MPO Technical Committee Meeting   6/17/2025

Ben Chambers.

Present.

Tommy Shafranek.

Present.

Rory Stolzenberg.

Albert Carina Plun.

here.

Thank you.

Sarah Pennington.

Here.

Next we'll go through the matter from the public.

Also, Albemarle is here, so hang on a minute, Mr. President.

We'll move on to the matter from the public.

Not seeing any, can I get a motion to accept the agenda?

I second.

Thank you.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Can I get a motion to approve the meeting minutes from our last meeting?

So there's a second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Thank you.

So as you all know, the officer from the technical committee consists of a chairman and a vice chairman.

the chairman and vice chairman will be elected from the membership of the technical committee and shall serve up to, well for one year or until a successor have been found and shall be eligible for reelection.

So the election of officer shall be held at the technical committee's first meeting after July 1

of each year and those members elected to office shall assume their duties at the conclusion of the meeting during which the election is held.

A majority vote shall be required for election to any office.

So we're not voting on anything.

We're not even really nominating.

We're just sort of seeing if anyone's interested in taking on the responsibility as a chair or vice chair.

I think having your complete name level or if we'd like to be able to continue doing so.

I'd also just have you flip-flopping if you'd mind.

If anyone else needs to step up, perhaps take over the floor.

Well, it seems like we're on board with that.

So we'll move on to member five, which is the amendment of justice.

Yep.

In your packet agenda, there was a memo for the TIP and it presented two adjustments and one amendment to the TIP.

I will start with the adjustments first, number 13 and number 14.

Adjustment number 13 revises the FY 2025 funding amounts for the mobility management project or program.

and adjustment 14 shifts the STBG funds from FY24 to FY25 within the bridge maintenance groupings.

Adjustment 13 was from DRPT.

Adjustment 14 is from VDOT.

As you know, no action was required from MTR Tech on the adjustment.

However, action is required on the amendment number 12, which adds a new tip block

for the FY 2025 operating assistant.

This funding, which is $3,000 in FTA funds, $3,000 in state funds, and $1,000 in local match, will support the PATH program, especially to expand volunteer driver services for older adults, and it will help cover mileage reimbursements and background checks for drivers.

The recommendation of memo from the

Just to clarify, just in 2013-14, basically just meeting funds from last fiscal year, I think it's fiscal year.

Exactly.

So yes, amendment 12 is a new TIP block.

which I'm not sure if you can see it very well, but it's the first table.

Right.

Which adds funding to FY 2025 for the PATH program.

And that amendment is based on DRPT's recommendations in their SIP that's about to be approved by the CTV.

Definitely.

All right.

Instead of waiting, you film the last season,

So, any discussion on this point?

Do I have a motion to keep?

Or whatever you said.

Seconded the bill.

All in favor of recommending this amendment to our policy board, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstaining?

All right.

Thank you.

Next week, that's when you do your business.

Good morning, everyone.

So included in your packet is a draft scope of work for a transportation demand management study.

What we're looking for from you all today is any feedback that you have on the draft scope and if it fits regional needs as originally intended, is this useful for us to do for the region?

So this was originally identified in the fiscal year 25 UPWP, and it's currently scheduled for fiscal year 26.

That will begin on July 1.

It reads, this excerpt that we pulled from the UPWP reads, through the development of the 2050 long-range transportation plan, staff identified the need to complete a comprehensive transportation demand management study

to reduce vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, increase the trips made by walking, biking, and using transit, and enhancing connections between transit, bike ped networks, and our park and ride facilities.

Before drafting the scope of work, STAC reviewed other studies that similarly aligned with what we're looking to do.

The first of which is this mode shift study, VMT reduction strategy by Metropolitan Council, the NPO out of the Minneapolis-St.

Paul metro area.

This one probably most closely aligned what we're looking to do through the scope of work for this study.

And they used trip characteristics that they identified through a regional travel survey and estimated the feasibility of mode shift for all other modes from car to bike or pedestrian modes.

And so they made an assessment based on trip distance, competitiveness of travel time on another mode and potential comfort.

So they looked at their existing infrastructure, planned infrastructure,

to come up with a percent of trips that would be feasible to switch to another boat.

The next one, this active transportation plan that was conducted by the Sarasota MPO, used streetlight data, which is what we propose to use in our scope of work to identify trip patterns and top-origin destination pairs.

And so the thicker the line in this image, the higher the trip volume, and so the thickest ones are the top-origin destination pairs of the study.

and all of these are linked in case you want to read any more about the studies or read through the document if you have any questions about this.

And the last one that we looked at is an origin and destination report by the Collier MPO.

They use replica data for their study, but similarly identify travel patterns both within the Collier County and between some areas in the MPO area.

And so just walking through the tasks that we have identified in the scope report for the MPO studies,

Of course, we would start out with the previous plan review pretty standard to look at any planned improvements that are happening and to understand the local planning context for this study.

In Task 2, we propose using streetlight data since that is free and available to the MPO through VDOT's contract.

We'd be able to understand the travel coming inside and going outside of the MPO area and traveling within.

And streetlight also allows us to identify trips specifically by mode and the average trip length.

In Task 3, we would assess the potential for shifting trips from auto to non-auto modes, and that would consider trip characteristics from the previous tasks and existing in the planned infrastructure and any planned park and ride facilities, or identify if we would need more park and ride facilities.

And we also included a public engagement task to make sure any proposed strategies would align with community priorities and use their input to refine recommendations and support any prioritization.

Okay, so today, I know that was brief.

We are looking for any input from you all as a tech committee on the scope of work.

Are there other ways that this study can align with the NPO's needs?

When we came in, we had a couple draft documents floating around internally, but we really didn't, you know, have a ton of guidance on what the NPO might be looking for with this kind of study.

So any additional direction or feedback that you have would be super valuable.

Any other data sources that would be helpful to look at that would also be really great feedback.

Yeah, so my first thought is I think it'd be really good to reach out directly to local cycling, running and walking groups to get that information from them directly and say, because I know for myself as a runner, there's places that I would go by running if I could.

Right.

but I can't because those roads are too dangerous.

