Rural Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting   5/19/2020

Did anyone have any other updates pertaining to SMART SCALE that they wanted to share?

Seeing none, I think we can jump into reviewing the Rural Work Program for FY21.

Great.

So yeah, this is kind of the guiding document for the work in the upcoming fiscal year pertaining to the Rural Transportation Work Program.

So this serves as a guide for staff to help guide their work.

So this draft has been updated, kind of highlights from the previous fiscal year.

Obviously, the Zion Crossroads Gateway Plan is still underway.

And then, yeah, we're hoping to continue on with that.

Obviously, coordination with SMART SCALE.

For this fiscal year, we have the same amount of funding that we did in the previous fiscal year, which is $72,500.

That's $58,000 in VDOT funding and then $14,500 in local match from the PDC.

So I just kind of wanted to go through just generally, and then we'll open it up for discussion after that.

But the first bucket, the program administration tasks, so looking at just ongoing coordination.

So that would include the monthly budget

Invoices that we send then going on to staffing the committees such as this one.

It's about $4,500 there.

Continuing to share information with agencies and the public and then continuing public involvement.

as well.

A lot of this is pretty kind of just baked into most of the work programs.

It's not anything that changes significantly year to year.

As you can see kind of going through the breakdown there, professional training, information technology.

Where we start getting into kind of the changes to past

Thanks.

So we've got currently in the local technical assistance task program there about $8,500 in assisting for local planning efforts.

So with this fiscal year, that would be to include assistance with Nelson County's

transportation chapter in the comprehensive plan update that they're partaking.

And then it was also brought up to look at identifying locations of electric vehicle charging needs and kind of creating a regional inventory of existing infrastructure within that.

And then again kind of

supporting the Existing Travel Demand Management, so RideShare program, any sort of preparation work for any VDOT safety or other grant applications there as well.

And then kind of the bulk of the work program itself, regional planning activities.

So what we try and do is each year to kind of spread around which locality is getting

kind of the focus of some of the planning work, staff work and then funding.

So this past year with the localities with Louisa and Fluvanna and the Zion Crossroads study and past years we've done work in Greene County with Ruckersville area plan.

So we try and make sure that everyone's kind of getting a rotational basis there.

I'll kind of get into that as we go on but

About $5,000 for the Rural Long-Range Plan, so that's just, you know, making sure that that is referenced and conducting annual reviews on that.

We did think that it could be helpful to create kind of an online dashboard for the existing Rural Long-Range Plan and making sure that the website is updated, because I think there's some outstanding things on there that need to be updated, so working to coordinate those efforts.

About $3,000 for V-Trans needs, $2,500 for attending VDOT meetings, things like that.

And then again, kind of the bulk, we budgeted in about $10,000 for conducting bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure assessments within the towns, because we historically haven't done a whole lot of work

with the towns themselves, so looking at the town of Louisa, Mineral, Scottsville, possibly Standardsville, to just try and kind of create an inventory of what the existing data is there, what kind of impediments may exist.

There are some opportunities I think that Jessica will talk about and touch on in agenda item five.

and maybe we can scope that out a little bit more and kind of make sure that there's not duplicative efforts and how we can coordinate better.

And then the final chunk in there would be a regional freight and traffic study.

So we've heard, you know, as we've talked with localities through various planning efforts and then also through this committee, kind of the need to develop a regional freight network report.

So looking at specifically US 29, I-64, 51 and 15,

I don't know if that's something that our office has done in the past.

We thought that that would be a good effort to try and undertake in this upcoming fiscal year.

So that's kind of, that's kind of the work program.

My comment is I'm excited to hear about the electronic charging.

I'm trying to figure out how many of those we have in the region.

And I'd be interested to also know what the building and zoning practices for those going forward.

I can help the sheets that Zion Crossroad has installed several charging stations.

So there's, there's my help for you.

Yeah.

And I think we'll have to work, especially as we start scoping these out, kind of what the data needs are and how we're going to best tackle some of these.

Cause it's you know, in the work program, it's still like preliminary and we haven't fully scoped those things out.

I do not.

I know that we're working on the 66 or 64 corridor study right now.

They should be having a public meeting here in the next couple of weeks.

So we should have, and that's got a freight component as part of it.

So we'll have a lot of information for 64 and 250, I think, as part of that corridor also.

There should be some more information coming out on that.

OK. Because, yeah, truck traffic is a huge issue in the rural areas for us and about the connection.

I know you're looking at saying regional there, but even people use 250 for those connections.

So with the tax relief program that the Board of Supervisors passed, the funding for our comp plan actually got nixed as part of that.

Okay, we can chat offline and see if there's, yeah, what the best approach for addressing that is.

Yeah, I'm on the line.

And there's also potentially an opportunity, Dylan, for us to just work with, you know, on a staff level as well to make some progress if that's of interest to you.

