MPO Technical Committee Meeting   3/15/2022

This meeting of the Charlottesville, Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization Technical Committee is being held pursuant to CODA Virginia 2.2-3708.2, which allows the public body to hold electronic meetings when the locality in which it is 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 lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities.

This meeting is being held by our electronic video and audio means through Zoom online meetings and is successful in public.

There will be an opportunity for public comment during that portion of the agenda.

Notice has been provided to the public through notice of the TJPDC offices for 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.

Recording of the meeting will be posted at www.tjpdc.org within 10 days of the meeting.

With that, let's go to our matters by the public.

I see we have at least a member of the public here.

Do you have anything to say?

All right, well, we'll have another matter to the public at the end if you want to say something then, Peter.

Hi, nice to meet you, Mr. Stolzenberg.

My name is Ryan Mickels.

I'm with the TJPDC.

I will be your staff liaison representative.

I am thankful for Ms. Christine Jacobs and Ms. Sandy Shappleford for this opportunity.

I would like to also introduce a new member on the technical committee.

Looks like we have Chuck here now, so if we can go ahead and do that.

Thank you.

Ryan, you may want to go ahead, especially since Gretchen is not here now.

Sure.

Thank you, Sandy.

Mr. Alex Acufuna.

And I apologize in advance if I

Ms. Jeanette Tonichet.

Mr. Kevin McDermott.

Good morning, everyone.

This is Taylor Jenkins from DRPT.

Good morning.

Mr. Richard Moran.

And I'm here now.

Sorry, I couldn't get the sound to work.

I'm tuning in from Crystal City and it just said your internet is unstable.

Thank you, Christine.

Great.

Let's go ahead to our first voting item.

Acceptance of the agenda.

Do we have any changes to the agenda?

No changes?

All right, let's go ahead and do a vote of acclamation.

All in favor, raise your hand or say aye.

Aye.

Any objections?

Any abstentions?

All right, acceptance of the agenda passes unanimously.

Next up will be the approval of the January 18th minutes.

I would entertain a motion.

Or if anyone has any amendments or corrections, I'd entertain those too.

Second.

Great.

And we'll do another acclimation vote.

All in favor, say aye, raise your hand.

Aye.

All opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right, I think that minute of approval passed unanimously as well.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Stolzenberg.

So first of all, just for those of you who are not as tapped into the Unified Planning Work Program, just a really brief overview.

That's that funding for the MPO comes from a couple of different sources.

They're both a mixture of federal, state, and local sources, and then they also come from two different main sort of funding programs.

So 80% of our funding is federal sources.

We get

about approximately roughly two thirds of that from the FHWA and then about a third from the FTA, the Federal Transit Authority.

And the state matches 10% and then we match 10% through local contributions.

So one of the things that we have to do in order to receive this funding each year is to program what it is that we want to do with that funding and that we anticipate doing through

through our work program, and that's called the Unified Planning Work Program.

For FY 2022, so there are two things that we're gonna be talking about today related to the Unified Planning Work Program.

The first one is talking about what happens in the FY 22, which is our current fiscal year, because we have been short staffed and we haven't been able to accomplish all of the tasks that we had identified at the beginning of the year.

We need to talk about what's going to happen

with the funding that was allocated in FY22 for those programs.

So the FY22 funding for the MPO activities was just under $321,000.

And then after this, we're going to present a proposed draft of the work program for FY 23.

So we're going to ask for you to give us a recommendation on whether or not to move forward on the amendments to the FY 22 amendments that I'm going to talk about in a minute.

And then we're not going to ask you to do anything but give us feedback on the FY 23 work program at this time so that we can come back in May.

with a final draft for approval.

So when we're talking about unexpended funds from the MPO, we're really talking about how we're going to roll over some of those funds.

And there are two different types of rollover.

There's a passive rollover, which only applies to the Federal Highway Administration funding sources.

So, for example, in FY21, we, because that's when our staffing transition started, we ended up leaving about $35,000 on the table.

So what happens is that we don't, if it's a passive rollover, so we're not identifying that in any sort of work programs, we just didn't spend it during the fiscal year that

We received it.

What happens is that that becomes available in two fiscal years.

So it wasn't spent in FY21.

It will become available next year in FY23.

So we have that kind of rollover.

It doesn't require any action.

And then there's an active rollover, which has to actively be programmed into the Unified Planning Work Program in order to be available in the next fiscal year.

So that's really what we're going to be talking about next is really looking at what our FY22 staff capacity has been, what we've been able to accomplish, what we're not getting to and talk about how we can go ahead and actively roll over some of those funds into FY23 to be available starting next fiscal year as we start the long range transportation plan.

We can't spend it, so we're not obligated to complete those, but it requires an amendment to the work program.

So that's what we're going to be talking about next.

Just a few, I'll support them in the work program.

All right, so really what we're looking at is that between both of the funding sources, so this table is just a summary and it shows all of our funding sources combined.

I don't have a table as part of this presentation that shows the source of FHWA versus FTA changes.

I can provide that to you, but the table was really kind of busy when I presented it and it's all documented in the draft of the amended Unified Planning Work Program.

that we showed at least what the total changes are.

What it ends up breaking out to is that we are asking to roll over $70,000 from the FHWA sources and then another $26,662 from the FTA sources.

And those amounts are based on initiatives that were identified either as not having support or not having capacity to move forward.

based on discussions with the policy board where we also have this line item for on-call services that the MPO policy board had intended should be reviewed later in the year once the UPWP was adopted for an additional planning activity or initiative and because we didn't have staff capacity we were never able to get back to that.

So we have that line item.

And then just as far as our staff capacity related to some of the other initiatives like smart scale and public more general public outreach, those kinds of things.

We had to scale back on what our staff investment was because we just didn't have staff to work on this programs.

So this is based on a combination of what our spend downs have been in some of these initiatives and what we think we'll need to maintain to continue to support the initiatives that were already in process and were identified as high priorities for them moving forward.

So the biggest change is going to come in this task too in the long range transportation planning.

You can see the biggest bulk of those items are from the MPA strategic plan, which we did not have staff capacity to complete in-house and were not successful in retaining consultants to support the development of that strategic plan.

So basically we looked at what we had already spent

for the strategic plan to develop the request for proposals and think through that but basically said that that's going to be the bulk of what that project is going to be because we don't have the capacity to move forward at this point.

And then also the on-call services because like I said earlier, this was identified as kind of a placeholder for a future initiative to be identified throughout the year and because we didn't have

the additional staff capacity.

We never came back to identify what that funding should go towards.

So that's where the bulk of that funding comes from.

And then from the task three, the $31,000 from the task three, again, because there was only one project that was identified as needing some extensive additional engagement through SmartScale,

We didn't end up putting quite as much time into smart scale development as we expected.

So the spin down for that hasn't been quite as high as we anticipated that it could be.

And then the CTAC public outreach, we were hoping to develop some more general public outreach and that just wasn't something we could prioritize.

