MPO Technical Committee Meeting   5/17/2022

All right.

Do we have any changes to the agenda today?

Oh, so no need for a vote.

We're not changing it, right?

All right.

Sure.

So the NPO staff and the policy boards are planning to return to in-person meetings

in July.

I think it would be the practice that your next meeting in July will probably be held in person here at the TGA PDC office as well as the other committees.

So just a heads up about the return to in-person meetings.

There are some exceptions which have been outlined in the policy, but

For the most part, members are expected to meet in person.

And we will talk later about your July meeting as there may be a slight change in either the date or the time in which you meet.

Regarding the minutes, the draft minutes from the March 15th tech meeting,

were included in the packet, a revised draft was sent out yesterday.

And so the updated minutes, is that just like the place, the old PDF that's there?

Yes.

OK, great.

All right, well, I will entertain a motion on the minutes.

Anyone have any corrections or a motion to approve?

So moved.

All right, I think we had a motion from Juwan or Christine.

The other one want a second?

Sure.

All right.

We have a motion and a second.

Let's just vote by acclamation.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right, motion passes unanimously.

Next up, July MPO Tech meeting.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So your regularly scheduled July 19th meeting actually conflicts with a state conference.

So NPO staff is proposing to move your meeting, which would be regularly scheduled for July 19th to July 26th.

I think we've noted on the agenda 1 p.m., but I think 10 a.m.

will work.

I'm sorry, did you say that it was going to be a joint meeting with the rural tech?

Yeah, Kevin, one of the things that we're working on is to get a speaker from the Association for MPOs to come to that meeting.

OK.

Cool.

That'll be exciting.

I don't think we've had one of those since I've been in the commission, which

Wow, I guess it's been almost four years now.

All right, so we need a vote on changing the meeting time, the date.

Yes, sir.

All right, I will entertain a motion to move it.

Okay, all right, I'll entertain a motion.

Second from John.

Mr. Stolzenberg?

Aye.

Mr. Kevin McDermott?

Yes.

Mr. Chuck Proctor?

Yes.

Mr. Steven Johnson?

Yes.

Mr. Luis Carazana?

Yes.

roll call for taking all of it.

No, that wasn't me, but I can hear everyone.

Yes sir, Mr.

Chair, so in the packet there was the DRAB FY23 UPWP NPO staff had

posted this draft on the website and social media for public comment as required by 15 days.

There were no comments received to date.

What you see on your screen shows the FY 23 work program funding by source.

Do we have any comments?

On this note, one, I think the dates are still wrong.

I think we mentioned it last time, but in the table of comments or table of content, it's built as FY 2021.

And then down in the schedule, the public participation process, all those notes or all those dates are also 2021.

Great.

Can you call the roll?

Mr. Roy Stolzenberg.

Aye.

Mr. Kevin McDonough.

Aye.

Mr. Chuck Proctor.

Yes.

Ms. Christine Jacobs.

Yes.

Mr. Steven Jackson.

Yes.

Mr. Luis Caravana.

Yes.

Mr.

Chair, the roll call has been taken.

All right.

Yes, sir.

Mr.

Chair, the NPO Policy Board staff submitted the eight projects that the NPO and PPT requested for smart scale round five.

And we are in the process of preparing for the final application, which I believe will have official word around June 1st.

In the packet, there was a map showing the process of those new projects.

NPO staff is going to use the fight plan for

this area, the area that's sort of in purple is that city and the area that's sort of in red is that city county.

So NTO staff will be looking to highlight what's the purpose of the city of the county to get those pipelines through our office, finish off of it.

We have a shared folder set up

and the Cleveland County staff were notified of this SharePoint folder, so we hope that we get those sooner rather than later.

Any final application?

Final applications are due, I believe August 1st.

So the three mile buffer was confirmed for the Rivanna River bike ped bridge?

Correct, Kevin.

I ran it by Brooke Jackson from OIP to confirm.

And she says, as long as we show it as a new bridge, it would be covered under the three mile buffer.

If there are no questions about the process, I would like to direct the committee

Attention to the two resolutions that were provided in your packet.

This will also come before you go to the policy board.

These are required for the submittals.

The first resolution, the resolution endorsing this submission of smart scale applications requesting certification funding by localities.

All right.

I've got a question on the first resolution.

