MPO Technical Committee Meeting   7/20/2021

So just as a reminder, the District Avenue Roundabout was a project that was identified as part of the long-range transportation plan based on the cost estimate that was developed as part of the long-range transportation plan.

That's approximately $8.4 million that will likely increase a little bit considering when it was developed and adding VDOT contingencies and things like that.

This was a staff recommended project and staff was recommending that minimal additional engagement would be required if this project is selected to move forward.

The next project was the wholesale avenue extension.

We submitted this as part of the ground floor smart scale application process and at that point the estimated cost with all of the contingencies was a little bit over 34 million dollars.

So this was recommended as part of the hydraulic small area plan, and it is on the LRTP, the Long Range Transportation Strength List, that shortlist of prioritized projects.

However, because of the project cost, it is not likely to score competitively.

And for that reason alone, staff did not feel like this should be one of the projects that was recommended for the MPO's submission at this time.

What we will say is that because this is identified as a high priority project, one opportunity could be that the PBC has an additional number of application slots that we can also submit for applications.

So if we get to the point where we're ready to develop applications and not all of those slots are selected, we could go ahead and include this Hillsdale Avenue extension project

as one of the PDC's projects at that point.

But staff felt that it didn't make sense to prioritize this as one of our applications, knowing that we wouldn't score well enough to be funded.

The Romano River Bike and Industrial Crossing is one that you are all probably familiar with already.

There was a feasibility study, as you may recall, that was completed in 2020 that developed a couple of configurations

There are still a number of considerations that would have to be worked out.

One of those that the staff discussed was that the estimated cost for the two scenarios that were developed by the consultants, which are the two configurations shown in red, one of them was estimated at $11 million and the other one was over $15 million.

So in the staff discussion, they suggested maybe we continue to look to see if there's

by either considering if there's an opportunity to save it somehow, or looking at maybe some additional configurations or construction opportunities, but just spending a little bit of time looking at opportunities to reduce that cost further to make it more competitive.

And then also doing some additional public engagement.

The configuration that's shown in blue was an alternate configuration that was suggested by the CTAC cover.

And it was a strong suggestion from staff that if this project is selected, which they're recommending it would be, that this one needs some additional engagement and support to move it forward.

So as part of that process, we could look at whether there are configurations in addition to the two that were developed in red, such as the one shown in blue, that might help address some of those concerns that staff has identified

So that brings us to the Avon Street multimodal improvements.

And you may recall that what we started with was looking at a project that would support multimodal connectivity through this corridor.

And the outline in red shows the initial boundaries of the corridor that we were looking at.

And after having this conversation with the staff and the planning staff from Charlottesville, Albemarle,

as well as VDOT, they have identified what they feel like is the best opportunity to look at the multi-jurisdictional interconnectivity for the bicycle and pedestrian network.

And so they're recommending that out of this A1 corridor that we developed in applications for basically providing a cohesive bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure starting at Junior Avenue, which is in the city, and that's also where there's a bike lane that stops there.

So it would look at opportunities to continue that hike and pedestrian infrastructure from Druid Avenue to at least Avonport Park, which is located in Albemarle County.

And this is right where there's a park and ride on the east side of the road there.

It is possible that we could look at what the project costs are and see if we could extend that farther south as part of this application, but the priority would be getting it at least to that park and ride.

in the county.

The county of Albemarle just recently completed a corridor study for Avon Street and says that at this point believes that maybe there needs to be some minimal engagement at this point, but does not believe that there needs to be a large effort to do a robust public engagement since they feel like they've already got some good feedback.

The group convened, you know, the groups that were involved with developing the recommendations as we have specific projects

applications that are ready to move forward, but they do not anticipate that this needs a lot of additional engagement at this time.

All right, the Fisk treatment technical improvements, again, we got just recently completed a project studying this corridor, so there were some specific recommendations that came out of it.

What was recommended, again, by the staff that met to discuss the project options was

that they felt that they already had a pretty strong project that they had identified that they wanted to move forward.

And that's looking at some of these intersection improvements at the 5th Street and the Street Station Parkway intersection.

Those intersection improvements were estimated in that plan to be about $2.8 million.

And then also expanding the bicycle pedestrian infrastructure to include sidewalks.

And I believe it was in on the very high plate that was suggested.

to move forward as part of that plan.

So the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure would connect into the 5th Street Hubs and Trails project that was approved for funding as part of the Round Forest Smart Scale.

So this would, again, extend the existing bicycle, well, extend the existing bicycle infrastructure further north of the Albemarle

And then this last project, I'm not sure if you all have had a chance to review this or not, but this was a suggestion from one of the CTAC groupers, which we are referring to as a flyer.

So just to give you a little sense of direction, this is a project, this is a great separated ramp with an entrance point on 250.

This is 250 right here.

So the entrance onto the ramp would be on 250.

So ours went into our exit at this point.

And then basically once they got on the ramp, they stayed on the ramp until they got through the intersection.

And so the next exit and entrance point would be 29 North near Seminole Fort.

So again, this would be a green-separated bridge that moves traffic from between 250 and the hydraulic road, removing those vehicles from having to make sure that new cuts to data could change.

So the CTAC member that's recommending this estimated that the costs would be $15 million.

But at this point, this has not been recommended as part of the enrollment, the 29th small area plan.

It's not supported in any of the local or regional adoption plans.

And because of the project, Boston does not anticipate to score competitively.

So for those reasons, this project is not recommended by staff at this point.

And this table just shares a summary of the staff considerations that went into this, what the staff recommended to various R's.

So if you don't remember the name,

At this point that we pursued the District Avenue Wrap-A-Belt, the Ramana River-Bikehead Crossing with additional public engagement, the Avon Street Corridor and the Pitt Street Corridor as the projects move forward, and if we have an application slot that is not otherwise being used, we picked up some of these bills.

So I'd be happy to answer any questions from anyone, and Kevin and Jeanette and Chuck are also available to answer questions, and

Thanks, Andi.

Yeah, I don't know, Kevin, if you want to say anything about that.

I think, ideally, that's where we would like it to go.

Kevin was willing to say maybe we just try to get at least to the parking lot right now.

No, I think you covered that.

And I mean, I agree with Juwan, it would be nice to get it there.

It's just that I think that the cost of the project may become a little

unwieldy if we try and do that all in one.

And so I, our, our thought was that we could get this section done now and then come back in a future round to bring it all the way up to the, uh, to the fifth street.

But, you know, maybe once we start looking at this with, um, with VDOT and if they have a consultant or anything, if, if suggestions come out that they think it's

It's still a competitive project, even if we push it to 5th Street Station Parkway.

And would it also include crossing, crosswalks, I guess, or somewhere for the bike and pedestrian to switch sides of the street?

Yeah, I think that will be part of it is identifying where those crosswalks should be and where those placards are.