And so I think getting that information directly from those people that are large, you know, cycling, you know, there's also more, and I don't really know how to quantify this too, but although a lot of my running is recreational, it's also deferring travel because my ability to go out and run in my neighborhood or go for a walk in my neighborhood

means that I'm not going to later have to make a lot of doctor appointments because I've got heart disease or because of developed health problems.

I will not have to go to the pharmacy to pick up medications that are avoided by virtue of exercising.

So I wouldn't

On the data sources, we've used treat-like data in the past.

It has not maintained its fidelity.

would be a reasonable patch to add in on top of that.

Right.

The other thing, I think I've read this in your scope, you're going to be focused on employer destinations.

So reaching out to UB and PMT to make sure that you understand where their parking commuters are coming from.

That will potentially divert some of those folks from ground to ground.

And I think what you all are talking about is like, how do you

that you can't measure because the facilities are so, create such a barrier that people would use them and take them to the planet.

There is a pooled fund study that's done at the University of Minnesota called the National Accessibility Observatory.

And one of the things they did, they have a really good network on level of travel stress for the networks and things like that.

So that could be a way to sort of understand

Maybe have another layer on top of this data is where they're really high levels of travel stress between some of these origin destination pairs.

Right.

Because that would show you that there's a network barrier that's preventing people from

Isn't that, Sandy, is that the bike L.O.S.

sort of?

Like, is that stress level?

Yeah, they have it for all minutes.

They have transit, they have vehicles, they have bike.

I don't know if they have bike and ped stuff, or they at least have ped, I think.

But you can get some sort of data to measure the network to, like, see how comfortable or uncomfortable it might be to see if that's

Level of service or stress?

They're different.

Yeah.

What are you measuring, Tommy?

I'm very focused.

I think we're talking about level of stress here.

Okay, I've done bike level of service and it is about level of stress.

Right.

Yeah.

It's sort of gauging.

The proxy, you have different factors, whether there's a presence of a facility, is it separated, is it shared lane?

What's the speed?

All those factors get factored in, and you have a ranking skill.

Most of those factors come down to measuring the tension that someone would have if they're on their bike or whatever.

I think one of the challenges with what they're doing is that that's going to be very like location intensive to like collect the data and do that so if you're looking at doing this for a network that would be really difficult to do for every single location if you're going out and observing and doing the measurements and things like that so

It would be helpful.

I think Mitch has a question.

Sure, yeah.

I just had some data recommendations.

I know Vision Eval, John Miller in the VDOT office, has been working on

supporting that effort.

And that will be most helpful in I believe phase two of past two of your study.

And it's able to quickly develop scenarios and like impacts of different policy situations.

And so that could be really helpful to reach out to him and integrate that.

As far as like walkability data, I know I've heard a lot more about Strava data as an option to supplement streetlight data.

I know that they're kind of competitors in that vein.

but they specialize more so in than just general streetlight data.

Getting potential for like data collection is like getting bike ped counts.

I know David Cook has mentioned multiple times that they can rent out or lease out their bike ped counters at their specific corridors.

You're looking to get an idea on prior to doing kind of model development.

And then when you're doing or talking or when you do get to the later phases, comparing your scenarios or selected scenario with TDPs for CAT and JAWS and seeing if their capital plans align with, you know, what is realistically gonna, what's feasible for transit service, you know, in the next 10 years or so.

Another thing I've seen that's really helpful in these types of studies is doing like land use overlay or getting like a walkability propensity score, you know, based on mixes of uses.

That can be a helpful metric to see.

It's not just, you know, level of stress.

It's also like level of interest, you know, how likely are people going to be walking or taking more shorter trips that are more feasible using non-motorized means.

Tommy, a quick little Google search says that there are both two different systems, one specifically about stress.

They say they're different but similar.

They're all about.

One's about facilities more.

One's about the perceived level of stress.

So level of service is about sort of the metrics and the concrete.

And the level of stress is, what's the level of stress for LTS-1, recyclists and children, LTS-4s, suitable for the fearless?

and Fort Worth as, this is the traffic volume and the speed.

But it's all here.

I mean, we don't have to scope out all the details of each methodology, but there are, it's both tools at our disposal to assess.

And back to Mitch's, sorry, talk so much.

Mitch's density diversity design and

University design, destination, those factors that you talked about, that land use metric would be really useful.

And not just, not just looking at like hospitals or shopping centers or those kinds of things, which are generators.

Absolutely.

So V-Trans, if you go to like the interactive V-Trans website, they actually have a metric that is like walk home.

How much do you want to make sure that what we're pointing to is the transportation demand lines up to what the state is saying.

Excuse me.

I know that one of the things that really affects walkability, particularly in my area, is not only whether there are things like sidewalks or not, but also the margin winds, because there's some roads that have no margin at all.

And so is there any way of knowing which roads are missing margins?

BLOS, level of service, is sensitive to factors like lane width, traffic volume, presence of heavy vehicles, and it's used in the highway capacitor.

Yeah, because I think that's important.

And then also the curviness of a road, too, I think is something... Geometry.

I just wanted to add, Ben mentioned us as being a good resource, and I think we can be.

We've done a lot.

We have a pretty strong TDF plan and program that we've had in place since the early 2000s.

I think they were our first plan in 2007.

It seems a little different than what we're talking about, all these technical things.

Pay versus gain, I guess, is what your tolerance there with communities like that.

So it sounds a little bit like, it's a lot higher level they've been getting.

No, but I also think that's important.

And the policy side of it is also something that can be incorporated here.

If we say,

I am sure.

Yeah just a couple more things came to mind.

One other thing to look at on the transit side.

is looking at operational delay data from CAT.

So where are they experiencing high delays or operational disruptions and those can be used to identify potential transit corridors or transit priority projects.

Another one is the Virginia Walkability Action Institute through the Department of Health.

They have a lot of really good community capacity building resources and

other examples of low-cost, high-impact walkability that they've helped fund across the state.

Thanks again.

How is this study gonna, I guess, coincide with the four V.1s we have in MP as well?

A lot of

I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

It's still a little bit more, but it seems like you're asking like, what are some sources of data, but then also like, what are some

some not just like in terms of like counts but also like data in terms of like existing conditions and what possibilities could be in this corridor for example.

But this might follow some

some extent under streetlight data, but I think just a good source of information might be like the VA, the Office of Mobility Programs, looking at seeing what, like just go straight to the source and see what their data is as opposed to relying on something like streetlight, you know, here, obviously in the city.

