MPO Technical Committee Meeting   7/26/2022

OK. And you're not seeing the presenter mode.

Great.

OK.

Thanks so much.

So with that, we'll go ahead and jump in.

Thanks, Bill.

Yes.

Great.

As Bill said, we have a couple of slides, which was a little bit of a fib.

We have 33 slides for you today.

We're going to go pretty quick.

A lot of this is just kind of a recap, some drafts, some charts.

Sorry.

So this is just a quick recap on the IIJA largest federal event.

Is there a question?

Okay.

All right.

I apologize.

Anyway, so it's a it's three authorizations a five year bill.

The largest that Congress has ever passed, over 100 billion in new opportunities for MPOs and local governments.

As many of you know created a number of new formula programs, one that includes a sub allocation under the carbon program, invest heavily in electrification.

and to a certain degree does incentivize planning activities with a higher federal match, specifically under the Protect program.

Next slide.

This is a snapshot of what's in the bill for the modes.

There's two columns there.

One's the contract authority, which is, as you know, funding out of the Highway Trust Fund.

and then that far right column is the advanced appropriations that were provided.

Advanced appropriations is a new category of funding that I think is unique to the reauthorization bills, the surface transportation reauthorization bills.

It's $184 billion.

over the five years.

A majority of that is in the grant programs, but there is a substantial amount for charging and for bridge formula program.

Next slide.

This is the distribution by mode.

Again, just a graphic so you can see where the IIJA invests its funds.

I want to point out that the RAIL program, even though it only represents 8.5 on this chart, it significantly increased from the FAST Act.

Next slide.

This is the distribution of the formulas between, or the funding in the bill between formula and discretionary.

As you can still, as you can see, the bill does continue the trend where a majority of the funds do go out in formula

But again, because of the growth in the discretionary grant programs, the bill did increase its share over the FAST Act for those discretionary accounts.

These are some of the administration's priorities.

This won't be a surprise to folks that have been following along with the Biden administration's release of notice of funding opportunities, as well as a lot of the guidance that has come out from USDOT and the White House through executive orders, equity, transformation, safety, climate,

Large priorities, the policy priorities.

This goes into a little bit greater detail on some of those priorities.

Of course safety is at the top.

Equity and climate change are significant policy priorities of the administration.

The Justice 40 initiative was an early initiative that came out through executive orders that is dedicated to ensuring that 40% of the benefits of the federal investments go to disadvantaged communities.

And it's not just surface transportation.

That's an initiative that covers

the administration-wide practices and policies.

Hopefully we'll see some sort of an accounting of that as things move forward over the life of the IIJA.

So these are some of the IIJ provisions and programs, obviously.

As you can see by the columns, some of the required

Provisions which include representation, coordination, planning factors, participation, complete streets.

These are just a snapshot of some of the things that Congress decided they were going to require.

There's some permissive provisions that allow MPOs to explore

Other policies and coordinated planning.

And then you've got these new programs in that right column.

They talk about carbon reduction, which is a formula program.

It also is sub-allocated.

I think 65% of the funds are sub-allocated by population.

Protect, EV charging and the bridge program have a formula and a discretionary component to them.

Protect is not out yet.

The bridge program is out.

I know that the states and local governments are getting applications together as we speak.

Next slide.

So I'm going to go over some of the regulatory and the required changes that were in the IIJA.

It does require the secretary to update the regs that ensure the outer years of the plan are defined beyond the first four years.

This was something that's come up in a couple of our AMPO discussions as we developed our priority for the IIJA, well, back in 2019 when it was just the Senate bill.

This subject came up, the Senate staff directed the Secretary to make these changes and we assume that this is going to be part of the broader planning rule that we expect to come up.

Yeah, I think early next year is probably right.

Recently, we heard that early next year seems to be the internal deadline that they're discussing.

You know, beyond just making this required change, they're seeing this as an opportunity to go in and make some other tweaks.

And so we're trying to work with career staff to understand, you know, what other considerations are they looking at that would directly impact the MPO community.

These are some of the changes that were made to Section 134, which as you know is the planning section of Title 23.

With regard to representation on the NPO boards, they did make a change that when designating reps on the board for the first time,

you shall consider the equitable and proportional representation of the population of the Metropolitan Planning Area.

This provision went back and forth between the House and the Senate.

They ended up with consider, so it's not a requirement that you actually designate the board based on the population, but it says for the first time an MPO

when it's designated for the first time should at least consider the board that reflects the population of the metropolitan planning area.

On a coordinated level, MPOs designated in the same urban area.

This is something we see, not in every state but in some states where you have overlap.

that they at least talk to each other, that they coordinate and to the maximum extent practicable, ensure consistency of data used in the planning process.

Again, this is something that I think was the result of a few years of kind of looking at how MPOs in these same urbanized areas work together.

You may remember years and years ago at the end of the Obama administration, we had a rule that would have

You know, we called it a consolidation rule that would have really, in our opinion, forced MPOs to merge.

It never had, well, the rule did pass and then we had to go to Congress to get the rule repealed.

But again, they just want to make sure that there's coordination.

I don't think that, and that's a big factor of MPOs.

So anyway.

Planning factors, MPOs will provide consideration for projects and strategies that promote consistency between transportation improvements and state and local plan growth for housing and economic development matters.

Housing is a big priority.

and better coordination between transportation and housing is a policy priority for the administration and we'll see that in a later slide under the thriving communities program that we anticipate coming out shortly.

And then participation by interested parties.

Again, there's a laundry list in the code of parties that Congress would like MPOs to talk with as they develop their plans and affordable housing organizations were added to the list in Title 23.

Next slide.

There's a funding requirement in the bill.

This is new.

As you can see, it says not less than 2.5% of PL funds should be used to increase safe and accessible options for multiple travel modes.

It may include complete standard policies,

Then there is an opt-out provision if MPOs can demonstrate to the secretary that they've basically met this requirement.

