

You'd have to have a receiving lane.

Awesome.

Yeah.

That would be interesting to see.

It's an alternative.

It's an alternative to evaluate with the public.

We're not making our recommendation right now.

We're getting public feedback.

OK. And so when you say you're collecting public feedback,

We're going to put out a survey.

It has not been released yet.

Okay.

When the survey goes out, please share that with all of us so that we can share it with others.

Yes.

Do we get actually lots of people?

So

As a part of this process with the stakeholder group, from the various entities, who is supposed to be distributing this information out so that it reaches the masses?

Because we're going to do a news release.

It'll go out.

But individually, in the entities, who's communicating with the other board members?

So typically, I will send it out to the site work group.

And

They will distribute it through one of our channels.

Yeah, like when the survey goes up, because Ann wants to know when the survey goes up so she can distribute it.

So one of the ways that we're all having faith that's built into our board's operating or agenda building is at the end of each meeting, we have board committee reports.

Okay.

So this is a place where typically if we know of a public engagement activity, whether it's a survey, a meeting, it's a time for Ann and I, when we report on our work here, to say X, Y, Z, we'll throw out some things.

Sometimes we send additional info on to the other board members that they seem like they're interested in it.

Plus there's also, at least in Pipeline, I'm not sure about STARS, there's the social media advertising component.

So they're doing, the consultant does a paid

And this is the stuff I love, this section on CAC now.

Yeah, that was your worst.

Do you, is there a way to present the information, I don't know, a little in an educational way, not just a, this is what it could be, but like kind of explaining some of the trade-offs or some of the considerations or how does the Comms Urban do that?

I mean, unless we're doing a public meeting or we're doing something like a virtual meeting room meeting space or something like that, I don't know that we have so much control over that.

But I think that comes down to how we are providing the descriptions for the alternatives.

That's one of the reasons we developed this little star system so that we can provide some context up front for people to evaluate what is the

like difference between like what will this project do versus this other project.

But I'll also say that I'm constantly pretty impressed with the quality of some of the feedback that we get from from the public.

I mean, I think I think there are some really thoughtful people and this is a well-educated area.

And I think a lot of people put a lot of thought into it.

And I want to say that the public is not taking it seriously and spending the time.

Yeah.

I'm not saying people don't take it seriously.

People just don't.

But that's what I'm saying.

And I think too, it's like this is the first test of this, right?

So you go through this part and you get your real preferred alternative, which you plan to move forward with, and they turn it to

a smart scale potential application.

I think there's been another round potentially through informal engagement with the public on how these things pair up together for a larger project and what the overall benefits are.

That's the part you don't get from this because they're individual elements, but multiple elements can be put together and you get different impacts.

So I think that

This is the first crack at it.

We wanted to figure out that the public will want someone to support it.

I still think that

Obviously there is work that's done to create the storyboards for your public meeting.

Those could just be put in the email with the survey because people can enlarge them and look at them and learn something and then have a reason to choose.

I think that often when people are angry, it's because they didn't get all the information they needed when they were asked to choose.

And so a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

And the other risk is that you go down and discard a whole bunch of things because

People didn't understand what the benefits were.

And then we wasted another year, you know, putting a trail in the middle of room 20.

Well, I think it's up to all of us as staff and, you know, you all as elected officials to figure out what meeting to take from the public feedback as well.

Because I think if nothing else, the public feedback helps you understand where the points of concern are to be able to understand are there ways you can address this or are these things that we need to

I guess I'm still stunned by the fact that the survey is all about all the work from the bypass up to Boer's head.

Everybody said, oh, yeah, we want all five, you know, roundabouts.

That's great, $120 million.

Not going to happen.

So, I mean, there's no reality either with what's going out there.

So that's going to have to be dealt with when it gets to the constraint phase.

Well, I've got a terrible job tonight managing this meeting today.

I'm just going to alert us all the time.

Any other questions on this?

I think sending those out for, because it, yeah, a visual just would help with that.

Thank you, Sam.

For the tip, these adjustments are presented as information only.

No action is required today.

