Rural Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting   11/15/2022

Well, that was my request of changes and that was the request of changes.

I move to approve the minutes.

Second?

Second.

All right.

All right, good afternoon, everybody.

So today I'm going to talk about the Lynchburg Regional Conductivity Study.

This is something Lucinda kind of fell in line with.

I believe this involved Virginia PDC website.

And I found a very interesting document.

And I'm going to go into this a little bit and kind of be what the goals were, what the strategies were, and what the end product was, and what has kind of been accomplished since.

So we're here by VDOT and WIPE in 2016.

This was really a first of its kind.

There really have not been any studies quite like this at this point.

I think we've had a lot more studies like this or have been like this.

Just kind of keep in mind the division that WIPE has for regional planning and statewide planning.

But at the time, this was a very unique process.

I had a real goal to kind of coordinate with all the local economic development people, all the planners, transportation officials, what we call LR tag, which is the Lynchburg Regional Advocacy Group for Transportation.

So we had a lot of different organizations, agencies, and stakeholders that were kind of involved in the creation of this plan.

So we're going to talk a little bit about what connectivity means in the context of this study.

Basically, it's going to be looking at the movement of people and the movement of goods and the movement of information.

So those are kind of the three key items that this study looked at.

Basically looking at movement of people, so that's going to be connectivity for the precondition of quality of life and economic opportunity.

Goal focusing on passenger connectivity is to understand and provide the needs

Secondly, looking at the movement of goods.

So freight connectivity, a very important component of this really had not been looked at at a regional level until the study came around.

So that was a very important thing that was looked at.

And finally looking at broadband in the area, looking at where there are gaps kind of, especially in rural areas and then in the urban areas where maybe that could be expanded

out a little bit where there's some regional needs.

So the goal of this whole thing was to strengthen the regional economy and to assess the current role of that connectivity in supporting the economy and identify opportunities for connectivity improvement.

Phase one of this was basically a baseline assessment

and also an interview with the stakeholders answering questions on transportation, workforce development, and information infrastructure and connectivity issues in the area.

In part two or phase two with strategies for improvement, outline strategies that can address the labor market access, inter-regional connectivity, and connectivity between Lynchburg and markets of Delaware.

So this really represents a new statewide focus on linkages between regional economies and transportation, which really fed into V-trans.

And you'll see there are a lot of linkages between this and V-trans.

This kind of came out in an earlier iteration of V-trans that there was a lot of improvements that were made in V-trans as a result of this study as well in refinement to some of the items in V-trans.

and then developed at the same time as the SEDS was developed for the region so there was a lot of information sharing going on and they kind of benefited from each other being developed at the same time.

So next up basically we had several different project elements.

I'm not really going to go into these in a whole lot of detail but I'll say that we had interviews with various stakeholders that

over each one of these project developments.

The interview is really focused on operational and connectivity conditions and then targeting the emerging issues in the area.

Interviews really eliminated the non-transportation connectivity in the area, such as communications, infrastructure, and social and institutional connections that are really not apparent in qualitative or quantitative data.

So what are some of the data sources that we use for quantitative analysis?

Basically we use the U.S. Census, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and then all kinds of private sources such as Brookings Institute and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Transportation data came from VDOT, USDOT, train search, credit flow data, and then as well as from the NPO and PDC as well.

Then we looked at some academic journals as well to get a lot of the data, and then we did a peer region comparison.

So basically selected three MSAs of similar size that were kind of university cities as well, or had a similar demographic in terms of like

Age, and kind of like demographic cohorts.

So we looked at College Station, Texas, Forsyth, California, and Wilmington, North Carolina.

And populations were compared by cost of doing business, connectivity, market access, human capital, and the quality of life.

So here's just some of the outreach on the different agencies that were involved in this transit, airports,

You know, the Visitor's Bureau and convention and all that.

The Bunchburg Regional Business Alliance was heavily involved in this.

That was the Central Virginia PCC, which was then known as Regent 2000.

So strategies and actions fell into three themes.

Basically, we had labor market and inter-regional connectivity, inter-regional connectivity and digital connectivity.

So strategies and actions were kind of developed by examining peer regions and strategies that have been successful elsewhere in the U.S. and what might be able to be replicated in the area.

They also go wherever possible on existing efforts in the Lynchburg region.

Each class of strategies is evaluated from an economic perspective.

This evaluation paints a picture of what is at stake for the region and economic service.

So for the labor market and interregional connectivity addresses the quality of the internal travel kind of like connections and connectivity within the Lynchburg area and its ability to attract quality labor and employers seeking that talent.

So inter-regional connectivity, looking at strategies that are presented for the following areas, such as intercity rail, looking at intercity bus, airport developments, key highways and access on those highways, as well between urbanized areas and rural areas.

And many of these strategies will depend on partnerships as well.

So basically it's important

so that everybody is communicating with each other and responding effectively to changes.

And then also digital connectivity.

So there was a pretty clear strategy here and that was to set a minimum target speed of 25 Mbps download for in the 30 for Mbps upload for broadband coverage.

throughout the region as recommended by Federal Communications Commission.

So yeah, there were several actions that were kind of taken for each one of these three strategies, placemaking, local bottlenecks, transit command management, intercity passenger rail and so on.

So we're going to be going through each one of these in a little bit more detail.

So looking at labor market and inter-regional connectivity, there were three strategies, including place-making, local bottlenecks, and transit.

So really some of the issues that kind of came out as a result of this analysis of the area is that relative to the other three regions, Lynchburg is characterized by a limited labor market size such as measure by the total population accessible would have been a 40-minute drive in the urban core.