Oh, yeah, that's definitely what we've talked about.

So we're looking forward to maybe cutting costs down the line and being able to knock some of this stuff out.

Sure.

I just called the sheets at Zion Crossroad and they said that the chargers are so new they don't know whether they're fast chargers or not.

Well, thank goodness for this plan.

Anything else related to the work program?

Doesn't seem like it.

All right, I got lost on the screen.

Yes.

So I know, obviously we touched on this here in the review of the work program, but

Jessica Ballering, who is

The on staff here is gonna kind of talk through kind of what we were thinking.

There's been some discussions that her and Lucinda have had with Matt Lawless, the Town Administrator for Scottsville have had to kind of work through some things.

So I'm gonna turn it over to her to let her kind of go more in depth into that.

So no, it looks like I can only control your screen.

So if you wouldn't mind popping over to your email, I sent you the same pictures I would have shown from my computer anyway.

And while you're doing that, I'll talk at people.

So Nick asked me to talk about some work that I have been discussing, Lucinda and I have been discussing with Matt Lawless from Scottsville.

He came to us and said he had some ideas about

He had heard about opening up streets in order to make more space for people trying to engage in physical activity and also maybe making some space for restaurants to have outdoor seating during the current public health emergency.

So we talked to him a little bit more about that.

And let's see here.

Yeah, so basically, these are some ideas.

What I have here are some pictures of a project I had worked on pre-COVID-19 back in the city I used to live in in the Southwest.

This is called the Corbett Porch Project.

And what you're looking at is an intersection of two wide streets, not the street that has the paint on it and the

the tables and stuff but the other street that runs north-south that one was actually a quite busy street with lots of traffic and then the intersecting one the one that the

A little parklet has been put on was less busy.

So anyway, all I did was share these pictures with Matt and now I'm sharing them with you guys to show what is possible with just a little bit of paint.

There's also some flexible delineators put up to clarify the space and some planters to function to prevent vehicles from getting into the space.

This entire project was done I think with a couple thousand dollars from a grant that a local nonprofit received.

The tables and chairs were

purchased and put in there by a cafe that was in the space and they use it not exclusively for their own seating but for the entire area so you can you can go there and you can bring your food from the cafe to that seating area but you know even if you're not a customer you can still sit there and enjoy that public space.

So the reason I'm talking about this is just because

Your communities might be interested in doing something similar, particularly because of the public health emergency.

There's a lot of really good data out there suggesting that COVID-19 does not spread particularly well outside.

And so that's a great reason to encourage people to be outside.

We're also seeing the value of physical activity to keep people healthy.

And people are just bored and trying to engage in more physical activity.

in an affordable way outside.

So by taking parts of the street away from cars, maybe just using a little extra space, maybe taking away a few parking spaces, you can create some more comfortable physical activity space or even something like this, like a semi-permanent parklet or outdoor cafe seating.

And a bonus of that is that it can be really helpful for the restaurants.

So as we move into phase one and moving beyond that, there are still restrictions on how restaurants can apply or how restaurants can seat people.

Having this outdoor space dramatically increases their capacity.

It's a safe way to get more people going to the restaurant, benefiting that restaurant financially.

So this is a great way you can help the economics of your communities.

The only thing I don't have today that I wish I did, and if there is interest, I can pull this together and share it with you guys.

There's some pretty solid evidence out there of the economic benefits of little parklets like this.

pre-COVID-19, as well as now there's already some good research showing how it's helped people or how it's helped businesses reopen safely.

So if there's interest in that, I can pull together some of that info and share it with you guys.

Yeah.

So I mean, as we're kind of thinking of inventorying what's on the ground existing,

you know focusing on the towns because that's primarily where most of the infrastructure would be located.

Let me see if I can pull my screen back up.

Just seeing if there's opportunities there for you know as we're doing maybe that infrastructure assessment would there be tie-ins to kind of doing some of these demonstration projects

Yeah, I just kind of wanted to open that up to discussion and thought.

Because again, we're still preliminary in terms of scoping some of the tasks within the rural work programs.

So if there's some shifting that needs to happen, we can certainly look at that.

This is Chuck.

I just have a couple of questions.

Jessica, did you guys, putting planners on the edge of the road without any protection is going to, traffic engineering, the engineers are going to have to go ballistic over that.

How did you get around that aspect of it?

Yeah, I think we were given the go-ahead because the travel lanes still remained wide enough that this was essentially functioning just like a little extra sidewalk extension.

Well, I was just thinking there could be some other options other than planners that might work well.

Yeah, I know.

The delineators are fine, but I'm just thinking something they're not going to...

I foresee that

The engineers are going to have a lot of reluctance about putting a fixed object right on the edge of the road without any protection from it like a curve.

Yeah, it's definitely something to consider moving forward.