You want to say smart scale?

I mean, you could quote the reference up above is HB2, but you want in the second lower part, you want to say smart scale.

In that whereas, the last whereas,

So people understand, I mean, because we're titled it SmartScale pretty much now all the time.

It was HB2 because they changed the name because of the issue with North Carolina.

Just something that we might want to revise.

Because it is called SmartScale, it's not HB2.

Well, that was part of the bill where it was established.

But that's where in the third, fourth Whereas, they talk about where it was established, and it was called HB2 initially.

And this is now titled SmartScale.

We can, either way, I think that's just a reference to the bill that it was, but we could call it just smart scale.

Yeah, I think that makes sense, especially in the last, whereas where it's standalone.

I mean the first whereas I think is pretty explanatory and the title, either way, I think up to whoever makes the motion I guess can decide.

I'm happy to make a motion if I can get clarification on the language.

Great.

Great.

Do I hear a second?

I'll second.

All right.

Motion from Christine, second from Steven.

Yes, sir, Mr.

Chair.

Mr. Kevin McDonald.

Yes.

Mr. Chuck Proctor.

Yes.

Mr. Steven Johnson.

Yes.

Yep.

Mr. Luis Caravana.

Yes.

Great.

Motion carries.

Yes, sir.

Oh, and sorry, I just noticed that I was confused why they were opposite of my packet.

The first one is for MPO submissions.

But in the title, it says, requesting transportation funding by locality.

Yes, sir.

We will make that change to the resolution.

Fair point.

OK, so this next motion is going to be for, I guess, all of the projects for the city, county, and BDC.

Yeah, it's just a reference to the HB2 at the top of the page.

I have a question.

For the project names as they're listed for Albemarle County don't match up with the project names that we submitted or that we're including in our resolution.

Chuck, does that matter?

They should be the same as the title for the application.

So if you guys can make that correction.

I noticed on the under this project submitted by Albemarle County where it says continuous green tea.

They have T spelled out.

It's not T spelled out.

That's in the description, not in the title.

The description doesn't matter.

I mean, you could put the short description in there, but

Okay, Jessica, do you remember what changed?

Because we had some trouble with the previous 251 where there's a lot of different names floating around for it, the 250 corridor one.

So I think we want to make sure that these are right.

Yes, we can.

We can make the motion to agree to the revisions to match the titles of the application.

Yeah, and I also would like to bring Michael and Michael.

I know that.

Me not you mentioned we need some.

changes to the descriptions for the pre-application that may not align with what was submitted previously.

And if we could check with city staff as well to see what we're calling that Fifth Street project.

I don't actually know and we don't have any here.

It's Michael Barnes here.

Yeah, I think the city right now, the current one, does run from Harris Street to Cherry.

That's the way it's titled.

Thanks, Bill.

I was just going to say, though, is

In the city, is that called 5th Street extended there as well?

I don't know where extended ends and where just regular 5th Street is.

That's a good point, Kevin.

We'll be sure to double check on that.

Yeah, for some reason, I thought that whenever it said extended, that was for the portion within the county and not in the city.

It's confusing.

Hey, I have a really dumb question.

Just because I'm not seeing it on this list and we've talked about it so much, the bridge across the Rivanna.

That was an MPO project.

Okay, it was on the previous list.

Okay, I didn't see it there.

Yep.

I gotta say I kind of like continuous green tea.

I move that we recommend, can you slide to the top of the resolution?

I move that we recommend the resolution endorsing the submission of smart scale projects with the requested revisions to remove reference to HB2, change the titles and the descriptions to match the application titles and descriptions given by the jurisdictions.

And the motion is to recommend the resolution to the policy board for consideration.

The titles and descriptions would have provisions.

Got it.

Perfect.

All right.

I'll second the motion.

Second from Jessica.

All right.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Kevin McDermott?

Aye.

Mr. Chuck Proctor?

Yes.

Mr. Steven Johnson?

Yes.

Mr. Luis Caradona?

Yes.

Mr.

Chair, that completes the roll call.

That's great.

Mr.

Chair, if you don't mind, I'd like to go back.

In saving skill, I do want to point out that there was a design concept

I'm showing you the grids for the Regina bicycle and pedestrian grids project.

It did not make the package, but it is shown here on the screen.

This proposal, this design came from VDOT.