But it was found that it's because the population is largely dispersed within the MSA.

So overall there's about 80,000 in the city and about 260,000 in the metro, about 124,000 in the urban area.

So only about half of the metro is urban and then nearly a third of the metro is the city.

And then basically skills gap, particularly in the trades and STEM areas.

So this was also a negative for the area.

This was related to labor market size, the quality of local labor force.

So this was kind of measured by the percentage of people with higher degrees and in certain specialized fields.

And it was found that much further was kind of the lower end of the four different areas, including the three pure areas.

So 32% had a higher degree.

That's in an associate's or higher.

So basically that was kind of like, I think there was one that was just beneath that.

It was Merced, California products taken.

And then anticipated retire, retirements and struggles to recruit young professionals.

So when this study was done, they looked at older data.

It was looking at 1998 to 2013 data as part of the

It was found that over that period that the number of people between 18 and 34 shrink by about 0.9%.

Cooperatively shorted and uncongested commutes, so that's one area where we kind of excel at.

For me, I ride a bike to work and it takes me 16 minutes.

So the average commute is 22.9 minutes, which is less than the national commute of about 26 minutes.

So really not a whole lot of congestion issues except for like peak hours on a couple of different facilities like Hamler's Mountain, Portsmouth, and traffic affiliated with the universities as well.

So downtown Pittsburgh is an emerging but still limited regional urban core.

I live downtown.

There's been a lot of growth down there.

There's been about a thousand units built over the past 10 years through adaptive reuse mainly.

A big part of that was they eliminated parking minimums in 2014, so that could allow for a whole lot of construction and redevelopment of older buildings without having to add new parking.

So there's been a lot of growth, but still a lot of challenges down there to really create a vibrant and engaging downtown.

It's still a relatively remote downtown.

It's not really at the center of the city.

It's on the edge, the northern edge of the city.

That's a little bit further away than say Charlottesville where it's right at the center and easily accessible for all corners of the city.

So limitations in transit, accessibility service, so really at present only about 1.4% of people in the great metro use transit to get around.

It's predominantly within the city of Lynchburg.

There's one line that goes up to Madison Heights, but it's very limiting currently

There is a lot of progress that needs to be there and that was kind of cited by Lynchburg leaders as an area of improvement.

Stronger higher education presence, so there are six institutions of higher learning, either which are in the city, one is in Amherst, that kind of constitute about a third of the population are students.

So that's kind of the area.

And then we're seeing a lot of growth, so pretty much all of the colleges

An area of growth that we're seeing and there's opportunity there to kind of bolster the region if we could kind of retain a lot of that talent instead of it leaving.

So there's going to be a belief the region provides great value given the quality of schools and healthcare and the lower cost of congestion or the lower cost of living and low levels of congestion.

As well as the natural environment, so access to James River and Appalachian Trail and all the natural amenities in the area is kind of seen as a big plus.

All right, so placemaking, this has become a very important thing.

I serve on the Placemaking Committee, which is a part of the Downtown Pittsburgh Association, and that's really become a huge focus of the Downtown Association.

We've done numerous projects such as the Art Alley and some parklets in the downtown.

So that has kind of like built up the perception of a pleasing place where people want to be.

And it's going to help attract people to downtown Lynchburg, which was the fastest growing downtown statewide from 2020

Growing by about 125%.

So that is kind of like a huge thing for people, young people especially, who live in these walkable, nice areas that have a lot of amenities and kind of provide services without having to drive too far.

So as a part of this basically continued efforts to build a perfect environment that's livable and that kills the younger workers, focused on developing a community that is connected by the quality of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, work to strengthen downtown Lynchburg as an asset for the inspired region, and invest in the arts, education, and additionally support placement

We have a pretty significant screescaping and place-making project going in in Appomattox that was funded through Scarnsdale.

So they're getting ready for construction on that instead of having to share this path.

There's no connect kind of like the various activity centers and the school work we see in there.

So it'll kind of hopefully bolster the walkability and attractiveness for people to visit and live there.

Additionally, support placemaking enhancements.

Pursue implementation of complete streets.

Better streets of the city of Lynchburg is adopted a better streets policy and then on top of that the Central Virginia TPA has also adopted placemaking as a weighted measure with

So, the Region 2000 Bicycle Plan defines a set of improvements for priority corridors that kind of serve as major destinations already in use throughout the region.

We've done a lot of share the road and lights on road signage throughout the region, but a lot of work needs to be done to kind of improve those borders for bicyclists as well, such as re-striping and paving of shoulders.

We did a road diet in the town of Amherst that went from a three-lane facility to a two-lane facility taking out a two-way left turn lane and then placing a six-foot bike lane on either side resulted in a 50% reduction in crashes for automobile crashes.

So that was a huge benefit.

But we've started to see breweries and even like a little whiskey bar go in over there.

So there's kind of

I'd like to believe it helps accelerate a lot of that economic development.

So yeah, basically wayfinding is another important thing.

The TPO has their own wayfinding plan to kind of, you know, and access the downtown Lynchburg Association.

So there have been a whole lot of improvements to kind of

consolidate and, you know, bring together wayfinding across the board and improve it.

So the idea of complete streets and developed streets that are welcoming state and functional for all types of users has been very important for the region.

All right, learning from here regions.

So cities was drawn to this goal and perceived connections between the urban core and college campuses

places, including Walkability, sidewalk and mid-east, etc.

But there isn't much perfect physical

It's downtown, which limits the city's ability to generate industry and business activities.

So these kind of show the distances and miles from all of the universities in the area.

These top lines are in the city, and then this one is in Emmerts.