This came up in the Florida meeting of AMPO a few months back, and it seems that a lot of MPOs are meeting these requirements already.

I think that the USDOT has been very flexible.

Bill, I don't know if you heard anything different, but MPOs have been working with their regional division offices to meet this statutory requirement without having to actually set aside the 2.5 in new funds.

And I think there's a variety of ways that USDOT is accepting this requirement.

No, I think that's right.

Yeah, and in many cases, they're exceeding that amount.

I had a slide, because when I see requirements on funding, I always like to flag those things.

But again, I don't believe that this has been a heavy lift for anybody in the NPO community.

But please let us know if there are questions or you're hearing something different out of the USDOT.

Next slide.

Under permissive provisions, again, I talked about the housing coordination process.

There's a pretty big news section that kind of outlines this coordination process.

If you do want some more information on that, we can get you some further information on that.

During COVID, the next bullet came up with regard to social media and other web-based tools to encourage public participation.

It was a pretty easy one for Congress to accept.

And then, as I mentioned earlier, under the new PROTECT program, there's an incentive, which you can see right there at the bottom.

If you do, now this is unique to the MPOs, but if you do a resiliency improvement plan,

and develop priority projects, there can be a 7% reduction on the local match.

If you actually put the plan into your long range plan, then you get another 3%.

So for a total of 10%,

for additional federal share for Protect projects.

So I thought it was important.

We're waiting still for the guidance on this program.

Even though the formula money has been apportioned, we are still expecting some guidance on how USDOT is going to implement this new program.

Next slide.

This new formula program, you may all be very familiar with it and won't spend too much time on it.

It's a brand new program.

Again, Congress decided to create one that reduces carbon.

Again, a major thing throughout the IIJA.

65% of the funding that's distributed by formula is sub-allocated.

It does require the states to make some obligation authority available for these programs as well.

And it does require some consultation with the MPO on a carbon reduction strategy that the states have to come up with under the new provision.

Next slide.

I mentioned Protect already.

I don't want to spend too much time on it.

Again, it's a split program with formula and discretionary.

This is a program that is dedicated to funding projects to adapt to changing weather events and address the impacts of climate change.

There are planning funds as well as construction grant.

And the eligibility under this is pretty broad, as you can see, highway transit ports.

And just real quick, Lev, we've heard recently, as recent as last week, that the guidance for Protect is sort of in the final stages of review and that we should expect to see something probably in the next couple of weeks.

I mentioned the new bridge formula program provides a little bit more information on this.

There is 5.5 billion in advanced appropriations again not subject to the obligation limitation which is something that impacts highway trust funds, but it's a lot of money.

It's dedicated towards bridges.

You may have noticed over the last few years that Congress through the appropriations process has set aside billions of dollars for bridge replacement and rehabilitation within the IIJA for five years.

Now they've got a dedicated formula program as well as a grant program.

15% is used for off-system bridges, and they're 100% federal share for off-system bridges.

So that's something that I know the local governments are very interested in.

Next slide.

This is the new NEVI program.

This is the charging program that's a billion dollars annually, again, in advanced appropriations, to deploy EV charging infrastructure.

in advance of the growth in EV vehicles.

Hopefully there'll be more selection in the next few years.

States do have to put together a plan.

The deadline is just around the corner.

It's due August 1st.

There's a lot of information available on the USDOT website with regard to the NEVI program.

So I do, I hope the state's working with you.

We've been getting a little bit of feedback from some MPOs, but we're always interested to learn what's going on within any of the jurisdictions at AMPO.

Next slide.

Hey, Lev.

Sorry to interject.

Before we move on to the discretionary programs, I just had two quick items I wanted to add and sort of ask the group on one of them.

One is just an update on census, while not directly related to IIJA.

Obviously, it will impact things across the board.

We heard as recent as yesterday that the new timeline that the Bureau is working under to publish the final delineations

is December of this year.

So we're looking at the end of this calendar year, potentially even possibly January of next year to publish those final delineations.

So we'll keep everybody posted if that changes.

You know, we're also hearing that

Those new population numbers then wouldn't likely be applied by USDOT until federal fiscal year 24 at that point.

And so, again, we'll kind of keep everybody posted if any of that changes or we get any new information.

Quickly on Lev, anything to add on that?

No, not on that.

The other item that I apologize we neglected to include here and what I wanted to ask the room about is

The new requirement to set up a process between the state and the non-TMAs in terms of the distribution of SCBG funds, there's to be a process that's set up in coordination to equitably distribute those funds to the non-TMAs throughout the state.

No, that's not on our radar.

Okay.

All right, well, that's something that we can definitely follow up on and share some additional information.

I apologize, it wasn't included in this presentation.

But we can pull the statutory language and share some additional info on what we've heard from other other MPOs throughout other states and throughout the membership, and sort of how those discussions are progressing related to that provision.

So, Lev, did I misstate anything?

No.

Yeah, I thought we had it on a slide.

I'm surprised we didn't.

That was a pretty important one.

Yeah, so.

We'll add that, but no, I think you explained it exactly right.

Now it does, one thing, I don't know, Bill, if you mentioned this, but the consultation process is supposed to cover the five years of the bill.

It's not an annual unless you and the state to try to, you know, want to do some sort of an annual formula mechanism.

There's some flexibility built into the provision to let, you know, the MPOs and the state come up with whatever best that solution looks like, the non-TMA.

Yeah, no worries.

This slide is, again, pretty straightforward.

We've got 17 programs, over $100 billion in discretionary.

USDOT, as you probably know, has a website that details when the expected date for notice of funding opportunities are going to be released.

There was a new type of NOFO that was put out this year that combined three programs into one under the multimodal projects, discretionary grants.

That was rural, mega, and infra.

