MPO Technical Committee Meeting   9/21/2021

This meeting of the Charlottesville, Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization Technical Committee is being held pursuant to Code of Virginia's 2.23708.2, which allows the public body to hold electronic meetings when the locality in which it's located has declared a local state of emergency and the catastrophic nature of the emergency makes it impracticable or unsafe to assemble a quorum in a single location, and the purpose of the meeting is to provide for the discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities.

This meeting is being held by electronic video and audio means.

Through Zoom online meetings and a successful public closed captioning, there will be an opportunity for public comment during that portion of the agenda.

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

The meeting minutes will reflect the nature of the emergency.

The meeting was held by electronic communication means and the type of electronic communication means by which the meeting was held.

A recording will be posted at tjpdc.org within 10 days of the meeting.

All right, first up, we have matters from the public.

Three minutes per speaker.

I see we have a member of the public here.

If you're talking about me, then no thanks.

All right, that sounds good.

Anyone else here?

Oh, OK. Next up, approval of the draft meeting mix.

Does anyone have any changes or updates to the minutes?

Jim?

Do I hear a second?

I'll second.

All right.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Motion carries.

Next up we have our Ravenna River Bike and Ped Crossing Stakeholder Engagement.

Sure, let me go ahead and pull up.

I promise it's a very brief presentation.

Really what I would like to do today is just to remind you of our process and then get some feedback from you all.

Because of the timing of the meeting this month, we will be meeting with the policy board tomorrow actually, so we have a very quick turnaround, but what I'm hoping to do

is to provide a recommendation to them on who should be represented on the stakeholder committee for the Ravenna River Bike and Pedestrian Bridge Crossing smart scale project development.

So just a reminder of the timeline that we're working through and the process that we've been working through.

At their meetings in July, the Policy Board voted to select the projects that they would be moving forward to develop into the Round 5 SmartScale applications.

And so those were the projects that you all have recommended.

And then we had discussed with the Policy Board that there could be up to two more significant stakeholder engagement

processes for projects.

And so the two projects that they identified was the Ravana River bike and pedestrian crossing, which is going to be what we had proposed initially, which is developing a stakeholder advisory committee to work through the selection of the project and what components should go into the project at that point.

for that one.

The other project, the District Avenue Roundabout Project, we are going to do some additional engagement specifically with the communities that will be most directly affected and impacted by that project.

But we did not believe that we needed to go through the same type of process.

We believe that we needed to engage more specifically around very specific issues and topics.

So we will be doing that just through a slightly different process.

So if we're following our schedule along the way we have outlined it, then in September we would like to go ahead and appoint the advisory committee for the Ravana River Bike and Pedestrian Project and then those committee members will hopefully start meeting in October if we can get all the actual individuals identified by then.

So just as an overview of the process that we're going to go through, we are anticipating that the Stakeholder Advisory Committee will meet monthly and it will consist of a mixture of state and local government staff, citizens, nonprofits, and potentially private developers.

That's one of the things I'd like to talk through with you all today.

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

So it will be a very transparent process.

We will incorporate, while we won't necessarily have necessarily every meeting be interactive with the public, we will have opportunities at each meeting for public comments and questions, which if we can respond at the time, maybe we will, or we might do what we did for

The Solutions 29 hydraulic small area plan, which is receive comments and feedback at the end of the meetings and then at the beginning of the next meeting to start the meeting with responding to those questions or comments.

And then we will work with that stakeholder committee to develop any additional opportunities for more general public engagement.

So that might be surveys or informational webinars or something like that.

And then what we're going to be asking the committee to do is to consider multiple factors, work to determine which of those factors should be priorities in considering the project options.

And then they will make the recommendations for the final project application.

In your packet, I had developed a draft list of the potential stakeholders that I thought should be on the advisory committee.

So that's in the column to the left.

And like I said, it includes state and local government staff, which are definitely stakeholders trying to identify who are the major organizations that represent the community.

So we have Pan-Cops, CAC, and the Willam Mills Neighborhood Association.

Looking at some of the environmental impacts, making sure that we are considering transit interconnectivity with any plans for future pedestrian connections.

So we wanted to go ahead and include Charlottesville area transit.

We have identified a liaison with the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee to bring information back and forth there.

And then we wanted to identify two citizen representatives assisted on the committee.

We have gotten some feedback that while these are very important stakeholders, it may not make sense for them to officially serve on the Stakeholder Advisory Committee.

And maybe we need to focus on engagement with them in a different way.

So that's the Ravana Water and Sewer Authority, which will be very important to coordinate with, but they may not need to actually serve on the advisory committee.

And then looking at the properties that

would potentially be impacted by the development we want to, you know, of course, work to coordinate and collaborate with them to the extent possible to make sure that those are good working relationships.

But there was some question as to whether or not they should actually be a member of the stakeholder advisory committee or whether it would make sense to try to engage them through another process.

And then CTAC had some additional suggestions that they thought might also need to be represented or would be helpful to be represented, which include representatives of the City and County Cleaning Commission, Albemarle Seville Greenways, and the Ravana Trail Foundation.

So

So we can pause there for a minute.

Well, they have this site, they have this site over, where is it exactly located, but they've done a lot of redevelopment over there.

Correct.

Yeah, the big issue with them is parking.

And that seems to be a topic about even the neighborhood and everybody else, even the Riverside Park is parking.

And one of the places we were going to utilize possibly was parking at the Woolen Mills development.

as an area where people could park if they needed to park.

So that's something to consider, making sure that they're not necessarily included in the advisory committee.

But when we come to that point in the study about dressing parking, how are we going to do that?

And then we probably need to work with them on on joint parking.