Compared to some of the pure cities, you know, we're seeing that these are, some of them are shorter distances, especially Texas State and then it's basically right in downtown.

So really we're going to be looking on how we can improve connections between the downtown and commercial corridors to the universities without the need to have to drive to a lot of these destinations.

So for students, that's going to be hugely important.

In a physical term, this plan kind of calls for a transit spine that will help spur development of research and development space within walking distance to the university, connecting to the urban core,

and then additionally subsidizing bus routes so that students pay a small amount or nothing to kind of get around by transit to downtown.

So potential economic gains like placemaking, so these have real economic implications for regional competitiveness.

Research often shows that vibrant urban areas attract and retain well-educated workers who cooperate to reach into overall educational attainment, which is a strong predictor for future employment growth.

Walkability and transit accessibility can increase the property values in an area and increase flood traffic and street level business

So yeah basically with this I know there have been a lot of improvement.

I actually have a place banking presentation I can send you guys that kind of show through the literature some of these major economic benefits and as I mentioned the central Virginia TPOs adopted this into their economic development scoring projects so it's becoming a pretty big focus for the city and region.

All right so

Looking at local bottlenecks, focus on enhancing the outstanding reliability of the network in the region, invest strategically to preserve performance on the region's broad network and to continue to support quality and inter-regional travel.

So this one here basically

Dean.

I'm just going to run through them really quick.

This one was already funded at the time of the plan.

This one has since been funded, the Kimmler's Mount Road interchange has been funded basically right at the expressway, so that is coming, but the new chairman's staff for pedestrians connecting over to Liberty University, the South Amherst Highway.

We have currently

Yeah, four applications and four stealth cameras, I would say.

And then we have a couple of

All right, so potential economic gains.

Basically, we are looking

to short-term impacts associated with infrastructure investment.

These are some of the cumulative benefits under all of these impacts.

I know Sandy had brought up looking at possible, you know, what are some of the benefits of these improvements that we're doing in terms of added value for business sales and tax revenue.

So yeah, there was a lot of impacts that kind of come across from these operational improvements as well.

Alright, so transit and transportation demand management.

Building is supporting demand for transit alternatives by encouraging collaboration, communication, problem solving between major employers, regional commuters, and transit operators.

Continue to implement or consider implementation of activity-based commuter rewards programs.

We have ride solutions and

that is kind of operated by Central Virginia PPC.

And so they do a good job with a lot of computer-based rewards programs.

Every year they have like buy to work month and you can build up rewards as you report your miles that you've done.

And so we have a lot of incentives that are now coming into play that kind of came as a result of this study.

Work with GLTC for identifying major regional employers

So we have a new director at GLTC who's really focused on kind of building this effort as well as micro transit in the region and kind of identify where employers are and how we can give workers to the employers without everybody having to go to the transfer station and transfer from there.

So kind of looking at

These regional employment centers and how we can kind of create new transit lines from those centers.

It's been kind of a big focus of the TDM as well as the current director in there.

So as well as creating basically fair programs that you can do through your phone.

Currently you have to pay cash, but I think that's going to be changing here.

promote statewide rural sampling efforts.

This was the focus of the Central Virginia DC up until recently but they've been short-staffed over there so they'll probably pick this up once they hire or hold the position for the transportation planning program director.

So that's out there if anybody that they

So here are just some of the peer-to-peer efforts and peer experience from around the state and the region.

DRBT has a lot of great stuff going on right now.

The Lynchburg downtown circulator unfortunately does trial runs, so it's no longer an operation, but at the time it was.

So here's just some of the regional stuff going on.

Alright, so potential economic gains.

A 2014 survey conducted from the Rockefeller Foundation.

that 80% of millennials say it's important to have a wider range of options, even if they've already used those options.

It's kind of like for them, it's important that they're at least there.

And if they so choose to, it's available.

So for transit and biking and walking, so just keep it and have those around.

This is important for perception of a great place to live.

Transit can also play a role in facilitating emissions spatial clustering.

of the type of preferred knowledge economy industries that places flicking of humor, as well as starlets.

Transit provides access to labor for major industries within the Lynchburg Regional Economy.

40% of current transit commuters in the region work in education,

So now we're getting into inter-regional connectivity and broadband connectivity.

Inter-regional connectivity strategies are presented at intercity passenger rail, air service, access key highways, and cargo oriented developments.

Many of these strategies will depend on partnerships between different public sector organizations in Lynchburg and the surrounding region.

And between the region and private sector, or between the region and other state-level projects.

So some of the things that are identified here as Amtrak service, particularly to DC.

So as you guys are aware, the Amtrak is, there is now

to be able to do that in a trip down there.

And then we have the additional service that came from the Roanoke Extension.

And now we're going to be extending it down to the New River Valley.

Hopefully that'll start soon.

So we have a lot of, you know, great growth in that area.

In Virginia for the past six months has been setting record ridership on Amtrak.

We're definitely seeing the benefit of these investments here.

And then air service connectivity is to maintain the current service at Williamsburg Regional Airport and then enhanced service and efforts to expand capacity and service reliability and expand commercial services through new airports.

Currently all flights go to Charlotte.

So they've been looking for many years to expand it

to give basically people more options for traveling.

So like mid-air state, this is kind of a big one.

There's often this is a perception issue that's either real or perceived.

I'll say more often it's a perceived issue.

But for a lot of companies, it's kind of almost a checkbox for them that they have to have interstate access.

This is something we're not only seeing in Lynchburg, but also in Danville, but the very old mega site with companies choosing to go elsewhere because infrastructure cannot accommodate a lot of the traffic that's going to be generated from these employers moving in.