From my understanding, it's more cost effective or less costly than some of the

and other things before.

If Sandy wants to add, I know that there is sort of a small modification in the previous, in the actual design of the bridge.

There used to be a kink here.

Yeah, we just wanted to present, after the policy board had their discussion on which bridge alignment to select, VDOT basically worked to develop

concepts or designs based on the feedback that they got from the policy board, which is that they wanted the alignment that connected at East Market Street and that there was a strong emphasis on reducing the cost to make the application as competitive as possible.

So this is what they have come back with.

The design is a little bit different than what we had discussed, but again, this was the lowest cost option and there seemed to be a little less preference for design considerations.

at the site.

So that went into the decision making.

One of the more significant differences is that the concept that we initially were looking at had one pier on the sediment island in the middle, and this one has three piers.

Again, having more piers means that it's a less expensive bridge, which means that it's likely to score better in smart scale, but it does

have a different impact.

And then also removing that bend in the river.

So the connection points on either side are in the same place.

It just removes the bend.

So it's a straight bridge instead of an angled bridge.

Yeah, I was going to add, we followed up with designers

They're actually, as part of the panel, we reached out to the panel last week and they provided some feedback about possibly including lighting.

They did question the number of piers, so we did reduce.

It was originally looking at five piers and we were reducing it to three.

But the beam seems to be the least expensive concept.

We are still proposing a deck with rail, a concrete deck with railing.

So Chuck, just to clarify, there will be one pier on the sediment island again?

There will be three piers total.

There probably will be two piers in the sediment island instead of the five that are shown here.

You'll have, it actually could be all three piers, could be in the sediment island.

It's a little bit more expensive.

I'm not sure what the cost is, but it

We're weighing the maintenance costs versus the, because I mean, the more obstacles you have in this floodway, it causes a area where debris can be held up by the pier itself.

So if we can reduce the number of piers, it's going to reduce the maintenance cost for during flood events or following flood events.

I think aesthetics was a concern as well with the more peers versus fewer.

Other comments, questions?

I guess I'll just say, you know, I like the idea of reducing costs, since that's obviously the denominator in our smart scale score and I'd like to see this happen.

So, I mean, that all makes sense to me.

You know, we talked about this last time, but you know, I'm not in love with the alignment just in dumping you out at the woolen mill site.

So I guess my question is like, you know, here we have our pedestrian path up to Peter Jefferson Parkway or State Farm Boulevard, right?

Do, are we looking at, you know, how a, like having a bike bed outlet to the west to get through that parking lot?

Or are we just kind of

You know, assuming that people are going to wander through the parking lot and find their way to Broadway.

Yeah, that's a little bit outside of the scope for this project.

Again, it's not that we're not aware that that is a potential consideration that we need to continue to evaluate, but for the purposes of this project, it's really to establish a bridge that connects to the existing transportation network.

And so this meets that criteria.

It doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities to continue to improve the connections from the bridge

I mean, the only thing I will say is that we needed to have a connection point on either end that was legitimate point.

So that's why we ended up running the trail all the way up to South Pantops Drive.

The roadway on the west end is a logical termini.

So

And that's why we looked at those two as the logical termini.

Just to put the bridge in without putting the trail on the east side, it didn't have a logical termini, so we couldn't actually put that in.

So that's why we ended up adding the trail all the way up to the roadway on the east side.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

And so I guess, you know, obviously, there's plenty of time till it gets filled.

But, you know, I guess would it then be up to the county to work with the developer at the Wolf Factory to, since obviously, they wanted this quite badly and got supervisors to push for this alignment, should we get them to get a safe route from that western terminus to Broadway?

Kind of informally push them to do it or

Yeah, I'll chime in here.

There have been some talks.

We've opened up the discussions with them.

There are other issues with circulation in the

Will and Mills site that we've been working on with them and we're hoping to kind of wrap that into that process.

So yeah, we're aware of it and we have started talking to them about ways that we could better accommodate bike ped throughout the site, both connecting over to

Chesapeake or over to Market Street and also up to Broadway and through the site connecting to the bridge.

We're also getting ready to start in the, I think sometime later this summer or fall we'll be doing a phase two of that Broadway blueprint.

And in that one, we're going to be really looking at a lot more details about bike ped connectivity all along Broadway and into this site and how that interacts with the river.