I'll just point out we do

As part of their proffer, we did identify, I think, 10 spaces that are reserved for public parking for access to the trails there.

They're not in the small parking lot, but in the larger parking lot near the bridge.

And those are signed.

Beyond that, I think it's going to be very difficult to get additional parking, especially during

during business hours because they actually had a lot of parking reductions as part of their project.

So they're really concerned about the level of parking if that place were potentially to be filled up with all the employment that they would need, they'd probably be really short.

And so how are we kind of thinking about this project?

Is it a transportation project or is it a recreation project or is it both?

Like what's driving this parking command?

Sorry.

This project is really intended more to facilitate.

I mean, I think it can be both, but I think the primary reason that we started looking at a bridge crossing in the external area versus connecting in the parks a little bit north was really to make sure that there were commuter options.

that could facilitate transportation across the river at a more convenient location.

But I think while that might be where the primary initiative emerged, I think we also need to consider that there could be some recreational impacts.

I'm from the Lynchburg area and

I mean, it is designated as a recreational trail in the area, but they did complete a bridge to an island in the middle of the James River.

And it has served as a pretty significant attraction in and of itself, just because you get a nice view if you go to the middle of the bridge and things like that.

Yep, okay.

But I would think that recreational parking would be

Kind of tilted towards the weekends, right?

Do we agree with that?

So potentially the Woolen Mills development would be more okay with it.

Yeah.

I mean, there could be folks that use it as a commuter facility.

They drive to the park and walk over to the hospital or something like that, or they drive from

area east and park on the county side and then cross over to go to into the city, whether it's by bike or walking.

So those are some of the things we need to consider about utilization of this.

Hopefully we can integrate the transit activities into it so that that would play a bigger role and reduce the number of vehicles that drive to the location next near the bridge to cross.

but that's something to consider.

The only other thing I would like to say is I know with most of our committees that we've done before, we try to keep them limited to 12 people because that seems like a manageable number.

And we did have with 29 solutions, 29, we did have planning commission members on the committee as well as board members.

So those are things that we may wanna consider

As you kind of think through this parking issue,

You know, it might be worth just reaching out to someone in Lynchburg.

I'm sure they have probably compiled some data that they could share on maybe parking utilization when they're seeing peak demand for parking around some of their trailheads that serve a similar function as to what this may serve.

Maybe if they have any good lessons learned about partnering with adjacent businesses to do kind of parking sharing

and then also maybe some data that would be relevant on the number of people that access the facility through other means, whether that's transit or biking or walking or even in Charlottesville, kayaking to the facility.

Yeah, agreed Wood.

I think, I mean, I can tell from my experience because I spend a lot of time down there at the river that the parking is not sufficient on weekends in the city park side.

The overflow is pretty shocking the way it goes down the streets throughout the summer.

I was just gonna, to Chuck's point, say I agree that keeping this a little bit smaller than the list we see here would be a better idea because it does get a little unmanageable.

The State Farm property, they no longer occupy that building.

They are leasing it to other companies or it's partially leased.

I think partially vacant right now.

I don't think State Farm has any plans to move back in there.

So I don't think that they necessarily need to be part of a stakeholder team.

I mean, I think we need to have some outreach to them.

to make sure they're aware of the project and allow them to follow it.

And we'll probably have to talk to them about future property acquisition or easements on their property, but I don't think they need to be part of this.

And then the other thing I'd point out is that you have two citizen representatives, but the Woolen Mills Neighborhood Association, the Pantops Community Advisory Committee,

The Rivanna Conservation Alliance, CTAC, those are all citizens.

And I know they represent or they are there to represent an organization, but they are citizens, just the same.

Yeah, I think one of the considerations why I thought initially to at least include citizen representatives separately is because I don't know that any of these other organizations represent bicycle users or pedestrian users of the bridge.

Thinking about sort of what's missing from that and you're sort of hitting it with the State Farm is I would say like having a major employer be someone who that's what they're thinking about it as in terms of commuting and just

Employer, you know, employee wellness and that kind of question.

And to that point, I would say both Willow Tree and Sentara would probably be better sources because better than State Farm, because at present, I believe State Farm is in 100 percent virtual mode.

Yes, I think the way this is going, I would agree with what everyone has said.

And I do think from a political standpoint, it's been important to have Planning Commission and Supervisor Council representative on important committees.

And I think that this is one of those committees that will save ourselves a lot of angst in the long run if those bodies are keyed in

So that's four members.

You know, that's four.

And if you're trying to, well, when it went down to a dozen, I think that Peter's point is well taken, and maybe that's a way to take those other two in red off the list and put them back in as sort of double stakeholders.

I also think that the, not just because Peter's sitting there, but I think there needs to be a bicycle group representation.

So again, I haven't looked really closely at the other set, but do you need Charlottesville Public Works at this particular point?

Are there parts of that that need to be, to get you to the dozen?

I think the dozen is reasonable, but I do think that the political representation will pay off significantly in the long run.

Just so you know, Charlottesville Public Works, the portion that's in the city will actually need to be maintained by Charlottesville.

So I do think that it's important to include them as part of that.

That's why they're listed there.

They don't actually have anybody that's a transportation painter.

However, if their elected officials tell them this is a priority, then the details get worked out.

So again, and that's the case for a number of the pieces on that list.

I mean, I think you could, I guess it depends on how quickly you want this to happen.

And from what Chuck has told us in the

last couple of meetings.

I mean, this is, and you all, this is something that conceivably could rise to the top pretty quickly.

And to be clear, right, this is the advisory committee for engagement as part of making the SmartScale application.

Once SmartScale is awarded, we always form, or do we always form, the implementation committee that we usually have?

It varies from project to project.