And this is a new method that I think USDOT is trying out that provides them with really a lot of discretion in awarding grants.

so that if you have a project that may be eligible in two categories of grant funding, they can then manage the distribution of the awards a little bit easier.

So it'll be interesting to see what the results of that combined application does look like.

And then coordination at all levels.

This is something that I've heard on a number of webinars from USDOT.

where there's an emphasis on joint applications between the state and local partners as they seek federal grants.

And in fact, some of the grant programs the state's not even eligible for.

It's only a couple, but I think that this USDOT under this administration is looking for a higher level of coordination between the state and the locals.

And one quick thing to flag on the combined NOFO and what we're seeing this and some of the subsequent NOFOs and forthcoming NOFOs as well, but there's a footnote in there that explicitly states if the project that you're applying for is not on the tip

It will need to be on the tip in order for any funding to actually be pushed out.

So you can apply for something if it's not currently on your tip, but before USCOT is going to award you any funds, they're going to want to see that it's actually on the tip before they before they make that grant.

No.

We can go through these pretty quick.

And we're going to leave this right, Bill.

This just shows some of the grant programs that have been released, the due dates, and when USDOT is expected to release additional notice of funding opportunities.

Next slide.

Same thing.

Take a look at this.

There's a lot coming out.

As you can see, there's a lot of TBDs on this list, so stay tuned.

Yeah.

The fall, and just, I would like to reiterate or not reiterate but just in terms of the actual awards.

We've already seen under the FAA programs the airport terminal program awards have been made, and under RAISE grants awards are supposed to be published.

by August 12th.

It's not on the slide, Bill, but it's in the Notice of Funding Opportunity.

Typically, USDOT will notify the congressional members first, and then press releases generally follow that notification pretty quickly.

So we should see the awards under the RAISE program.

which was over a billion dollars, actually it was over two billion dollars after the appropriations process.

Yeah, I just wanted to make the point that that's a pretty quick turnaround considering applications were due on April 14th.

Yeah, and I think it will also be very telling, Bill, what the administration is funding.

Yeah, so the next couple of slides are, it's kind of the basics on competitive grants and what applicants need to consider when you're looking at a notice of funding opportunity.

This is kind of an aggregation.

Not all grants are going to have all of these listed, but there are some common familiar criteria benefits that USDOT will use to evaluate applications.

You know, as you can see, you've got climate, the environment, equity, union jobs, safety, resiliency.

There's a laundry list of things.

So it's very important for potential applicants to really pay attention

to the things that USDOT is going to review in order for any application to get the highest rating it possibly can.

So again, this is just some of the criteria and requirements that we've seen in NOFOs over the years.

Next slide.

What you need to know before applying.

I don't think this comes as any surprise to folks.

Like I said, not all grants will have the exact same evaluation of criteria.

It's important to read the entire NOFO, but these are some of the things that we've seen in a lot of the NOFOs lately.

These generally don't apply to planning grants.

These are more on the construction side.

NEPA, not a surprise.

NEPA can be a very important part of an application.

If you don't expect NEPA for five years, you may want to consider not applying for a particular program if that project is still in the early stages of its environmental financial completeness.

Can you actually pay for this thing?

Do you have the local match to move these projects forward?

Do you have the technical capacity to successfully deliver the projects?

Many programs require a score greater than one for a benefit-cost analysis.

If anyone's done them, I have not.

I've looked at them.

They can be very complicated.

USDOT will look at these.

They have a whole office set up to review the analysis that goes into these things.

Again, on the planning grants, you're not going to probably need a BCA.

Again, compliance with Buy America, that's not new.

Compliance with David Spaken, again, not new.

Some of these new programs particularly require some sort of a preliminary engineering result in order to apply for it.

So again, these are eligibility criteria, and these are going to be

factors that are going to impact the likelihood of success on an application.

Real quick on the non-federal match.

We, Lev and I, recently participated in a meeting with a number of MBOs

that made us aware of sort of this false narrative that's out there on that percentage of match.

So obviously for most programs, it's the 80-20 split.

And we were hearing that a number of MPOs and applicants were bumping that percentage, the non-federal percentage up in hopes that it would give them a better shot at being awarded

the funds.

And so inadvertently it was dissuading folks that couldn't go beyond the 20% from actually applying because they felt as though USDOT was going to look at something that had maybe a 70-30 split and 70-20 and go with that one instead.

And so we've confirmed that, you know, that that is certainly not the case as far as the review process goes.

And we've been trying to kind of push back that, you know, look, if you're only able to come up with the minimum requirement, you should still consider, you know, putting it in an application.

But taking into account all of these other items that Lev's walking through as well.

Obviously, there's a lot that goes into an application.

But I just wanted to flag that, you know, if you're not able to come up with more than the 20%, I wouldn't have that be the deciding factor as to whether you apply or not.

Did I capture that right?

No, I mean the statutes.

That one issue is also going to be different from administration to administration.

Let's put it that way.

Next slide.

Again, more of the application process, what you need to consider.

Can you reasonably write a grant application that makes requirements?

Do you have the personality you need to use consultants?

Is it in your best interest to partner with the state?

And then can you administer a grant?

They're important questions that I think any MPO would need to think about before pursuing a grant.

And this isn't meant to dissuade anybody.

It's just, I think, just some of the reality that any applicant, whether it's an MPO state, local government, or other, are going to have to consider when they go through the grant process, because it's not easy.

So what's impacting implementation right now?

The IIJA provided hundreds of billions of dollars in increased funding compared to the FAST Act.

What's going to happen with that money?

and one of the impacts outside the legislation that we're seeing right now.

There's a lot of new programs so the rollout has been slow.

It's not a knock on Federal Highways or FTA or the USDOT generally it's a lot of work.

Coming out of COVID they lost a lot of staff.

or during COVID, I should say, they experienced a high amount of retirement and their bandwidth right now is just lacking.

Again, not a knock, it's just the reality a lot of companies are experiencing this, but the rollout of some of the programs has been a bit slow.

