Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   3/25/2021

And welcome everyone on this Thursday afternoon in March.

And the first order of business is for me to read the notice of electronic meeting due to COVID-19 state of emergency.

The governor has declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the nature of this declared emergency.

makes it impractical or unsafe for the Regional Transit Partnership to assemble in a single location.

This meeting and the required public hearings will be held utilizing electronic virtual communication with the Zoom software application and in accordance with the virtual meeting procedures and policies

as outlined in item 4.0-01 of the Virginia State Budget House Bill 29 as effective April 24, 2020.

The meeting will be recorded and made available to the public at the tjpdc.org website.

And when I read that date, April 24, 2020, it really gives me pause.

Been doing this for a long time now, haven't we?

Anyway, with that, I'm going to ask Jessica to call out members.

We'll take, you know, we have to do a roll count to see who's here for the record.

So Jessica, would you mind doing that for us, please?

And if everyone could either raise their hand, assuming we can see you, or say, or acknowledge that you're here.

Thanks, Diana.

We'll start with you, Diana.

I am here.

Thanks.

Bea Lipisto-Kurtley.

I am here.

Lloyd Snook.

Nikaya Walker.

Present.

Karen Davis.

Here.

Jim Foley, he said he was gonna be late.

Sandy Shackelford, Sandy was here.

Okay, and I do think Sandy's just stepped away for a minute.

She'll be right back.

So with that, our first order of business is to see if we have any public comment from the signups.

No one has notified me ahead of time.

Just one other thing.

Lloyd is here.

Okay, great.

We're glad he's here.

Lloyd will be joining us.

So if there's no one who signed up to speak, then I'll move on to approval of the meeting minutes from February the 25th.

Yes, thank you, Diana.

I wanted to change in the minutes the presentation that was given by Connecticut's group that is reflected as a Charlottesville area transit presentation.

Okay.

So with that change, that should read then the Connecticut's presentation piece should read Charlottesville area transit presentation

presented by Kinetics.

Is that right?

All right.

This is Lucas.

Thank you, Lucas.

And is there a second?

Second.

Second.

OK, second from Randy.

Aye.

And the opposed.

I just have to abstain since I wasn't there.

Aye.

All right, so we have two abstentions, I believe.

All right, so the minutes have been approved.

Great, thank you.

I'm going to share my screen.

All right.

Just a little bit here.

OK.

So at our February meeting, we discussed work products and deliverables that would be part of the regional transit vision plan scope of work.

And in that discussion, it became clear that there were many unknowns regarding the involvement of the partnership, the transit agencies and other interested parties.

So what I hope to do today is to identify the committees and groups that will be involved in the visioning process, describe their roles in the process, and clarify the relative timeline of their involvement.

And all of that is to give you a more complete picture of how we expect this whole process to work to answer any lingering questions and to get any additional feedback you might have.

Also that we can send out the invitation for proposals or the RFP as soon as possible.

And I will note that everything I'm about to present is stuff that was included in even greater detail in your packets.

Alright, so before the project even begins, we have our selection committee and a reminder that the regional transit vision plan requires technical assistance from a consulting team.

And the role of the selection committee is to review proposals from those firms that respond to the vision plan RFP and then to recommend to the regional transit partnership, a preferred firm to complete the vision plan.

And another reminder that last month the RTP voted to appoint six individuals to this committee.

and those six individuals and organizations they're with are all listed in your memo.

The timeline for the selection committee to be doing their work is really, really short.

We will send out the RFP shortly.

We will get our responses and then the selection committee will meet in May to review those proposals and make their recommendation.

And once they've made that recommendation to the RFP, our selection committee will disband and that'll be the end of the selection committee.

And then we have all these other groups that are going to be doing some work after the project really gets doing the bulk of their work after the project really gets going.

Let's see.

So we have the official advisory group, which is you guys, the Regional Transit Partnership.

We have a technical committee.