I know with the 29 solutions, we had a ongoing panel that went through the whole process, but that's not necessarily the standard way to do stuff.

Normally we'll just go through the development and then we'll have public outreach at various times during the process.

But that's pretty much the extent of it.

We will have like access

to a website with the information on the project.

But there won't be generally be a standing committee that's going to be reviewing stuff on a monthly basis or something like that.

The only thing that normally we have would be a, like I said, a public outreach meeting where we have either a formal public hearing or a

public informational meeting.

And that's something we would work out.

And that varies with project to project what type of meeting we have.

But that's pretty much the extent of most of our activities during project development and construction.

And then I guess my big question is, what's the objective of this advisory committee?

Like, is it just to kind of talk to everyone and make sure everyone's on the same page?

Yeah, it's really intended to make sure that all the, to really prioritize how to select the project, make sure that all, I mean, maybe not all, to the extent possible, make sure as many potential mitigating factors are as stressed as possible up front.

So I'll just quickly go to the next slide, because that might help a little bit.

But basically what we're going to be asking, and we've already started, and again this first list is the list of potential factors that will need to be considerations as far as selecting the project and then CPAC again added some additional factors that they thought should be discussed.

So what we're going to be doing with the committee

It's really asking them to prioritize the importance of, I mean, some of the factors are not negotiable and some of the factors, it's really a matter of prioritizing what's more important to you.

Is it, you know, making sure you have a really nice bridge that looks really nice or is it more important to

Make sure that we're mitigating flood impacts, you know, something like that.

We're going to ask them to really prioritize the factors and so We don't want to generate necessarily a lot of additional options because it's if we do that.

We're just not going to be able to necessarily move forward and having

a project application ready in the timeframe.

So Sandy, I think that's helpful zooming ahead.

Can we make sure we feel that because this is going before the policy board tomorrow, correct?

So I think we need to make some final decisions on the advisory committee list.

Yeah, so I went ahead and crossed off the list.

Yeah, I would support RTF.

I guess my question on the right out of Water and Sewer 30 is it looks like the one concept that goes right off Chesapeake Street goes through their property.

As part of the process, we'll have to review where the utility impacts are and adjust accordingly.

I mean, we don't necessarily have to coordinate that with the Water and Sewer Authority.

That could be something that's done offline.

Great.

Yeah, so the hope is that there will be a standing time each month, so we won't necessarily go through a notification period each month, but it will meet at a standing time.

I know I'm not technically, well, I might agree with removing two citizen representatives.

I think we are covered as far as citizen input, whether they're speaking on behalf of being a bicycle rider or on behalf of other riders or behalf of people that may use it within the neighborhood.

Yeah, I was going to say that I know in the committees we've had before,

I don't think we really had staff on the committees.

It was mostly, we had board members, we had planning commission members, we had mainly business owners were represented, but we're talking about a little bit different scenarios.

When you're talking about hydraulic 29 and 29 solutions,

you're affecting a lot of businesses along that corridor.

This is a little bit different in that United is really affecting businesses per se, their access.

I think we've gone through a lot of these committee makeups recently with a lot of projects that are going on.

One of the things that I've noticed we've been doing is we've had a stakeholder group and a technical committee separately.

A lot of the folks on this list may

be able to be broken off.

I don't know how this is going to be set up, but if you're coming to this meeting, the MPO tech committee meeting and or the MPO policy board meeting and giving them the opportunity to weigh in on these things at those times, giving us and them that opportunity,

Do they all need to be part of the stakeholder committee as well or does that end up getting redundant?

Yeah, I think what's challenging about this specifically is it's not a planning study, it's more of a project, you know, development study.

So I think there are a number of technical, there is a number of technical details that can't be separated out from it.

What I would say is that the MPO policy board would probably act as a steering committee though, so I don't know that we need to have that as a separately identified.

group of people.

But your point is taken, maybe the staff types of people have their opportunity to participate in another way.

Tim, on the board member, what do you think?

I mean, do you think they're going to want to be part of this actual stakeholder committee?

Or do you think it's possible that could be satisfied by going, because there's two board members on the MPO committee?

The policy board, yeah.

Would that be enough?

I was wondering about that as well.

I guess what I was thinking about was that they felt a need to have representatives on the Rivanna phase, whatever, of the Rivanna Corridor Study, that they thought that that was important enough.

You most likely have a better sense of this particular side on the county and maybe Rory on the city side, but I defer to you all.

Yeah, as long as I would be comfortable with, as long as we are providing the policy board regular updates and giving them that opportunity to comment on it as we're giving them those updates, that that could be enough for the board member.

I don't know if Roar, I think Roar is the only city representative.

Yeah, I don't know that I can necessarily speak for them.

But my impression of everyone on council is that they are very overbooked and want to minimize additional things to sit on.

And that they're okay with kind of delegating, I mean, especially if there's planning commission member on it, I think that kind of gets to it.

I think probably tomorrow, you'll be talking to actual city councilors, and they'll be able to say definitively whether that's true.

They would also have the opportunity if they wanted to attend any of the meetings.

And as of right now, you're just bringing this list as the recommendation.

If they wanted to add someone back on, that could be their prerogative.

Also, I think in the case of Albemarle,

I could be wrong, but I believe the supervisor is most affected by this project.

It's not in there.

Again, I'm sorry, Peter, but there was time for matter from the public.

So looking at this list, if we have crossed out the ones that maybe we've gone through that at least tentatively we talked about that I don't feel necessarily were needed.

We could add the Ravana Trail Foundation and that brings us to 13, which is pretty close to 12.

I'm comfortable with that.

The only one I know much about the Rivanna Conservation Alliance.

If they are a well organized group that you think would be good to have on this, then I'm happy with it.