Even though it should, there's often a perception that it won't because it's not a designated interstate.

So that's been a thing we've been fighting as well in kind of enhancing the existing corridors that we have through there, including US 29, 460, and 501.

So VDOT has been focusing on those roadways and improving operations for liability for commuters and for cross-regional travel through those areas.

So yeah, for the stakeholders, that perception of remoteness

It's really been a big issue.

Lynchburg's lack of an interstate can be perceived as a hindrance in what makes the region feel remote.

But then we have convergence of freight rail lines with no major constraints or bottlenecks there.

Lynchburg lies at the crossroads of two major rail lines, including Norfolk Southern and the CSX.

Interval traffic does pass through Lynchburg, but actually most of the cargo

originates from Lynchburg, destined for areas outside of Lynchburg.

So they kind of flipped it in a little split and it looked like most of the great traffic is actually coming out of Lynchburg or other markets.

So we do produce a lot of bulk commodities that are kind of sent to surrounding areas, mainly in the Norfolk it looks like.

So limited broadband in rural areas, according to

The 25 megabytes per segment download speed benchmark established by the Federal Communications Commission.

Urban areas within the Lynchburg have relatively high speeds while rural areas in Bedford, Amherst, Appomattox, and Campbell have lower no reported broadband coverage.

So quality broadband connectivity contributes to increased productivity and competitiveness.

So kind of getting better broadband coverage in rural areas is been a big

When the plan was developed, the area was already engaged in regional discussions focused on rural broadband initiatives and limitations.

Less attention has been given to the value of existing fiber optic assets in the region, even though Lynchburg region has some of the highest speeds than the urban or in the state.

So, intercity passenger rail, enhancing the Lynchburg's role as a major rail hub in the area, and to continue to build off the demonstrated success of Amtrak.

I believe that the Amtrak line which we rode, as you see, is one of the three in the country that are profit from ticket revenue.

So that's been important to, from the statewide perspective, as well as the regional perspective, to kind of continue the development of that service.

Sorry.

Existing efforts in the region, including advertisements placed on the city of Lynchburg in the magazines.

So there's been a lot of marketing on the website as well.

But really increasing speeds has been kind of like the big focus.

A lot of people complain about the low speeds of 50 to 50

So I focus the same on kind of improving the speed to spin a big thing and then also train service in North Carolina, currently the president goes to Charlotte.

It's pretty bad hours.

I've taken it a few times.

So that's kind of another thing.

There have been case studies also where Maine, for example, has done a pretty cool use to train a main package for customers from Boston.

to kind of come down in this area based on the local amenities there.

All right, economic gains, economic logic for focusing on rail access.

First, rail is valuable in regional tourism, particularly to the Northern Virginia and Northeast border markets.

For students who don't have cars as well, that's supported.

Secondly, air traffic services already offer convenient, reliable,

to enable reliable one-day return travel and increased life-first economic integration with other major East Coast economies.

I know tomorrow we have a TBRAC Transportation Research Council meeting at BPA.

I'll be taking the train up to that.

So I'm glad to have this available service for just being able to pop up for a day for a meeting has been really, really awesome.

So consolidated, this is basically looking at air service development.

The strategy here is to approach a set forward for Lynchburg Regional Airport's air service development strategy plan.

Because airlines respond to demonstrated local demand, an important first step is always bolstering the markets.

The airport itself is engaged with the Check Lynchburg First campaign and its website, and only Lynchburg Regional Airport agrees.

So basically they have quite a few marketing strategies out there to kind of serve to appeal to the region and travel to.

So current efforts in the governor's budget and a conversation about service pension comes with a conversion about start-up incentives.

So advocates for services dollars, $50 million

And so it's down for marketing in 2011.

Compared to the pure city of College Station, how much has been spent for that?

Communicating with airlines.

So basically coordinating between the airlines and the local business leaders as well.

So this has been going on research, online learning, and international students.

So basically, hand-in-hand conversations about service expansion comes in conversation about startup incentives.

Incidents are viewed by those in the industry as a necessary part of doing business.

So potential economic gains, basically on airport activity, these are some of the jobs that are contributed to these impact sources and the impacts of visitors and total regional impacts in terms of jobs.

So arriving visitors support local businesses by spending

And then as global trade is expanded and the globalization of supply chains is taking place, there is increasing evidence that connectivity for principally air transport network can be an advantage.

It provides for businesses a significant asset that enhances productivity and improves the performance of the economy.

All right.

Focus on maintaining goods access in the interstate system is key.

One key corridor is that connect the Lynchburg region to the national and international markets, including engagement with connectivity issues outside the Lynchburg region that affect the region's interstate access.

Invest in key inter-regional corridors to protect and improve so we have our arterial management plans and our reliability plans on the arterial network so those are important as well to improve access to external markets and the interstate system and important intermodal port facilities.

Work with partners in the surrounding regions to advance improvements that affect much of its connectivity to outside markets.

The Commonwealth's Protect Virginia's Arterial Investment Programs was established to support economic development and private providing of the efficient movement of key polling goods.

So looking at some of these projects, I'm going to run through the 501-221 split-payer projects that have been funded.

Word square and access management to a three basis of that have been funded or based historically being applied for in SPARSCALE.

and the Lynchburg Expressway to Cameron's Mountain Road improves the interchange so this one has been funded as well and then US-501 we've been doing improvements along this work specifically at Lakeside we just got done doing a dual lane round out over there so we've been definitely focusing on all of these

All right, so potential economic gains, construction impacts are short term.

Impacts are associated with spending on materials and labor in the course of project construction.