Inflation, you know,

It's had an impact on the IIJ funding increases.

I mean, it's a factor that we're hearing from a variety of stakeholder groups.

Construction costs are up.

That's impacting some of these grant applications.

You know, you may apply, particularly for the earlier ones this year, where you do a cost estimation.

in an application and during your three months of grant writing, the cost of labor and materials has gone up 25%.

So these are things that are impacting that new money

that was put out under the IIJA.

Again, there's labor shortages, trucking shortages.

Some states are implementing gas tax holidays, and that's going to affect states differently.

Some states use it to fund their infrastructure, some don't.

That issue has been talked about up here at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, but there's been pretty good bipartisan opposition

to doing that, just because, you know, it's a tax holiday.

They may provide a short-term, small, you know, pocketbook win for the American public, but it's billions of dollars in infrastructure funding to the Highway Trust Fund.

Additionally, you've got supply chain disruptions.

They've been around for a few years now by America.

We've actually heard this from a lot of NPOs.

that, you know, IIJA includes additional provisions under Buy America that many people feel are escalating costs on projects.

And real quick, Lev, I just wanted to come back to the labor employment issue.

You know, this is something that we've been hearing throughout the MPO community.

Even from some significantly large, high capacity MPOs with hundreds of people on staff, the ability to identify, hire, retain employees to really take on all of this additional work and implement these new programs.

There's always been an issue of public sector versus private sector, but that's only being exacerbated

you know currently with the conditions and so you know MPOs are trying to come up with competitive packages to again identify, retain, and hire employees to help with a lot of this so it's something that we as an organization are well aware of and we'll be looking to having

webinars and discussions with our members to just kind of share issues, share practices related to that.

We'll actually have a couple of sessions at the annual conference in the fall in Minneapolis addressing some of those issues.

Now we're kind of getting to some current things that are going on in DC right now.

Many of you may be aware that USDOT

published last week a national performance management measure addressing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation system.

They have a new, an NPRM that is out.

It's requiring state DOTs and MPOs to establish declining CO2 targets

and establish a method for measurement and reporting of the GHG emissions from transportation.

The rule is not that long.

It amends section of the regulations that deal with the broader transportation performance measurements that I know many of you on this call may have been involved in.

After MAP 21 back in 2012, it took USDOT several years to finalize the rules on many of the performance measures that were included in MAP 21.

Under this new rule, there would not be a mandate

on the level of targets, but again, you need to establish declining targets.

There's flexibility built into it that would allow MPOs and states to develop these targets that are appropriate for the communities that they work in and whatever their respective climate change

Goals may be as long as the targets would reduce emissions over time.

We have a summary that we will probably post and get out today, this afternoon.

Like I said, it's not terribly long.

Do encourage you to read it.

Comments are due October 13.

AMPO as an organization will be submitting comments, organizing several members within AMPO to coordinate on a set of comments that we'll be submitting.

But again, we encourage all members to send their own comments if they feel that this raises to that level.

Or they may just have their own unique set of circumstances when it comes to

to this particular proposed rule.

No, I was just going to add.

And, you know, as we do with all of our comment letters, we'll do our best to coordinate not only with members, but also respective statewide associations.

So we'll make sure to coordinate with Vampo accordingly and Anne and the executive team there.

As I mentioned earlier, there's a new program, Thriving Communities Initiative.

This is really being driven out of USDOT.

It's a new grant program.

They were awarded $25 million last year in the appropriations bill.

The basic premise is to provide technical assistance and capacity building.

to foster these thriving communities through transportation improvements.

There's also a complimentary program at Housing and Urban Development.

So there will be coordination between USDOT and HUD on this program.

In the House Appropriations Bill, Congress, or the House included an additional 110

I'm sorry, an additional 100 million.

The president had requested 110, but you know, we're only halfway or partial way through the appropriations process.

But again, more importantly, they're expecting to put a notice of funding opportunity out this fall.

They may be, they being UF DOT and HUD, may be hoping Congress passes appropriations so that they have more money to put in the notice of funding opportunity.

But again, the basic premise of this program is to provide technical assistance, planning capacity building to help build

Thriving communities in the eyes of what the administration is attempting to achieve under the policy priorities that it's aggressively pursuing.

There's a website.

Maybe we can provide a link to that at some point.

I think we have a summary also on the AMPO website.

There's a lot of information out there on this.

We do expect that MPOs would be a significant representation of the awards

Yeah, and I would just, yeah, I would just add, thanks, Lev.

I had the opportunity to sit on a call last week, sit in on a call with the Office of the Secretary, where they walked through this program, along with the Reconnecting Communities program.

And specific to thriving communities, you know, they are really trying to think creatively and innovatively to identify partners and avenues to deliver assistance to small local governments.

And so, you know, AMPO's perspective on that is, well, you have a mechanism in place called the MPO that is able to do that.

And, you know, we're certainly going to push MPOs as a great partner to be able to work with USCOT to receive some funds and push capacity building and technical assistance and planning assistance.

But certainly we'd appreciate any feedback from our members as well.

And if there's any interest in learning a little bit more about that program, we have some time.

They're planning on releasing a request for information, particularly on this program in the next couple of weeks.

AMPO will likely look to provide some comments, you know, supportive of the MPOs being a good partner in this program.

And as Lev said, we'll see a couple of NOFOs in the fall once they've received all the comments as a part of that RFI.

Appropriations for the upcoming fiscal year.

The current fiscal year ends at the end of September.

As you know, Congress has begun the process for appropriations for fiscal year 23.

The House Appropriations Committee did approve all 12 of its FY 23 bills.

I need to update this slide because the House passed a mini bus that included the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill.

It's consistent with IIJA, so there's no cuts to the programs.

Appropriations bill in the House does include earmarks for highways, transit, and aviation.

I think we also have a link in a summary of the appropriations process where it stands.