Yeah, they would mostly be representing the environmental impacts.

They also had some, they also engaged her in the Ravana River corridor planning study as well with some feedback specifically related to impacts on view sheds and things like that on the river.

So

And I mean, one last thing in the interest of down selecting is for CAT to be on it.

Is the motivation that we want, you know, more transit to be run to it kind of on both sides?

Is that something that they need to be necessarily in the meetings?

Yeah, I think it's just to make sure that we're coordinating.

Again, it's one of our goals is also to make sure that we're doing this in a way that also doesn't further increase our compound parking demand.

It seems like it would be really helpful to make sure we are intentionally engaging CAT.

It's also possible that we could extend the invitation and they don't have the ability or don't feel like they need to engage as an actual member of the committee.

OK.

This sounds good to me.

Sorry.

Go ahead, Tim.

Yeah.

I'll make a motion.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Roy?

Aye.

Jessica?

Aye.

Alex, I saw that you joined us.

Were you able to follow the conversation?

Did he leave again?

Oh, there's Alex.

Yes.

Someone is not here.

Steven is not here.

Tim?

Hi.

I don't see Bill Palmer.

Hi.

Chuck?

Hi.

and Wood.

Hi.

Great.

So motion carries unanimously.

Thanks, Andy.

Next up, we've got SmartScale Culpepper District project pipeline process.

Unmute my mic here.

Yes, we started a new process this summer to basically try to develop locations that show up in the B-trans as a tier one need.

And two locations were identified in the Albemarle County area.

One of them was Pantops from Hamptons Road to the interchange and the other one was

the 22-250 intersection out in Shadwell area.

So we had the kickoff meeting for the projects developed or rolled out and engaged the stakeholders group which is made up of transit folks from the localities as well as the PDC folks, county staff, VDOT,

folks from DRPT, as well as our consultant team.

And we've done some data collection.

We're reviewing the crash data now and the count data now.

And we will be coming back to the stakeholders group probably early October to present those findings as well as some preliminary ideas for solving those issues.

That's pretty much where we're at.

We're rolling out a website.

I think it goes live October 28th or September 28th that will have the material available for public consumption.

They will also be doing a media push on the process and rolling it out to everybody.

making everybody aware of it.

So it's, but this is something that they definitely want to move forward in the future.

We identified five locations across the district as part of this process.

And like I said, we have two in the Albemarle County area.

Anyone?

All right, like I said, there'll be more to come and we'll have public outreach as part of this process later in the year, possibly in December.

Yes, we're going to have a public outreach effort, mainly a push of material out as well as a push for the website so that people can start to see what we're looking at, what the crash data is, it looks at what the

congestion and account data looks like.

And that'll be going live end of this month.

And then in December, we will be coming back with a actual public outreach effort and a public survey and to get public input on both the goals and objectives, as well as input on some preliminary alternatives that we put together.

and we'll be reaching out to the stakeholders group in October with some of that preliminary information in preparation for those public meetings in December.

Is that it?

Yeah, and I mean, I just call out, I think it behooves us to ground ourselves in the consequences of the work that we're doing here.

For those of you who didn't hear, just this week, a 29-year-old man was killed on 250 crossing the street near Hanson Road, well over a third of a mile from the nearest crosswalk.

That is definitely part of the area we're looking at.

and we're gonna look at crossings of those areas.

I think the closest one is at State Farm.

And they're gonna be putting one in it down at Route 20, but you only have those two crossings on that corridor.

So that's something we're gonna be looking into to see if there's any opportunities and possibly look at over grade separated crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists

if there's some opportunities there as well as I know there's a transit study going on for the Pantops area and we're going to look at opportunities to for assistance with where those pickup locations might be if we need to actually add something to the project for bus stops.

Park and Ride lot that we were short on now since the one closed down at the shopping center down by the river.

That's good.

I remember from my work with IDOT in Iowa that there were segment divisions and accidents with varying degrees up through fatalities gave

points to these segments and how the segments were ranked for improvements.

I wonder if you could just very briefly tell us about that, oh, let's say Route 20 intersection with 250 going west towards where, what would it be?

Maybe the entry to Sentara.

on the south side.

We look at crashes and then we group them both by segment, by intersection, and then they're ranked across the district.

This corridor has I think four segments on it that are ranked as well as several intersections.

So we're looking at all of that, and it's not necessarily both directions, it's by direction, so that's part of it.

B-Trans looks at that too and incorporates that into their evaluation where they look at what the highest priority needs are.

I think one of the segments is ranked 13th in the district, and those are ranked by mile.

For those at least of us that were in the education community, there was a way for us to be able to access that GIS and those GIS layers and we could actually go to those segments.

Is that something that's available to the public in Charlottesville and Albemarle?

And then two other follow up questions.

If I remember correctly in Iowa,

while there was kind of a historic data set for each of those segments, the evaluation that IDOT was doing was based on a five-year timeframe.

And then the second one is as unfortunate as this fatality, and many of us knew the individual or his mom or father, in crude hard numbers, what does a fatality do in raising a segment's

Basically, they evaluate it as a PSI and that's total crashes.

And they evaluate it as a targeted safety need.

And that's based on the number of injury, fatality, crashes within that five year period.

They're both based on five year cycles.

So every year we'll look at the last five years of data.

and come up with a re-ranking of the crashes across the district.

A fatality, it's less predictable, but it's more weighted towards the impacts at that intersection.

And I don't know the calculation off the top of my head, but there's a weighting when they're converting it to equivalent EDOP,

property damage only crashes, that one gets the highest rating.

So they basically convert all crashes to a certain criteria.

Here you go.