I think if you guys took that data and filtered out all UVA and UVA trips, it would be interesting for converse and travel.

We also have data from our microtransit service, right?

And UVA should also have, for people who have participated in the PEVE program, they have the log of their ride in France.

You should have already designated for that.

Yeah, like Ben mentioned, get it together with our PMT group.

They would be the best resource for understanding what we'd have.

They were really useful during the development of ActiveExpress to figuring out where all these UVA employees that were trying to break into the mountain actually would like

In the UPWP, it seems like this study

has parking as a main focus to talk about assessing existing parking capacity, future growth impacts.

In the slides, it only mentioned reviewing parking studies.

We talked a lot about VMT reduction.

Yeah, great question.

So the way it was written in the UPWP, to us when we read it seemed almost like mode specific, like it kind of predetermined what the solution should be, which is more parking.

So we tried to zoom out a little bit with the scope and not say parking is the only thing that we wanted to look at, but how else could we shift these modes?

You know, whether that be, do we need more infrastructure for walking or infrastructure for biking?

But we definitely still included in there that we would look at parking studies, that we would look at, you know, potential for park and ride lots.

And if that's a priority that you all articulate to us and the Enfield Policy Board does, we can make it more, you know, of a parking centric sort of study, like a parking capacity analysis.

I think also a problem with reviewing the city's parking studies is the last one we did was 2015, downtown one, 2014 west main one.

Since that parking environment has changed dramatically, the garages have gone from having wait lists to having 500 spaces open in a day.

So I think without doing any study, you can be pretty confident that we don't need more parking.

on that topic yes and you know from a job perspective we have those four connect routes, Crozet, 29, Livingston, and Buckingham.

The majority of people using that for work is UVA folks, some people the downtown

I would love to know, are there more pockets of employees out there where we can reach better?

Is there a Greene County right on the line there?

Are there a lot of people there who need to drive in?

So in terms of travel demand management, I don't know how it's going to be really useful to find out where some of these folks live, almost an origin destination of UVA employees or

whatever the big employment centers are here, they're attracting people to come to Charlottesville.

Where do they live?

I think a challenge I was faced as an employee was the lots where most people can afford work can't even get parking.

You have to get halfway into the city to park in those lots anyway.

By the time you drive to Scott Stadium,

you're almost there anyway and at that point you could in many cases walk or run to the rest of the distance faster than the bus would go.

Whereas if the parking lot was like outside the city like Fontaine or the edge of the city then there would actually be an incentive to take the bus and versus like there's almost no incentive to use the bus because most of the travel is that edge of the city to the parking lot.

And I don't know how to quantify that, but... Well, I was talking to Scott, and he was like, that morning, the shuttle buses pretty much are running between those parking lots.

They start at five.

They start at five, and they're cranking buses.

A lot of people.

will be able to ship us out of the M.N.

GTS then connect.

Yeah.

They're going to connect and they're adjusting.

And to further that point, that is one of the benefits that have been touted about both the Connect routes and Afton Express is by taking those transit routes from those outlying areas, you kind of avoid that whole shuttle bus and parking situation because they have very specific stops, you know, at the hospital, at central grounds to kind of take that out of, you know,

I feel like when this conversation came up about parking previously, I think it was one of the planning commissioners from Albemarle County that maybe the concern about parking isn't so much within the city but in some of the growth areas in the county specifically, because

I mean, I don't know.

You guys will do the analysis and we'll see, but there's going to be a substantial portion of people who still have to drive somewhere to get to whatever they have to do at the city or in the road barriers or whatever.

So I think it's kind of how do you get people there and manage their travel once they're there and try to reduce the amount of stress or the amount of volume of the more local roads as well.

So I think there's,

Yeah, I think there's also like walkability within, you know, the importance of kind of placement of parking, the type of parking and walkability within shopping centers as well.

So like, you know, you look at some place like Hollymede Town Center, which is where

to get from one grocery store to another, you pretty much have to get in your car to drive to the other grocery store.

So it's a big difference between that.

And I do think other challenges, Stonefield, we have a parking garage, you can park in one spot and then you can walk to your destination is a bit different.

So there's even within those destinations, it's less about how much parking there is.

Yeah.

They were always designed around the car.

Exactly.

So that's where destination diversity design comes into play when you're evaluating a true destination.

So I think eventually we want them to vote on it, probably not at this month's meeting, but the next meeting after that, just authorize us to say this is the work that we think the direction that we think we should be going.

And so just looking to get similar input from them on it at their meeting this month.

So keep that in mind.

Yes.

Yeah.

OK, so next month, there are some people talking about your recommendation to use your data.

But until then, you need to do some homework and some reading.

If you have any ideas, feel free to bring them back.

And we can give the staff here.

Thank you.

I want to set this up that I don't know whether everyone is aware the NOLO program for transit from FTA has been around since 2016 in some form or capacity and every single year different administrations have increased the funding

The current funding that was funded through the infrastructure investment fund is about $5.5 billion.

It was funded in 21.

It was for five years.

This is technically the last year.

So 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

We're hoping that there will be another round of no vote.

This administration, we don't know.

So that's why we want to potentially take advantage.

We would reduce the amount of funding

and that's hopefully one of the key components here that allows us to change to move one of our major capital projects along from other capital projects to the technical group.

This is the one that kind of stands out because if we're going to move our transition to municipal emissions, our maintenance facility has to be up and running and be able to

or hydrogen we may be able to cordon off sections if it's battery electric in case there is a catastrophe on one of the batteries.

So we want to go through kind of this is one of the major projects that we're working on and we want this group to hopefully tell the policy board that their agreement that we should move forward with a grant application.

So with that I also want to

So, if you have questions, I'm okay with you stopping me and just asking.

And we're going to try moving forward.

So there's a lot of work that's been done on

that side of the house.

We've done a feasibility study, a side evaluation and transition plan.

All of those were done with Kennedy Board.

We actually have taken all those documents to the City Council.

So the next step for us is to, we were doing all this to position ourselves to take advantage of opportunities just like this.

One of the things that our existence, I don't know how many people have actually visited Cat, but we're currently sitting on the six-acre lot.

That's where we are today.