So that's where the bulk of the funding comes from.

as far as moving some of these items.

For the administration portion, this is largely just due to not having staff, you know, multiple staff available to attend some of these meetings.

And so that's been a much smaller spend down than is typical throughout the year.

So what we are basically asking for is you have received and amended FY22

unified planning work program that shows these changes are reflected in the totals.

It also identifies the rollover amount, and we're hoping that you all would be able to provide a recommendation for consideration by the policy board on whether to approve those rollovers and the amended

budgets for these programming activities so that we can actively program some of this funding into FY23.

On that task too, long-range transportation planning, you have climate action initiatives.

I know the city and the county,

They are ramping up their efforts towards a climate action plan.

It seems to me that the $730, it's pretty low in terms of what's going on right now.

Yeah, $730 is the change.

So there's still over $20,000 program to that.

To be honest, we have not been able to make that an initiative in and of itself, even though we really wanted to.

But we are participating with those discussions.

I am attending those meetings.

And we're talking a lot about, especially as we prepare for the long range transportation plan,

One of the things that we're doing is making sure that we are incorporating the concern over climate change into how we scope out that long-range transportation plan.

And as we wrap up the end of this year, to the extent that we're able to, we do want to go back and see if there are some more specific goals and initiatives we can identify to move forward with, especially as we go into the long-range transportation plan, since that seems to be

So you mentioned that you were short staffed and you weren't able to get done all the work that you had hoped to get done.

What should we expect as a region

as the consequences for not having gotten to that work yet.

That's a hard question to answer.

I think what that means is that we really just had to prioritize and we had to be really efficient in what we focused on to the extent that we were able to, you know, we incorporated some of these other aspects into the programs.

We weren't able to do anything specifically related to more general public outreach, for example, but we definitely increased our community engagement through some of our more specific projects.

So I think

I think we're still sort of meeting the heart of a lot of what we wanted to do, but there are some specific things that we're just not going to be able to accomplish.

The MPAIR strategic plan is one of those things that we're going to go into a long-range transportation plan and then maybe in a year or two we can revisit whether or not it makes sense to go back and try to

develop a strategic plan that identifies strategic initiatives that we want to undertake as an MPO over the next couple of years.

I think the biggest thing as far as our agency is really being thoughtful about how we program these additional real liver funds for the next year or two to make sure that we are taking advantage of having this additional resource that we wouldn't normally have.

trying to recover some of the lost momentum that we had this year through thoughtful integration and use of those resources.

Can you guys hear me first of all?

Sorry.

I can just add that I think the team, especially, I mean, not having two planners dedicated to the MPO for the first half of the year was not ideal, but I think our team did an incredible job prioritizing the things that needed to happen in order to keep things moving.

SmartScale, particularly community engagement around those upcoming SmartScale projects.

I feel pretty strong that the items like the strategic plan and the climate action, I feel pretty strongly that those are items that still are priorities for us, but the strategic plan was not supported by the policy board, so that was a natural item for us to

move into this rollover funding.

Same with technical assistance.

We didn't receive as many requests for technical assistance as we have in the past.

And so that is a natural item for us to be able to roll over.

So I don't really think there are huge implications for the region or the community.

Got it.

Thanks.

And I have one other follow up question.

This one's maybe even bigger, so please bear with me.

But I'm looking at page six of the MPWP

and it's got this list of issues, expand, enhance transit, improve mobility strategies to make the community bike friendly, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think these are all really awesome issues.

And I'm happy to see that they're in the plan.

I would love to get some more information about what are the efforts that are being made to actually measure those things to see, are we expanding, enhancing transit?

Are we improving mobility?

It's important to me when thinking about, okay, here's the menu of different things we could work on.

Here's how much they're all gonna cost.

I think a third piece that is really important is, what's the impact that we think each of these projects is gonna have?

I wanna make sure that in my work as a professional and our work as a region, that we're doing things that do have an impact and not doing things that are busy work.

Spending money just for the sake of it is not good.

I want to make sure that we're really having an impact.

And so maybe there's another place that I can look to learn a little bit more about those metrics and how they're changing over time.

Yeah, I think that's kind of a challenging one because some of the things we do are going to have more quantitative impacts versus others.

Some of the impacts are going to be a little bit more intangible or challenging to measure.

I think the long range transportation plan is probably our best opportunity to at least develop what it is that we want to measure and what our goals are.

And so I think some of those will flow from

Yeah, that sounds great.

I know we have a lot of measurements in place already around things like traffic throughput and safety numbers.

Great questions.

Anyone else have any questions?

Or

Do we support these proposed amendments?

Anyone have any suggestions for different ones?

All right, motion from Alex.

Seconded.

Second from Steven.

Mr. Alex Acufuna.

Ms. Jessica Hirsch-Barn.

Yes.

Mr. Charles Proctor.

Yes.

Mr. Luis Carrizana.

Aye.

And I'm sorry I did not get the name of the VDRTP representative.

Taylor Jenkins.

Taylor, yes.

Chair, the roll call has been made.

Great, so that passes unanimously.

I'm going to go through the funding because it gets a little bit complicated with all the rollover.

And then I'm going to turn it over to Ryan to talk about our programming for FY 23.

So one thing to note is that we actually, I just received the allocations for the PL and on the chart where it says PL that's the FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration.

So the PL funding and the FTA funding that is shown for the FY23 allocations, those were based on last year's as far as the information that was presented to you in the packet and on this chart.

I just received the allocations for the FY23 funding for the federal administration sources that will be available yesterday.

So those have not been updated in your packet yet, but they will be a little bit different.

So this is an estimate and just know the total amounts are going to change based on the additional information that we have.

But for purposes of developing a draft, we wanted to go ahead and get this book for you.

So like I said, this is going to be a little bit complex just because there are multiple sources of funding that are available that we have to delineate throughout the work program.

So you'll see that this top line right here is the FHWA funding that will be made available as our allocation for fiscal year 23.

That's the annual programming that we get.

And then down here in this line is the same thing for the FTA funding.

So this is about what we expect that we might get based on the FY 22 numbers that we received.

And so for the Federal Highway Administration, we have two different sources of rollover.

We have the passive rollover from FY21, that is 35,462.

And then if supported by the policy board, we're actively rolling over this additional $70,000.

So that means that our total FY23 funding from FHWA sources is about $316,000.

And then on the FTA funding side, again, we'll have our annual allocation of just under 110,000, more or less, depending on what those actual figures come back as.

And then again, if supported by the policy board, we're planning to actively roll over just under 27,000.

And so this 136,000 is the total in FTA funding that will be available in FY 23.

The 452 is just the sum of FTA total, FHWA total.

And then this line right here that shows the VDOT SPR, that's State Planning and Research.

This is additional funding that VDOT provides to their staff to support our program.

So this does not come through the MPO, but is an additional resource that needs to be reflected in the work program.