Operational impacts are associated with reductions in vehicle operating costs, reduced travel time, and decreased congestion.

Labor market impacts are associated with improved business productivity due to the ability to access a wider workload and are qualified.

cargo-oriented development, enhanced local readiness to respond to freight rail-oriented development opportunities, and the linch target served by two Class 1 railroads throughout the region.

This is kind of a map of where those railroads are that crisscross throughout the region and maintain ongoing lines of communication between Class 1 railroads and region route Commonwealth Transportation Board rail subcommittee.

and Bill Awareness of the Virginia Rail Industrial Access Program as well.

So some of the best practices that we're seeing from this is focused on industrial development efforts on sites that are kind of already agglomerated the reg of the rail lines that pass through the region.

So there are two factors that make incremental rail oriented development easier than development on Greenville sites.

First, it is easy

And then second, this approach recognizes the underlying market economics that railroads are concerned with.

So potential economic gains, realization of economic gains from current over and ended on them will depend on interest from the private sector.

In addition, their economic benefits that research shows are generated from spatial clustering in the area, especially with regards to freight and logistical activities.

Clustering tends to support productivity gains from knowledge spillovers and through the development of specialized labor pool.

And finally, the clustering of rail-oriented businesses can create advantages by taxing federal service where roads can more concentrated demand.

Broadband, so pursue a minimum speed of 25 megabytes per second, download speeds, so this is kind of the core focus of this, and then also to capitalize on the existing fiber optic assets as well.

Lynchburg is served by existing fiber optics, by an existing fiber optic network that could be further marketed as an economic development asset.

So this is something I've definitely brought up before with SMART SCALE I think would be a good thing to look at in the future for scoring is the assets of a region including broadband and tourism and all of these different things that are kind of not as tangible as what's currently utilized in there but are equally important.

So this is going to be something I think that will be very important moving forward.

So there are several places that Pittsburgh can turn to support for expanding broadband.

Virginia's office that telework permission and broadband assistance provides information to individuals and businesses.

Communities across Virginia have adopted a variety of approaches to

including the Rhode Island Valley, has established in 2013 a broadband study and set of tasks to be accomplished as well.

And then in the region of 2007, this process includes suggested investigation for three public harlots, internet and parks, downtown and internet centers.

Broadband access integrates underserved and rural communities and enwires social and economic

It enables companies to better compete in a highly connected economy.

As technology advances, the importance of nice big broadbands will only increase.

So here are just some of the implementation strategies and actions control to enhance the connectivity in the region.

They've developed all these fun little one-pagers as you can see in the reports later on.

So a series of meetings were held to present the draft findings at the local and regional level to begin discussing potential groups that can take ownership of the strategy areas.

So this was kind of broken up into different groups, such as Lynchburg Transit Company, Central Virginia, PDC, and MPO, Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance.

So it's kind of various groups that are

Working together to come up with the best plan of action and execute these strategies.

As a result of these discussions, champions were kind of identified throughout that.

And then there's a continued rollout of study findings and recommendations through presentations such as this one.

Put links to the study reports on agency websites.

and the long-term implementation of recommendations in the study will rely heavily on continued discussions.

You know, we have LR tag, which is very prevalent in those discussions and executing strategies from this plan.

So those discussions are ongoing and will continue to really build the success of the region and build greater connectivity throughout the region as well.

Heat takeaways of all of this is the region's road network provides reliable connections within the region and to external markets.

The airport displays limitations and the number of connections actually grown in ridership over the past few years and maintained its existing service.

So definitely looking at expansion moving forward is going to be a big priority for them.

This study highlights opportunities for a balanced set of strategies across multiple areas and also outlines a set of 23 strategies organized into three different themes that were spoken about earlier.

Another theme emerging from this study is the communication and collaboration based on shared objectives.

Connectivity is inherently multi-dimensional, so it's one different layers on this, including many different factors across the public and private sector.

So really important to keep everybody connected and communicating in order to execute the strategies of this project.

More over the ability to accurately and fully communicate about existing unique assets in the region.

A key focus of the study depends on knowledge sharing across the broad spectrum of the stakeholders.

So making sure people are sharing information and keeping each other organized.

Thank you.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

So, you know, this, I'll have to go back and look, this was a very first, this is pretty old, it goes back to 2016, so I'm not sure if the program still exists, but there might be something through the cap program where you can look at something like this.

I was the project manager for the study and part of the premise behind it was to show the economic viability of transportation projects and tying it back to the region to support its growth.

A lot of the things that occurred out of this was partnerships between Liberty University, the airport,

you know multiple different CVCC creating CDL training programs you know to meet a lot of the points that were brought out as part of the study so this particular study one of the things that Office of Entomology Planning is looking and what one of the thing one of their goals back then was to do these more

Centralized studies to support V-trans.

So to really put a focus in on a local jurisdiction in order to give it its own flavor within the V-trans product.

So some of the outcomes will be very specific to the region and can still be supported by V-trans with that.

And then the hopes of it is that like

David was saying it's a living document.

So even though the study was done back in 2016, it continues to flourish because people have taken ownership and are champions of each one of the components.

So when we have our quarterly LR tag updates, you know, each one of the champions gives an update to what process they're moving forward in the study.

And the fact that we have this

helped support some of the projects through multiple funding streams, again, through the support of V-Trans and the fact that we have this separate study out there.

So I think there's more opportunities.

One of the outcomes of this is this provides a template for future efforts.

I'll also mention that our regional mission is now taking off instead of crossing for itself.

Yeah, you know, the set was also done for a region at the same time, so you'll see a lot of overlap between this study and the regional sets as well.

Thank you everybody.