But I'm going to make a note that we make sure that we include those as part of the recommendation.

I don't remember, maybe Jeanette, you can help me.

It's on both sides, but both the bike lane ends and then the sidewalk ends on the western side.

So again, extending that and making that creation.

I was going to chime in.

This is Chuck.

The biggest thing is going to be the cost.

I think we've got conceptual

drawings for most of these already done as a result of the study.

So it's just a matter of developing cost estimates for these.

And so it shouldn't be too difficult to do it.

The other thing is, I think there's a section between, in the city, there's a section that already has sidewalk on both sides from, I forget the name of that street, starts with a P.

Yeah, from there down to just before you get to this county line, there's already sidewalk in that portion of it.

So really, you could almost do a southern piece and a northern piece.

And to make the applications competitive, we want to probably try to keep them as low cost as possible.

And Cindy, could you clarify, I guess, exactly how many projects we're supposed to be recommending?

Like, is it four total and then two for engagement?

Or is it up to two for engagement?

I was going to say I would also like to state that you can put in up to five applications.

At final submission, you could only submit four.

So if for some reason they wanted to include Hillsdale Extended as an alternate, initially they could.

So they could still put in the five applications and then at

The submission time they'd have to select, which would be in August, they'd have to select which four they're going to put in.

And last time I think we had discussed potentially that Avon or Fifth could end up being like two projects for each of those corridors or for any one of those corridors in order to keep those projects relatively small and score well.

So are we still looking at like, you know, one for each of those corridors just for those sections?

Yeah, when we talked about this with staff, we had that conversation and I mean it really depends on the policy board, it depends on what you all recommend.

Staff felt pretty strongly that there were clear projects for each of these.

One of the things I will say about eight on street and maybe I'll let Kevin talk.

Is that the county of Albemarle is claiming to pursue some of these projects for revenue sharing at the Southern End already, so there are some additional applications that are going to be made for some of those.

Um, yeah, we're, uh, it looks like we're going to be putting in a revenue sharing application for the bike ped, uh, improvements from Mill Creek to Paraguay lane, which is like just south of the interstate there.

That would be cool.

So what about on Fish Street?

I know that's been a topic of a lot of conversation in the community lately with obviously all the fatalities there.

Is there, like obviously the Carter study recommended a whole bunch of stuff along there.

Yeah, I think Fish Street was the one where it seemed like there was a potential to develop multiple projects.

I will just say that

You all can make the recommendation and the policy board can ultimately decide, but what it's going to come down to is, is there another one of these projects that you all would prioritize less than that second history project?

Sure.

So, well, one, just like with the county doing the revenue sharing on their, you know, further into the county on Avon, the city is looking as a separate application to have another smart scale application for Fifth Street that's, you know, further into the city.

So north of Harris Road.

So that's one.

And then if we were to do a fifth application, which I would

kind of hesitate to do simply because four applications is a big lift for staff on the city side alone.

And then on top of that, we'll probably support the MPO with their four applications.

So the only thing that I suggested was that if we focused on one corridor,

So kind of complete Avon or complete Fifth.

So that was an idea.

Or like we're doing here, we do a little on Fifth and a little on Avon.

So we're helping different areas of our community at the same time.

So I guess along the lines of prioritizing projects, how do you all feel about District Ave?

I know last time, I think we were a little more bearish on districts.

I think there were some space constraints.

But I think I heard that in policy, Chuck mentioned that it kind of just shifts where it goes and the size of it or the shape of it to make it work.

Do we feel that that's a high priority project still?

Chuck, do you want to start?

I mean, I'm just, the only reason I brought it up is because the smaller costs might be, have a higher benefit and might be more apt to fund.

But I mean, you can look at the whole corridor or you could break it up into pieces.

over several applications.

I know we did that with several applications in the past.

We've done it in other parts of the district.

And it a lot of times you'll get more projects funded that way.

But you don't want to get a piece here and then have a gap and then another piece funded.

And then you've got a gap between the two.

So, I mean, you have to consider all that moving forward.

But

The only reason I brought up the Avon Street piece because I know there's a section that's already got sidewalk that was put in by developers and there's a piece to the north that doesn't have sidewalk and bike lanes and then there's the section from where that starts all the way in near the city county line all the way to the park and ride lot which doesn't have facilities so do you want to do it as two separate applications or do it as one with a

part in the middle that you don't have to do a whole lot on.

I don't think it matters.

And Rory, you were asking about District Avenue though.

I think, you know, when we were ranking these projects, we were having like a staff level discussion about them and District Avenue was, you know, it was probably lower on the list of what we see here, but it was still a reasonable project that we felt like showed some benefits and thought that it was worthwhile to,

At least make an attempt to move forward on.

There's, you know, some congestion and safety issues that are ongoing out there.

And we want to see what we can do to try and make some improvements.

You know, I can add to that too.

I mean, I looked up the V-trans needs and to the east, on the east segment, it's at District Avenue.

It's a priority two V-trans need.

And on the west segment, it's a priority three V-trans need.

With the additional development, we're going to have to look at reconfiguring the roundabout, shifting it around a little bit to actually make it fit.

It originally was

A necessary thing we had to do to actually make the intersection improvements that I draw like in 29 work.

Now that we went away from that concept from round three, not as much of a need.

So it's still a need, but it's in that middle ground area.

And so when you move it around, is that going to like change the impacts that it's going to have on the city side of that?

Because I know, I think last time Kevin had mentioned the Stonefield departments or hotels going in is going to come right up to the corner.

And I think in the original plan, it was, we're going to take two houses for it.

Is that going to be more now?

We'll have to look at it in more detail.

and we haven't done that yet to see what the impacts are going to be and that would be the next step moving forward if this is one of the ones that the MPO wants to pursue.

So we're waiting to see and then we'll have to look at it and redo the concept and then bring it back and for public input and that's where we'll look at the minimal engagement with the public on

And that development on the northwest quadrant of that intersection, it did leave some room for the roundabout.

We had told the developer that there was a proposal for that.

And so they backed it off a little bit from it.

It doesn't seem to me like you would need more than those

Two properties on the city side there, which are, I think both of them are occupied by businesses, not homes at this point.

Yeah, but I think that, you know, this concept really seems to show it a little bit larger than it necessarily needs to be.

Yeah, that's what I said.

If you look at it, it's offset from the current intersection, probably 75 feet.

So if you've got a building there, we'd have to shift it back over and then possibly shift it down a little bit.

But we can look at the size and

Gotcha.

Other thoughts from the commission, committee?

Looking at Google FreqView, I think that 1916 Cedar Hill that looks like the primary property impacted is still a duplex.

It might be a little bit out of date.

You're right, actually, though, that the one on the east side is a state farm.

So actually, it looks like from that configuration,

It might not actually affect the State Farm.

And so in this recommendation, there would just be one additional engagement item.

Does that make sense to you all?