I think it was in our newsletter last week, Bill, or the week before.

If you want to find your earmarks, if you have any, they're listed in the committee report that accompanied the bill coming out of the House.

Senate Appropriations has not acted officially on any bills yet, but they are potentially going to get something done before they leave in August.

There's been some discussions.

I don't really have any expectation that they'll pass anything before they leave.

As you know, they go away for six weeks in August and early September for the summer break.

As I mentioned, fiscal year expires September 30th.

We do expect the continuing resolution.

As you know, you've been through these before, or at least you should have a familiarity with them.

It just extends federal funding at current funding levels, which would be 2022 for the duration of the CR.

We don't know how long a continuing resolution is going to go.

We'll learn more about that when Congress comes back after their summer recess.

The CR will only affect the appropriations and any obligation limitations.

such as the Highway Trust Fund, but they will not impact advanced appropriations.

So the programs that are funded under the IIJA that have this advanced appropriation, they're not going to be impacted by the CR.

The IIJA provisions basically acted like a five-year appropriations bill for the programs that are funded in those categories.

And if for some reason you didn't receive our policy update on appropriations that went out last week, please contact me directly and I'll figure out what's going on.

You should be receiving all of that information as a member of AMPO.

This is just a snapshot of what the House

Appropriations Committee put out.

As you can see, the green is the advanced appropriations in the IIJA.

The blue is the Highway Trust Fund spending.

And then the orange is just the regular appropriations that are included as part of the appropriations process.

Not a huge jump from 22 to 23.

We knew that coming, though.

The IIJA, as you know, is a five-year bill and lays it out for five years.

The biggest jump in transportation, service transportation funding, was between 21 and 22.

But it's just a graphic.

We've got midterm elections coming up.

All of you know that.

100% of the House is up.

One third of the Senate is up.

Depending on what you read, who you listen to, there could be a change in the majority in either chamber.

The Senate, you know, it's on a 50-50 makeup with the Vice President giving the majority to the Democrats.

Republicans have more seats up.

I'm not gonna make any prognostications right now on the outcome of the elections, but there will be impacts, potential impacts to surface transportation policy and spending if there are changes, which I think leads to the next slide.

Maybe it doesn't, maybe it's the other slide after this one, but just remainder of 2022.

Again, they're behind on appropriations.

Typically, Congress will put together a unified budget resolution, but they haven't done that in a number of years.

Again, expect a CR before September.

We'll know more when they come back on how long that CR is going to last.

This is an issue that has popped up ever since the American Rescue Plan had passed.

There's a lot of information on this, but generally state and local governments that received ARPA funding under the COVID bill

Under the COVID money, they wanted greater flexibility on how to use that money in terms of transportation.

Senator Cornyn did introduce a bill that did pass the Senate, no action in the House, but it included this range of opportunity, if you will, to spend more flexibility on how to spend that COVID money.

It was greater of 10 million or 30% of the funds that recipients were awarded.

and it was meant, again, to expand kind of the eligible uses.

If you do recall, the only infrastructure that was made eligible was broadband and water and sewer.

And that was, you know, something that I think that many local jurisdictions as well as states thought was too limiting.

In the final rule that Treasury did put out in January, they did maintain generally

that roads and streets, surface transportation would not generally be eligible unless the project responded to a specific pandemic public health need or a specific negative economic impact.

That's where this $10 million in lost revenue pops up.

So if you can demonstrate this revenue loss, then it does provide some flexibility to spend funds, those funds, as long as it's a government service on infrastructure projects.

Again, it's something that I think that the recipients of the awards need to probably explain to Treasury when they want to use funds for,

for infrastructure projects outside the designated infrastructure that's in the bill.

And then I did read that, you know, recipients can use ARPA funds for road repairs and upgrades that interact directly with an eligible stormwater infrastructure project.

So again, just some information on how eligibility has been expanded a bit.

But there will be some justification required in order to use it for expanded eligibility.

Next slide.

A couple of things.

We heard a lot about Build Back Better.

Still stuck in negotiations.

I personally don't have a lot of hope that anything's going to happen with Build Back Better.

As you know, those were high level negotiations between the President and Senator Manchin in particular.

They needed his vote to get the 50 in order to put Build Back better in the next bullet, which would be the reconciliation package, which only requires a simple majority in the Senate to pass.

They're making an effort.

Like I said, I'm not optimistic that they're going to get any of this done before the November elections.

Then we'll have to see what happens after the elections in the next Congress.

I think we have a slide that talks about what it may mean in the next Congress bill.

Yeah, so just some scenarios.

You know, if the Republicans take over the House and Senate, you know, expect a lot more oversight and scrutiny of IIJA, I would, I would imagine, particularly in, in grant awards.

I would also expect them to look at the review process of USDOT.

You know, are they holding projects up because they don't meet administration policies?

We did see, I suppose, a hint of this in a December 16th guidance memo that came out of Federal Highways last year that really leaned hard away from new capacity projects without saying that they would hold up new highway capacity projects, but there was a lot of

What's the right word, Bill?

Grumbling on Capitol Hill in a bipartisan manner about how USDOT was going to be implementing the IIJA.

So again, oversight and scrutiny.

There's been speculation about these advanced appropriations and would a Republican Congress cut the spending?

that's been made available because, you know, as everybody knows, Congress can enact another law, presidents still have to sign it, but they can change the law if they have the votes to do it.

President Biden, at least for the next two years, is probably going to reject any bill sent to him that will reduce spending in the IIJA.

So I think for the next two years, funding should be maintained.

I still think it's incumbent upon any recipient to make sure that they're spending and drawing down those funds as quickly as possible.

Amtrak was a huge recipient of funds.

They could be on the chopping block in a Republican Congress.

When we get to 2025 and 2026, which is another election away, it's up in the air again.

because you could have a new Congress and you could have a new president.