The city owns the three-acre wooded lot right beside us.

That's the area that we're really gonna focus on.

And then there's another site, Laney-owned site, that we are actually, we've made contact with the owners and we're trying to gauge

whether there's an appetite to potentially sell that piece of property to us.

So you will hear me mention that because you have to put it as a part of when we're going through our projects, you have to do a NEPA analysis.

and we looked at that third piece of property of a potential for expansion that would give us 13 acres continuous, which would be wonderful.

That would be designed for the expansion for 30 plus years.

Our existing facility is 16 years old.

We're about halfway through the viability and life of the facility.

So the analysis that was done with Kimberly Horne, they brought on an architectural front window.

So we looked at kind of where our existing facilities are.

I'm going to concentrate on that, that middle section.

So this is where, how the layout is today.

The orange section today is our maintenance facility.

It has five days.

It doesn't, it's not really designed to take into account battery electric vehicles.

or hydrogen.

So there's airflow requirements that would have to be done if we're doing hydrogen.

And there are all other sorts of safety features that we have to do because of the battery electric components.

So when we looked at the analysis from Wendell, they came back with a kind of a futuristic plan about what is possible that can be done on the two sites.

So if you notice, we have a parking issue, one of the things we wanted to resolve kind of long term also.

So where the old, in the previous slide, the orange section gets taken away, that's the old maintenance facility.

We build a brand new state-of-the-art facility with drive-through bays in case we ever get to the point we have articulated.

vehicles on our lot, which that means our ridership has gotten really high, and that's a good thing.

But we're building potentially new facilities for the future.

There are two purple sections, and the purple sections are designed for the battery electric.

So there's a, I'm going to mention it, we're right now working through an application with the state that we're looking at purchasing two battery electric vehicles.

We have to have

charging facilities available.

So the bottom section right now is where we're going to potentially have kind of our pilot for a battery electric.

So the layout would be the green section on the corner of the box.

That's central section where we would put a hydrogen electric visor.

So we would do onsite hydrogen long-term.

First, there would be

If we do the project as a part of our pilot, we would look for a source that we would be able to ship delivery in with storage facilities.

The long term effort would be that same location we would convert it over for onsite hydrogen generation.

So where are we?

The infrastructure in our

a plan, we asked Kimberly Horn to kind of look at, you know, what does it take for us to potentially get through all of these projects and what are the final costs?

So if all of these things are actually on our website, so if you want to take a look long term, you'll be able to do so.

So one of the things we're going to concentrate on, we call it our phase one maintenance facility.

That's the most important piece.

Preliminary figures suggest

is about $37 million between 37 and $40 million in FY 25 terms.

So when we're going for the grant application, we're going to sharpen our pencils.

The application that

The resolution we have before you that we'll talk about says $39.9 million, because we're anticipating if it gets funded, there's steps.

It's going to take us about a year to finish all the steps before we can actually get to construction, and by the time we get through two years, the costs, we factored in what it would potentially cost us two years from now, or two and a half years from now to complete the project.

There's, so,

Assumptions that we made is that we're trying to make sure that the city has plans to be zero emission by 2050.

We want to stay on target for that.

There's upgrades to the electrical that we need to make sure that it happens.

There's no vehicle cost assumptions in this figure.

We're just strictly talking about the maintenance facility itself.

and then we're hopefully going to be able to move forward with the project as a current project when you were working through the state and so that it becomes a reality for funding opportunities in FY 27 and 20 years.

So we asked Kimberly Moore to help work with us and lay out kind of the cost structure so we'd be able to see how we would fund this potential project.

which is why we're just going after the middle grant.

Thank you.

The first phase over is $11.6 million.

The second phase for the construction would happen in 29, that 17.5 basically.

and then finish up for the $5.8 million, basically two and a half, almost three years of project funding to make the project happen.

Once again, there are three stages that we're talking about.

One also is an administrative building and we're ever going to move forward with that and we bring that project back to the technical community also.

But we're really concentrating on the maintenance facility done.

That's the major piece that's driving all of this.

You've got to be able to fix the buses with new technology.

So that's really what's driving this whole component.

And this is the last shot at the no-load, we believe, with the current administration hasn't expressed any interest in awarding a new route to funding for the no-load.

So we want to take advantage of this.

All right, so what does it cost for us?

So in today's dollars, they basically say it's $37.7 million to build a new transit facility for us.

Planning and engineering is $2.7 million.

And the construction breaks down to almost $35 million of straight construction itself.

So that's where you get the $37 million for the project.

2,500 square feet of maintenance facility

So there are projects that I'm aware that have been talked about potentially having higher demand.

I wouldn't call them, I would usually refer to them as bus BRT projects, but they're not BRT projects at Point 29.

We have really narrow streets here.

Y'all are living here.

So there are only certain areas of town we need to be able to put in.

But

Once again, it's a planning project.

We need to plan for the future, but the future allows us to get higher ridership and higher usage of all certain areas.

The facilities need to be able to handle whatever vehicle that we're talking about.

And it's also a good thing to be able to drive through because we've seen in the maintenance facilities where you have a breakdown and you can't get the vehicle out there and trying to tow it out by means of a holdover or something and get it out of the forklift system.

It's easier to push than it is to pull.

So having pushed through, so it's just modern facilities always have a few dropy bags.

All right, so one of the other things that we were looking at is we took actually two groups of folks, the Champaign-Urbana,

and we looked at the facilities there.

The Champaign-Lazars is the MTB transit system.

Champaign-Urbana, which is the new services of the University of Illinois.

Champaign-Urbana, they are transitioning their fleet, which they have hybrid sending model today to 100% hydrogen model.

So

The purpose of taking the groups there was to show that the reality that technology, one, exists, that it works, and that the facility, and what kind of improvements we would need to make to our existing facilities to be able to support that.

And I remember Jason and Ben both were on those trips.

I would say we came away, I'm not going to speak to them, I'll let them talk for themselves, but I came away very impressed about the technology.

what they're able to do.

The environment there is very cold.

So they get 20 below days.

They didn't have any issues with the vehicles.

No range concerns.

It's a two one for once swap out from that from your traditional diesel buses or the hybrid buses to an alternative fuel zero emission fleet.

So

28 and then... I believe it is up by 28.

Yes, yes.