Or are you seeing another that you feel like would merit additional engagement?

Anyone?

I guess I'd just like to hear from you folks.

We really didn't have projects that fell off.

We started with the projects that already met this criteria.

That was the criteria that was developed all along.

I think what we did was we lit up down

You know, just looking at Avon Street and the street corridor, from looking at the entire corridor to wiggling down which of the projects that were developed as part of those plans should move forward as an application.

Honestly, I was anticipating that maybe that's where the public engagement would be, would be taking the recommendations.

from those corridors and developing projects out of those, and that would be the public engagement.

But staff already had a pretty clear idea from the engagement that has been completed already as to which of those projects made sense to move forward that would benefit the city and county jurisdictions.

I think you should go with the staff's recommendations, of course.

So the city is, we think these are good projects.

They're supported, just like Sandy said, with all of our long range plans, past applications, past public involvement pieces.

And also keep in mind, we're still looking at a $28 million bucket of money.

So we're probably going to submit for $50 million worth of projects from the MPO alone.

Forget the city, forget the county, and forget every other jurisdiction.

And I'll just add to that to address Tim's question.

The only projects that really came off or fell off the list here are those two that you see in red.

The county will move forward with

at least four projects of our own that we'll be submitting that are still, you know, there are a lot of our higher priorities.

So we have other projects that we're going to submit.

It's just that these are the ones, and we may even, you know, request the TJPDC submit a project or two on our behalf.

Oh, I was going to weigh in that we have two other studies that we're working on too, that were, we had to go through a process of looking at the B-Trans needs and identifying several locations that are priority one needs, which are the highest priority in the plan.

And we have two of them in the MPO area.

One of them's out at Shadwell,

and the other one is the Pantops area from Hanson's Road out to the interstate.

And we're actually doing studies on those.

So those could be some candidates that could be possibly considered in the spring too.

The only thing that I would like to add, it kind of sounds like we settled on these four.

I don't know if the committee agrees.

But there's been no discussion about this 29-250 flyover.

I can say a few things about it myself.

This is one of those projects that it's been looked at several times in multiple plans over the time I've been in Charlottesville, starting back in the H-250 days, before Places 29 and all that stuff took off.

And then the 29 corridor study that we looked at, they had a flyover presentation.

I know even with solutions 29, I mean hydraulic 29, we had had some discussions about a flyover at this location, but they hadn't really garnished any support from the public through any of those studies.

So that's one point.

The second point is there's not really been a study per se on that

type of improvement.

So we'd have to actually do that study and look at other alternatives and to actually even submit that application.

So I think there's still a lot of work that would have to be done on that project to actually get it to a point where it would be submittable.

The other thing is I know that just looking from a cursory standpoint, especially on the 250 end of it,

You're really close to Barracks Road interchange and he didn't really show that and the interaction between those two ramps could mean that we'd have to widen the bridge at Barracks Road to extend those ramps across Barracks Road.

So there's still some holes in it that need to be resolved if we wanted to look at it.

I haven't really had my L&D section look at it to really

Validate what he's showing, whether it's feasible in the configuration he's got, and then what the cost estimate will ultimately be.

He does supply some additional information about what the benefits of it are, but you really can't take credit for those like bike and pedestrian improvements if you don't put them in.

So it's got to stand on its own merit and

The $50 million cost, that's more than any project we've ever gotten funded in this district.

So I don't, I mean, we saw that with the hydraulic 29 studies where we put in those hundred million dollar projects and they were like tanked.

And we have to come back the next round and reevaluate them and come up with something that's fundable.

And that's what we've done historically in the past with multiple projects.

So basically, what I'm hearing is this isn't ready for smart scale in this application.

It does not preclude us from, we could still move forward with the round four that we've been awarded.

And we could still do the flyover later.

recommendation is more ready for the comprehensive plan process that we have coming up in a couple years.

The city would recommend it that way.

I don't think it's ready to go forward right now without a lot more study and work on it to make sure that it's going to be

ready to go and submittable.

I mean, because it's an interchange modification, you'd have to go through that interchange modification process.

It's adding capacity.

So we'd have to do that alternatives analysis piece.

And none of that's been done.

So from the city's perspective, the current applications that we've been awarded helps to fix the local intersection of 29 and hydraulic helps with pedestrian movements, et cetera.

Correct.

And it doesn't include any of those other opportunities.

So the question I'd pose is beyond the submitability of the application,

Do we really see this, you know, that's like three quarter mile long, two thirds mile long flyover in the middle of 29 being consistent with our plans and our stated policy goals as a city to, you know, make this a more pedestrian oriented corridor, you know, see mixed use development in this area that's less auto oriented?

Well, and I've been thinking about that, Rory.

This is the most congested, widest roadway in the city.

So what a flyover, even though it goes against our general principle of being very low impact both visually and just with the amount of concrete.

And I mean, we just shortened Belmont Bridge and saw quite a bit of savings from it.

So here we are building a bridge that's longer than anything we have and it's high impact.

But what if we did that and we could narrow 29?

and this is, I'm trying to think of all the past public involvement we've had and past public comment.

And maybe this does fit in given where it's located.

But I couldn't speak for all the citizens because they haven't had a chance to look at this.

I think the other thing I just wanna add is that I,

Based on what Chuck is saying is that probably in the future we'll have to go back and look at this area again and look at some of these opportunities to resolve the issues at this intersection, but we have to start with looking at what the problem is and identifying all the potential solutions to evaluate them.

So I think that's the process we would need to go through if there's interest in this project is kind of zoom out again.

I mean, I would I would agree with Jeanette on that.

I mean, if you do this,

You're going to take off about 25,000 vehicle trips a day on that section between hydraulic and 250.

So it would give you some more, you could transform that core portion of a roadway into a more, not local street, but more similar to what you're doing down south of the bypass on Emmett Street in the city where you're adding the bike lanes and the

multi-use trails without having to add additional, get additional right-of-way outside of the corridor.

You could possibly shrink it down and add those on the outside, but by shifting, reducing the number of lanes through that section.

So it does have its advantages, but you'd still have to go through, do this, and then come back and do that.

You can't take credit for that with this project.

You'd have to do them as separate projects, but it's something to explore.

The other downside to it is I know there was a lot of pushback on what does it look like underneath Belmont Bridge and in some other areas where they do have flyovers and how does it affect the visualization of the businesses and stuff on that corridor where you've got an elevated structure running down the middle of it.

That's something that

I can't answer.

Yeah, I think those are all good points.

That is a really good point that you could you could repurpose the existing road and make it more pedestrian friendly.

But and also, yeah, I recall in 2009 that

when there was a flyover kind of being proposed then, that that was a big concern from businesses as well.

So yeah, I'm inclined to agree that, you know, if it's to be considered, it should be a part of a more comprehensive process of considering it in the whole corridor and not just just the flyover, just to build a flyover without those other improvements being contemplated.