This is how it's, that we, this was the slides that they developed for the public outreach meeting that we had, or not public outreach, for the stakeholders group meeting that we recently had.

And it shows the weighting based on the

type of crash and the number of crashes.

So the bigger dots going to be your larger number of crashes and the colored segments are the type of crash.

That makes sense.

Thank you very much.

And this stuff will all be put out there on the website once it goes live at the end of the month so the public can have access to.

And as we get more information, we'll be putting it out there for public consumption.

It's one crash, but it's got a higher weight.

So when you convert it, it's going to, it'll rise in value, but it's still only one crash.

When it converts it to EDOP, it'll be normalized higher than the other ones.

But we also look at other things to make sure that it's not,

Gotcha.

And I can see in page nine there, there was also a pedestrian fatality at Hanson in 2014.

Rory, that's why I asked about the five-year.

That was really problematic in Iowa.

Yeah.

I know for SmartScale, we actually looked at, since it was 14 to 18 data set, they evaluated on 19.

We went from 14 to 19 and looked at where the most crashes occurred, whether it was 14 or 19.

And we included the ones that were, it was a higher number of crashes.

So there is a little bit of flexibility there when we're scoring projects, what we use for the data set for getting them into the system.

And obviously in today's world where citizen and public involvement is really taken into account, then that is another multiplier that's not

I mean, the thing is, once we get to a project level, I mean, identifying the projects and developing the projects is one aspect of it, getting them funded,

they still have to stand on their own benefit.

So if they don't score very well, they're still not gonna get funded.

I remember it and then I'll stop on this because it's just what you all deal with and the frustrations that we all deal with.

But I remember one particular really dangerous

rural segment in an intersection in Iowa, rural intersection, where there was a fatality outside the five-year count, the five-year timeframe historically, and then there was a new fatality in the timeframe that didn't count in that.

When we look at the, and this is one of the issues I have with the data set now, we haven't had new PSI data come out since 2018.

So the data set they have is 2014 to 2018.

We have new data, it's just they haven't,

process it to provide a ranking.

So we can still look at the data.

It's still there.

I just don't have any way to correlate it to other intersections and they're not ranked in any way.

And that's the guy who was doing that for the whole entire state.

He left the department and went to FHWA.

So they're

They've hired some new people to replace them, but it just hasn't, they haven't gotten up to speed to develop a new data set yet.

It's under development.

They just haven't finalized the information.

So for scoring, we pull the data for the project and analyze it based on that five-year data set.

So it'll be whatever the current five-year period is.

Like last round of smart scale was 15 to 19 was the data set.

that we use to score the projects.

So for this coming round, it's going to be 17 to 22 or 21 or 16 to 21, 17 to 21 will be what we use to score the projects.

And we don't even have the 21 data yet.

And Chuck, just to summarize my points, in no way am I being critical of you all, our staff, and either the city or the county about this, or the planning district, this is something you all are stuck with, just as we are, and I think it's important actually for

the public and maybe for anyone who listens to this to understand that there are real challenges, especially when we have something as horrific as what happened recently on 250 with a pedestrian motorcycle accident.

Yeah, I mean, as one of the another avenue, just to give you another highlight,

I know we're doing performance management or performance targets through the MPO and we update those every year.

And they use a trend of the five-year average.

So they're looking at those five-year averages over time and looking at the trend on how those are doing for the MPO area.

And that's how they're coming up with what the

for tests or for the future.

And we also look at that to see on an individual intersection basis, location basis to see what that trend is doing.

So we have a better idea of whether it's getting worse or whether it's getting better or whether it's pretty much staying the same.

I'd just like to add another element to this and I know this is not part of what we're looking at, but I think it speaks to what both Tim and Rory are talking about in the safety and especially like concern for pedestrians.

I think that this one now is actually the fourth pedestrian fatality in the past decade on this segment of Richmond Road from the city line out to like Peter Jefferson Parkway.

I think it's the fourth pedestrian injury or pedestrian death we've had and I'm looking at the data now and it looks like there's a number of pedestrian severe injuries that have occurred as well in that period.

I don't see, except for outside of what's going on right at the interchange, I don't see any driver fatalities that have occurred out here during that time.

And the county has been trying, and I know this is not what Chuck is working on.

Chuck's working on like the long-term issues, but we have, as a county,

tried to get pedestrian crossings put out here a number of times.

Even State Farm, we pushed for that for I think three years before it was finally agreed on to get the crossing there.

And the fear is that we're not going to be able to provide a safe crossing for pedestrians.

But at this point, when we're at four fatalities out there and these severe injuries, I think maybe we need to start rethinking that.

And once again, I know that's not Chuck's area.

That's like talking about a different division.

But it would be really beneficial if we continue to push

to be able to evaluate these safety issues and potential pedestrian crossings despite whatever the engineering data tells us that we should be able to put one in or shouldn't.

It is frustrating that we now have seen those at least four pedestrian fatalities and yet we cannot get a pedestrian crossing no matter how hard we try at a place like Rokin in 250.

Well, it's

From the public perspective, you've got to weigh the differences between how much pushback are you going to get from the people that are commuting along that corridor versus the pedestrians.

I think we need to look at it from both perspectives.

And it's just how do you do that?

Because there are limited ways to get in and out of the city.

And this is one of the major corridors.

And if we want it to operate acceptably,

You've got to limit it somewhere.

And that's why I think we need to look at grade separated crossings as a way to do it.

Like we're doing on the 29 corridor.

We have the same issue on the 29 corridor as well.

There's no crossings on 29 corridor.

We're going to put the first one in or the first ones in north of the city at hydraulic and then the overpass at Xan as part of the project.

But you go north of there, there are not any pedestrian crossings except at

Uh, Rio road where we built the bridge.