So it's calendar 27 up by 28.

and that way we would, this fits all into kind of the maturation of transitioning from the maintenance facility, getting into having onsite storage first, and then generation, an area where we can actually put in them a block to fill it offsite, generation and packaging.

Garland, is this part included in your new load rig, or is it?

Just bring it to your attention because I'm going to probably have to come back to you.

I just wanted to cue it up.

because we're trying to decide right now.

We're in the middle of writing the active grant application.

We're trying to decide whether we're going to do just one or two projects.

The one thing that's really driving all of this is the maintenance facility, but if we have an opportunity to take advantage of getting funding for the outside

generation for the person who electrolyzes, you may want to take an opportunity to switch his mind just to mention it as a part of this.

All right, so where are we today?

So current infrastructure, we are, one of the things transportation has to do because the federal funding needs to do a new process.

We've retained our KNK and WRA.

They're actually actively working on our depro process.

With any luck, we should be done with NEPA the week before Thanksgiving.

That is really aggressive.

They started the traffic analysis about a month ago.

They're finishing out the environmental side right now.

We have soil testing that will probably start in another three weeks.

So they are checking every single box.

They're going at warp speed.

and hopefully we don't get any pickups that we will stay on track and be able to have a completed process just in time for the section of the award that we were able to be awarded.

One of the goals of the NOLO, which is why we're aggressively going at this, is we need to be able to start our projects within six to eight months.

That's normally the timeframe that they want when they're doing the award, so which is

we're hitting all the marks.

So if we can keep everything on track, we should be in a good position to say that if we're given the award, we should be able to get a contractor on board and actually start our project within six to eight months of the award.

So that's where we are.

Newberry, local

firm in town is actually working on, actually just completed the electrical work for the battery and electric piece.

And they're going to be active in some of the other components, I believe, as we work through some of the other electrical needs.

There are six, five major focus areas that we

have to work through for the NEPA, hazardous materials, traffic analysis, cultural noise, and the natural resources.

Like I said, it has a material piece we're actively in.

Traffic analysis is already done.

We're starting to culture resources and the noise within, I think, a month.

So they're going faster than I've ever seen anybody go through a NEPA process, which is good.

So we had the right firm and we were able to get our marks.

So target areas, once again, the city owns the middle section.

We mentioned the third property because once again, we are trying to see whether there is any interest in potentially selling that piece of property to transit.

Once again, that would give us 13 continuous acres, which would allow us to do future

as we want to do more service.

We're going to be doubling our fleet size.

We do not have enough storage space where we are today.

So section two becomes critical.

We need to plan it out really well, but we also need to take care of parking.

So there are a lot of competing areas that we need to

shore up as within the two allotted pieces that the city controls right now.

An interesting fact is Delaney sold the section, the wooded section right now to the city over 18, 19 years ago, which is why we would try to actually see if they would be willing to sell the remaining parcel to us.

There's not

major interest, they want to talk, but we'll see what happens.

Our goal is to go through the deeper process and get a CE, which is a category of exclusion, which is the lowest rung on the, as far as FTA is concerned about, you know, capital projects.

If that happens, then we can sail through on other pieces.

We love to avoid any issues that happen when they're higher because that's other delays and then takes the project out beyond the window.

We think in November, we continue to add up to another year to get through the process.

And we also own the second piece probably.

So we're not really.

And it just was a wooded property before

transit where we are currently on.

I believe so.

Nothing like that.

So another project that I wanted to kind of mention is just highlight the fact that we were awarded two battery electric buses from the state.

we're going to put into order, but we have to get the infrastructure to be able to also charge those buses.

The estimates say it's going to be almost $4 million to make that happen.

We're working with the state right now to work through that project forward.

I believe CTB is looking at potentially funding this project for us.

Yeah next Tuesday We've got to move toward getting temporary so it's it's we're gonna when we have a charge it is whether it's permanent or temporary but permanent makes more sense because when we when we build out we're not going to need to

Hopefully moving this equipment.

This stuff is pretty expensive.

And all the work we're doing with demand, they don't have to put in new poles and transformers and all that sort of stuff.

We don't want to continue to move that stuff.

We want to have it in place and know where it's going to be for the next 15 to 20 years.

That's really important.

It also saves us additional costs to potentially move it in on a second time.

So that's the goal for this project.

I just want to highlight the fact that Bruce and his team, and Bruce would have probably, Bruce White is our senior project manager.

He's actually kind of a shared component.

He's 60% CAP, 40% public works, and he's kind of running all of our major capital projects.

He's been in touch with Dominion.

We've identified potential areas to put the battery electric equipment.

So we're actually shrinking the amount of space that's on our facility already before we even talk about expansion because, you know, we wanted to add service.

So this project that we're talking about where we're going to have to, you know,

We're going to have to do something with lot two anyway.

And then we need to go ahead and solve our maintenance facility issue.

So all this is coming together nicely, but this is where we would potentially have board charging equipment for up to eight vehicles.

Our first initial would be just six, the seventh and the eighth.

It's probably not going to come to fruition because we talked with Dominion, the cost factor associated with beyond eight is pretty expensive and we need to have

either permanent or temporary.

There needs to be charging ports in the maintenance facility.

And so we have to run that to the facility because as we're working on those vehicles, you need to be able to have power to do so.

So there will be two ports that will be put in the existing facility.

There'll be some upgrades we have to do to take care of that.

So we'll be able to maintain our existing fleet while we're building the new

All right.

And I believe that's it for Tony Grove.

Yes.

I guess there have been any changes like in the federal NOFO for the NOFO program, is it the same as last year?

Yes, that there we are constant.

Yes, there in the no-low there is a section on

families, specifically how these major projects can benefit large families.

It specifically says in the number, which was interesting because I didn't define a large family.

It did five.

There was no guidance.

It didn't say like a family that had it.

So we've retained

RK&K to help us with the application, the writing that we actually grant.

They're in contact with

their federal contacts and see if they can get some guidance on some of the language we need to make specifically about the, especially the family section that's in the NOLO.

So, which is why we went with them because they are working on projects for other transit agencies.

So they're getting first hand information.

And the goal for us is to have our our grant application completed by

July 13th, it has to be submitted on by the 16th.

So, and I'm sorry, our grant completed by the 10th.