Does anyone else have other thoughts on that?

And do we want to like,

I explicitly say that in a separate motion, separate from my recommendations.

Rory, can I clarify what you're asking?

Are you asking if we should make one motion with a recommended project to move forward and a second motion to, can you fill in that blank?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not inclined to necessarily make a second recommendation for future studies.

I think that it seems like that could be kind of self-explanatory that even if we're not moving forward with the project now, no matter what project it is, doesn't mean that we might not take a second look at it in the future.

But if

Actually, I was going to ask you another question on that front.

So you mentioned earlier that you guys Albemarle had a project for Avon Street.

Likely.

We haven't really discussed that, but yeah, the Avon one I brought up because that's actually already been agreed on as a submittal.

So we've already submitted a pre-application for revenue sharing on that one.

A Fifth Street project wouldn't happen for revenue sharing, but

For this same round of SmartScale that we're talking about right now for next year, I can imagine that we may want to make a submission, especially for additional bike ped in that corridor.

We've got, you know, like I think I've mentioned, the ABC development at Old Lynchburg Road and Fifth Street is going to be

We're going to have that roundabout that they're contributing to and they're also putting in a shared use path with Southwood continuing to develop and likely going to be coming back for another phase soon.

I think extending that shared use path south to Sunset is a project that is a high priority for the county.

to continue that.

And at some point we need to move it towards the city.

So, yeah.

I give that a shot.

The interchange modifications are probably going to be the last thing that's done.

And it's just a matter of whether we do some minor modifications or whether we do a interchange reconfiguration.

And I don't think we're ready to consider that yet moving forward.

It may be something we consider the following round or possibly as part of the long-range plan update and then around after that maybe.

So, but like Kevin was saying, there's probably two additional projects south of 64.

And then we'll have another project, depending on where this current project termini is, there may be another project to the north in addition to the interchange.

But it just depends on how big you want the projects to be.

Old Inchburg Road is sort of the center point

The south is more or less a road diet for the most part.

And then the north is extension of the shared use path.

But there are some recommendations for some intersection improvements, primarily at stagecoach that could be done as a project with the shared use path.

Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, so my inclination would not be to make the project bigger, but to

to add a project and remove that District Avenue project, which it sounds like is kind of more of a nice-to-have to smooth traffic flow a little bit than a need-to-have at this point.

It's going to probably involve a taking of at least two relatively affordable homes.

That's about a little under $140,000 each.

And, you know, if we were to proceed with District Avenue, I would be inclined to say that that would be one that we should do engagement for given the takings.

And I mean, I can't speak for Council, obviously, but it does seem like something that they might hesitate on, given that, right, and given the high importance of affordable housing to them at this point.

And, you know, to Jeanette's point earlier, like I would love to see us really tackle big chunks of the harder at once.

I mean, obviously with the caveat that we probably won't get all of our projects approved.

But if we could get, you know, that Avon and then two chunks of this street in here with the Rivanna project, that seems like a pretty good slate of smart scale projects to me.

Well, I will add that we will, like I said, I think we are planning to do another smart scale grant for Fifth Street is the county on its own.

That would be south of the interstate.

So unless

Yeah, so I guess the question then for you is like, so we have this chunk up by 5th Street Station and Harris Street, and you have the chunk down by Old Lynchburg, I guess the roundabout is what you're talking about.

And then is there not any other large project that you would need inside of the, or aside from the interchange in this stretch?

Chuck mentioned the south of Old Lynchburg Road diet.

Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of is really to go from, yeah, south from Old Lynchburg Road, the intersection with 5th Street there at the county office building, going south to the end of the corridor is really the area that

I'm considering or that the county would consider for a smart scale project.

North of there, there is, and I've talked with Chuck about this, there was a recommendation for stagecoach road intersection improvements that would have, you know, would probably have some bike ped facilities included in the project.

So that's really the only other one

there.

Gotcha.

So the shared use path north of Old Winford that Chuck mentioned, is that the Stagecoach Road stuff or would that all be folded into the interchange project?

And, you know, I guess the other question is like, is there a way to knock out some of this stuff south of the interchange

I'll have to leave that.

Kevin and I have had this discussion.

So we'll have that done as that project.

So that sort of splits the corridor up at that point into two sections.

Section South, which we pretty much identified as a road diet in the study, from there all the way to the end of the corridor.

So that could be submitted as a project.

And then there's a development that's on the corner of Old Lynchburg Road that is looking at as part of their proffers or site improvements as

providing an extension of the shared use path along their frontage of Fifth Street all the way through Wahoo Way.

So you'd have that piece already built.

And then that leaves you from Wahoo Way pretty much all the way to the interchange.

Stagecoach Road, as I said, was identified as an intersection improvement project also.

And it would include

bike and ped facilities along that portion of it.

Depending on which option you use, whether you use the R-cut or roundabout, you could extend it up a certain distance, whether it goes to Parkhurst or to, it wouldn't probably go all the way to Winfield Circle, but it would probably go as far as Parkhurst where it would terminate.

So between Parkhurst and the interstate, that would be the portion that would still have to be

done and whether that's included in the interchange project or it's done as a separate short term or short project.

You don't want to get too close to the interchange because if you reconfigure those interchange ramp termini, they could shift to the south and to the north a little bit.

So it sounds like the Stagecoach Road might be potentially a separate project, and that's where that new apartment complex is, right?

Fifth Street Place, and obviously, you know, Cavalier Crossing or whatever they're calling it now, University Place, one of those, Wahoo Way, is a lot of apartments with a lot of people.

I mean, it's not all UVA students, certainly, but a fair amount of people, and probably all of them commuting into town one way or another, and it's a pretty

Pretty rough intersection right now.

So I mean, is that potentially a viable thing there, that stagecoach road stretch?

Correct.

I mean, we could definitely break this up into two projects where we go from Wahoo Way to Pinehurst, including Stagecoach Road intersection improvements is one project.

I mean, to me, that that makes a lot of sense, given how many apartments have gone in there and given the timing of Southwood coming in.

And on the flip side, given the the lower priority of District Avenue, but you know, I don't want to step in here and dictate to you guys what the good idea is.

You're obviously the experts, so.

If we can if we can plug a gap, that seems pretty.

Yeah, these are all high priority projects for the county.

I'd like to hear from other folks if VDOT or other people on the committee think that's a worthwhile exchange to do that with District Avenue.

I will say that District Avenue has been on the board's

list, and we've discussed that a number of times, that may be a priority that if we make these applications for Fifth Street and don't do district through the PDC, the county may consider doing, trying to do district as a county project.

So it doesn't mean that we won't do that, but

And I think personally, because of the public involvement and it has been vetted by our city council, it was a previous city council, it wasn't a current city council, but District Avenue is that last piece of the puzzle for the 29 hydraulic intersection.

And then we can never speak of it again, which is really exciting to me.