So the total budget that we'll be working with as staff is this $452,000, again, based on what the actual allocations are.

And then the total amount of resources that will be coming to our MPO is just under $623,000.

Sure, thank you, Sandy.

For the development of the FY23 UPWP, there are a few projects or programs, activities that we'll initiate.

One is the funding for SmartScale, that application process.

Two, an analysis and review of any changes with the 2020 census and MPO boundary adjustment.

As Sandy mentioned, the development of, or an update of the long range transportation plan, the short range plan, the 24-27 TIP funds will be allocated towards the regional transit governance study and a project that has been sort of in the works for a year or two, one map.

and on-call consultant programming.

And I think those are the main activities for the FY 23 UPWP.

Questions?

Can you say a little bit more about the One Map project?

I'm just curious knowing how that's taken a long time.

Sure, Jessica.

So I've just been in communication with the

with the county staff and I have received the GIS data for the county and the university's piece.

I think at this time we'll get the information from the city and I believe the city is somewhat prepared to hand over.

I think the goal is to

pick up this project where it left off.

I think it's originated or started with the two day PDC.

And then I believe the city had the project, what was updating the information, and then the county subsequently had the project.

So I think the project is now going to be housed back at the TJ PDC.

Yeah, I know there's a fair amount of discussion of the one map process during the city's comprehensive planning process.

No, I don't.

Okay, Steven?

We have a bi-ped staff committee who will be sort of overseeing my work on this.

That is part of the discussion.

I believe that there were some outstanding questions regarding if whether or not the TJPBC could actually host this.

But I do know that the BIPED staff committee will be interested in looking into this process and

I hope there is a coordination, like Rory asked.

I mean, that has always been the intent that it's a, you know, a collective data set that we all kind of work on and update and keep maintained.

And the TJPDC was going to kind of be that warehouse for it.

I mean, conceptually that's where we were at, but I think what's happened over the couple of years is, you know, we take it to a certain point.

We've taken it to a certain point in terms of, you know, defining the data set and compiling the data.

And then there's like a piece that we're not quite all the way through.

And so then it holds, it's held up the project.

And, you know, right now, the thing that held us up was,

Unfortunately, the city lost some key staff members in their GIS that and as well as

as well as Amanda, who were kind of the champions for this at the city.

And so, you know, we're trying to figure out where do we go from here?

And then there was, you know, the TJPDC, as Ryan said, there was the question of whether the TJPDC could actually house and maintain and create kind of the outward facing, you know,

online map, for lack of a better word, or online tools for this.

And so we were actually in discussion here at UVA with our scholars lab to see if they could help, because they have a lot of technical expertise in that.

But it comes down to first we need to get a completed data set, and that's been elusive so far.

So I think the hope is to

to get over that hump and then start thinking about how do we disseminate it, Rory?

Yeah, I think the city, I know we have a GIS coordinator right now, attendees.

I would recommend for consideration, you know, the working group,

that will include representatives from the city, GIS, network, the county, and UVA, you know, to get together, you know, and maybe schedule an ongoing meetings, you know, so they can start working towards accomplishing this goal, you know.

I think if we set up a working group, make up of these folks, you know,

Within the next six to 12 months, they will be able to make considerable progress.

Great.

Steven?

I'll take Christine up on her offer about measurements in the long range transportation plan.

There's a bullet point talking about goals and objectives, and maybe we could build on the language there to talk about measurements.

Well, the UPWP has some

issues that are presented on page six.

I am curious where those come from, if that comes from the comprehensive plans or what, but I assume that the long range transportation plan would have similar goals and objectives.

But I think it's really important that the plans we write have measurements and processes in place for how those measurements are going to be taken so that we know whether we're getting closer to our goals or not.

And then exploring that through the long range transportation plan, I think that the work there could be foundational for other plans like the UPWP that you could add to your format for each project.

This is what it is.

This is how much we think it's going to cost.

And these are the goals from long range transportation plan that we anticipate that this effort will address.

And then

wherever it is that you're analyzing those goals periodically to say, hey, are we getting closer to expanding enhancing transit or not?

Are we getting closer to improving mobility and safety or not?

You know, we need to be taking those measurements on a periodic basis to see how we're doing as a region.

Yeah, I think that's consistent with what we're hoping to do, especially as we've been talking about creating a prioritization process that looks at identifying what our goals are and how we can measure some of those goals as far as selecting

at least transportation projects to pursue for funding.

I think maybe the next step that you're talking about, Steven, is not just, correct me if I'm wrong, is not just looking at how we apply for funding to implement projects, but look at how our overall programming is meeting those goals.

And I think that's something that

I would like to better define as well, and I think we can at least start to do that during the law branch transportation plan.

It just might take a little time to build a program around that, but I think there are some opportunities there.

Yeah, in the transportation sector, I definitely see some transit agencies will, will look at another agency and say, oh, that's a, that's a well renowned agency.

And I see them, they got this press and in this publication, I'm going to copy them and do what they do.

And now I'll feel like I'm a pretty cool and hip transit agency.

And they've kind of lost sight of like, it's about the customer.

You got to keep your eye on the client and what's working well for the riders or not.

And it's the same thing here.

We got to not get stuck in the trappings of what planning looks like.

We got to remember this is about the constituents.

This is about the people that live in the community.

So we need to have our finger on the pulse of what does it feel like for the people who live in our city to get around?

How are we measuring that?

How are we staying in touch with that?

And how do we make sure that our planning efforts are actually addressing that and not just look like

Great looking plans that are well designed and flashy, but they're actually making a difference.

And I think without taking measurements, you can't know if you're making that difference or not.

So yeah, I'd really love to see that in the LRTP and I hope John will be a part of that process.

All right.

Other questions from other members of the committee?

A couple things I'd like to note.

First off, on the table of contents, it's kind of a minor thing, the years under each of the section headers are the previous year stuff.

For the CDM section, not really anything to change the plan, but just for a note, I know the

The parking director, Rick Siebert, and the parking panel have recently passed a new, I think they passed it, a new parking action plan, which calls for a big renewed focus on TDM from the city.

So he could be a good person to coordinate with those efforts going forward.

He's over in the economic development department, not the planning department.

So just wanted to make sure to close that loop there.

And then my last question for the, I lost it.

I think it's under short-range planning.

There's a section about like additional needs related to the grants, the transit grants.

I'm curious why the funding for support for those grants wasn't included in the grant award.

Yeah, I think we typically leave a little bit of flexibility in some of these program areas because it could be that we, I mean the budgets are really tight and we have been in touch with DRPT about, you know, we estimate what our staffing is and then inevitably it usually is there's a little bit of something extra that comes up.

In addition to what we anticipate might need to be done for the project.

So as much as we try to plan for any of those contingencies, it's helpful to have just a little bit of flexibility.

Okay, sounds good.

So I guess at this point, if no one else has any further comments, I would entertain a motion.

Yeah, thanks, Rory.