Um, so I, on these major corridors, it's really difficult to make that determination, um, on how you deal with it.

Cause if you're stopping traffic to cross for pedestrians to cross six lanes of travel lanes, um, the time you're having to stop, and it's going to cause the cues to back up through the other intersections adjacent to it.

So that needs to be weighed as part of that process.

And that's generally what the problem is.

It's how do you make it work for everyone?

There's no weight between a death and a death.

I agree with you.

Those are completely different things.

I totally agree with you.

We want people to wait if it means saving a life.

We want them to wait.

I totally agree with you.

If there's a safety issue, it's reasonable.

And that's what I was trying to get at.

You're going to cause more crashes by, and it's just how do we react to that part of it?

I mean, we do have crashes on the 29 corridor now that are related to the volume of traffic on the corridor that we can't process because we're having to stop the traffic to allow for the side streets to even enter the roadway.

And some of those are injury crashes that are preventable.

So it's just a matter of weighing those options as which is the best one to do.

I can't answer that question.

I mean, I guess my question is, you know, if we're talking about backing people up, potentially causing crashes, we're talking about relatively low speed, like rear ends, right?

Where at most it would be a minor injury.

And then on the flip side, we have people actually dying trying to cross the street.

And I mean, if the thing blocking a safe way to cross the street is just level of service or seconds of delay,

I can't answer that question.

We try to process the traffic as well as we can.

based on the corridor to push traffic through that corridor during the peak hour.

All right.

Well, there's nothing else on the pipeline.

Thanks, everybody.

I hate to follow that.

That was a good discussion.

I'm going to share my screen.

And I presented this to you before the corridor study.

So this is an update of the corridor study.

I'm not sure why it's not changing slides.

Can you guys see my screen?

I know I'm frozen.

Yes.

OK, my computer's frozen.

Anyways, the 29 corridor study had a public meeting last week.

This is the study that goes from Airport Road up to Deerfield Drive in Rutgersville.

and I'm just going to stop sharing because I don't have, I can't actually, I can't even do that.

It goes from Airport Road up to Rutgersville, Deerfield Drive and we're looking at the corridor and we're looking at improving traffic for that area.

We also have had several pedestrian fatalities up in the Rutgersville area, but I think that

Most of them involved alcohol, so I don't know if they're included.

And we had a public meeting last week.

We had a big turnout because the neighborhoods at Frays Mill Road and Burnley Station Road, that intersection with 29 has a stoplight that the community really likes and wants to keep.

And they heard that we were considering an R cut for the

intersection improvement with this study and they came out to express their concerns about losing the stoplight.

We have a survey that is going on until the end of October.

It's available on the website and you can reach the website through the TJPDC webpage or there's also a VDOT website and

Oh, the existing conditions report is now in your packet.

You should have received it with your agenda packet.

So that's completed and they're starting to work on the alternatives and then we'll have another public meeting to review the alternatives with the public.

I'll just point out that I think

We were a victim of Next Door at your meeting again and I don't even think they heard that we were putting in an archive.

I think someone started a rumor that we were just removing a signal.

As you know, we heard some people call in with that comment that we were just removing a signal and it sounded like they had gotten

and misinformation from the public.

So that was unfortunate.

Yeah, I don't know if you guys can hear me.

It goes in and out.

Yeah, we can hear you.

Oh, OK.

Anything else?

All right.

Thanks, Lucinda.

Next up, we've got staff updates.

Yeah.

I might throw in another one or two, just while I have before.

But the most important one, just for your information, is one of the items that was approved for this fiscal year and the unified planning work program was to

completed a strategic plan for the MPO and so we have decided that we would like to retain a consultant to work with us on that.

So I have developed a draft RFP and we are going to be asking the policy board to review that.

and also to appoint a selection committee at their meeting tomorrow.

So that RFP, the draft is in your packet, but this is more of an informational item.

While I'm giving updates, I just wanted to mention that, sensitively, our next meeting is planned to be in person.

pending any sort of action that Charlottesville may take to extend their state of emergency.

But barring that, we will plan to return to in-person meetings next week or at our next meeting.

And then the other thing I want to mention is that we are still tentatively planning a joint meeting with the St. Magus of Williamsboro MPO in November.

And I just got one tweet to the RFP that hasn't gone out yet.

I think it says citizens technical advisory committee.

Yep.

And do we have Sarah with us here for a ride share update or any other questions on those staff updates?

Yeah, I just have a couple of quick things.

I think you guys at the last meeting heard me mention that we were working with

both Cat, Jaunt, UTS to roll out some programming for Tri-Transit.

There has been some changes with the state and how they're doing that program, but we are moving forward on our end just with some general information.

The idea behind this particular project and collaboration is just to kind of reinforce

to folks how easy it can be to use transit and to look at some of those barriers that keep folks from taking transit that can be addressed.

You know, figuring out how to schedule a ride or how to read the timetables for CAT and whatnot, what options are available at UVA.

So we are going to be doing programming throughout the entire month of October.

There will be kind of a different theme each week on how you can go about making a transit trip.

So stay tuned for that information.

We'll be sure to send out social media and different things like that so that everyone is aware of it and so that you can also share it.

In addition to that, I wanted to give a quick update on the Afton Express.

That particular service that crosses the mountain launched on September 1.

So they've had a couple of weeks of service and so far they're seeing about anywhere from 11 to 22 trips being made per day.

They reached the 22 mark.

at the end of last week.

So it does look like it is very slowly ticking up in ridership, but we are also looking at ways we can continue our promotion of that.

We've done a lot of, feel like, paid advertising to get the word out, but now we're looking at maybe doing some more individual outreach to not only employers,

but also across the mountain to some residential areas, ways where we can really connect with folks to show them how they could potentially take advantage of this service and what it could mean for them and their daily commutes.