Final reviews, submission, punched everything on the 13th, because it has to be done in the 16th.

So it's pretty tight turnaround.

So we are hopeful that

That's correct.

We'd have to come back in.

The projects are funded.

We'll still have to come back and actually add these to the Long-Range Transportation Plan.

Right, that's a great question.

So it's no low and then there's a section of it that's called bus and bus facilities.

This would be under the bus and bus facilities component of it because it really fits in nicely with, well, capital projects of this size are attractive, you know, ripping cotton opportunities.

but they also factor into the fact that as transit facilities get bigger and want to run more service, the state of our equipment actually keeps your costs down because the preventive maintenance side of the house will be able to fix things faster.

There are things that are in our facility that were built 16 years ago that you wouldn't do now.

You would design the facility differently.

One of the things that was,

brought to our attention by window is if we were to stay on existing facility, we probably would have to be between $17 and $22 million of retrofits to the existing footprint, which still is not large enough to do what we need done.

So whether you're going to do $17 and $22 billion of retrofits to the existing, I still would not be satisfied or do a brand new facility.

And also if we were to do the retrofits, we would still have an issue because you're actively trying to fix things in a workflow, which is ripe for

And any other questions?

How does this grant, I guess, scope-wise compare to the projects in that program?

Is this kind of like a lower end or a higher end?

I can't remember the limits.

I think it was $100 million.

Is the limit on the projects?

Yeah, there's some transit facility who would ask for $500 million.

Or $1 billion, if they could.

So I think they put a limit on, I don't want to tell you anything incorrect, but they can reach tiers.

Okay.

So just need to make sure I understand what you're about to say.

Do we have a contingency plan if we don't get it?

Totally separate, separate funding.

We have to keep it that way.

There's two different funding streams, which is why there's total separation in our existing model right now.

I hate to say it this way, but that's how everybody refers to us.

Transit upon the top of the hill.

School bus is actually on the bottom of the hill.

We don't share.

They're still all student employees, but the books are all separate every single day.

So we keep the, there's no bomingling of funds.

So that's correct.

In conjunction with sustainability, we went after a grant to do a pilot of sorts at a school bus with two battery electric, the first round and then two the second round.

So they'll have four battery electric school buses.

That planning process for that has started as active.

The transformer has been ordered.

You should be seeing real activity on that side, probably September, October timeframe, with the goal of having everything built out by next May or June.

So active project,

not going on in transit, whether it's pupil or public.

Any other questions?

All in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Should I abstain?

Please translate your seat.

Will you pass it by then?

Thank you Ben.

My name is Gorengir Gieske.

I'm the project lead for the Move Safely bullish project.

I'm here today to present to you.

And this probably will be the last presentation for this train as the project is near its completion.

Online is Danielle McCrane.

She's a part of the project team from the consultant.

counties and city of Charlottesville leadership commitments, the planning process, the four E's of roadway safety, public engagement, proposed solutions, and next step.

As you know, Move Safely Blue Ridge is a regional initiative within the Thomas Jackson planning district commission.

County.

The grant comes from the Safe Streets and Roads for All federal program, which was established by the signing of the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021.

This program supports the United States Department of Transportation national roadway safety strategy and its vision of zero fatalities by 2050 using a safe system approach.

This slide highlights Albemarle County's and City of Charlottesville leadership commitment.

they both committed to reducing the total number of serious injuries by half by 2045.

Additionally, the city of Charlottesville committed to eliminate roadway fatalities within the city by 2045.

Both of these goals were chosen that are consistent with the state's safety goals.

Before I talk about the planning process for this grant, I want to acknowledge the project team, besides planners from TJPDC, consistent of the working group members.

I want to say thank you to Baltimore County and the City of Charlottesville for their support in this project.

It would not have been possible without their feedback.

We also have VDOT, so thank you VDOT for all of your feedback.

and all the work that you have previously done that helped us develop this management planning process for all the components of our safety action plan.

So, the planning process consisted of four key steps in which we identified issues and opportunities, established priorities, developed strategies, and the final step, which is the plan review, the draft, the development,

draft fulfillment of the plan and interview.

All these steps were supported by three rounds of public engagement.

I will talk about a little bit more in the coming slides.

Ultimately, combined with the steps and the public engagement serve as the final foundation for development of the comprehensive safety action plan.

One of the strategies that we developed for this plan was the Heinzinger network methodology in partnership with staff from all of our jurisdictions and VDOT as well.

This methodology serves as a map that highlights the highest concentration of fatalities and severe injuries within the counties.

For your reference, the legend says the tier one

severe injuries and fatalities.

Tier one are fatalities and tier two are severe injuries.

The blending process and basically all the components of the safety action plan were

designed based on the four E's of roadway safety.

The goal is to design safer facilities for all users for engineering, build a culture of roadway safety through education, reinforce safe travel behaviors through enforcement, and save lives through emergency response.

Public engagement was a key component for the development of this plan.

really important to hear the public feedback about potential solutions, but also identify the issues and opportunities that they face every day when traveling on the roads.

In round one, I want to say that in round one, round two, we gathered that feedback through a survey.

We went where the public was to engage them and gather that feedback.

Round three was the review of the comprehensive safety action plan in which was presented in front of all of the boards in the respective jurisdictions.

Before I talk about the proposed solutions, I just want to highlight that all of the proposed solutions were

decided or chosen based on feedback from local jurisdiction staff and VDOT.

All of the projects that are through VDOT that are ongoing efforts are highlighted and included as well.

But we have three categories of proposed solutions in the plan.

One is the spot improvements by jurisdictions.

This is an engineering solution or countermeasures.

that focuses on specific intersections that are identified in the plan as high risk.

Then we have systemic improvements.

These are proven safety measures that will reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries across the entire network.

All of the dependent locations for the systemic improvements are outlined in the plan.

And finally, the third solution, which is the non-infrastructure measures or non-engineering solutions to address the other themes.

The next steps will be some funding opportunities.

As you know, there's currently an ongoing round of Safe Streets and Roads for All program.

I don't believe that any of our jurisdiction will apply for this round as the timing goes a little bit, this very,

short but there's going to be another round for next year and I want to say that probably will be the last round for now.