There was, I

Great.

Good point.

Thanks, Andy.

So that suggests a change of the table of contents.

Does anyone else have anything else to add or should we move on?

All right.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

And after this, you can stop hearing from me for a little bit.

I'll let Ryan talk a little bit more.

But I just wanted to give you all an overview because as you know, we have been doing some pretty extensive public engagement around the Romano River and at an upcoming policy board meeting, which there was a conflict with the regular date.

So we're still working on figuring out when the

The meeting is going to be held.

We're going to be asking the policy board to basically determine which of the alignments they want to move forward with as a smart scale application.

So I wanted to go through this information with you all at a somewhat high level, since we don't have a special meeting dedicated to this.

So just get some feedback.

And if you all would like to make a recommendation to move on to the policy board, we would be happy to do that as well, or else just pass on some of your feedback.

But what we did was over the last four months or so, I've been meeting with a stakeholder advisory committee that's been made up of a combination of technical staff, community representatives, citizen representatives, what we refer to as citizen planners, people on the planning commission or neighborhood representatives, those kinds of things, to talk through a number of considerations that

should go into making a decision about which of these two alignments should be considered.

So I realize I don't have a map here, so I'm going to scroll down, but just for reference, there were two alignments that were identified through a feasibility study that was completed in 2020.

This first one up here is an alignment between what we're calling the State Farm property on the Pan Top side going to Chesapeake Street at Riverview Park.

And then the second one is an alignment going from the same State Farm property in a very similar place over to the Wolf Factory development site.

And the goal of this was just to provide a pedestrian connection between

between pan tops and woolen mills, which has been identified over the probably last two decades as a need to improve bicycle and pedestrian connectivity throughout the region.

Important to notice that since this is a transportation project, we really have to make sure that we are connecting this bridge into an existing transportation network.

And so you'll see that these white lines right here, these white data lines are an additional shared east path that would have to be constructed in order to provide that network connection to get from the landing on the east side of the river to a transportation network, which is

was identified as being the intersection of State Farm Boulevard and Peter Jefferson Parkway.

And then on the west side of the river, there's a connection into Chesapeake Street, which is a public right-of-way already.

So by creating the shared use path, you create a link to designated transportation systems that were already in place.

So, like I said, we went through a number of factors for consideration, just discussed how each of these relate to the two different alignments that were being proposed.

And you can see that, you know, these are really just sort of the green indicates that compared to the other project, this is a little bit of a, has more of a pro compared to the other alignment.

So they're not really intended to be objective, but to really sort of help weigh sort of where one has pros and the other has cons compared against each other.

And you can see just by looking at the chart that it's pretty kind of split.

They have different pros and cons.

And it really ends up being sort of a matter of priorities.

Some of the things we talked about are that, you know, the two bridges are less than a quarter of a mile apart.

So, you know, as far as being able to navigate from

from one bridge location to a preferred route that might be in closer proximity to one of the other bridges.

It's not really going to take that much additional effort.

The important thing from people that were sitting on the committee said, we just need a trail.

We just need a connection over the river.

And once we can get over the river, I can travel the way that I want to travel.

I just need to get across the river, which I can't do comfortably right now.

So this is just a summary.

I did want to make one correction because I had mentioned in previous presentations that the East Market Street alignment might present some additional ADA accessibility concerns because it's on a steep hill.

It's not on a steep hill.

I was misremembering the ADA accessibility considerations would be going

through the Wolf Factory development site to access Broadway.

You have to go up a pretty steep hill, but coming down East Market Street, it's a very narrow and curvy kind of road to navigate, but it's not hilly, so there's no ADA grade concern at that point.

So we went through all of these analyses.

You have a copy of this matrix.

I did update it a little bit, but you should have had a copy of this matrix and the packet you can refer to, and I'll be happy to come back and answer any questions related to this.

The main differences between the two sites probably as far as impacts is one comes in at a park versus one coming in at sort of an economic development center.

And so there really seems to be sort of just a different sort of philosophy about which type of use is more appropriate for this bridge to support the desires of the community.

Just to let you all know, we conducted a public webinar on

February, I believe it was 22nd and went through that information that I just showed you in a lot more detail with the public.

And then at the end, we asked the public two full questions.

So the first question was, which alignment do you prefer?

You can see there wasn't a huge turnout of people that responded.

You can see that.

13 prepared Chesapeake Street and five people preferred East Market Street.

And then we also asked about the bridge design because there are a couple of different design options for the two different sites.

And you can see that for the Chesapeake Street alignment, there was a stronger preference for a cable-state style bridge, which is a bridge that uses cables to support it.

It's a less visually heavy kind of structure.

This seemed to support what the Stakeholder Advisory Committee had discussed which is that a bridge at Chesapeake Street would basically cut through a pretty otherwise open portion of the river that's a nice clear straight view so it has a really important viewshed aspect to it.

and people tended to feel like they wanted a less visually heavy bridge at that site because while they wanted more people to be able to appreciate that view of the river from the bridge, they also wanted to make sure that a bridge there was as least obstructive as possible.

Whereas at the East Market Street site, you can see there was a greater sort of disparity among preferences for what the bridge itself would look like if it was placed at East Market Street.

So there's a slight preference for a standard trust bridge versus some of the other designs, but it was pretty evenly distributed, including people who just, there was one more person compared to the Chesapeake Bridge that would not prefer a bridge at that location at all, regardless of what it looked like.

And then we also conducted a public survey via MetroQuest.

We got 833 responses.

So pretty good turnout there on people who wanted to express an opinion.

on the bridge from the public more generally.

This first question asked about what people identified as their priorities for which bridge alignment should be chosen.

And so I know this is a little bit difficult to read, but the highest priority right here.

So in this case, we wanted, we're looking at who ranked things number one.

Number one is the highest, I guess the most important priority for them.

So pedestrian connectivity, which was defined as connecting to existing pedestrian networks was the most important priority that should be considered.

That was ranked by far as the top priority, followed by increasing inter-recreational access.

And then the third priority was maintaining the park at Riverview Park as a natural area.

The lowest board priority was at connections to economic development.

So the bridge providing direct access to jobs and retail centers was the least important of the priorities that were ranked by the respondents to the survey.

We asked them about their location preference, and you can see that overall, there was a public preference, a stronger public preference for the Chesapeake Street alignment versus the East Market Street alignment.

I believe, if I recall correctly, the average rating for the Chesapeake Street alignment was 3.9 or 3.98, and then for the East Market Street alignment was 3.4, so that was out of a five-star scale.

The higher the rating that is, the more strongly people preferred one over the other.

And then we asked about the design preference.

So I just realized I haven't shown you what the bridges look like.

So this right here is a cable staid bridge.

So we asked them, do you prefer a cable staid bridge?

This middle one is a standard truss bridge.

And then this bottom one is an arched truss bridge.

So we ask that each location, which design do you prefer?