So I think we have some, some opportunities to, to work through some of those issues.

Of course, you know, we are kind of limited in what we can push the developer to do, but, but so far they're, they're

They wanted this and they are interested in, I think, working with us.

Great.

That sounds good.

And I mean, I guess the flip side is anything we can do on East Market Street, which I guess is a small stretch in the county and then in the city, but obviously that's an extremely constrained right of way.

So I'm not sure there's much to be done.

I have a question.

Chuck or Michael, could you say more about the lighting situation?

Yeah, that's what I've talked to the designers and our L&D staff.

We're going to include a line item for lighting.

One question they had was,

We talked about whether we wanted to light the trail or not.

We were definitely looking at low lighting on the bridge itself.

And we were going to put a line item in there for lighting, but we weren't going to get very specific with that.

So if you guys have any input on the trail itself, that would be good.

Well, I asked the question, so I'll jump in with my thoughts.

I really think if we're going to be expecting people to safely use the trail into the evenings, we have to include lighting.

OK, I mean, we can do that.

I just that was one of the questions that I just got yesterday.

Other questions, comments?

Sure thing, Mr.

Chair.

Great.

Hi, thanks, everybody.

We had a few just like administrative tip adjustments over March and April.

So I'll read through them.

And I have a memo.

If you guys wanted, I can send it to you after the meeting.

It's also in the tip, which is on the website, the NPO website.

So in March, there was a preventative maintenance and system preservation and preventative maintenance for bridge groupings update.

$250,000 was moved from the preventative maintenance for bridge grouping to the preventative maintenance and systems preservation grouping.

The transfer was just to account for the actual obligations for the year for the state of good repair.

The next adjustment was a jaunt adjustment.

I think most of the rest are adjustments.

So they increased operating assistance in fiscal year 2022.

Their FTA funding increased $1,820,000.

I'm sorry, yeah, $100,000.

Yeah, that's right.

And then they also increased their funding $140,000 for software and their mobility management program in fiscal year 2022 increased funding of $85,000.

The next adjustment was also in April, on April 4th, and it's for fiscal year 2022.

John added $140,000 for fiscal year 2022 to purchase 14 automated passenger counters to install in their Connect commuter buses.

The next adjustment was on April 26th, and it was also for John for fiscal year 2022.

They changed, and this was just like, they changed the title from one of their

categories to the title was rehab rebuild buses.

And the new title is associated capital maintenance.

And this was an FTA requested adjustment.

There was no financial ramifications for that.

Great.

Any questions on that?

So the Regional Transit Vision plan is starting their next round of public engagement, kind of.

So the first part will be to present to the RTP next Thursday, the 26th, and there'll be a 90 minute presentation from the consultants to go over what we've done so far.

So the results of the first round of public engagement

and then also kind of what they found for the vision for the community.

And then we had a three-day workshop with the transit providers on kind of networking and how, like if we had a constraint, we did a constrained vision and an unconstrained vision.

And we produced some maps of routes and kind of services and how it would look if we were able to do the constrained vision or the unconstrained vision.

Just a little side note,

We made some assumptions for funding with the constrained vision and we looked at the Central Virginia Transit Authority's model of how they collect revenue to kind of calculate how much we could collect if we formed an authority to pay for the vision.

So this isn't really like a big part of the vision plan.

The vision plan is to

make kind of a vision of transit and services that we would like to see in our community.

And then the governance study, which I'm talking about next, would be the second phase of how we would pay for those services that we want to see in our community.

So the vision plan made those assumptions.

The estimated amount of funding for the constrained vision is about $30 million a year.

And again, like the governance study is going to work out how that would come in and how like all of that would happen.

We don't really know yet.

We're just making assumptions for the vision.

So at the RTP meeting, we will be presenting those, the kind of draft visions for the RTP to comment on.

They're the advisory committee for this project.

We will then present, the consultants and I will then present to all of the board of supervisors for the Thomas T.J.PBC region.

So even the rural communities board of supervisors will get a presentation on this.

And then we'll start the second round of public engagement where we'll share this vision with the public to gather feedback.

We will have a survey and we will be conducting focus groups and

some additional outreach to make sure that we reach our targeted audiences.

So the RTP presentation is going to be longer and more in depth than the other presentations.