We don't know what's going to happen in the future but also I want to mention that that round is going to be very competitive when it comes to implementation funding so most of the grant allocations are going to be focused towards the implementation.

The project team plans to do an annual

will review an update of the crash data on the Move Safely Blue Ridge website.

That will help all of the jurisdictions be in line with current safety transportation trends and further refine their strategy as needed.

That's all right, Chad.

It's been a very long process together for a while.

I have any questions.

Anybody else?

Questions?

Well, thank you for your work.

And our consultant.

Hello.

So I don't have any slides for this one since it's just an update.

But at their last meeting in April, the MPO Policy Board adopted the fiscal year 26 UPWP with anticipated budget revisions, assuming that we would get those updated allocations from DRPT.

Those were the ones that we were waiting on.

And so presented here in your packet, you have the final UPWP document.

as well as a staff memo.

We received updated allocations from DRPT that reflected an increase of $1,795 to their apportionment from last year.

And so we updated those tables.

We kept the proportion splits for each of the tasks as they were originally presented.

And we just wanted you all to have that document.

That was very well known.

Oh, this will sound for me.

Yes.

So for fiscal year 26, we wanted to propose meeting dates and times for you all.

So currently, the MPO tech committee meets every other month on the third Tuesday from 10 to 12.

We are proposing to continue the bimonthly in the same time, but moving it from the third Tuesday to the first Tuesday.

This would give us a little bit more buffer between MPO Tech and policy boards that when we bring things to you all, we have a little bit more time to get the materials together for the policy board and incorporate those changes.

And it would also move MPO Tech from falling on the CTB day as it currently does.

Typically the CTB meets on the same day.

And so we miss that real time.

We can't travel to see it in person and we can't watch the recording as it's happening live.

So I wanted to propose that change to you all here today.

Did the review of the schedule last year, heading into fiscal year 2025, and did the CTB meetings change?

I think they're unlikely.

And so, but there are some instances where they can, you know, shift.

And so like the one for this month, because they're approving the budget, that one's next week.

And what we discussed last year may have been switching to every other month and not necessarily moving it within the month.

Right.

This past year,

All right.

That would take effect in August?

We took back passes for an annual schedule.

Exactly, and not only that there is staff turnover in the jurisdictions, but there's also staff turnover in FHWA as well, so it really depends on how long they will take to review and accept the plan.

Yeah, at this point, that's as much as we know.

We've got project updates.

Yeah, I can read the agenda from our

The pipeline studies for the 229 studies, the survey ended yesterday.

I don't have the numbers.

I didn't look at them today to see where we're at with that, but hopefully we'll be consolidating those comments and start to read through those and develop

a summary of what the public had to say about these two locations.

And those are the Fifth Street Study.

and exit 118 study.

So hopefully we'll have some good feedback on those coming up.

We've sent around the framework documents for both those studies and we just about have all, I think we're waiting on the county to sign off on those two documents.

The other thing we're doing is we're developing the phase two scopes.

We hope to have the reports wrapped up later this month for the existing conditions once we get all the information gathered

So we can have those to review and publish.

So for the STAR Studies, that's the two pipeline studies.

The STAR Studies, we've got the 29 corridor north.

We had our

field visits.

We had our public survey.

We had over 2,000 responses to the public survey that's being compiled into a report.

They're also working on the existing conditions report.

And then we'll be meeting with the Stakeholders Working Group to review those documents once they're finalized or once they're ready.

We also have the, let's see, I think that's it for the city, the city project.

That one's the furthest one along.

We've gotten, they're finalizing the alternatives.

They're working on the alternatives so we can actually bring that back and schedule this second round of public feedback.

So that'll be coming up in the

probably later this summer once we get all that information.

For all these studies, we're trying to get everything wrapped up by November on what the preferred alternatives are, so hopefully we can work towards that.

The second phase, which is the developing the alternatives and doing the analysis on all the alternatives, that takes the longest.

of the process.

So hopefully we'll be, we're in that phase on the Ridge Water Street project, and we're hoping to get to that phase in the other studies moving forward in the next month or so.

Yeah, Chuck, I do have the numbers for the surveys.

We had 451 responses for US 29 at I-64 at 119 and 749 for 5th Street.

West Main, McIntire.

It was a very small intersection.

They've all been very good.

Oh, I will say the other thing we're going to be doing is we already talked to the county and they requested us a meeting with them.

So we're meeting with them next month.

I think we're trying to set something up to start the round seven discussions for SmartScale.

Alright, well, that was VDOT's update.

We'll be moving right along to ground table updates.

For City of Charlottesville, as I would say, we did a bunch of updates to City Council

transportation planning in the city is doing.

So I won't dive too much into details.

Actually, I'm going to hand it off to Tommy to brag about many things.

Bike month would be great.

I would love to have a follow-up bike month meeting so that we can especially work with ride share and learn more about what it was from your experience and have some ideas moving forward

business involvement.

And yeah, the eBike Subsidy Program is moving forward really well.

There is a new video on one of the eBike recipients on the eBike Seville YouTube channel.

So I encourage you to check that out, hear from people and how much it's impacting pimples, cummutes.

And we're gonna collect a lot more of those

from some of the letters as well.

I don't know.

Neighborhood walks are moving forward.

We had one.

We're gonna have another.

Join us.

Next month is Ridge Street, gonna be at Diggs Park and explore some of the quick build projects that are getting installed around the city.

So if you don't know, we have a new web page about quick builds, which has been probably brought up at the

City Council.

So it's on that presentation.

All right.

Let's see.

We're moving forward on our comprehensive plan.

Presented the transportation chapter two weeks ago or so.

Got some favorable responses.

And we're just looking to revise that.

Well, this was gone.

That's the sad news.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So following up on bike month, which was May, we did our second annual bike month business challenge went

which went very well.

We had 10 employers who participated, but which was down a couple from last year.

However, the results tripled in what we saw in the number of trips taken and VT reduced.

So we had 1,013 bike trips taken and two tons of greenhouse gas emissions reduced.

And a total mileage biked during that month of 2,799 miles.

while it was a slightly smaller employer group we had more individuals participating through their employers to reach that greater impact so we were very very pleased with that definitely look forward to continuing this I think we had two great years so we're looking to see as always how we can make it a more enticing challenge particularly through maybe expanding with some software upgrades with agile mile

handling more of the admin tasks so we can do more promotion of it.