And you can see that at Chesapeake Street, again, sorry, I just realized I was using my pointer on the screen, so I apologize for that.

At the Chesapeake State alignment, you can see there was a stronger preference for the Cable State Bridge.

Again, the report I sent out, there was an error with the data reporting because the standard trust was not reflected in that data, but we were able to recover it.

And then at East Market Street, you can see that there's still a preference for the cable staid bridge design there.

But there's less of a preference between the arched chest bridge and the standard chest bridge.

And that also seems to be consistent with some of the conversations at the Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which felt like there was maybe less, a more industrial style of bridge at the East Market Street.

Location might make a little bit more sense because there are already some industrial structures in the area.

And because it's not on such an open portion of the river, it's coming after a bend in the river.

So the view wouldn't be as obstructed by a bridge in that location.

So they seem to feel like it was less important to have a visually light structure there.

And it might make more sense to consider a more industrial bridge style at the East Market Street alignment if that's what was moved forward.

So I know that that's just a really, really brief high level overview, but I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have.

Yeah, Sandy, this is Bill.

Just the multi of the path that would need to be constructed

to the intersection, sorry, Peter Jefferson Parkway or whatever it is up there.

We have to commit to constructing a path.

Chuck, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that there's some flexibility about what that actual route could be.

Yeah, we have to definitely build a path to connect the bridge to a logical termini, which is the road, because unless you want to go a different direction.

The 150 foot section, when we get to the refining the design, if we choose the southern connection,

We'll look at that and probably put in some switchbacks to allow that to function at and meet ADA requirements and it will add some force to that path section of the cost estimate.

Okay.

Did the committee make a recommendation?

Yeah, we ended up not asking them to make a formal recommendation because we did ask for a poll for what the stakeholder advisory committee supported and there just really wasn't strong consensus even after going through this whole process.

Again, the bridges are just offered very different benefits and so it tends to be a little bit more just a matter of perspective on which

you know, maybe supports the overall goals that are identified by the different people who are involved.

It's pretty split.

I think out of the people who participated in the Stakeholder Advisory Committee Poll, five preferred the Chesapeake State alignment and four preferred the East Market State alignment.

Yeah, this is Louise Garza.

All right, I guess I'll get the ball rolling.

I think the

The Chesapeake Street as the better option, personally.

It's breaking up, but I'm still here.

Sorry.

Okay.

Well, it wasn't just me at least.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think both for transportation and for recreation, the Chesapeake is a better alignment.

Chesapeake offers you with sidewalks down Chesapeake to get to downtown and the bike path along Market, which runs just parallel.

So you get both out of that.

Whereas, you know, over at the Wolfacker site, you either go down the part of East Market where like,

It's absolutely terrifying to walk down there, especially at night.

I've done it.

Or you walk down Broadway, which is a very wide street, but

is obviously industrial.

And I mean, I know the county, your question for Louise, like I know the counties for Jessica is considering a plan for Broadway.

I don't know if that includes significant improvements to it for bike pad.

I didn't see that in here, but I mean, even then it seems like you're going pretty decent distance out of the way for a commute at least.

and it seems to be mostly serving the commercial center of Woolen Mills versus providing a path to downtown with a lot more job and recreation opportunities.

So those are my thoughts.

I think Steven has to end up first.

Well, I was just going to echo some of your questions and then hopefully Jessica can hit both our questions.

But yeah, I wanted to know more about what the long-term vision looks like if we're

Going to be putting in an 11 million dollar bridge.

I hope it would be there for a while.

So I'm curious, you know, the wool factory development today looks like it could be the start of some things.

I'm curious what the vision is for that long term.

It could be interesting to have some more more density there to have a place that's got some mixed use stuff going on at the same time.

It is hard to connect there.

So I don't know if there's major

Transportation and Connectivity improvements in the works.

Actually, I'm going to add one more thing there.

I thought that as part of either the proper for the wool factory or the willow tree economic development stuff that

There was going to be like a like a John Connect like like a 29 Connect or Crozet Connect light spot to shuttle people from the little factory to downtown.

Did that like become micro transit or like a shuttle for Bullet Mills employees?

Or does that stop existing because of COVID?

What's the status of that?

Great.

So to give you a little bit of background on the Broadway blueprint, which is the plan that we have for the Broadway corridor, immediately we're looking at some wayfinding in that area.

So that will at least be available in the very near term.

In the longer term, the expectation is that there's going to be more economic development along the Broadway corridor, giving it a more urban feel and making bike and pedestrian improvements in that area very possible.

I wanted to follow up with my own thoughts and questions.

I think that the county feels very strongly that the Wolf Factory site does offer some great economic development opportunities, although we understand that in the scoring, the smart scale scoring process,

these two alignments are so close together that the economic development score wouldn't be very different from one alignment to the other.

I did have a question for Chuck.

One of the big concerns about the Wolf Factory alignment is, or the East Market Street alignment is that the feasibility study did not show an ADA, like it didn't show that the alignment was gonna be possible to be ADA.

Are you talking about the East Market Street?

Yes.

If that's identified as a location, we'll have to look at that.

And we will design it like we did for the District Hub project to make it 88 compliant.

Ryan, would you mind muting?

Great.

Yes, thank you.

So, yeah, I just wanted to add, well from the Planning Commission's standpoint, we have not seen any additional detail on the Broadway Connector, so it's good to hear from Jessica, a little bit of an update there.

But certainly we have the small area plan there for Pantops and

that is a development area in that corridor.

So that would be, and I don't know that either.

And again, from the county standpoint, they are so close that really the network of trails that pick them up gets you.

I mean, there are some topographical challenges on that side, but I'm not sure that there's a big difference one or the other from the county side.

I do think it'll be helpful to

think about multimodal on both sides and how does this connection then help to enhance that further connectivity with BIPED and transit on either side.

So kind of getting a broader understanding of possibilities there.

And certainly the county can be working on that.

Hopefully we're thinking about that and the city as well.

Just want to also reiterate Steven's earlier point about measurable activities when we do put out plans and I mean I think that those are extremely important so I just want to highlight that because to me that was an important part of this conversation here today and my takeaway is how do we measure outcomes on plans that we fund and implement

I know from the commissioner's side in the county, it's a question that we ask often, whether it has to do with housing, whether it has to do with transportation, whether it has to do with school development.

Are we getting what we're ultimately proposing and planning for and funding?

And we don't always get those measurements.

And I do agree with the statements, and I just wanted to highlight that.

Yeah, I don't have a lot of information on this.

Bill Palmer shared this with us at the university earlier today.

Just for those that don't know, I'm also associate architect for the university and a colleague of Bill's.

But I don't have a lot of background on this process.

I'm not sure that I'm ready to go one way or the other.

Thanks.

And I just want to note for the minutes that Juwan has joined us about five minutes ago.

Yeah, so it sounds like I mean, I think the bridge shouldn't be placed where we think it would be best today.

I think we should put it where we think it'll be best in five, 10 or 20 years.