It's the timing issue is that so our past round of applications for 29 and hydraulic what they're going to start rolling off in fiscal year 27 maybe and then this one's going to be another what a couple years out if we get it in this round if we push it to a different smart scale round you're looking at I don't know a decade or more

before this could be considered for construction.

We don't take it lightly that we would have to take a duplex or any affordable housing, but looking at the grander scheme of the community and safety issues and what that could do for, again, a safer crossing for the pedestrians and residents that are still there, there is value.

It's just cleaning up the 29 hydraulic intersection once and for all is very exciting.

Gotcha.

And I would agree with Jeanette on that.

The other thing is it is on the county city boundary.

So for the MPO to submit it, because it's a multi-jurisdictional project, it's cleaner.

Whereas Fifth Street, most of those, at least south of 64, it's all in the county.

You wouldn't have to have the city's necessarily support of the county project to move that forward.

The county could submit it.

Whereas if the county wanted to submit a project that goes into the city, there's a few more hoops you have to jump through for that to go forward.

And then is the Hillsdale South extension given, I guess, the cost kind of held by the wayside at this point, like probably never going to do that one?

I wish I could say that it's got legs but I did do well overall but we had a lot more money in the pool this time than we do then possibly moving forward.

It is would only be eligible for high priority funding versus district grant funding so I mean it competed it was in the top 50% of the projects across the state so

I think it scores very well overall, and it's competitive.

This is the other thing that I can suggest.

You know, Kevin was talking about Albemarle potentially having additional slots.

The PDC itself has four applications that I can submit as well.

So that's the other thing that we can be considering is what are the requests?

And maybe if there's a second project on the Mid Street corridor, we can

revisit that with the PDC, once the PDC is not at the point where they're making recommendations for the projects to consider.

Again, we don't have the same kind of process to do that with the PDC, so I can't necessarily guarantee, you know, that that would be up to the commission to approve which of those projects we would have to wait till we got the reserve costs, but both a second fifth street corridor project, as well as Hillsdale could potentially be PDC projects, and then we would

Sure.

We didn't actually get that motion.

Yeah, I make a motion that we

Recommend the four projects listed here to the policy board for inclusion as the MPO Smart Scale Projects for 2022.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't know that we should be included, but yes.

All right, and so again, there's, we're only recommending one project for that engagement, right?

Well, I would like to make one suggestion.

Instead of for District Avenue, we might want to have that instead of just being minimal, being moderate or something because I think there needs to be a little bit more engagement on that project moving forward because we are going to have to modify it pretty significantly to

over what it currently is.

Yeah, I agree with you, Chuck, on that.

And maybe that's why it may be better not to just say we have engagement on one project, but

Perhaps I'd just amend the motion to say, to do the appropriate engagement on each of the projects.

And we can come up with what that engagement plan will look like over the next, you know, few meeting something.

Cause I think all of them, we're gonna want at least some sort of engagement on, even if it is minimal or moderate.

I think we just want to, I think maybe what we will clarify is that we will do at least a couple of public meetings for all of the projects.

It's just a matter of, is there additional, are there additional technical or stakeholder discussions that are needed for any of these projects?

So why don't I just clarify that when we bring this recommendation to the policy board, it sounds like there's going to be some additional validation that that's going to be needed for the district after they've rounded out.

and we will plan to provide at least some minimum level of engagement for all of the projects.

That's fine.

Okay.

All right, so we have a motion and a second.

Wood.

Christine.

Yes.

Jeanette.

Yes.

Tim.

Bill has left the meeting.

I.

All right, so that motion carries.

Only 30 minutes behind schedule, folks.

So thank you for the presentation, Sandy, and for the great discussion, everyone.

Next up, we've got our electric vehicle report.

And I'll add, we do a 30 minutes of round table and not from the public and no members of the public.

Sorry, I'm just trying to pull up my screen.

Oh, gosh.

I'm just trying to pull up my screen.

I don't know why.

I can't seem to get back to Zoom.

All right.

So in fiscal year 2021, we did an electric vehicle charging station study for the region.

So it included the counties as well as the city.

And we looked at the benefits of electric vehicle use.

Right now, transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the FPO area.

And EVs produce a lot less emissions than the gas-powered vehicles.

So it makes sense that with our tools of reducing emissions,

that we looked at using Peruvian electric vehicles and these registrations are growing in the area and in the country.

So we looked at the infrastructure that's supporting electric vehicles in the region and we found the number of charging locations and

Really interestingly, the number of Caribbean locations in the area has increased almost twice as much in the past couple of years.

So it's really catching on faster than we expected.

So we looked at what some of the barriers are to adopting EVs, and most of it is the cost to start up with purchasing them.

And we also looked at

When you purchase one, how are you going to charge it?

So a lot of people, especially residential, if you're going to produce an entity, you want to be able to charge it at their home, which is the EPA reports that 80% of the private vehicles, the charging is completed at home.

So we thought that that was a good way for this area to help support electric vehicles is looking at waiting staff and support

So the number of housing units with parking that's suitable for a charger would have to be a house where you or a housing unit where you have a parking space assigned to you and you are able to have electricity at that parking space.

And you can see the number of, so we compared the way that we figured it

This was looking at single family units versus the number of attached units.

And you can see that there's quite a few number of attached units in our area.

There's about 40,000 housing units in the region with potential barriers to installing home charging facilities.

So we looked at strategies to encourage this and

and support the installation of charging infrastructures.

So some of the recommendations of the report, and there's more, you know, obviously details in the report, which is available on the website, was to install charging infrastructure in public parking spaces that residents use to park overnight.

So some interesting things that we found, examples of this was in England,

They are installing, in some like boroughs and cities, they're installing EV chargers on light posts.

So you can park, you know, your vehicle on the street overnight as you normally do, and then call your farm to charge it.

Also, cities and counties can provide guidelines for unique charging stations.

This kind of signifies that the cities and counties support this and it

helps developers know what's expected.

You can also develop local ordinances and policies to encourage new housing developers to include EV charging infrastructure.

And one of the ways you can do this is make ready standards, which would encourage worldwide family construction to provide electrical capacity necessary to accommodate future charging infrastructure.

So it's really hard if you have a parking garage that's already built

to add in that electric infrastructure after it's been built.

So you don't have to have the EV stations in the garage.

You just have to have insurance that they could be installed in the future.

And then also the second place that most residential EVs are charged is our employers.

And we're doing this now, but we could also encourage employers to install more charging stations for their employees.

That's the end of my presentation.

Like I said, the report is on the website and I've mailed it to some of you.

I got some comments back which I incorporated into the report.

I have a question.

I haven't read the report, so you can tell me if this is in it, but I'm curious about where we stand in terms of

electricity sourcing.

I remember reading a report a few years ago that suggested an EV powered from a coal power plant was actually responsible for more emissions than a hybrid vehicle.