I'm just opening my presentation.

Okay.

I just slipped out of the picture.

I'm not repeating myself.

I know some of you have heard this several times.

So I'm going to go through quickly what the vision plan is and then talk about how the networks serve the rural areas.

And I've got some slides comparing networks and current service to the rural services.

So the program is a 28 month, 350 program.

supported by DRPT, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and TJPDC.

And it uses data and public input to create a long-term strategy for public transit in the region.

We did a lot of engagement.

At the beginning, we heard from the community that they wanted more engagement than was planned.

So we added in several surveys.

We did mailings, targeted neighborhoods, focus groups.

and we're at in-person outreach events like the Solar Sea Bill and we have bi-stakeholder workshops.

What we heard was that equity, climate change and multi-modal access were top priorities for the community, which led to

the guiding principles and the goals of the project being developed around equity, climate change, and multi-modal access.

Some of the other things that we heard through the surveys and interviews was that waiting was a major burden for waiting for buses, like for transit, was a major burden that takes too long to use transit.

And then there wasn't enough service hours in the day, so

Like if you had to go to work on Sunday, you weren't able to do it.

People were taking taxis, you know, to and from minimum wage jobs.

And then also, you know, the limited types of service in rural areas was also a barrier.

So we produced a report.

It's the final transit vision plan.

and it will be, the draft is available but the final product will be available at the end of this month.

The vision plan has in it why the region needs transit and the benefits of transit.

The vision for improved and expanded transit.

So these are the goals and objectives that we developed on the community input.

And then we also use data.

So the access of the assessment of markets and needs for transit in the region were also analyzed and used to come up with

Network of services that we came up with.

So the next part of the plan and what we're going to talk about most today are the networks that the consultants and transit providers came up with.

There's two different networks, the constrained and the unconstrained service network.

And then the report just goes more in depth into the engagement process and the next steps for implementing the vision.

So why invest in transit?

There's a real need for transit in our area.

About 25% of a household's income in the area is spent on transportation.

And another about 25% is spent on housing.

The national average household spends about 16% of its income on transportation.

So there's a really need in our area for people to be able to get places, especially to work.

And then I have another slide just for you all so you can see it's broken up into different areas.

Kind of talking about the cost of housing and the cost of transportation and also the amount of greenhouse gases

And I was just really curious about the greenhouse gases.

So I looked it up and one ton of greenhouse gases is if you took a telephone pole and you made a square out of it, that would be like one metric ton of greenhouse gases.

So it's quite a bit.

And Transit is one of the leading producers of greenhouse gases in the area.

So a good bus service will help with a lot of different problems.

First of all, it's a social safety net.

So there are people who can't drive and they still need to get around.

So it's very helpful in that area.

Economic opportunities, as discussed in the network survey, I mean the network study, having good transportation and a transportation system and showing investment in that

tells companies that this is a good place to be, that their workers will be able to get to and from jobs.

And then the climate and environmental benefits.

The community has been pretty loud about wanting to continue to work on reducing greenhouse gases.

Transit does reduce congestion.

If people are on the bus or walking or biking, then there's less cars on the road.

and then it's much healthier for the community if people are walking and biking it's also less stressful and it's a great way to meet your neighbors and get out in your community and see it from a different perspective and then personal liberty at some point we're all going to stop driving and it would still be nice to be able to go out and visit friends and go to social events and go shopping

So we came up with a vision based on the feedback that we got.

And the vision is develop, design, and provide transit in the region in a manner that reflects a collaborative, inclusive, and equitable process representing needs in both urban and rural areas.

This transit system expands opportunities for all residents.

That's the equity.

Reduces reliance on automobiles, multi-modality, and helps protect the environment, climate change, and innovation.

So the two vision networks that we have, we did a three day workshop with the transit providers and came up with two different service networks, the unconstrained and the constrained network.

Gosh, I think you all have seen this.

So I'm going to like, are there any questions about this slide?

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So this is the existing circulator service.

And the circulator service is what lets people go door to door in the county, so just in that region.

And you have to schedule it at least a day ahead of time.

And it's mostly for people who can't drive with older adults and people with disabilities.

And so this is the current services that we have in the rural counties.

As you can see, there's no service on the weekends.

and Buckingham County is part of Jon's service area, so that was included in the project.

And there's limited days and times when services are available as well.

The constrained regional network would have services all day and for much longer span of services.

It wouldn't be every hour, but it would be pretty close

and those services would connect to fixed route services that would go into the city.

So with the constraint network, you can see they would connect with the network to go into the city.

So the connect services are the fixed route that go into Charlottesville.

and this is the existing network.

So again, there's very limited begin hours.

Some of them are two trips a day.

So you go and you're there all day and you go back.

If you miss it, you don't get to work or wherever you're going.

And so the constraining next services would be seven days a week.

They have much more trips and more frequencies so people could use it more often.

So here you can see the unconstrained network.

It shows the blue lines in the rural areas are the fixed routes that go every hour.

And then there's also micro transit proposed for the urban areas and the rural areas.

So all the yellowish beige areas would be a micro transit area.

So the next steps are the transit governance study.

communicating and organizing around our regional transit authority, long-term land use planning and coordination with transit, workforce development for bus drivers, implementing guidelines for tracking service improvements, so that would be the transit services, how they're improving, and building a consensus around the bus rapid transit corridor.

The next step of the government study is really looking at what potentially could be fundable and how those kind of decisions were made.

That's good.

Didn't they have service?

There's just the trick shot for us to start something similar to what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

And just something to keep in mind with the expanded hours is that's right for bus drivers.

Just there was kind of a shortage.