But, you know, the park's not going anywhere.

There's going to be stuff going on at Wolf Factory.

It sounds like regardless of where the bridge goes,

We want to have connections between the park and whatever is happening at Wolf Factory.

I've walked Market Street today, so I know what that looks like, but I'm curious, is there any more information we have about what our vision is for future connectivity between the park and Wolf Factory?

Do we want to strengthen what exists on Market Street?

Are we trying to get

adopted or solidified at this point.

I know there are conversations that are being had about how to facilitate an offered connection between the park and the wool factory.

There are some limitations.

You know, the roads aren't very wide to add additional infrastructure along the roads, especially the road at East Market Street itself.

You know, the houses are built really close to the road.

So, you know, if you're looking at

Some sort of off-road shared east path kind of situation.

You're getting into impacting private property and things like that.

Not really.

I mean, the only thing I will say is there's a lot

is there is an issue with floodplain both locations, and that will have to be addressed at some point.

I know Chesapeake Street and the Riverview Park, I mean, that entire area is in floodplain, as well as the East Market Street connection down there by the end of that before it goes to Wolf Factory.

And that may be a,

Something we'll have to evaluate when we get further into the design of whichever location we move forward with.

So we may have to modify whatever the concept is at that point to take into account that

impact.

So I will say that that is an issue.

And I think the other issue that's been brought up in the past is some of the existing streets, I don't know whether it's Market or Street or Chesapeake Street, even though we're building this to meet ADA compliant, there's sections of those roads where the sidewalk does not meet ADA.

So that needs to be addressed also in the future.

And those are some points that also need to be consideration.

I know there's some hills on Chesapeake that are pretty steep where they don't meet compliance.

So those are some of the things to take into consideration when you're also looking at this is, and you've got on-street parking, you've got pretty dense development along both Market Street and Chesapeake, where is Broadway, even though it is,

through a slightly some industrial area.

Johanna?

Is there is there so this is a bike pedestrian bridge going over.

Is there any

We talked a lot about whether or not this bridge would potentially alleviate some of the demand for parking in the area because it would provide better multimodal alternatives to single occupancy vehicle travel, especially to

you know, access either of what are considered area attractions, the park or the wolf actuary versus whether the bridge would potentially create a new attraction that would drive additional parking.

Some of the things we talked about is there are some opportunities to increase parking that probably need to be explored outside of whether or not this bridge is implemented just because there is already an issue of parking capacity.

and so some of the things that could be considered would be when you come down Chesapeake Street when you get to the park there's this open space right here that is the site of the former pumping station and there's actually some underground infrastructure that remains there that cannot be moved and but so this area there are kind of some limited opportunities to

you know do a lot of significantly different things at the park but we talked to RWSA and there could be an opportunity to put some additional parking there that would have impacts on the experience of being in the park and there's a balance between turning what's currently kind of a natural area into parking but

That's one place where there could be additional parking.

I think it's off this map, but at the southern portion of Seaco, kind of in this area right here, there's an open portion of land that was owned by the railroad.

And so we talked about how that could present an opportunity as the state acquires the railroad.

to see if maybe that area could be used for additional parking capacity for overflow.

It might be a little far for people who want to bring a really young child to play at the park, but if somebody's coming in from outside the area to access the trail, then that could be a really good place for additional parking for people that are planning to

do some active recreation in that area already.

And then the other thing we talked about is that there's also a need for additional parking on the Pantops side.

And so the county itself is also looking at where they could potentially develop some additional trailhead parking.

And so if you're looking at parking in Pantops with the bike and pedestrian bridge going across that could also alleviate some of the demand for parking.

on the Woolen Mill side.

And then the developer at the wool factory is pretty open to people using spaces as they are available at the wool factory for parking to access sites throughout the area.

It's just that they only have 10 spaces that are dedicated.

And that's really just available mostly for off-peak parking outside of the normal business hours of operation.

And I also just want to provide some caution that that's a private development site.

So while it's great that they want to be good neighbors to the community, I think we also have to

make sure that we're not over relying on a private business owner to meet sort of a public demand for need there.

To be fair, I wasn't really, I mean, I asked about the parking because, you know, currently we serve Chesapeake and, you know, there's potential we might go down

I don't know, either Carlton or Broadway to the Wolf Factory one day.

And I guess the issue is how would transit be able to turn around?

And so maybe not necessarily parking, but even if there's sort of a road circle thing that we could use as a stop or turnaround point that could potentially allow us to better serve.

sort of this area because right now, you know, the routes, getting to the wool factory is difficult.

And then also we go up Chesapeake to Riverside and that's pretty tight there too.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I don't think that there's one in place specifically for this project, but the developer is very supportive of it.

So I don't anticipate that it would be an issue.

Gotcha, but so there's no like shuttle service to the wool factory from the development itself separate from this.

Am I just totally making that up?

Yeah, I could have sworn in the original plan for the wool factory there was some sort of proffer similar to the Holly Meade proffer.

Maybe I'm making it up.

It's also possible that I'm just unaware of it.

I can talk to Kevin about that and come back with more information or email you separately, Rory.

On the jaunt side, I know it was discussed at jaunt, but I never read a proffer or anything like that.

It was just an idea that was bounced around.

And we were unsure of

Yeah, that makes sense.

And then I have a question for Chuck.

The cost difference between these projects is pretty significant, right?

Like one is 36, 37% more than the other.

What does that mean for smart scale scoring?

Like, is there a significant chance that if we pick the cheaper project, it would get funded?

The cost is gonna be the, either project's gonna have about the same benefit cost or benefit score.

The cost, smart scale is divided by the cost.

So the higher the cost, the more reduction in the benefit you're gonna get from it.

So the higher the cost of the project is definitely gonna have an impact on it.

And the primary driver for that, I know the Woolen Mills at the East Market Street site, that's a little bit longer.

But the trail is shorter, so the bridge cost is a little bit higher on that one.

Whereas Chesapeake, the trail is longer.

It's like 3,000 feet versus 2,500 feet or something like that.

But the bridge is shorter, so that's going to be a lesser cost.

And a lot of it's got to do with the type of structure you're going to put in.

And that's where we ask the question on what type of structure do you want to see?

The truss, simple truss, is probably the least expensive type of alignment.

or a bridge you can put in there, however, which is the middle one.

But the bottom line is the cost of bridge is the driving factor for this.

and we don't know until, I mean, there may be some alternatives that have a cable stay like in the top version that are inexpensive.

I don't know, or we could possibly look at a combination of the two to provide that crossing.

Part of it is right now, I think the one that was priced for Chesapeake

is a combination of a cable stay and a truss for that crossing.

It's just, that's why we asked the two options because the type of bridge can dictate some of the cost, especially if you go with something that's pretty not, might be more visually pleasing, I guess was the best way to put it.

For Chesapeake, it's a combination.

For East Market, it was the

It's actually an arch suspension bridge, but the cost per linear foot is the same for those two types of bridges.