But yeah, I think overall Bike Month was was an excellent event.

I know there are a lot of things that happened throughout the city and the county that a lot of people participated in.

And I think the collaboration that we've experienced the last few years as all of these entities have gotten together to promote this has been really exciting to be a part of.

In addition, we are, of course, wrapping up our fiscal year.

So we are looking to

continue our promotions this month and then starting in FY26.

One big change that we will be seeing is integrating our guaranteed ride home or emergency ride home program so that insurance policy that helps folks feel more comfortable taking alternative transportation will actually be going through our Agile Mile database.

So again, it's going to kind of streamline and take some of those administrative tasks to make it easier.

However, in the beginning, we'll probably see lots and lots and lots of communications so that we make sure that everyone understands what is happening with that change.

Great.

Well, one of the things that we are looking forward to potentially, it's not 100% set in stone.

be able to run the full challenge out of Agile Nile so they will do all of the aggregate data collection.

And they have a little bit, one of the things that we've struggled with is how do we keep it fair, given the size that employers can vary dramatically.

And so some of our calculations to do that are a little rudimentary, whereas they will be able to manage that in a bigger sense.

Yeah.

But we can definitely talk and look at

Any of that, that's strawberry issues.

I definitely want to make sure that that is working properly.

Yes, UVA Facilities Management.

They had three individual schools who just biked.

insane amount.

It was very impressive, especially given how rainy our bike month was.

I think a lot of people started out really strong, and then the rain deterred them, and I can't fault anybody for that.

But there were two gentlemen in particular that were just die hard with their trips.

But we were also really excited, too.

We actually had some new participants this year.

and we even had someone from Greene County participate.

So the event has never been limited to the city of Charlottesville or Albemarle County.

We just also recognize that folks' ability to fight

is somewhat limited based on infrastructure and safety.

So it was really exciting to see someone from outside of the MPO area, but still part of TJPEC participate as well.

Just two quick things.

to add in the updates.

But first is that the CTE meeting is next week, June 24th.

That's when the six-year improvement program will be adopted, meaning the SmartSCAN Round 6 projects will be officially approved.

And then the other thing that I'll just mention is that there's now a pedestrian bridge across 29, every single bridge.

That's going to be completed.

Thanks for getting in the new 25 sorts of assurances that'll help speed up the 53 or three process on our own.

Another thing is a we have a revised master agreement with the Commonwealth transportation funds, which are due to us no later than June 20 from the MPOs.

In the same vein of the upcoming CTP meeting, you can view our interactive SIP on our website.

So that'll be up through June 24th, the approval of the next SIP.

In that vein as well, we're also hosting two more NTI offerings.

That's the National Transit Institute.

So we have public involvement in transportation decision making coming up here in July 8th through the 10th.

So that's free for MPO and government registrants.

and that's 8.30 to 4.30 p.m.

here at Reynolds Community College and then we have State and Metropolitan Transportation Planning and that will be September 15th through 16th.

That's free as well to MPO and government staff and that'll be held at Lane RVAs headquarters here in Richmond.

So feel free to go ahead and register for those if you're interested.

We are moving through our RFP is out and so we are waiting to get bids back and then we'll be working with those for the next few months in an iterative process to develop routes and finalized stop selections and timings and all that.

All right.

Thank you, Mitch.

I don't believe we have anybody from FHWA or FTA on the line.

Right.

Just a couple, a few stories that were in the process of when the bus minutemens thing started to improve.

By the name of that is when you can go buy a Belmont, one park pretty fun, so you want to rent a brand new trailer on a bus, shelters, whatever the place.

that starts June 30th.

So we'll be seeing that way.

We'd like to find out what is the final slide.

Now first, there are two, three.

bus stops can be implemented.

So we start to see movement in the other side of the city.

The other thing is just really expensive community.

Community is very under-activated on a specific kind of cost.

Our initial customers do like 30,000, 40,000, 40,000, 30,000, 50,000 dollars per stop.

Even though it's the lowest cost in principle, there's a couple of them that we can

We're looking forward to the June 25th discovery from our formula board.

We have our, as you might know, we have scheduling software in that for full transition software as well as for a microtrans ADA pilot.

Talk more about that if we get that right.

We're right now in the middle of a survey.

I think most of you will have received it either from me or from Lucinda or somebody, Igor.

The promotional materials, we have flyers, we have QR codes.

So right now it's open until July 2nd and we have 551 entries.

And it's fascinating.

We'll be able to share those with you after we present it to the board.

Always have to go to our board first, and then we can start to roll them out in meetings like this if you want to hear about it.

RTAC maybe, whoever wants to have a presentation of the results, I can say they're fascinating.

So I'll leave it at that.

I'll leave you, wait your appetite.

We've been putting it out in paper and all the buses.

There's QR codes in all the buses.

We've contacted all media, not just here, but also in the surrounding counties.

We've done paid social.

Facebook is our biggest Instagram.

And we've been giving away gift cards of $25.

We have up to 24 of them.

I need to do the first round, probably do that tomorrow.

But it's not too late.

So, you know,

just if there's a place where you work, if there's a public area, transit center, I mean, I could give you copies or you can print it out.

Either way, if you want copies of the survey in paper format, we put paper in the bus.

And actually, once we put them in the buses, a lot of those riders start to use paper.

I was first thinking everyone's going to use QR codes.

But we'll be able to filter all that and figure this out.

So it's going to be interesting results.

So stay tuned.

You might have seen some little electric buses zooming around.

I don't know.

I don't know all of the details on that.

I understand we have several of those on our feet now and they are kind of scraps.

They're sort of being teetered.

They're kind of figuring out how best to

Pedestrian Tommy has always been asking me about the athletics promenade.

It's officially open.

That gives full off-road and not through parking lot access from our parks off of Cody Road.

The entrance is Fisher Road and Lochner Road, the track and Palm Park.

No relation.

all the way down to across the Goodman Bridge and on up to the grid.

So it's a really nice feature there, especially with all the other construction on the I-V.

Well, I was hoping someone would apply for this year's but there's only nine

I'm not seeing any members of the public who snuck in, so we don't have any matters from the public, so I will go ahead and adjourn this.