The public is not able to comment at the RTP meetings except for at the beginning of the meeting.

So I invite you to come to the meeting if you're interested in all the details and everything.

For me, it's going to be fascinating.

But unfortunately, we won't be able to take comments until June and July when the public comment period is open.

However, you can email me.

I'll get them to the right people.

So that's the transit vision plan.

Other questions?

Yes, now.

Yeah, I'm having having some real zoom success this morning.

I just wanted to briefly note on the transit vision plan when we made the decision to take an unconstrained approach to the transit vision plan.

I think we

I think that's the right place.

You know, a vision plan is the place where you should have an unconstrained vision.

But I do think that there's a real challenge in trying to bridge the gap between that unconstrained plan and other plans like CAT and John's TDPs, where we should be decoding kind of what is the next step towards that long term vision.

And I think there is a challenge that if you're just looking at the price, an unconstrained vision plan is going to be out of step with the amount of money that we're spending on transit today.

So I think it's a real challenge before us to communicate successfully what's the value of the plan to the community, not just that we're paying money and that money is going away and we're losing it, we're investing in something of value for the community.

So the governance study will go before the CTB to be approved, hopefully.

And then we found a contractor, AECOM, and we accepted their proposal on the contingency of funding.

So we're ready to go.

As soon as we get the funding announcement, we can work out an agreement with them.

And we are currently working with them on revising and updating the scope of work just a little bit, nothing major.

And then we can start that study in July.

I don't know if you guys have heard this several times, but the governance study is going to look at how to fund the vision plan

and so the vision plan kind of made the assumptions and suggestion of forming something similar to the Central Virginia Transit Authority.

So we're going to look at that as one option, but we're also going to work really hard to network with all of the stakeholders, including the rural communities and kind of find out what works best for our community.

The Regional Transit Authority

Like the governance study will tell us if that's a good option for us, if it is what's a good model for it to work.

The purpose of the governance study is to only look at the finances.

So it's looking at forming a tool to bring in additional revenue for transportation and then allocate that revenue out.

So it's not going to be looking at changing how CAD or any of the service providers are governed

or Ron or anything like that.

It's just bringing in money and putting it out for transit.

It will include, because we want to include the rural counties, it will include funding for other transportation items related to transit.

So it doesn't have to be transit services.

It could be head bike or other things like that.

Cause you want to make sure that we're serving the rural communities as well.

Yeah, so we're going to do a lot of outreach to like the Board of Supervisors, the Regional Transit Partnership will act as the advisory board again, but we're also planning a lot of meetings with the stakeholders.

That's all in the scope.

I'll send it to you.

OK. And I think that's great to go in front of the board and the public and obviously the RTP.

But I think probably trying to involve our finance and budget office a little more directly rather than the RTP

I know that because I think Jessica has reached out to you about the upcoming presentation and just even putting that on a board agenda before our finance and budgeting office has seen that makes them nervous because anytime you talk about money they want to know about it before the board members hear about it and since there's board members on the RTP I think it would be good that

Thank you.

So we were working with Trevor Henry at the county.

Is there somebody from the budget and finance area that we can work with?

Do you know who, Christine?

Yeah, I was going to say offline we can develop what that key stakeholder list is going to look like to make sure we're involved in staff.

Yeah, and Trevor would know who you need to work with, but you probably just need to make sure that you're asking that directly so that he knows what you're looking for.

Lucinda Smiglebar, would you copy me on that scope too, please?

Thank you.

Yeah, I have a question for Lucinda.

Every time that I've spoken to anybody about the RTA, they ask me, does that mean that Cat and John would merge?

So when and how do we answer that question?

So yeah, I think of this as a lot of steps.

We have the vision, and then we have how to fund the vision, and then we have how to collaborate and work more together and maybe start consolidating services.

So that would be after the governance study.

I think that once you set up RTA,

There's like a central location for the region for transit funding that that collaboration will start to enhance and, you know, we can start we can work on it.

It's one step in the way of getting more.

One of the things is it's a governance study.

So

It will be looking at who's making the decisions on transit funding and how transit services will be evaluated so that we can continue allocating funding the most effectively for transit.

So it will be starting to look at the agencies working together, and it will look at how we can make transit decisions

equitably as a region, as opposed to different entities having their different services and their different pots of money.

