Rural Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting   5/16/2023

So, am I calling a gathering or a meeting?

No, we have quorum.

Okay.

All right, we'll have a ball, a meeting to order.

Can you decide that?

Aye.

Welcome to the Board.

Does anybody have any comments or changes that they would like to make to the minutes?

I want to change bezo to bezo.

Is there anybody else I can change?

I don't know about you, but how many of you have heard of the amendments, or heard of the amendments?

Carrie is flying through.

No, it's not currently on Zoom.

Thank you, Sandy.

Yeah.

Yes.

Welcome, everyone.

You might get some more flashbacks from two months ago when we had a very similar conversation.

And I just want everyone to keep in mind that this is kind of just a conceptual conversation.

Does it provide access to useful or attractive destinations like grocery stores, schools, libraries, what have you?

Or you could also get economic development

I know in a lot of our regions there's a lot of interesting tourism and how we can set up a transportation network in ways that also allow that to be in use.

And also just does it connect with areas of relatively high economic activity.

In the north end you have Livingston down in the south, so even there you can see that

infrastructure in those areas.

Just where can you fill gaps in the network that already exists?

This

tourism generally, and how can we use the transportation system to also offer that so that can also be something you consider.

And then equity, there's honestly so many different data sources for equity.

I'll just pile with them briefly.

Okay.

And then pipeline sources.

If there's already been studies that have looked at it, they may have insights, and you can look at those projects instead of having to just do everything all over again.

This is just an example matrix of how you could potentially evaluate

So maybe you don't even want to consider a product if it's not addressing safety in some way.

Up to you.

and through the Betty Queen Center.

And then it's this green one here in the bottom right, that's Louisa County, it's the green path in the middle there.

How would you evaluate this?

So I just will quickly walk through this with you all.

Yeah, totally.

I think you would connect a lot of very useful destinations so that I wouldn't want anyone else to think there's anything else to tell.

It provides the spread in all the ways that it is provided as well.

And it serves an equity focused area for the DOT Census data set, 100%.

Anyone else have any other thoughts?

You're going to keep asking until the right question.

Connectivity, I felt was the strong suit of this particular project.

And here's a rural shared road, Dyke Road in Greene County.

It's not like we're creating

And I'm not going to make it all transport again.

I don't know if you've done this before, but there are parts without shoulders.

So if we added shoulders to it, we would probably do a little bit of the same with them otherwise.

That's my very early presentation, but does anyone have any questions?

So right now we're meeting the part of the process in front of our community to get any better work with veterans and projects.

That's the way you're going to get it.

What is the desire of TJPDC to work

We would want to hear from your local jurisdictions that these are priorities, and if there are ways that the TJPDC can support that or can support staff in supporting that, we would certainly be happy to help.

both towns and the county invited to that that there'd be an opportunity to really get them in the room and then mention hey what do you think of this other thing because this is part of that my opinion safety for all of being able to connect the county into town so I'm just using as an example we look at a couple different things to this power point but I just wanted to throw that out there that sometimes you got to just rip off the bandage and take it but you're saying it requires multi-jurisdictional

Anything you want to add?

And that is directed by your team on how we spend those funds.

So just what are your thoughts on that?

What the feasibility is and then you know your top scoring projects or your top identified projects may not be feasible and that gives you an opportunity to sort of reality check those and move forward on your highest priority projects that do have some feasibility behind them.

So it's a good point.

David Blount.

So forgive me if I go over, I know many questions.

Can everyone on Zoom see the presentation?

Yes.

Good afternoon, my name is Nadie Lacy.

Our demand response in VA paratransit leads to alternative fuels as the market continues to emerge for these uses.

So a little bit about Jon's background.

As of 2019, the proportion of diesel and gasoline fuel buses to alternative fuel buses has decreased and the amount of alternative fuel buses continues to increase.

I'm not sure if I'm saying too long in the sense for real.

And most are available 24 hours a day.

Let me know if you have another minute to look at that.

I can't see that part of the class.

So you can see that CNG and RNG are the most expensive, but they have the greatest long-term greenhouse gas emissions impact.

Battery electric is by far the least expensive.

The names are truncated, but I can explain further if you'd like some clarification.

And yeah.

It also helped us to gather feedback at regular meetings to present ideas and concerns that represent the advocacy groups and transit riders in the area and allow us to make some data-driven decisions.

I know I kind of went through some individuals a little quickly.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, get demand responder if it's working.

The blue line to the far left is 40% battery electric production.

And red line is national gas and hydrogen.

So like this is where each one of those surfaces would fall in that range.

Based on the different geography of the certain area and the outcomes of operation.