So my grandmother, she's 88, she lives in downtown

So that's been an issue with literary as well and they've been cutting covers as well just because of lack of records.

It's everywhere.

Now for round table.

Sure, so we have the Route 151 study, pretty much going strong on that.

I was out there a few weeks ago, did a field visit, we got photos, got some good pedestrian activity in those photos, this long corridor, got police work, then we did the traveling list, and then all of the secret areas were there.

So we're good along with that, got traffic counts completed in the late spring.

So we'll have an in-person public meeting and a virtual MetroQuest survey as well during that effort.

So we'll kind of fill everybody in as we move into that and move along there.

So that's kind of our focus up this way in SmartScale applications.

We're into scoring right now.

So we just wrapped up the

I was working on a couple of fun rural transit projects.

We've got a TA sidewalk project under contract and design.

We did a tactical urbanism thing on one of our main street crosswalks to provide some response to public compliance and safety.

90% positive, even though we took away a couple of parking spaces.

You obviously have kind of responsiveness and good feedback.

We put in one of those worthy applications

who delivered some multi-modal planning in the town and participating in the transit governance sector as well.

I think the small towns in the region have some interesting demand on these transit solutions and little nodes of density.

I expect Greene and Louisa will come and hang out there as well.

So I'd be curious to compare them and see what we can do together.

I didn't know you weren't officially a member of here, but maybe now with that new approved development, that they get approved because their APL is not signed so it was already out of the planning commission.

We'll hear more about that in a minute.

I actually don't really have much to share, but we are in our phase two of the comprehensive plan, which is going to have a lot of impacts, I think, not just in our urbanized area, but in the rural areas as well, because we're seeing some pressure to allow some new uses into the areas that we create.

There's some ideas, and I don't know exactly what's going on, but some ideas about how we can have some limited development, new development, out in the areas like Earliesville, down around Scottsville as well.

So it'd be interesting to see how that moves forward.

And also how we talk about rural roads, and the main roads, things like that as well.

Not really many projects that are

It is interesting though is that we did get approval for a flat grant, a federal land access program.

And this is up at the Sugar Hollow Reservoir.

So there's been an area that's not been managed as well as it could have.

Throughout the years, it gets a little rough around there in the warm weekends.

We're, I guess we said stage two of the conference, we're about stage three and our mandate seems more, you know, going into the new year.

So, some of the major things that have happened recently this fall for us as a county is our deuterium water and wastewater master plan was approved.

It's a major component of our comprehensive plan and our economic development and strategic plan.

It was developed pretty well around the same time you do water and sewer ordinances and so what that's done in the, and we expected this obviously, but the Zion Crossroads area is where we started in the route 15, southern route 15 border.

We have, this is our current, the seaside cases that

and the 120,000 square feet industrial office flex distribution centers, that kind of area.

This is just south of Starlight Park Drive.

It's the outer edge, the southeastern quadrant of the John Brussels area.

And on the flip side, we've had General Schomp

So that individual will step forward.

And that's right at 250 west of Zion Station in Detroit where the new roundabout area

just kind of northwest of there.

And then another resuming that's right down from there on the south side of 250 for more of what I call business incubator, contractor storage hours, shops, labor marriages.

So we have all these massive warehouses that are trying to come along.

So that's pretty much it.

We're really focused on, also if you see a lot of green on this layout, we've gone through probably the last six months or more in the comprehensive plan, rural preservation and historic preservation, elements of the plan especially, about maintaining buffers, landscaping, setbacks, improper setbacks and borders,

and establishment of Better Gateways into the county, I guess is what the community involved in indicating to us.

So we have a second stage, we've got a plan, fourth stage, we'll say next stage,

We're working on that as you go to the office.

The Planning Commission in the last 2020 review designed a Town Center amendment to increase 524 units to the previously approved plan that had 599.

The Planning Commission did approve that.

That would go to the Board of Supervisors probably in the month of December.

On the other end, so that's on.

Crossroads, but on the other end of the county, the Spotsylvania border, we have Lincoln resort, which has become very contentious.

And that was also approved by the planning commission recently, that one for until the fifth of December.

So, you know, we have two potentially large traffic generators on either end of the county.

The ground challenges needs.

The board is going to have to make a decision on here in the next couple of months.

And it also has raised questions that are, we just had a planning commission workshop on transportation related items a few months ago, you know, VDOT came and gave some information.

So transportation has become a real focus of the planning commission as a way

We'll see if the new year continues to be busy.

I know a couple of solar projects are knocking out the door.

We're always learning from those.

There is a small project about 100 acres, so we haven't approved solar projects since

It'll be interesting to see all the conditions, the requirements, and the things that you've heard.

They're out there on the road now before they start construction.

Project Liaison, Blaine Line, things like that.

So we'll keep you updated as we have a solo project come online or start building with a new commission.

So what you got going on, Jim?

Well, I will say, Chuck showed us an illustration of a development, and he pointed out there's a lot of green space on there.

We don't have any Fluvanna space on our narrow line.

So I'm sorry.

All the guys for that.

Transportation, well, our company is at DEFCON 4.

We're actually ready to complete it.

We're reviewing the transportation.

So we hope to be ready to have the Planning Commission hand it off.

We're going to have a joint session with the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission so everybody can have some questions and conversation back and forth between the two groups and then we'll have in turn with the Board of Supervisors.

Transportation wise, our focus this year has been really mostly on applying for planning grants to try and find good pedestrian plans.

Because as we expanded in Greene as a rural county, we expanded quickly.

Savannah and Greene used to fight back and forth between who was the highest growth community in the 40% range for quite some time.