So again, the next couple years I think we're in good shape with the funding levels that were authorized in the IIJA.

But I think what this administration is going to be looking as any administration would is, you know, efficient use of those federal dollars, so that they can demonstrate that, you know, projects are getting done.

People are being hired and it's helping the economy under a split Congress again.

More oversight, I don't expect any changes.

And the Democrats do keep the majority in both chambers.

You know, they'll continue to pursue the greater agenda of the President.

But again, the key thing in all of this, as we've seen over the last couple of years in previous Congresses is

You know, the House simple majority wins the day in the Senate.

If you don't have 60 votes, you've got to try to come up with some sort of a bipartisan product, which is how we got the, uh, the IIJA in the first place.

Um, so again, just some scenarios.

There may be others out there, but, um, I think the overall takeaway is that I don't expect a lot of changes.

Is that it?

I apologize, we came just a couple of minutes late, but I'm happy to answer any questions if there's time or have some additional discussion.

I think it was great.

So thank you all for coming.

I'm looking forward to getting the PowerPoint because that was a lot of information.

I want to thank the presenters for the information.

That's a lot of information.

Yes, absolutely.

I will send that around as soon as we jump off the phone here.

Bill, let me just make a couple updates to it.

A couple of things I want to make sure you, so you have the current information, that's all.

Yeah, I look forward to getting that.

And also you all mentioned these, these summaries that you've put out, like on the greenhouse gas emissions measure and the thriving communities initiative.

I'm sure they're on your website, but I'd love to,

but when and if they're available because I'd like to dig into those also a little bit.

I don't know if I've really looked through all the resources that AMPO might have to offer.

So it's good to know that you guys are out there and providing this stuff.

I'll probably have other follow-up questions after I see everything.

So thanks once again.

Anything else?

All right.

Well, great.

Great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I do have one question.

Yes.

I'll make sure.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

Yep.

Great.

Okay.

Well, thanks again.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Yeah, that was a lot to take through.

We have a lot of questions about it.

One thing that I noted for staff is that thing about the representation and equitable in the NPO.

And right now, I think the city and county are

Pretty close to 50-50, but if we bring green in, is that something we want to consider?

Should green have the same amount of voting representation as the existing votes?

That's going to be an effect.

A lot of other things in there that I'm sure we'll be talking about.

Sure, so including in your packet for this month was a draft RFP request for proposals from the final director, Sandy Sherwood.

We have included the updated language for Title VI.

This will be presented to the policy board tomorrow.

The RFP is to obtain an consultant for the development of the RFP.

or do we need to do anything with that right now?

Or is that sold?

So also from a shop where there's a vision to establish a working group that will meet on the off months of the tech community and policy board.

This working group would be

consist of much of the folks that are at the policy board or the tech community.

But some additional folks, Albemarle County, Land Use Planning, Gabe Daley's, and Ms. Susan Elliott's departments or offices for climate irrigation, housing, both in the city and the county.

The CTAC,

did discuss or review the draft list of folks to be included, and they did come up with some recommendations for something else.

So the supplemental group would not necessarily have to meet every single time in the court group, but the CTAC

recommended that the Albemarle County Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion be added to this list if the city had an equivalent department or office at them, or at their city and county school boards, city and county bicycle and pedestrian planners, the regional chamber of commerce, and university training.

I didn't realize these were two separate items, sorry but mine knows.

I'm just curious, generally speaking, how do you all see this project being innovative?

Last time we did one of these, I was RFPs,

When you guys have ideas and you're getting that accomplished, I mean obviously you're looking for something we're talking about to respond to the RFP.

Project prioritization, we're hoping to get the support from the OIP grant, the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment, and helping us determine what the metrics are going to be in order to score projects in order to prioritize those projects.

So that's the prioritization part.

I think

The consultant for this piece is primarily, frankly, because while the TJPDC has done long range transportation plans for decades, this is the first time this staff has done one together.

And so relying on the support of a consultant to help us through not only the project management are we following all the federal requirements, but helping us create the fiscally constrained budget, knowing the available funding sources now, versus five years ago when SmartScale was just coming online,

how we prioritize or group projects was very different than how they're being scored and selected.

And so helping us through that process, helping us to develop more robust, robust public engagement plans in order to make sure we're getting out ahead of these projects and getting the engagement that we need before they come into the vote of the policy board.

So really the RFP is frankly, we've got a lot of one time

Rollover money.

That wouldn't make sense to staff up for.

And instead, we're asking for consultant technical support to support us through the process.

The RFP has them serving in an advisory capacity on the plan, providing feedback on the tools.

So it's really, they're kind of in the background or like review suggestions.

They're not taking the lead on this necessarily.

Yeah.

And then the optional task five, the communication strategies, you know, we've seen a lot of really creative ways to communicate an LRTP process to the public.

And so we threw that in there as soon as the budget is enough to get a consultant to include that, you know, videos, interactive, you know, one pagers with infographics, things that are much more digestible to understand where public input is most valuable and how the public can engage in the process where it's most appropriate.

So that was included in there.

I think it's also important, you know, to note, it's not coming before the policy board this month, but it will be, that we received an additional $47,000 in PL funds.

So we're going to need to amend the UPWP.

We're still waiting on some guidance from some of the things that Mr. Havers was talking about.

Are there going to be additional requirements on MPOs?

If so, we will probably want to budget that funding towards those things.

If not, then we're really waiting for Sandy to be able to have a little bit more ownership of this, but we're going to have to program an additional 47.

It could be that we expand the scope for a consultant, or it could be that we use that funding to incorporate more staff time to do some of the work on the UPDP.

I don't know if this speaks to what Michael was getting at, but I wonder if there's ways that we can just check through the language on here and make sure that we're highlighting, that we're looking through for like new approaches or creativity in the development of this.

And then that might be something that is considered in the scoring and in the review of the qualifications

Well, I'm more interested in the context.