I can do the same for fixed route too if that helps.

Yeah, because you did.

Sure.

So for fixed route, this is if you take a battery electric range.

The yellow line is a 30% battery electric production and the blue line is a 100% battery electric production and this is a very well stated rich thought.

Are there any questions or if there are anything?

I have other organizations around your side in the state of Virginia that are somewhere

I believe so, but also depending on how many charging stations they have in the area.

So that would be a good one to look at, you know, specifically for Charlottesville, but I know there have been other ones in the region too that we also used to compare with our analysis specifically for a paratransit vehicle alternative fuel switching.

So I'd be happy to send those to you as well, if you'd like to click it.

Have you talked to different school districts to find out what they're planning on doing?

I just want to throw that.

We got a little less nervous next time.

Good job, Lacy.

I imagine it'd be around here, since there's some HR stations.

Yeah, and I'd be happy to keep you updated on.

Do you think the infrastructure is available?

Well, I think it's probably both, but...

I'm not sure I think the spoken English is good.

Any last questions?

First of all, in regards to Buy American, for VD stuff, the Earth and Tom asks, like, why is the American unique with American stuff with the major, you know, as import stuff or the rest?

I can get you the information based on specifically which technology you were looking at getting, but I think it was, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you guys so much.

Thank you.

That's a good call there.

We can leave it to the 18th.

Guys, that sounds like a really good date to have a meeting.

We could do maybe July 11th.

We prefer to do it the week before or the week after.

Anything you want to add to that?

We also have a lot of data centers.

So we are a final police staff.

It will be interesting to see how

Okay, well, good job.

And we are also working with a group of A&R and God River to

positively able to run the service and having those viable women that I want to brand and that's going to be the worst we're going to do on this Friday.

Thank you.

Well, tonight we're having the beginning of the convention market session with Buster and all the other governments.

Do you want to whiteboard?

In rural areas, it emerges as a graphic transition,

Correct.

So we have one that's only been used once with one of those beta-natives, so we're going to try to figure out why it's not working.

I thought I heard that was one reason why.

I think it requires technical water and sewer over service.

Are they supposed to be more pedestrian vibrational neighborhoods or are they still going to be out in the winter fields and left right out of the usual?

Vanna has not had a great track record with our public developments.

So I think that was all the cool stuff.

I'll pass it on to Mr. Jim, I'd abandon.

And in the meantime, I am acting water and sewer director and I don't particularly enjoy it.

That's a career trajectory for you, huh?

Thank you.

Who else would like to join us online?

And that would have some interesting effects on the economy.

All right.

Do we have anybody from the public ones?

It's all our staff.

Anything that anybody else would like to talk about before we adjourn?

If it's a regular family division, then it's just five years.

Lynn, this probably will be a good resource for you in the light.

Do you all have any topics you want to discuss next meeting?

Otherwise, we'll talk about solar.

You're today is in the process too so if you've done anything because you're talking about apps and outreach you know I'm happy to talk about how we did it back in 2019 and part of the reason is like you know I don't know in a few years whether it be thinking back on the show back on the road again like to find out what everybody else is doing and I'm sure we did and I think it would be good to talk about each one of those things go around and talk about what we've done

It's a really good resource just as far as what kinds of engagement are good for what types of feedback you're looking at.

I'd like to learn about your apps, but if you do anything specifically with transportation as well, which I mean, you're so...

So we were trying to have some kind of commercial opportunity in those areas, maybe just a little bit more, right?

Just having the local service that was needed, like what's needed laundry, load,

That's something we want to promote as part of the county's plan is to develop these crossroads or not because I mean what county is you always used to mom and pops the country in the north and whatever so yeah I think that would have been a great idea like have people drop tens under county and where do you think it could be appropriate what would you like to see in these areas which you try to you know help with the zoning planning areas to get that stuff so that's nice

They did that for their...

I don't remember what the name of the community is that they're working for.

The pedestrian project on the left side.

I got to stop.

How we get the word out?

I have one quick suggestion and we focus on getting more citizen participation and that's valid and important

So the more successful we can be as planners and helping the board tie in every action to the comprehensive plan, the more value the citizens will get out of that plan.

Are you asking this just to be a facilitated discussion or do you want us to develop some resources or try to identify a speaker?

We'll take anything to learn more about what we're doing.

This may not be a topic for our next meeting, but we'll see if we can develop some options for you.

and it's all part of the Virginia 250 project.

Thank you.

That might take us more than a month or two to pull together though.

No, I don't think it's far enough along yet, but it's in the works.

Sure.

So we could also sort of add that even though it's not really as relevant for the rural areas.

Thank you.

You're present.