And that all developed without any pedestrian damage, really virtually none.

So we were trying to go backwards and start planning ways for pedestrian access.

And you have two really strong needs that we're focusing on.

One is really just multi-modal access.

We have a relatively urban area in Microsoft in our growth area.

on the highway.

A lot of houses are on the east side of the highway, a lot of jobs are on the west side of the highway, and there's no real way to walk without being in the crack, especially with crossing 20.

And then secondary to that would be some recreational access, but we have some some large shelters along Route 33, and a lot of our citizens use that for recreation.

It's

It's nice because it's a big, wide swath of pavement.

My estimate is 70% of the drivers coming by are texting, so they won't see when they get off the road and question people.

And the other aspect is, I don't know, if it's not a planned bike path, and you see it in and out on bicycle paths along Burke Park extended,

Whenever it rains, everything that's in the driveway washes in like that.

So, something like rocks.

and Glass and cigarette butts and so that it is challenging sometimes to ride there.

And then all great bicycle paths on most roads that have shoulders have been taken away for road strip safety planned by VDOT.

So you can't, you can't really, I wouldn't recommend bicycling that.

I'm sure that's really across from where it was before.

It's not a political experiment.

So that's the many things we're focused on.

We don't have any major projects.

We're fortunate to have two major roads that come through to tiny county land mass flies.

And so most of the traffic is on 29 and 33.

And that's also our growth area where most of our projects are.

So we don't have a lot of large rural projects that create

We have a large, larger climbing proposal, but it's literally 700 feet from around 33, so we didn't have an artificial entrance, so it really wasn't going to have a location for that.

Although everyone in the meeting could describe it as the world's worst location.

It's a great project, great idea, but it should be in the industrial area.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

So Jon is currently at the RTB community.

We're working to make sure to do that.

And we're also wrapping up our alternative tools with the light study that we're going to keep in mind.

I can go.

So we also submitted a gap grant request.

Sandy pretty much did all of the legwork on that.

So thank you, Sandy.

I pretty much just hit submit.

That was for a small area plan for Nellie's Ford.

We're hoping to designate

You know, rural growth area up there for some funding opportunities, maybe for bike and pedestrian lanes and also incorporate it into our comprehensive plan update.

We did have our first joint session on that.

They gave us some of the demographics.

We're going to have joint sessions every other month.

And I believe the board decided they want additional sessions, just staff led on specific topics like transportation and housing and other topics.

So I'll probably be reaching out to some of you for input.

We also got direction from our board to have the planning commission consider a reworking of our cluster ordinance.

It's not very user friendly right now and I'm not sure it's ever been used honestly.

So the gentleman who's requesting that we look at this has indicated that he most recently worked with Fluvanna on updating their ordinance.

So Doug, I'll probably try to catch up with you at some point in the next couple weeks too, just to get your thoughts and your experience with that.

Hey, Dylan.

Just so we're not replicating a lot of the same work.

So we're going to be looking at pedestrian improvements in traffic.

I'll be including all these points that are part of my 51 study.

Okay, great.

Yeah, and we talked to Rick a little bit about it too.

So yeah, definitely want to make sure we're all on the same page moving in the same direction.

And hopefully we get it.

Yeah, this is Chuck.

I'll go, I have just a couple of things to add to Michael's comments.

I'm working on developing comments for Louisa County on Zion's Crossroads.

So hopefully I'll get those to you today, Tom and Chris, you select Christian and Chris now.

We're still flushing out SMART SCALE scoring.

So that's hopefully we'll be wrapping that up in the next week.

And we'll be finished that.

We're also looking at,

Starting to consider what we want to do for around six of SMART SCALE and how we're going to go about some of that process to try to streamline some of the criteria and reduce the number of applications so we're not wasting a lot of resources and time on applications that we're not going to be able to fund.

Anybody else want to participate?

That was one other quick thing that I mentioned from the beginning.

It was a bit of a sad news.

Some of you all may have worked with Iqueta G. Murray-Tee who served on the regional housing partnership here at TJPDC and our planning commissioner from the Lake Urbana district on the Passue Lake.

On the day of our actual planning commission meeting on October 11th,

Kimia, rather young, and I thought she was 46, extremely vibrant, worked on a lot of projects, was indirectly the main person I worked with when I got here and came down here for my first time at Waters' Center when we started the regional housing partnership.

I just want to let you all know that the planning commission or working on a plan for a person who would be seated

Sara will be here, but kind of end us on a sad note, but I just wanted to let you know that one of the community meetings you all hear is let Christine know that we'll probably, or we'll be sending the different, the person who will be sitting on some of the selections that I think she was finished with as part of her tasks.

I'm sure that they have, Caitlin, so these are more part of their ethic.

Yeah, so, but it's been kind of hard for us because when I sent our plan and, you know, when they were honestly getting me ready to do a lot of stuff with our home.

Just wanted to pass it along.

But I'll always remember that

Thanks.

Thank you.

and I'll do the same.

I actually, Jon-Mikel Whalen views online.

As our planning staff finishes the comp plan, I'm going to be starting to send Jon-Mikel in the next one, the January regional quarterly meetings that are going to be coming in my stead and provide a little bit of information.

I also just mentioned that when we're talking about that in cross-circuits, we have brought to the project, we received 120 comments on that interactive presentation.

So there's a lot of opinions on that project.

So we did a couple of in-person, we did some virtual meetings and then other requests from the public.

We did some in-person, just informational meetings.

And then this was basically just posting a draft of our recommendations on the website and giving people a 30-day comment period.

I think we got more comments than we got in certain responses from that open-ended.

My motions are adjourned.

Second.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.