So in the study, we focused on charging stations, but in the study, when I estimated the number of

the savings, the emission savings that we would use, get from using EVs as opposed to gas.

The production of the electricity was factored into that number.

Hey Lucinda.

So okay, I read your report.

And then I also spoke to someone that actually had a Tesla.

And I was amazed that basically you're not supposed to park in the spot, you use it for 15 minutes, you charge up and then you have a range of 100 miles.

So I understand we need a place to put these things.

but, and I know batteries are improving, I was just surprised by that and had no idea that's what was happening.

And then on the second thing, I finally went to Wawa.

I went to Chris Green Lake up there.

I was amazed at how many EV charger stations were included in that Wawa.

So I'm wondering if that's the future of gas stations, is that it's going to be part gas and part EV and maybe the

The private market will take care of this and we could work in concert with them.

So anyway, that was just my two comments.

Yeah, the Obama has signed an agreement with Tesla to put charging stations at all of their gas stations in the future, so that's something that is happening.

One of the things that I was thinking about in this study is that

Most of the EV charging stations right now are in garages, at hotels, at the university, at the public garage and a lot of those things are not quite accessible to people with low incomes and I really wanted to make this accessible for everybody because the people with the higher incomes can't afford to purchasing these and get something set up for themselves in their garage or where they live

Tim?

Just a couple of points.

EV sales have been down the last three years in the States.

Obviously, this is the future until we see hydrogen or something else.

So I'm really supportive of this, but I think that in the report,

In the report, when you speak about the growth of vehicles 30 to 40%, we need to know whether that really is the case in Charlottesville, Albemarle, or else we ought to be using different figures.

And the discussions that I'm hearing in the county, and maybe Kevin could jump into this since the county has put some units on the

county office building site is that there are at least three levels of charging.

And then there's the issue about the proprietary Tesla charging stations versus the others and that there's a lot of issues.

It's just that putting in a charging station

isn't really the issue anymore.

Is it this really low speed charge?

Is it this really high speed charge?

And who actually gets to plug into it?

And then of course, then there's the issue of, are you paying for it or is it free?

Volkswagen is coming in with their set of places.

If we may see in the infrastructure bill, it looks like that that's pretty much cut out of it now, but there still is some portion for charging stations.

So I think maybe since you've done this study, it's almost like there needs to be an update because there are a number of issues that at least in your quick summary report really weren't touched on that I think are important.

Thanks, I took notes.

I'm going to look into it.

Yeah, and I'll just say as a follow-up that I was asked by the planning commission to find out where we were in terms of the planning district on this because of it being an interest and priority of a number of the planning commissioners in Albemarle County.

And so they were asking those levels of specific questions.

I don't think that the general report that you've just given us would be satisfactory to answer the kind of questions

that they that they were asking.

No, I think I need to dig into the report, I guess, although I do from my review of it, which was I didn't get into all the details, but I did go through it.

I think I was

I kind of open for some maybe more specifics in the recommendations about ways that we can move forward as a region to try and advance the use of electric vehicles.

And I just feel like the recommendations were a little more on the general side than what I was thinking.

I just wanted to mention and make everybody aware that the state through the Department of Environmental Quality does have a program where they're using the VW mitigation funds.

These are the funds that Volkswagen had to essentially surrender as part of their

diesel cheating scheme and the DEQ I believe is partnered with EVgo to do the research and develop a statewide network of the really really high capacity DC fast charging.

It might be good to see if you guys could reach out to DEQ and get a sense of what their plans are on the I-64 corridor and

vis-a-vis, you know, in Charlottesville because I think, you know, there's some funds that are sloshing around there so there might be some opportunities to leverage some resources.

Additionally, I threw in the chat a link to the Colorado DOT statewide plan that they had developed.

I sat in on a presentation about a month ago and their person that headed this was talking about it and talking about developing

You know, sort of like community goal or statewide goals like what is this an acceptable level of access across the state of Colorado.

I mean, it might be interesting to consider some level of analysis like that that ends up getting a little more geographically specific for the Charlottesville region.

Yeah, I just want to mention

This was a very, the amount of resources that we've dedicated to this and the UPWP was pretty limited.

It was a very small project, but they don't really have the resources or the capacity to do the types of analysis that you all are speaking of.

I just also, to Tim and Lucinda, I passed this on, this draft that you had provided previously to some folks that are leading our environmental group.

Gabe Daley in our office here and he was going to give it a review and I'd like to get back with him and see if he had suggestions because he's really at the forefront of what Albemarle County is working on.

So, Tim, you know, I can make sure that you are in contact with him if you haven't talked

Yeah, so Wood's point, I think, or I'm pretty certain that the

Mark for the Water Street garage chargers that were installed by the city were actually those EV go chargers funded by the VW funds.

But I believe they're still pretty steep in like price to use against something like five dollars plus 20 cents a minute or something.

But I think it's a very interesting report.

I'm particularly interested in the make ready standards that seem like

the kind of most actionable thing that we can do to really future proof ourselves in and whether we should create incentives for incentives or even requirements to have that like higher amperage service to allow electric charging in the future.

One thing I would consider is that it's not necessarily just for multifamily or even for residential,

And actually, I would add that there's a page in the report that talks about a percentage of people in single-family detached homes.

But if they attach homes, probably, for the most part, have driveways and their own electric service that can potentially have access.

So it's probably more people in more than single-family attached, like multi-family units that have issues with charging or potentially parking the street

I know a guy at Tesla who used to live downtown and parked on the street.

And what he ended up doing was getting his office to install a charger and kind of flip the script.

Instead of charging at night, he would charge all day when he commuted out of downtown.

So that might be potentially one path to pursue.

But I'm inclined to say that we shouldn't put too much extra

effort in the work program into this for the reason that Jeanette said is that, you know, the landscape is really changing.

And for the most part, the kind of market or the private environment is probably going to take care of it kind of more or less on the whole.

And so that's that.

You know, I've been really surprised and impressed at how much usage I've seen those those county chargers getting.

So I'd be interested in a report once you guys have one of those of how much usage you're seeing out of those.

And maybe it's just because they're free and there and people are spending all day downtown, but they do seem quite popular.

Hey, this is Chuck.

I just wanted to point out, I think this is a lot of good information.

I was just reading an article in Interesting Engineering today about a study that's going on about in-road wireless charging for electric vehicles.

And it's sponsored in Indiana with Purdue, University of Purdue, and a German company.

And they're looking at doing some, actually installing it on the interstate for testing to see if it's going to work.

I mean, there's a lot of innovations coming along that may revolutionize the whole charging situation where you don't even have necessarily charging stations.

You might have an area you just drive into a park and automatically charges your vehicle.

So yeah, I agree with Rory that I think this is a good start, but if we, I mean, we're gonna be continuously updating the study

moving forward as new technology comes on.