So it's going to start the consolidation, but it's not making any drastic changes or anything like that.

But it will be facilitating the consolidation of transit into the region.

But you can have a regional transit plan and

regional transit working together and not have like one transit provider.

I think it's also important to note, if I may, that we as staff at the PDC are going into this governance study without any assumptions or predictions on what's going to come out of the governance study.

We're leaving it to the consultants to first do a deep dive into what is the existing funding, how are decisions being made locally with transit funding, and then making recommendations on what is the best structure for us to pursue in order to increase the revenue that's coming in and further

remove any duplication or increase cooperation in order to best serve the region.

But I think it would be premature of us to say following this study, we're going to be able to predict that they're going to assume any particular structure.

We know an authority is one they're looking at.

And what timeline are we looking at for this?

Like we're not, I guess at this rate, going to be able to get recommendations for the General Assembly for next session, right?

Yeah, we're still in the process of revising that scope.

We've made a request of the consultants.

And I want to make sure we qualify.

We have not done a notice to proceed.

This is all we have not yet been determined that we have this funding, but we are in the process of revising the scope and asking them to shorten the timeline.

Originally, it was an 18 month scope.

We would like it to be closer to a 14, 16 month scope so that we are eligible if we need to apply for another technical assistance grant come February of 2024.

Did I say that right?

Yes, 2024.

And so it would likely not be going to the General Assembly in this next session.

Well, okay, wait.

I think we will in parallel be working with our state representatives throughout that entire process to see what kind of support there is for this at the state level.

But what I'm talking about as far as another grant is if it requires additional study.

Gotcha, okay, thank you.

Other questions on governance?

All right, we will move on to Rideshare.

Okay, I can do that.

The Afton Express, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the Afton Express has increased ridership, which is awesome.

and they're still doing some marketing campaigns to continue that.

And we're doing Clean Commute Month this month with John, Kat and UTS.

Everybody's kind of combined marketing with it.

We have prizes from some bike shops and Stonefield's shopping center.

And we have winners for the first two weeks.

We're doing a weekly drawing of people

We asked people to post pictures of themselves clean commuting with the hashtag Clean Commute Charlotte Seawill.

And yeah, it's happening.

There's a lot of prizes.

So if you post a picture, you will probably win something.

And I think the Stonefield gift certificates are $50 or something.

So it's pretty good.

That's all with that.

Well, thanks.

Any questions, comments?

Yeah, so as you all know, as we prepare for the long-range transportation plan, we've been working with the consultant team from the Office of Intermittal Planning and Investment, and that does include staff from Charlottesville and Albemarle as well, so we're trying to work to coordinate all of our planning prioritization efforts to some extent.

We have discussed with them what our internal staff capacity is as far as them developing a methodology that we can use to evaluate projects.

So it looks like we're going to be using a heavily GIS-based process for prioritization.

And so our next conversation with them is to look at what kind of measures other

MPOs have used to determine what might be appropriate for our purposes in prioritizing both system needs and projects in our long range transportation plan update.

I think the balance that we're trying to really achieve is like metrics that measure the things that are really important to us while also not creating a huge amount of additional

in order to be able to use knowing that we have a relatively small staff.

And so that's something that we're looking forward to getting input from.

I've also just as we're talking about this, I've also been working on drafting the scope of work for the Long Range Transportation Plan.

And so probably you won't hear anything about this in July related to the OIPI

work that we're doing, but I'm hoping to come back to you all in the fall to have some progress and have some more specific information to share with you about where we are and the work that we've been doing and what we've come up with to give you all an opportunity to provide us with some feedback on the direction we're heading and see what kind of comments you might have.

Anyone?

All right, let's move on to roundtable updates right on time.

All right, so I guess we have time.

So for a change, we can go around the room.

The only update that I have is we still have an open planner two through four position that we are actively recruiting for.

It would certainly be lovely to fill that as soon as possible, especially with Sandy going away on maternity leave in the next three months.

But we are very, very hopeful that going into FY23, we can be at full capacity and all positions filled.

So we're down to filling that one planner position.

Great.

Nothing new that I can think of.

I talked to Becca the other day.

She just mentioned the on-demand service that they've rolled out for off-hour student transportation has been really successful.

And they're just continuing to tweak it so that it's the best option, works the best for students.