The trust bridge is much less expensive, so that reduced the cost of the Chesapeake significantly.

So if we go with a conventional, and that's what I'm saying, once we get into the design, we'll have a better idea.

And Chuck, could you also comment, does the placement of a pier

It can because you've got to actually build a facility to get to that point.

You can't just

helicopter in and drop the pier in the middle of the river.

You actually have to get equipment out there to dig the foundation for that pier and then build the pier.

So it will require getting into the pier.

So that can be an additional cost to the project when you're talking about construction.

But it's not going to be exorbitantly more expensive because this will only have two abutments and one pier at Rule Mill.

The Chesapeake Crossing has two abutments and three piers, so the piers are about the same price.

For the

Cable stay bridge, that center pier is going to be more expensive with the, that runs the cables than a typical pier would be.

So it varies depending on, like I said, varies depending on the bridge type.

I mean, the bottom line is, if we're going to build this, we're going to put it in here, I want to make sure it's going to be something you guys are going to want to see there, because it's going to be there forever.

If that makes sense.

So you want something that you're going to be

that's gonna look nice at this location.

I mean, we can put up, and there are some nice looking truss bridges.

If you look at some of the ones that are out there, this one is not very aesthetically pleasing, but there's a lot of them that are really nice.

And this is a road bridge and not necessarily a pedestrian bridge.

So the structure is a little bit bigger.

And actually both these two on the bottom, actually all three of these are road bridges.

So the pedestrian bridge can be less structurally, a less structural size than what's shown here.

We just gave these as examples of what they may look like.

Gotcha.

Yeah, well, that is, I think, much less visually impactful.

Or either.

So just as a straw poll, maybe a show of hands, do you guys want to make a recommendation today?

Everyone who wants to raise your hand.

Two who want to.

Oh, three you want to.

Anyone who doesn't want to, give me a thumbs down.

I got one who does not want to.

And a bunch of abstaining who don't care if we do.

Just to quickly elaborate, the reason why is because, again, I think this should be put where it's going to be most successful in five, 10 or 50 years.

Yeah, that's a fair point.

I mean, again, to me, it seems like the southern alignment kind of locks you into the wool factory and you're going pretty far out of your way to get anywhere else.

whereas the northern alignment gives you access to the wool factory but also gives you good access to Chesapeake and Market to downtown.

Actually, I should also probably note in our future land use map, we have a fair amount of medium intensity residential along Chesapeake which could potentially support more density along there in the future who might appreciate that Pan Tops connection and or recreational use but

That's a fair point.

I just wanted to add to that comment you just made about development around Chesapeake and to Steven's point as well.

If we can see these development opportunities in the future along these alignments,

it will certainly go a long way to help inform that conversation.

What's happening along Broadway?

What are some future plans in Broadway?

Where can we have a multimodal point for moving from Ped and walking in Ped to a transit?

So, you know, you can certainly walk from the bridge, you know, X distance.

I mean, I think it's what is a quarter mile, maybe a little bit more.

and you can see that okay well at this point you can have a turnaround if it's along Broadway or whatever but having those conceptual maps which we have a lot of information already right in terms of the the small area plans from the county side and then and then if the city has some other development I think that goes a long way to

provide more information where otherwise people are really going by gut and their own kind of personal experience of having walked through that area is, although this feels really good, but you're looking at your current, your assessment of the current condition and not necessarily thinking what is happening.

And again, back to Steven's point, right?

I've got a question.

All it means is that there wouldn't be a recommendation from this committee to the MPO Policy Board, so that they'll still need to go ahead and move forward with choosing one of the alignments prior to

The policy is going to vote either way.

It's just a matter of whether we're going to say.

Sometimes.

Also, I found the it wasn't a proper it was part of their economic development agreement.

That was a $40,000 grant towards the first year of a five year county obligation to fund

transit to the property to the extent such payments required by a future three-party agreement between Willow Tree, the company, and the county.

So it sounds like that's not happening.

Does anyone want to make a motion?

So Chesapeake.

On Chesapeake, OK. Do we have a second on that?

Okay, we have a motion from Alex and a second from Jessica.

Mr. Alex Iacofuna?

Yes.

Mr. Rory Stolzenberg?

Aye.

Yeah, I'm going to abstain.

Yeah, I think we're just talking alignment here though and not bridge type.

Yeah, aye.

Ms. Sarah Pennington.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, the motion on Chesapeake alignment carries.

Do we want to do a motion on Chesapeake alignment?

Bridge type, personally, I don't have strong feelings on that.

Well, I would say though, for staff, I think if these depict much larger and more structurally solid road bridges and the real, for example, you know, monotrust bridge would be a lot less bulky.

It would be helpful to get an example picture that reflects that.

Because I think a lot of people are seeing this thing and maybe not liking it.

Whereas the truss part of the other bridge seems a lot less scary to me.

But on the other hand, I think that the woolen mills or the wool factories pedestrian bridge looks a fair bit like that.

So I don't know.

We won't develop multiple sketches for the design at different sites.

Well, there might be some opportunities to refine the design or to review what we seriously want to consider if funding is approved.

So if it's funded, though, there's the potential for choosing between profitability

Potentially.

I mean, I don't know that we can guarantee that we kind of need to develop a cost estimate based on one of the designs.

And then there could be opportunities if funding is awarded to review that.

So, I mean, I want to make sure that I'm communicating expectations fairly.

There could be some opportunities to refine the design later, but we need to choose one.

Fair point.

Or we can let the policy board sit with that one, our choice.

All right.

Not hearing a motion on that.

Good with just the alignment motion.

And we are paramount behind time here.

So let's go up to staff update.

Sure.

The so as you all know, we have been meeting via Zoom for a while, and it is anticipated that the city will make

An announcement on their COVID protocols.

Cool, thanks.

So it's not really up to us.

It's just kind of whatever council decides, right?

Yeah, I have to defer to Sandy, but yes, I think so.

Yes, city council have basically created a sort of transition plan to go back to in-person meetings, so they've left some flexibility.

All right.

Cool, let's go maybe see you in person soon.

So that's me.

Yep.

Yeah, we're working on the applications for the pre-application right now.

The intake period closes on March 31st at five o'clock.

So I'm working with the localities and the MPO

Great.

I'm sorry, I just realized I skipped the agenda item for the SmartScale project update for round five.

Did you have other stuff besides

That, or can we just all make this all one thing?

Ryan, are you going to do it?

Yeah, go ahead, Chuck.

Yeah, no, that's fine.

If you want to do, I wasn't sure what the order was.

Like I said, I've, we've been working together on these projects.

You can go ahead and go through them.

We're starting to get some of the concepts developed.

Yeah, sure.

There's the District Avenue roundabout.

So essentially, there are about a dozen smart scale transportation projects that the MPO, the city and the county are considering for submittal in the application process.

District Avenue, you see is letter A on this map.