We received two TIP adjustment requests, one from VDOT for the Belmont Bridge Replacement Project and one for DRPT related to our PATH Mobility Management Program.

For the PATH Program, these adjustments were related to applications that we submitted for the fiscal year 27 application process with DRPT.

So it's just to get those funds into the TIP in advance of us getting a contract executed when our funds are over.

All right, thank you.

The number five, staff updates.

Still me, yes.

So you all have a written report in the packet.

I won't think too much more of your time this evening, but a couple of things I wanted to highlight was that we did submit a Safe Streets and Roads for All application in partnership with Greene County and the Stanardsville Volunteer Fire Department to purchase fire and rescue equipment.

And then we also work with Albemarle County staff to support them.

on an application that they submitted as well.

For the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority, I just wanted to let you all know about the special meeting that we held on June 5th, where we hosted the new director of DRPT, Maria Zimmerman.

And we also had some really good presentations, one from the Central Virginia Transportation Authority and one from DRPT staff on statewide transit funding.

We also received the first draft of our regional travel demand model, and we participated in all day training with VDOT and

consultant staff on that as well.

Right now the model is finishing up a testing phase.

So basically we're working with the consultants and with VDOT to make sure we're not getting any errors when we try to run scenarios and things like that.

But it should be available by the end of the month for use.

And other than that, the CTB also adopted the six year budget for VDOT and DRPT at their June 17th action meeting.

And so that includes approval for projects that were in revenue sharing, transportation alternatives,

That also includes funding for our path program and for the rideshare program at the TJPDC.

All right, and then meeting dates.

It's all listed.

Yes, these are all the meeting dates for fiscal year 27 for you all.

These are on the

Fourth Wednesday of the month at your regular time at 4 p.m.

The only change is in December to accommodate the winter holiday.

And that will likely be virtual.

That would be traditionally made virtual.

It's just easier for everyone.

Yeah.

All right, that will get us to the policy board roundtable to share updates from your seat.

Santee, would you like to begin any updates?

And then why don't we charge Z dot next?

I've got construction updates if you want to share it.

Albemarle bundle 2, 240, 250 roundabout, welcome to have that.

Finished and accepted by August 1st.

They've got drainage work going on, paving and construction of the truck apron.

The Rio John Warner Roundabout, the Belvedere Green Tea, that work with the right-of-way concerns, temporary signals should be expected to go live approximately in three to four weeks at Rio Belvedere.

Contractors worked on erosion control, basin excavation and stuff like that, and they've relocated the multi-use path already.

Fifth and Old Lynchburg Street roundabout, drainage work is ongoing, currently in phase one of the maintenance of traffic, so that project is pursuing in the 20 and 53 roundabout right-of-way utilities right now.

Fontaine District Avenue bundled, working on right-of-way plans right now for District Avenue.

We're under review and we're working on the price proposal

to facilitate closing the gap in between the two projects, the Fontaine's Treescape Project and the Fontaine Interchange Project.

So that work will happen, we're just finalizing how much it's going to cost.

That's the 107 Barking Ride is currently underway.

Contract is already completed, clearing and grubbing on site.

Quick question.

And if you notice off the top of your head, great.

If you don't, also fine.

So that is the last element of the bundle based on the stuff that's going on in Montpelier.

So that is a future date.

I'm not sure when the actual completion date will be, but it's a while.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

Thanks.

Sean, is there any understanding of when the projects, the Fontaine Interchange and the Fontaine Streetscape would move forward?

Because I saw Sean and other staff listening about

Fontaine being one way during this summer, during 27 and 28 today.

So they've just started having kickoff meetings for Gardenette.

I'll have my annual update to council about transportation planning matters on July 20th.

We'll be focused largely on our progress on scoping and mobility plan.

And then the other item I'll highlight is if you're coming into the city from the county or on Park Street, we have some new bike lanes, climbing lanes coming from Melbourne up to North and then another one in the other direction from 250 up to North should make bicycling a little bit easier in that corridor.

But if you're coming through there, it's going to feel a little bit tighter than it has in the past.

So just be cognizant that that changes out there.