One thing they need.

They need to work on is people ordering a ride and then and then not being there.

Perhaps that's, you know, something to work on.

But overall, it's been working pretty well for all parties involved.

And then beyond that, we'll be going into the summer schedule so you can check the UTS website if you are interested in knowing what the bus headways are and stuff and the routes.

And then kind of on the planning side, I know they're working to better accommodate the large number of mopeds as well as for rent scooters and personal scooters that, you know, electric scooters that we have on ground.

So just working on strategies for that.

Great.

I'll throw in a few things and Jessica wants to add to it.

So our application for revenue sharing for the Eastern Avenue Connector was funded in the draft

Six year plan.

So it looks like we're going to be able to move forward with that project.

That's that extension of Eastern Avenue from in Crozet, from West Hall down to Corey Farms and to 250.

So a really big project for the county and looking forward to moving forward on that.

On Thursday afternoon, we have our final

Public Meeting for the US 29 North Corridor Study.

So that'll be going on from seven o'clock till nine o'clock on Zoom.

If anybody needs information on that, I'm happy to share it.

I think it's actually on our calendar, our Albemarle County calendar.

So you can probably get the information there.

I think that's really all I have for us right now.

Yeah.

Also on that draft six-year plan, they've included the microtransit demo program.

Great.

Thanks.

Donna, welcome to the NPO tech committee.

I don't.

Well, thanks for coming.

Welcome.

Not really.

I mean, we're basically working on smart scale applications and developing the sketches and cost estimates.

We're having a few things that we'll probably have to work out.

I know that

For the Hickory crossing that we were looking at for Fifth Street extended, it's not something because of the geometry and the speed, we'll probably not be able to include that with that Fifth Street shared use path project, Jessica and Kevin.

So just give you a heads up on that.

It's probably going to be more than what we had scoped for the project, because we'll probably have to do some geometric improvements down there to actually put that in, which are outside of the

purview of what we were looking at for that project.

But other than that, I think everything else is going smoothly.

And like Kevin said, we've got the 29 North public meeting on Thursday, so hopefully everybody can attend and participate in that.

We've got a lot of good information that we'll be presenting on alternatives, and we wanna get the feedback from the public.

Kevin, Michael, you got anything else?

No, I think you covered everything pretty well.

I'd just like to say that I was out for six days with the Hughley trial.

I was on the jury there and then I had

Two weeks almost all day training.

Great, thanks.

And just a note on the 29 North Carter study, it looks like on the VDOT website, and I think the MPO or JPC have the website for it too, neither of them mention that meeting.

They still say, join us for an online public meeting on September 9th, 2021.

Yeah, I'm working with communications folks to get ours updated this week, so hopefully we'll have it updated.

We don't want to put anything out there until Thursday, so that's why it really hasn't been updated.

Great, thanks.

We'll be presenting two different studies I guess next month at the RTP so keep an eye out for that.

We did launch our new

Alternate Fuel Feasibility Study.

So that just launched.

We had one meeting and we're going to start working through that and flesh it all out.

But that's an addendum to our capital improvement project and all that.

And then, so is anything happening with those route changes?

Yeah, they're still on hold, but that'll be part of next month's, the June RTP presentation.

That's pretty good.

All right, thanks.

And then on the city side, I guess the big news, next Tuesday, not exactly sure when, probably 5 p.m.

I think, there'll be a joint work session between the Planning Commission and the City Council on kind of deciding what to do about this street.

And I guess figuring out what that smart scale application do in August is gonna be.

I think it's still pretty up in the air.

They've been doing some charrettes.

So I guess they'll be presenting what they've learned from the community and kind of staff the consultant's idea.

and I'm not entirely sure whether we're coming to a decision or just discussing it, but the big public meeting on that will be next Tuesday.

And then later this month, we're expecting the first report from the consultants and staff on what to do with our zoning rewrite, kind of just the general overall bird's eye vision of it.

and then that will be going to an extensive public engagement process this summer.

I think that is pretty much it for the city.

Did I miss anyone?

I think I got everyone.

All right, great.

Any other business or discussion?

I guess we've got additional matter from the public.

We have one member of the public here who never speaks and only listens.

Don, do you have anything to say to us?

Nope, guess not.

All right.

Well, I guess we are adjourned.