So that will be something that will probably start sometime in October and potentially run into November depending on how long it takes for us to maybe get some

face-to-face-ish or one-on-one individual conversations with employers.

We would love to table, but I know with COVID, not everyone is open to having visitors.

So we're looking even at opportunities of tabling outside in front of places and high traffic areas, including some of the stops or possibly outside of the employment sites.

So that way we're staying safe, but still having the opportunity to connect with individuals.

Yeah, and I think that is all of the updates I have for now.

I have a question, Sarah.

I've enjoyed seeing the PR pieces on the TV and I think it's really quite effective, but I'm interested in the demographics and whether you're collecting data and if you are, what sort of data you're collecting.

I'm particularly interested in the

Awesome.

Just wanted to clarify.

We are CSPDC since they are actually the grant recipient and we're partnering with them since they also have, you know, the Rideshare program extends over there.

They are starting a survey.

I want to think maybe it starts next week, the beginning of next week, or possibly the end of this week.

I think they were working on exactly when they were going to start.

And they were going to run the survey for two weeks and they were actually going to have the driver survey the passengers that they have had so far.

You know that is a good question as to I have not seen the survey myself.

They were going to send it to me this week to evaluate before it started.

So I'm not sure if they're asking income type questions, but I know they were definitely looking at points of origin and destination so that we could kind of work the outreach around, you know, each of the individual stops.

But that is definitely something I can ask them about.

And could you share that survey with us and we could just

All right.

Thanks, Sarah.

So next up, we've got roundtable updates.

So I guess we'll

Go around the room.

Let me pull up my deck here.

I've got a whole bunch of updates to provide to the technical committee today.

I'll start off with the Transit Equity and Modernization Study.

This is a very large study that DRPT is undertaking at the request of the General Assembly.

We are kind of wrapping up the data collection phase and have been working with our contractor, Kimley Corn, to do extensive outreach to the transit agencies to secure a lot of data related to transit service, location, and quality that's being analyzed.

We have a deadline to produce an interim report and provide that to the General Assembly in December.

One of the things that we're

working through right now is trying to get on the schedules of all of the MPA technical committees and give a full briefing of the project.

So hopefully we can get on the November agenda and provide you guys with some real results that are coming out of that study and additional information.

Next topic is smart scale round five.

It's coming up faster than everybody would like it to be.

If you are considering a project that is a transit project or has a transit element,

Please get in touch with either me or Taylor Jenkins so we can discuss any technical assistance needs for those projects.

Also, generally, we just like to have a sense of who's coming in and asking for resources related to transit projects so we can monitor those on the back end.

Another interesting project that we're working on right now is the Transit Ridership Incentive Program, or TRIP,

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

Applications for the program opened August 2nd and closed earlier this month.

Our team is currently reviewing a healthy number of applications

And applicants might be coming to MPOs looking for letters of support.

And we've set a deadline being able to submit those through the first of October.

If you're interested in the program, we have a ton of details, including eligibility criteria posted on our website.

Next I wanted to mention that we are yet again expanding the Virginia Breeze bus service.

This is the state sponsored inner city bus service that started off with one route and I think now will be up to five routes with the addition of the Highlands rhythm.

This route will be serving far Southwest Virginia, Bristol, kind of starting in Bristol and continuing up the I-81 corridor and ultimately

connecting to the national network in DC at Union Station.

On the inner city bus front, there is an FTA program that's open right now to provide the one-time grant opportunity to inner city bus companies to receive some financial assistance for the impact of COVID-19.

The program is open through October 2021.

Eligibility Criterion data is available on the FTA website.

Last two items I'm gonna touch on relate to rail and passenger rail in the Commonwealth.

The VPRA, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, is hosting their September board meeting on the 28th.

That'll be an in-person meeting, but it'll also be broadcast live online

VPRA has now launched a website.

It is vpra.virginia.gov and there'll be more details available on that meeting on their website.

Lastly, the freight rail enhancement to increase goods and highway throughput freight grant program is being reviewed by the CTB.

DRPT presented the draft program in July

and it should be adopted by the CTB at their December meeting.

You can find additional information about that program on our website.

We'll also mention that the Virginia State Rail Plan is an ongoing effort that our rail folks are currently working through.

Rail plans are mandated by the Federal Railroad Administration and

a state plan that is very, very structured in terms of what it has to answer.

But our rail folks are doing outreach and a lot of engagement on that process right now.

That wraps up my DRPT updates.

I did want to mention though on the Afton Express that we are monitoring a lot of performance measures because that's actually a project that we're funding through our demonstration grant assistance program.

and it does need to demonstrate a number of ridership and things like that to be considered for kind of continued funding in the future after the demonstration period is over.

One of the things that we're asking the BRITE to make sure they monitor closely is that since this program is being funded with some rural transportation dollars that it is actually benefiting

rural riders.

And that's kind of something that we're going to be continuing to monitor and work with them to see if they're hitting the marks on.

So do you have like specific numbers that an express service is going to have to reach in terms of ridership to be permanently funded?

Is that like a fixed thing?

No, we don't have like fixed numbers.

There's not a target that's established.

It's rather a review of the performance.

You know, looking at a lot of factors and I think it's a difficult time to be launching service given COVID.

We are launching another service in the Valley in the beginning of October in Winchester.

So there was the opportunity there to do a little compare and contrast.

I mean, you know, different community makeups and stuff, but still two new services providing kind of commuter connectivity launching at the same time.

So we'll be monitoring both closely.

Just a curiosity question.