That's a project that's involved around about bicycle pedestrian accommodations and a restricted or a pork shop, I believe, at Cedar Hill to help navigate that traffic.

Letters B, C, and D, they are the 5th Street corridor.

Letter B, that's the city's project.

That's from Harris Road.

to Cherry Avenue or Cherry Avenue to Harris Road.

Letter C is the MPO project from Harris Road to the city limits.

And D is from Ambrose Commons Drive to Stagecoach.

Letters E and F, those are the Avon three quarter projects.

Chuck will have to correct me.

In the city, it goes to the city limit, and then in the county, it goes from the city limit to the park and ride lot, which is like the first intersection north of the river.

So it's not all the way to where you're showing it.

And for it

So for the Avon Street project, bicycle pedestrian facilities, some road widening, I believe, on the west side of Avon Street.

And then you have the county project, which is Mill Creek Drive to Prerogatory Lane.

Letter K is the aforementioned Bivena River bicycle and pedestrian.

Bridge Crossing.

Great.

Thanks, and sorry for messing up the order there.

Does anyone have any questions about smart scale projects at this point?

Nope.

All right.

So next up, we have Oike Grant.

Yeah, just really briefly, as you all know, we applied for a technical assistance grant through the Office of Intermental Planning and Investment.

We officially had our kickoff meeting with them.

We are meeting them on Wednesday afternoon to start looking at our internal capabilities to help them develop a project prioritization process that will work within our

you know our framework for what our technical abilities are as well as our access to data.

So Steven, this is going to address some of the things that you talked about.

We're going to be working with them to figure out what, well not figure out, we're going to communicate what our goals and objectives are to them.

They're going to help us operationalize those into performance measures so we can

We can start that process of using data and information that's already existing and available for use in order to start evaluating how projects meet the prioritized goals and objectives that we develop as part of this process.

So we'll keep you all updated.

Thanks.

Any questions on OIP?

All right, so we're up to roundtable updates.

Mine should be really quick.

Just based on this meeting and listening to the feedback we're getting from you all, I want to thank you all specifically for your patience and grace as we've gone through staffing changes.

We're not unlike our partner agencies, unlike other sectors where there has been some staff turnover.

We are committed to fulfilling our requirements in the work programs as we state them.

I've been accused in the past of being overly optimistic and finding a silver lining but I think we've got some really great opportunities with the changes that we have made going into FY23 and then also wanted to share with you all that we had another staff

Unrelated but expected announced that they were leaving which allows us to move Isabella, I'm sure you guys remember Isabella, our planner, into our environmental planning role.

So we are advertising right now for another planner 2-3 which will help support the MPO, our transportation and transit, and then other general planning.

Thanks.

Yeah, Corey, I'll give a quick update on the pipeline projects.

We closed the public survey.

We had the stakeholders group meetings following that last week or week before last rather.

And the county is looking at the options that we presented and the feedback that we got.

Great.

Last time I mentioned that we had our TDP transit development plan upcoming that has a kickoff date, which is this Friday.

Great.

Yeah, just from EVA, there's not much to say other than in terms of UTS, since I'm the only one here, we don't have a UTS guy or gal here.

They've kind of reconfigured how they do their nighttime service and some interesting stuff going on there.

They have a really consolidated kind of nighttime service fixed route, and then they have a expanded on-demand

service.

So like if a student were at the library and was not on that fixed route, they could use an app and get an on-demand ride fairly easily.

And that's been pretty popular and successful.

And they're kind of expanding, you know, the on-demand service area that they provide.

And so that seems to be going well.

Very cool.

Thanks, Bill.

Great.

I actually had a question for you.

The route changes that were being discussed back in like September, have those been tabled for now?

Obviously COVID hit.

But yeah, we're trying to see what the city is going to do as far as coming out of the state emergency.

But we also have, like everyone else, personnel issues we're trying to deal with.

Doesn't help that John or EVA is raising salaries and we're not.

We're trying to come up with some creative ways to stay competitive.

But

Yeah, I think for now, I mean the full packet, I don't know when we'll be able to switch over.

I know there's some discussions on maybe partial increase in service or partial changes, so stay tuned for that.

Anyone else?

Well, a couple of things on the city's end.

As you guys know,

Council is moving forward with 2023 budget.

There are still a lot of decisions to be made.

However, council is scheduled to vote on the budget on April 12th.

And tomorrow they will be having a work session at 6 p.m.

It's going to be a match while they will be discussing

issues related to nonprofit organizations.

So if you are interested, you can track city council budget sessions.

And secondly, the zoning rewrite for the city is officially underway.

We are looking at, I think the city is looking at anywhere from maybe 12 to 14 months to complete that project.

You know, but

Stay tuned and then stay connected with the publication related to the zoning rewrites, the committee meetings, and public engagement process and what have you.

Sure.

I thought I had heard talk about the city creating a transportation planner position in the NDS department.

Yeah.

It's on the budget, proposed budget.

And it's gonna be at NDS.

And as far as I know, based on the last city council meeting at which the budget was presented, council didn't have any problem with that.

So it's still in the budget.

And is that kind of a senior position or junior planner position?

I don't think it's a junior planner position, but I think they're probably working on the job description right now.

You know, hopefully once council votes to approve the budget next month and if it's still in the budget, then

You stay tuned.

Thank you.

I'm not applying.

I just asked.

I kept shaking my head no updates, but Alex just reminded me that the county is also going through its budget process at our Board of Supervisors meeting tomorrow.

Community development, which includes the transportation section, will be presenting its work plan for fiscal year 23.

So if there's any interest, please tune into that or watch the video afterwards.

We will also be moving into in-person Board of Supervisors meetings starting in April, where they'll actually be hybrid so you can attend either way.

Great, thanks.

Michael, the budget is $117 and change for that FTE, so whatever that tells you about where it is in the hierarchy.

Any other updates for anyone else?

If not, we'll go to our closing matters by the public.

I see we still have one member of the public here.

Peter, you left a chat about how baked in the design type is.

Did that question get answered for you?

We happened to be talking about it at the same time, I think.

I don't know.

Pointing to the chat.

Or anything else to say?

Thank you for raising that, Rory.

I would simply say that there are a couple of people here that have connections

to the Planning into the Policy Board.

And they'll want to know that.

That's for sure something they're going to want to know.

So if we can have an answer for them, maybe it'll make their decision.

Thanks, Peter.

And Michael, are you here as a member of the public or VDOT?

Thank you, Roy.

I'm actually new to VDOT right now.

I'm not new to VDOT.

Lab Coordinator, Local Assistance Program Coordinator, working primarily with Charlottesville for the past three years.

But I've been recently hired on as a district planner working with Chuck.

Great.

Good to have you around.

All right.

Any other comments for anyone else?

We are only one minute late.

If not, I hope you all have a great day.

See you in a couple months and all during the meeting.

Thanks for keeping us on track, Rory.

Thanks, everyone.