And I think, I mean, Chuck, you would know better than I do at this point.

But carefully considering what streets these kinds of things are implemented on with slower traffic speeds and lower traffic volumes, I would assume it's less of an issue.

Yep.

I mean, I like the idea, though.

I know the city of Charlottesville has done some similar type of

things, not necessarily where they put chairs and stuff out, but they did do bulb outs and some crosswalks and some other things as some demonstration type of intersection treatments, which were very successful.

This is Matt here in Scottsville.

A good recent news story on this is out of Warrenton where they

They made some patio extensions work on their main street.

So there's a good video segment that dropped over the weekend of that.

I'm working with VDOT on my land use permit application for these sidewalk bump outs.

And what they told me is that if I take up half a parking space, I'll probably be okay.

So I've still got a four foot clear zone, but I can build a four foot extension of the sidewalk and give a little bit more pedestrian space for physical distancing.

Thank you.

That was interesting.

Yeah.

Do you want me to call on the localities and then just do a quick updates and discussion?

Sure.

Go down the list.

Tom, start.

What's going on in Louisa County?

All right.

No, that's all right.

So we have four public hearings that are kind of in limbo until we can get people back in a room.

I got three solar projects and one wedding venue.

Things are kind of, we're entering the busy season.

So as a department for community development, it's very busy.

Yeah, good afternoon.

This is Douglas.

We have five solar projects with Sun Tribe Solar at each of our schools.

So we're on project two right now, working with them on that at the Fluvanna Middle School.

Carriesburg Elementary is under construction.

You also, ironically, started working yesterday with our ammo gelato cafe at Jefferson Center for some outdoor seating that's in the front of the building in the parking lot away from any public VDOT right away.

So we're working with them for opening in June for outdoor patio seating.

It's the same restaurant owner of Sal's Italian and Blue 53 Sports Bar in the same development.

This is his third restaurant and hoping to work with the management center from Charlottesville on that.

We started that actually yesterday afternoon.

And basically looking forward to a lot of the items that we talked about earlier on the rural work program.

Well, you got my big update with comp plan funding.

So just working through that, our planning commission hasn't met since January.

So we're looking into how we could potentially meet in June because we also have four public hearing applications for a cell phone tower, a campground, a sawmill, and an artist community.

So quite a bit of uses there, but

That's what's going on with that.

And then I just talked to the Parks and Recreation Director today and she said that the Crozet Tunnel is still hopefully planning on opening in July.

I know they've been working on some signage and working with the contractor on some of that final touches there.

So hopefully that will still open in July.

We have a lot of reviews coming in, site plans, and we've been going to the board every other week in public hearings and working on our secondary six-year plan.

I'll be doing that public hearing tomorrow night.

And then there's just a lot of stuff that falls in between the cracks, you know, dealing with some, you know, again, truck traffic scenarios.

We're going to the boarding.

I think that's, Kevin's doing that.

So I forget what that's on.

Yeah.

Great.

Great.

Yeah, we're doing SMART SCALE pretty much all the time.

Got a couple of studies going on.

Coordinating the Zion study with Louisa and Fluvanna.

Like I said, SMART SCALE studies.

I think what else is going on in the rural areas.

There's a study, oh, Shannon Hills, TIA, we're reviewing that.

That's off of 605 Interchange in Louisa.

That one had a scoping meeting a couple weeks ago, and we're waiting on a study for that one.

But they're looking at a business park off that interchange.

That'll be pretty good.

And like I said, that's pretty much it.

We're trying to keep the Zion's Quarter Study moving forward.

trying to pull together mostly the economic development stuff so that we can generate what the traffic, look at the traffic, future traffic without any improvements.

And so I need to get that information pulled together.

I'm hoping that I can get the stuff from Louisa pretty quickly so we can keep that moving forward.

Good afternoon, Nick.

Sorry about that earlier.

I switched over to my phone.

No, just SMART SCALE, kind of like what Chuck is going through.

We have three apps in for Nelson right now and a review, validation, and screening on those.

Other than that, we have LRZP updates and Dan Blount-Lunchberg that we're keeping very busy.

Thank you.

PDC-wise, again, kind of the big focus, as with most everyone, has been SMART SCALE and its coordination efforts.

And then continuing to work on the FLAM and the lease design crossroads studies.

Unless Sandy, Lucinda, or Jessica have anything else they want to add to that?

Which doesn't seem like they do.

I mean, we have Matt from the town of Scottsville.

I guess I was out of order on the VDOT application, so sorry about that one, but that's fun.

And Planning Commission resumes after a couple of months off.

Chuck, are you waiting for anything from Louisa or anything you're working on?

Well, I wanted to talk to you guys about economic development stuff for the corridor.

Jeff was putting together that spreadsheet material.

And so we can actually forecast the future volumes.

OK.