Because Bristol is part of a tri-city with Tennessee, two communities in Tennessee, is there a comparable one that is taking, in Tennessee, that's taking people from the tri-cities to say Knoxville or Nashville?

And is there one that connects those two Tennessee cities to Bristol internally that they have in that jurisdiction so that we would actually

have more potential ridership from those larger cities in Tennessee up the 81 corridor with what's being proposed.

I'm unaware of what type of inner city buses offered in Tennessee.

I can reach out to our program manager and find out more, but not all states offer inner city buses as a state sponsored service.

Some actually just default to providing those resources in other ways.

And it's just a curiosity question for me, and although I would think that the

that the folks involved in this would be interested because we want to increase numbers and the real populations are in those two adjoining cities to Bristol and the Tennessee part of Bristol.

I do know that a number of our Southwest Virginia transit agencies that are similar agencies to like a job due demand response are actively looking at how they can tweak their

service areas and service models to provide kind of connectivity into Bristol that direct trips onto that inner city network.

I'm just asking because I am really curious.

I'm very supportive of ideas like the Afton Express, which in theory

could ultimately affect a number of the communities.

I think that we all know that there is a lot of out-migration of workers from Charlottesville and a significant number from Harrisonburg, Stanton, Waynesboro to Charlottesville.

So I wondered because of things like TVA and the Appalachian Regional Authority and certainly more significant

economic issues than we face, whether there might be some interesting models there that would give us something to talk about expanding our regional basis as well.

So if you find out anything and you can share it at some point with all of us, that would be great.

All right.

Don't really have much prepared, but I'll just make a few announcements.

One, we're excited that we are finally getting underway with a number of locally administered sidewalk projects that have been hanging around, and we've been having trouble getting across the finish line for a long time, but they're all under construction right now, and that includes

Sidewalk on Avon Street extended, sidewalk on Rio Road East, and sidewalk out on 250 in Crozet, in the Crozet area.

They all actually include pedestrian crosswalks as well.

There's another project, another sidewalk project that we got underway on Ivy Road from the city heading out towards the bypass, 250 Ivy Road and also the

shared use paths up at our Albemarle County High School and middle school, elementary school complex going on up there, as well as a pedestrian crossing at Mountain View.

So all those projects, which a lot of them have been around for a long time are

are finally going under construction now.

So we're really excited about that stuff.

We've got the Rio Road corridor study going on right now that is a county-led effort to evaluate Rio Road from the city line all the way out to 29.

There's a lot of public involvement going on with that, including pop-ups that started last week and are continuing this week.

We got one tonight out of the putt-putt occurring.

We'll be getting a lot of feedback with that.

And then the Crozet Master Plan, which went to the Albemarle County Planning Commission the other week is now advancing to

the board and I believe it's next month for final approval, which makes a lot of recommendations related to transportation, all based on a transportation study that we did for the entire Crozet area.

So we've got a lot going on right now.

And then other than that, we are also

Preparing to submit our revenue sharing grant applications for this year.

We may end up with just one of those applications being Eastern Avenue.

If that's what happens, then I think we'll pursue other funding sources for getting the additional ped bike considerations out on Avon Extended that we had been looking at.

We'll try and find another way to move those forward.

possibly just with local funds.

Thanks, Kevin.

Alex, do we have you on for a city update?

I think that's a no.

Kim or Geske, do you have anything to add with the county?

Oh, we do have Alex.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, of course.

We have a new director for NDS.

They are in some kind of alignment.

So we have a new director now, James Fris, is his name.

And then there is a consolidated office in the city manager where I am now, which is the Office of Community Solutions to combine or rather consolidate housing, redevelopment,

and the HARD program and the grants administration.

And secondly, of course, the planning commission is meeting tonight.

You know, part of the discussion will be the comprehensive plan, you know, continue to work with the consultant planning commission in getting that ready for action by the city council in December.

The joint

public hearing is scheduled in October and subsequent after that we start finalizing it for consideration by the city council.

Great.

Thanks, Alex.

I don't have much to add to that really.

The comp plan is in the home stretch and

I find pretty much all of my thoughts nowadays.

I'll just add a couple of high level ones because you guys are very aware of most of the work that we're doing related to transportation and transit.

But I would like to add that we are hiring for a transportation planner, planner 3-4.

And we are also exploring the possibility of an OIP gap grant to look at the process for the LRTP project selection.

So that's just something that's in our

in our sites and something that we're researching and looking at how other people have utilized that funding in the past.

And then, as you all know, there's an MPO meeting this Wednesday and an RTP this Thursday, but most of the updates you hear through the meeting.

Great, thanks.

Yeah, a few things.

Like everybody's been talking about, we have smart scale.

We're trying to get

with the localities on identify what projects they want to consider for next round so we can see what assistance we can provide.

I know the Ravenna River Crossing, I've already been in contact with our on-call consultants, so hopefully we have those available for any work we need to do on that.

We've got the pipeline projects that we've got going on.

Just wanted to point make sure that you guys are aware at least the MPOs aware that the safety workbook target workbook should be coming out soon and that the revised targets need to be submitted by the February 28th.

So that'll be something that we'll have to be looking at the next couple of meetings and getting those adopted so we can get those submitted.

That's pretty much it.

Like I said, we're trying to move forward with a lot of these studies and getting them underway and wrapped up.

Some of them, like I've got one at Zions, we're still trying to finalize, but we'll see how that works out.

Thanks, Chuck.

And yeah, to echo Sandy, welcome Jessica to the committee.

Glad to have you here.

Let's see, I guess that is everybody.

So last up, we've got additional matters from the public.

So see, we still have one member of the public back on or still on.

Thanks for being here.

All right, so I guess we'll be able to wrap up early for change.

Thanks, everybody.

Appreciate all your work.