Oh, yeah, actually, that reminds me.

Another thing to consider that I didn't see in the report is B2G technology, vehicle to grid, where, you know, in addition to being just batteries to power your car,

a lot of the time these are just batteries full of energy that are sitting around and as more intermittent renewable energy is added to the grid, wind power that only produces when the wind is blowing, solar that produces during the day when it's not cloudy, there's becoming a real demand within utilities for storage or other ways like demand shifting

to shift demand and supply to balance out the grid as these intermittent power sources change in availability.

So of course, we've seen that big Dominion pilot with electric school buses where Dominion's aim is to get these school buses when they're sitting around to be these big batteries for them to draw some power from.

And I believe Albemarle County or the state in Albemarle County issued a grant to

a local company to work on V to G or V to X technology.

I don't know about the grant.

I know one of the previous, he's an instructor at UVA, David Slutsky.

Basically, he has spent a lot of time and effort in doing a lot of research and developing.

That's what his company does.

They look for opportunities for that, especially for fleets.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, it's a big field.

It's changing a lot.

And actually, I work in a company that kind of works sort of in that space in demand shifting.

So certainly, there's a lot going on.

Maybe a little bit is kind of out of the scope of this electric vehicle study.

But as we plan this infrastructure, and particularly, like Truc said, that fleet infrastructure, I know people are kind of talking about battery electric buses.

Certainly, the schools have made their application to do that.

I have two small points.

One, on the electric heavy vehicle front, I just wanted the report to reflect that DRPT does have a program that funds electric buses.

Two, Blacksburg has I think now five of these on the road.

So if people are interested, they're using them in regular transit service at this point.

And I know Jaunt has also done some work with EV transit vehicles.

If I can jump in just for maybe to give us a path forward here.

So the evening study itself was actually an FY21 work program and that included this part of the work program in FY22.

But we do have this climate action initiatives research that we have included.

So my thought is that we can take some of these suggestions and start looking forward as we think through the climate action initiatives and how to incorporate those into our long range planning and other transportation planning processes.

and maybe pull in a significant electric vehicle as we do our research since it supports the overall climate action initiatives moving forward.

Hearing that you all it sounds like really want more of a deeper level of technical analysis and ongoing sort of research and understanding about how the field is changing and how the technology is utilized.

Sandy, that certainly resonates with what I've been thinking is that we need to make sure that any additional work that we do on this does fit into the approved UPWP and that it doesn't become something that we just continue

updating as everything changes.

This could be one of those studies that never ends.

So I do think we need like a natural terminus for what has been completed now at the level and at the altitude that it was expected to be.

The other thing is when you go through and you start to update to the long range plan, that's going to be an opportunity to include a lot of this information in that plan.

And that's going to start next spring.

Yeah, I'm glad to agree that I think it's something to keep in mind as we create plans, move forward.

I know it's a little bit incorporated into the city's comprehensive plan draft.

and particularly as we make infrastructure investments, but I don't necessarily see an immediate need to add to the work program to put a lot more work into the study now.

Maybe at a couple of points, at some point a couple of years in the future, it'll be, we'll see this study as out of date rather than just limited in scope and do it more stuff then.

Thanks, you guys.

Thanks, Lucinda.

Okay, I'm going to switch the order here just a little bit.

Since Active Express, this is really the time to get it in front of you guys before it takes off.

So I'm sure you've heard this mentioned a little throughout the time, but the Active Express is going to be a transit service for commuters that will run from

Stanton, Fishersville, Waynesboro to Charlottesville and Fifth Street Station area.

This is the area that has been studied and looked at many, many times with how best to address all the folks that are making this trip on a regular basis.

So we have many partners that are involved with the Acton Express, including all of the localities that the bus service

A quick just mute for you on the morning boarding and the drop offs.

This service is looking and hoping to start as quickly as September 1st, which is why we thought that this was so important for you guys to see it before it might be up and running.

So it's stopping, you can see here on our side of 5th Street station there at Wegmans.

There's also an additional service there at the Cat Bluffs stop.

It is stopping at a couple of locations at the UVA both in the academic side as well as the health side and then of course the downtown transit center as well.

Just again a quick snapshot of what the service will look like.

The website for this service is up and running so all of this information is there that you guys can find and locate.

It is being serviced by the bright bus system since it is originating on that side of the mountain and CSPDC, our counterparts across the mountain, are the folks that secured the demonstration grant for this.

The cost to ride, we're looking at a $3 fare for each way, so if you were taking it both, which most people would be,

It would be $6.

They're also doing a fare card that could offer some cost savings since they are anticipating folks to be riding it on a fairly regular basis.

So also mid month of September will be free, which is perfect timing with Trek Transit from DRPG.

We had a lovely photo shoot that both our office and CSPDC got to participate in and

As you can see, we've got some cool stuff here with this.

Best part is all of the amenities.

We have heard for many, many years about the treacherous and the driver of the mountain that everyone hates.

So the good news is, hence the timeline, hard drive, your destination, is now that passengers can take part in a lot of amenities with this.

The seats are very nice.

HiVac, Mary Cushy.

There is overhead storage for items.

It is wheelchair accessible.

There will be bike racks and Wi-Fi.

So folks can just sit back and relax on that drive across the mountain.

We have begun starting some marketing and promotion for this particular service, obviously leading up to that September 1st launch.

So like I said, the website just became live this week.

They have secured their presence on social media so they're looking for new followers to help get the word out.

All of that info is on their website and will be on the Rideshare website as well.

So just kind of stay tuned for a lot of outreach and to hopefully be hearing about the service quite a bit in the next month as we approach that launch and then a little bit after that as well.

Again, there is the website information.

I'm really excited that this is happening.

I think this is great.

I also want to throw out that there's a lot of the same stops that we use for the Crozet Connect and some of our other Connect routes.

So I just want to

Reiterate that, you know, I look forward to the day when we've got some really good transfer options with CAT that we can leave all of those UVA and downtown connections to CAT and have a really consistent, reliable transfer, you know, on the north, south, east and west sides of Charlottesville that we can connect to.

There is a lot of opportunity with getting this service up and running where it can plug individuals into

And you know, once it's there, I think we'll see even more connections and how all of those can work together.

All right, so real quick, ride share.

So with the program being part of the DRPT Commuter Assistance Programs, or CAPS for short,

We apply for funding every year in February and then develop a work plan.

This particular work plan has went through both DRPT and then our condition here at TJPBC.

But we just wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update as to what to look forward to in the coming fiscal year.

So again, some of the promotions that we're doing.

Number one, act and address.

That again is going to tie nicely into Tri-Transit and Publicly Rideshare Week, which are our fall events.

We will obviously continue to promote telework.

I think most folks are getting used to that and accustomed to it, but there are still ways that we can hopefully make it better for some employers.

We of course like to participate and partner with programs for Earth Week.

and then in May we have Clean Commute and also Bike Month.