I appreciate that.

It's a great answer to that.

Part of me is the current plan sort of lacks some maybe strategic goals.

It doesn't lead to thinking on a bumper sticker.

I was talking about thinking on a bumper sticker.

Easily to understand the major things you're trying to accomplish.

tie that closely to how we're going to get that and the projects you follow in that prioritization.

If you all talk about prioritization, I think that's a good idea.

Yeah, with prioritization stuff or multi-modal changes, how are we tackling some of the things that we tackle in our community?

having the North Stars so we know where we're headed seems to be very important.

But at Charlottesville, it doesn't whack for ideas.

It's just which ideas are the ones that are the most important for us to try to get done now to focus on something.

Yeah, I think later on in the day,

getting an update on that OIP grant.

I participated in some of those meetings and I think that I really liked the discussions going along with that.

that you all have, because we'll be bringing it to the policy board for their approval.

So your comment was include some language on we're looking for creative and innovative ways.

I think that would be nice to see if people show who wants new ideas here.

So let me see if there's a consultant out there that can demonstrate that they

I think it's one of the questions.

The foreign period, the 21st, I have no idea what the process was.

When will we move to their processes?

We wouldn't expect the LRT to be done in about 20 months.

As I recall, that modeling period takes a full two years, I think, to go through, as I remember.

Yes.

Yeah, I can follow up on that if I fear otherwise.

There's a section down to the wall, so... Yeah.

You were truly glad to do it, wasn't it?

As much as I think we're aware of it.

Okay.

Is that on the website?

That's on the draft.

That's on there.

Yes, agreed.

So it's supposed to be in 2022?

The Trans Edition Plan will be completed November of 2022.

You know what, we'll include, we'll move an additional bullet on the governance study since we were awarded that since this was drafted.

Hopefully you're solving this smart enough to figure all this stuff out and crack it down.

Thank you, good girl.

As far as a lot of the stuff that came out of the CTAC meeting, are you guys going to add that to the bottom of this memo?

That's the problem with your leads.

I have the same question.

And I think you also mentioned Alex's office of community solutions.

So I think what we would do is, and we can put it up on the screen and have it available for everybody to look at so that it's not just auditory

I mean I think this is a supplementary group so they can they be copying all the information so they don't copy this information stuff they would show it every once in a while to me I think maybe

With the focus on the linkage between housing and transportation, should there be a consideration for housing on that supplemental group as well?

Thank you, you got it.

Believe it or not, Sami drafted this before she left.

I have a list of additional recommendations from CTAC.

I know we just talked about having all our supplemental, but I think that university transit might be better, a better fit in the boardroom.

That's a good point.

And so you want to form in this technical committee, what's the timeline for a technical committee?

The development of the LRTB.

So it will be 20 to 24 months seeing in Trudeau is completed.

Starting when?

So we're like, we're two years out right now from

I guess my only comment on this is should we have a little bit more on what our engagement strategy is before we develop this committee and I just say that because I wonder like how this how

Is this a second committee that we're going to be on?

And how are those committee meetings going to happen?

And then the other thing, like RTP isn't on here, but all the representatives from the RTP are on here.

So I'm just confused as to how the process is going to work.

And when we start appointing this, I guess I'm a little afraid that we're going to end up with all these committees and we don't know how they're supposed to be.

Yeah, and I think the intent behind this is to not use all of the MPO tech committees to dig into the weeds of the LRTP, but rather give updates in this meeting and bring in more voices into the technical meeting.

And I don't know how often they plan to meet up and see it in here.

Do you know Ryan?

Yeah, I think they're like, they're scheduled to meet every other month.

We all do eight months.

Yeah, because they, I mean, like, Albemarle kind of transportation plan is the same.

So it's, yeah, this staff technical committee, is it going to be temporary or standing?

What are some of the topics they will be considering?

It will be a temporary committee just through completion of the LRTP and its intent was to make sure that we are expanding the focus beyond just transportation and transit related staff and representatives.

Make sure we're incorporating the other things on here.

UVA also the architect public works, you know, land use, climate action network.

I hear what you're saying about it is another committee.

I think what we wanted to do is not

I mean, that's fair.

I think that was back in work.

I just want to make sure that we're considering it all as we're putting this together.

This committee, this meeting here today is not necessarily going to be diving into the details of the LRTB.

So the core, kind of like the core is the voting members and the supplemental is just going to be advisory to the decision making or, you know, it's an informed or a core group, so they will

I mean, if you have one from each of these representatives, I don't think that's going to be too much.

And even if you add like

I think right now I know the city doesn't have a bike bed planner.

We don't have a bike bed planner.

So the transportation planning really is that I don't think the city is going to have one probably for most of the period of this.

I don't know if they're thinking about getting somebody back and they're working on getting their transportation.

Yeah, they're playing hard on that right now.

And then do you, following that, do you recommend that it's not an additional person?

Well, going back to the question, maybe some time ahead of the week.

So, we can talk about voting numbers.

This technical committee, it might be a good idea for those folks that are not present at this meeting to provide some kind of a written overview.

of the committee, what they are going to be doing or the group rather, how the membership is going to be constituted and whether it's going to be temporary or at some point, temporary or

standing, and then how the group or the engagement process is going to occur.

Then send it to everybody so that the folks who are not here may review that draft or content.

One more big picture question for the core group listed for the technical working group.

Other than the opportunity, is there anyone on that list that is not already attending this meeting?

Because I'm just wondering if maybe it makes sense for the core group to continue to be the technical committee and just have those discussions during our regular technical committee meetings and then

Perhaps.

Yeah.

And honest learning, you know, a carrier, whoever would attend from the residency.

I don't know if they necessarily need to work on this.

I think they could probably.

We coordinate with them.

Yeah.

And the only other one is public works.

City of Charlottesville public works.

Do we know who or what is in the public works?

Great.

I have one here.