So I mean, I can touch base with you after this.

OK.

I have a conference call out, too, with Jeff on it, I think.

So I'll bring some of the stuff up.

I have a question for Albemarle.

So y'all are having public meetings like this?

Everything's virtual.

Our public hearings tomorrow night, I mean it's a board meeting.

Does the majority of your county have internet?

What's that?

Does the majority of your county have internet?

They have a full policy out for this.

I think they are encouraging to work from home in this phase where we're in, but if we have the necessity or we don't have the means to, I didn't go down that road, but I'm sure that they have the capabilities to go in.

I know more directors and supervisors have been going in, but

keeping the standards.

But I know some people that some planners that had public meetings that went into the office into their own office for internet purposes and stuff to handle it.

But I had a few meetings that I've had.

Yeah, I just was able to do it from home.

The other thing I'd add is that our school system actually put out, the only way I can describe it is a trailer with a wooden box on it and we have like a Verizon MiFi in it, it's solar powered.

So we've put several of those throughout the county to help the students do homework or as anybody wants to use them.

So we just rolled that out.

But that's all I have.

Does anybody else want to add to the meeting?

Otherwise, we'll motion to close it.

All right.

I think somebody wanted some of us to stay on the meeting afterwards.

Yeah, that's Douglas here in Fluvanna.

Sure.

Yeah, I'll keep the meeting running.

I'll just leave.

And then the rest of us that are not on that discussion, just feel free to leave once we adjourn this meeting officially.

It'll be up.

I will say, I think, just be cognizant.

I think 2 o'clock, Chip has a meeting that he needs to jump on here for.

I motion to adjourn the meeting then.

Second.

Thank you everybody.

I don't think it's Nick.

It's Douglas, yeah.

Yeah, we've had a new development occur on the 250 corridor for us for water line extension that we're going to be doing.

That's beyond the scope of the current Dewberry project.

The folks at DEQ have provided us with a million dollars for a water line extension and we're doing a half a million match or so to speak match what's going on in a nutshell.

There are six homes on the north side of 250 heading towards Albemarle.

that have been petroleum contaminated and they are offering up this option and we got it last week and that will be occurring probably starting in July.

So that's basically going from memory lane on 250 to the Beaver Dam market just almost to Fieldstone area.

So what we want to do is try to work

Of course, obviously in the Zion Crossroads with Louisa, but then we also want to do the comp plan process this summer is start working with Albemarle as well on the 250 corridor.

And I think Dan, earlier this fall, you talked about

that you had some type of gateway planning going on.

And I don't know if that involved out that far out here to the 250 gateway or what have you.

So I'm just, I've looked at Tom's plan and the mixed use corridor area on the east side of 250 going towards Butchland.

So I've seen the 2040 plan for Louisa.

I'm just trying to figure out if you could let us know kind of what's going on

Okay, I want to make sure I answer your question.

But the first, what you mentioned about last fall was more of with Chuck and about the functional classification of Route 250.

And that's more of a VDOT federal standard thing.

And that kind of fell on the back burner with everything that happened.

It hasn't been brought up on my radar within a few months, but that's something that's

There's segments in Albemarle County that we're going to be taking to the board to see if they support applying to VDOT, which is essentially VDOT if it falls within the MPO or the PDC, either one has to approve, agree.

And then those get moved on to federal highways for them to evaluate if this road does meet a different functional class and stuff.

We haven't even gone to the board with that.

This discussion was mostly this past fall, winter, but Route 250 going into which one's first, Louisa, then Fluvanna?

Yeah, 250 East was on the radar for us because it was a

Minor arterial I believe up to one point like I think Black Cat Road or something and then downgraded and so we were thinking of talking with Chuck about seeing if it could stay a minor arterial all the way you know and see if we're gonna do it to the end of our county line do we have support with Fluvanna and Louisa so that's really that discussion has not been

brought up but we do want to see if we could at least get that support.

When it comes to comp plan and I'll just say that is kind of out of my area.

I'd rather you, all I know is that anything that's not in our urban urban areas for development areas right which is it's all it's all rural area basically or it has a

It's zoning district that some like some small commercial uses or something, but I really don't go too in depth with that in my position.

Yeah, that'd be good.

If you just send me an email,

Okay.

Okay.

That's good.

That's really all I needed today guys.

Thanks for the extra.

I'll send that.

And like I said, one other thing I didn't mention with the whole group, but we do have a UVA grad student who's going to be working with us this summer starting June 1 on economic development and planning.

So actually kind of cool.

He's a member of the UVA basketball team.

So it was a little bonus we found out.

But no.

Well, I'll get some information out to you probably early next week after the holiday holiday.

But thanks, guys.

I'm going to jump off of here before Chip beats these in about 15 minutes.

Thanks, guys.

Have a good day.

Appreciate it.

Take care.