One of the reasons I wanted to throw this park out there is we are always looking for community partners in how we can tie TDM into what they're doing or the needs of their particular clients.

So these are kind of some of the things that we have on the table, but we're also open to

Ways that we can work these in with existing programs and existing organizations through the community.

The other big item that we have coming up for this particular fiscal year is our marketing research and implementation proposal.

So we are seeking some outside help to make sure that we are positioning Rideshare in the best possible way for this particular region.

So we are going to take a deep dive into some research to make sure that we are identifying all of the key markets and audiences that we need to be reaching, really making sure that we're developing the right messaging for those particular audiences.

Working to strengthen our brand awareness with this being such a transient community with people moving in and out with UVA and other things.

We are always looking to strengthen our brand awareness in the area.

We will also be creating a marketing implementation

We plan based on this proposal that will include all mediums both print, TV, radio and digital and then also of course for our special promotions and events and then some updated printed materials.

It has been a while since Rideshare has looked into these things and we feel like cutting out the beginning of this pandemic is a really good time to step back, evaluate what we're doing and making sure that we are being as effective

as possible.

Quickly, I love this graph.

I know you guys have probably seen it a million times, but you know, one of the big things with both the county and the city taking on a lot of climate action is TDM is a wonderful pairing and component of how we can impact the environment.

And I think the pandemic was a perfect example to show how bigger the impact TDM can have in that particular arena.

That's probably a wonderful area and a place that we will be doing some extensive messaging as well.

And speaking of telework, real quick, just a plug again, always for Telework VA, which is a program of DRPT that we partner with.

We have lots of services to make sure that employers are, you know, equipped to have the most effective telework program they can have.

Even if a place already has one,

We have contracted out with professionals and experts to make sure that you're getting the most out of your toggle work program.

So those are free services that we will happily connect anyone with.

We of course still have our app.

There are the snapshots.

This is where folks can log their trips.

They can also search for cargo matches, they can search for van pulls, input their transit or biking miles, and the more alternative trips you take, the more points you get, the more rewards you can get in the end.

This is just a quick snapshot of kind of what the dashboard in that looks like.

So it gets a lot of data for how these alternative trips are impacting our particular area.

And as a member, you get your own snapshot to see your impacts, which I think can be really motivational to folks once they finally see it.

Again, quick snapshot.

That's me.

Please feel free if you have any thoughts.

or Ideas for Partnerships to reach out to me and of course I will take any questions.

Yeah, Sarah, with the Afton Express, that was demonstration project funds that have that running.

How long do those funds last?

I, let's say, I believe it was everyone signed on for three years for that.

The demonstration funds I think were mostly supported for the first couple of years and then there was an additional cost to all of the partners that were supporting that that would kind of incrementally creep up so that it would be mostly supported outside of that particular demonstration grant program.

The plan for after those three years

I do not know exactly.

I think that the real tell on that will be how well it goes in this particular first year.

My guess would be yes, what that threshold exactly would look like.

And I can speak to those two a little bit.

DRPT is working closely with BRITE on setting up and then monitoring all the performance data associated with this route because it's being funded through our demonstration program, which tends to have kind of a finite period.

And then we generally like to see the services transition into kind of a regular operating program.

But we're going to be watching the numbers very carefully and monitoring service.

Given the current situation and everything, I think we'll just be interested to see what happens in terms of ridership.

And again, I cannot tell you how many times this particular community issue has been studied and looked at and evaluated.

And, you know, frankly, folks have been asking for this service for 10 plus years that I know of.

So a long time coming.

Very, very cool.

Thank you, Sarah.

Very excited for Aspen Express and for all ride share stuff going on right now at such an important time when people are reforming their habits for some people the first time ever.

So cool.

So I know we're past our time here.

I know some people might have heard stopped.

Are you guys generally good to power through, get through the MPO updates?

All right, let's do it.

Oh, okay.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, I'll be quick.

So we, MPO updated our public engagement plan last year.

and we got a lot of comments and feedback that were going back so we decided to re-update it more in depth this year, 2021.

The engagement plan, well, it's called the public participation plan by the FTA and it's required by the HMPO to have a public participation plan to show how we will

have a process to involve interested and affected individuals, organizations, and government entities in developing and adopting any documents.

So we looked at a bunch of other NPOs, public participation plans, and we really liked Rich Goods, which changed the name to an engagement plan, which we also did too.

And we based our update on Richard's plan, but we also used some other things that we like from other plans.

We worked with CTAC to kind of refine it and make sure we got everything in there for our community.

And it's been on the website and open for public comment for several months now.

We are going to have a public hearing and present it to the MPO Policy Board at their next meeting.

And I guess that we would like any comments from you.

Yeah, I don't have anything specific, but I would probably add that it would be helpful to have a difference for a red line version of changes between this one and the previous one.

Alright, do we want to make a recommendation or just

I guess we don't need one.

So this study, I think I introduced it to you in the past.

So we're just giving an update and I'll be quick as well.

We've had a bunch of meetings with the stakeholders.

We've drafted a framework document and

We've drafted project goals, but the team has done this, not just us.

We're working with EDOT and Carolson.

So we've drafted the project goals, which are to improve safety, manage congestion, increase multi-modal usability and accessibility, support future growth and support economic development.

We're still defining those.

and we will ask for public comment as long as, once they're finalized, I'll put them up on our website.

VDOT has their website up right now and our website will be up very soon on the project.

So we are working on future no-build conditions analysis and then we will have a public workshop and stakeholder meetings in September to refine the goals and objectives

Then we will identify areas for improvement and draft solutions to those ideas and from a second public workshop probably in, hold on let's see, in August.

The first or the second?

The second.

Probably not that quickly, but maybe an hour later.

Yeah.

and then development alternatives matrix and draft strategies and then how to apply alternatives in management reports.

Cool.

Any questions?

Doesn't seem like it?

All right, thanks.

So I guess next up is roundtable updates.

This is for Kat.

There's a real quick where we're in the process of presenting our new routes to the public.

So

Tomorrow is our second meeting, and we're hoping to be able to launch our new routes by September.

And once we do that, obviously, we got the fare-free going on, but we'll also start a capital project study to see how we could better serve the 29 area as well.

And that's at 6 p.m. tomorrow, right?

Awesome.

Okay, so August 11th, we're going to have a public meeting regarding Belmont Bridge replacement project and just an update on construction, what to expect, detours, who to contact if you have any questions.

So that's already on the city's calendar on how to register with Zoom.

I'll be sending out an invite to our project mailing list.

And if anyone wants it here, I can send it to you as well if you wanted to get it out to you.

Thanks.

Anyone else have updates?

Looks like a no.

Looks like we don't have any matters from the public since we have no members of the public.

So with that, I'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting.

Thanks, you all.

Thank you all so much for being here and for going a little over time.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, everyone.