MPO Tech recommends that the technical committee be the standing MPO Tech.

So the technical committee doesn't have to re-learn the things that happen in the off months to be able to make the decisions that we're making.

I mean, I'm sure everybody said the same thing.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

I think we need to be like, well, oh, we don't leave for a whole, you know, two months from now.

I think, you know, it needs to be more frequent.

Right.

So that's part of the business model.

Thank you for your feedback.

Well, can I make one other hit-taking comment about additional bills for the supplemental group?

It was mentioned in the school board.

I wasn't sure if the school board was the right group, but

Yeah, I'm just not sure.

I'm not exactly sure the role the school board plays versus the people we work with when we're talking about, like, changes in school projects or something like that.

I've never talked to the school board.

So you want it to be a decision made by the school board?

So what's the conclusion, the bottom line of the discussion?

Since I'll probably be communicating it to the policy board, MPO Tech recommends that the technical committee for the long-range transportation plan be the MPO Tech existing standing committee with supplemental

the supplemental group either meeting in off months or invited to the MPO tech meetings where their expertise is requested and then MPO tech meeting at least every other month is regularly scheduled or as needed if additional meetings are needed in the off months and then MPO tech agrees with the recommendation of CTAC to include diversity, equity and inclusion in the city and county.

A city and county school member can be staffed or otherwise

Regional Chamber to be included and UTS to be included.

Also, bike-ped to be left on there pending filling it with staff.

That's fine.

Alex, do you know, in the next 12 months?

Yeah, I guess it would make sense to appoint somebody 12 months into it, but is the city looking to hire a new bike-ped coordinator in the next

I think that position is being consolidated with the transportation planner, I think.

So there is an effort right now to hire a transportation planner.

I think it has been advertised.

I'm not sure.

But I know there is a serious movement in that direction to hire a transportation planner.

So let's remove the bike pad because the county's not going to hire a separate bike pad plan.

We are going to need somebody right away.

You can get a transportation, the traffic engineer, you know, to serve on the committee.

But either way, we think that the transportation planner could cover that for the city or the county, that it doesn't need to be a separate person.

I think so.

And thank you for helping us.

I know sometimes getting in the means takes a long time, but like you said, you do want it to be valuable.

You know, creating committees just to create them doesn't help anybody for it to be more efficient.

Thank you.

I know that the TIP amendment and adjustments should be pretty quick.

So the MPO Policy Board will be approving one TIP amendment.

That will be the bridge replacement.

The other three are adjustments.

I believe that there are no

There's nothing in our public participation policy that requires a form of public hearing and so forth.

So the policy board should be approving the TIP amendment and of course there's three adjustments.

They just had it in money.

This is above my bridge.

They had it.

They were worth $25 to $31 million back before it went to advertise.

But after it was advertised, they had that $4.2 to meet the bid.

I think we were just talking about the various increases in dollar figures on that project, Alex.

Which project?

Belmont Bridge.

Or Belmont Bridge.

Well, whatever it is, we're going to, JJ is not here, Janet, you know, but

Alright, you have the next one?

Yeah.

I was on 30th Street at the moment.

Obviously we are working on closing out FY22 with DRP and then also starting all the FY23 plans.

So far,

We have been told that there will be some promotions for Discover Transit or Tri-Transit in September and then a Rideshare week or month in October.

So we're waiting for more information about that and how we will be promoting those particular initiatives locally as well as with the state and the information and materials that they provide.

In addition to that, I will say just a couple quick things about Afton Express.

Amazingly, and to much of our delight and surprise, ridership has remained very steady through the summer, which is very encouraging and we're super excited about that.

In addition, the CTV did approve

for additional funds this fiscal year for a fourth bus that is mostly looking at running routes that would accommodate the health service workers at UVA on those 12-hour shifts.

Since that grant is through the Central Shenandoah PDC, they are in the process of picturing

I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, City and County staff for submitting your economic development sites.

There are two that I cannot meet and one's in the County, one's in the City.

I'm not sure if Mr. Alex, you're the person I know who I can talk to specifically at the City.

There's only one site that can be from each jurisdiction.

I'm not sure how important that is, but we got it by volume, but I guess you can go on with your numbers for the square footage using those two projects.

But the applications are due August 1.

I should have the city's resolutions coming after August 1.

August 1?

I look more like a bat.

But yeah, I can go back and you might not be able to help her.

That might be all we have.

You know, I was just curious.

It may have been an accident, but I noticed that there was a wayfinding application or development project.

Was that just an escape or not?

I will say that he gave us a map and a packet of the projects.

It looks like it's missing some of the Albemarle money projects.

Right, they don't include the regulatory, the lane, the Middle Greeks, the Avon Street projects.

These are just the four NPO projects and then the

the pipeline project.

But yeah, I was looking at that first map on there.

It looks like it's trying to show all of them, because it does include the counties,

So basically, yeah, the city has at least one that there's any on their own.

Oh, yeah, I see.

Yeah, you're able to take off the project.

Great.

We're hitting our end time here.

Yeah, the last book, yeah.

No, if you were in the last two meetings, you should give that our favorite.

It's not that I was out of town.

The consultant team and staff continue to lead the same shop for people that are sitting on those

They have, in my favor, as I said, come up with some metrics for prioritizing item investment projects.

I think I missed the last two meetings, as well.

But yeah, they have developed some metrics.

There's some need to go out there and provide us some information on that.

Yes.

Is there, in some

We have a presentation, an overall presentation on that.

Is there a project website or something like that that will be based on some of this, or is it kind of, have you heard from one of the other parents?

I don't know the website for this one.

I think we're we're at our time, so moving on, I'll just need to do the roundtable if that's OK with everyone, that somebody has something or anything they want to mention.

And I don't.

I don't think Sean or any member of the public if you want to raise your hand if you have a comment or anything.

He just recorded it.

Okay, well, with that, I think we're done.