I want to take the opportunity to publicly thank the TJPBC staff for helping to submit the Safe Streets and Roads for All application on the hydraulic road.

Thank you.

We'll go online.

Hello, everyone.

Yeah.

Nothing too new from us.

I think a lot of our big updates were already announced, the SIP approval, you know, everything like that.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, there's nothing really big to report, Mr.

Chair.

John is currently, as you might know, running out our mobility on demand study with ADA, and we're piloting that still.

And so far, everything is going well, just after that report.

Thank you, sir.

Christine, anything I'd like to add to that, Peter?

All right, did I miss anybody?

All right, thank you.

Then we will go to additional matters from the public.

Yes, sir.

You have three minutes.

Paul Brady, just outside of Crozet.

I'm sorry my phone went off.

I've turned it off four times.

I don't know what's wrong.

Especially, I'm sorry that I missed what Ann said about CTAC.

So, this is about CTAC.

I have been thinking about the demise of the CTAC committee.

There has to be some option for the public to present transportation ideas that they have.

In 1999 to 2001, approximately, I presented almost 10 ideas for transportation projects to the Chart Committee, of which Ann is the chairman.

I was astonished that one of my ideas made it into the 2025 plan, even though it turned out to be unnecessary.

I think part of the problem is that smart scale is a two-year cycle and the fact that the MPO only meets every other month in the off years, staff not have something to do with it, as well as retaining committee members who might not meet often in the off years.

The other option would be for the MPO to change its bylaws to allow the public to make presentations that are longer than three minutes and during which the MPO can ask questions and interact with the presenter.

The problem with that is who chooses what ideas get presented.

Again, we are back to a screening committee.

In the last public meeting, Chairman Galloway asked me to make a list of the projects I want to present.

These are the ones that popped into my head and are in no figure or

Some are just roundabout locations that are fairly expensive, all the way to multi-million dollar projects.

I did not check my old chart committee presentations to see if any more of those were worth re-presenting again, other than the ones I indicated on the list.

When Smarsh Media was first introduced, it was my impression that if a project scored high enough, then it would be built regardless of the cost.

Obviously, that does not seem to be the case, otherwise Crozet would have its living old Creek Bridge by now.

I have a list of 17 ideas.

I think since you're making it as part of public comment, it'll go into the minutes, and then I'll make sure that they provide a copy to me as well.

Well, you can finish your statement.

It was your best.

No, I'm finished.

All right.

Except to say that one of my ideas would change a lot of what you all talked about today.

God bless the world.

God.

Thank you.

I'm not finished.

I started reading them.

I'll finish the reading first.

No other public comment that we will close matters from the public.

Yes.

We got an alert from David Blunt about 20 minutes ago that it was adopted.

Finally.

Because she was coming back to town.

She had amendments that they were going to have to return to vote.

by the General Assembly.

Well, at least you didn't just change your mind to not sign a housing bill because, you know, why not sign something that's bipartisan in this day and age?

I was just going to report and thank all of the work done on the 240-256-80 roundabout.

The seven years of waiting have

Within a day of the traffic being allowed to go around, everybody was saying, this is so great.

They don't care that there still comes in the way.

They don't care that it's still bumping.

The fact that we're not having 110 cars sitting on 240 up to the top of the hill every morning to try to get out is such a blessing.

And I thank you all for your work for getting it done.

We do have a group who wants to plant the center.

So Carrie and Sean have provided some guidelines for their application to do that whenever

The big guys get done.

They want to be able to buy something in the middle.

But we'll get there on that probably in this month.

And I will just reiterate that the citizens that live along Hillsdale are thrilled about the roundabout.

It is probably going to be one item that I constantly get emails on when is this happening, when is it not happening, because they knew it was coming.

So it wasn't even a complaint.

It was just, could you give us an update on time there?

So I know that the folks that live right there are appreciative of that.

And I'll certainly be giving Carrie her flowers the next time she's in front of our board.

All right.

Well, there's nothing else.

And without objection, we will adjourn to August 26th or the end for our in-person meeting.

And I beg everybody's forgiveness for the long 15 minutes.