There's going to be engagement of targeted engagement of different groups, and there'll be broader community engagement.

So I'm going to take these one by one.

And we'll begin by talking about the Regional Transit Partnership.

And you guys, like I said, will function as the official advisory group.

And the role of the RTP, what will you guys actually be doing?

The voting and non-voting members of the partnership will guide the regional transit visioning process by advising on project components.

So advising on the scope of work like you guys did in the last meeting.

As we get going and there's work products in progress, you'll be advising on those things, talking directly to the consulting team.

Additionally, voting members of the partnership will make decisions that further steer the visioning process, like what you did last meeting where you appointed the selection committee.

And just to clarify, voting and non-voting members of the partnership will meet regularly with the chosen consulting team in your regular monthly meetings.

So the timeline for the official advisory group, you've already really begun your work back in February when you made that decision to appoint the selection committee.

And your work is going to continue all the way through the project to the very end, which we expect to be June 2022.

Then we'll have a technical committee.

So the purpose of this technical committee will be to support the chosen consulting team's efforts by providing technical information as needed.

We're not sure if this is really going to be a standing group.

It's going to be a bunch of different organizations that will join, leave, rejoin as needed.

It's meant to be a very flexible committee that's providing a lot of the technical input as their expertise is required.

So organizations that are likely to be represented at some point on this technical committee include CAT, Jaunt, Albemarle County and City of Charlottesville Student Transportation, University Transit Services, Planning and Development staff from the localities and UVA,

Planning Commission liaisons, and TJPDC's Rural Transportation Advisory Committee, among others.

So the technical committee won't really begin its work until the consulting team has been chosen and a kickoff meeting has happened.

So that'll be late May 2021, and their work will also continue as needed throughout the project until the end, June 2022.

There's also intended to be targeted engagement groups.

The purpose of interacting with these groups would be for them to provide unique and vital feedback from the perspective of agencies that serve existing or future users of public transportation.

The way the scope is written, we're allowing the chosen consulting team to have some flexibility regarding how they'll engage with these groups.

Maybe it'll be small workshops, maybe it'll be bigger workshops.

We don't really know.

We're leaving that up to the discretion of the consulting team.

Organizations that will be invited to participate in this targeted engagement phase will represent the interests of historically underserved communities, large employers, housing, the environment, and others.

The timeline for this group looks a lot like the technical committee.

They won't begin work until

until the consulting team has been chosen.

So late May, they'll continue as needed through the end of the project in June.

Again, this is not going to be a standing group.

It's really up to the consulting team to determine how they want to interact with these folks, but it's written to the scope of work that we want these interests included in the work products.

And then

We have broader community engagement.

So we want to hear from all members of our regional community.

We're going to invite, we're going to ensure that the consulting team invites them to participate so that they can share their unique and vital feedback from an end user perspective.

TJPDC staff and the chosen consulting team will engage with the general public in a variety of ways, including through an interactive website and through workshops.

The timeline is just like that of the targeted engagement groups and the technical committee.

They'll begin late May when the consulting team has been chosen and they'll continue as needed through the end of the project.

So Jessica, can we put up the folks' faces again so that I can ask for questions and I can see if anybody has any questions.

This is Becca, I was just going to ask, I know we've been talking about the scope, both in the last meeting and then since the last meeting.

Just because they're a place we can look for the final, well, and I know it won't be finalized until the consultant is chosen.

Yes, we don't have it online, so what I need to do is share the most recent copy with you guys via email.

Thank you.

Great question, Becca.

Thank you.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

All right, then it may be that, Jessica, we can move on to the next item.

Yeah, that's right.

Thank you.

All right.

So, and I'm just thinking, was thinking out loud, we don't have, we do have Garland here, of course, from CAT.

and Jim Foley was gonna join us a little bit later.

Our next agenda item is the school and bus service updates.

And we were thinking it might be nice to hear some updates on these transit providers because school is back in session now.

There've been some changes.

And so it would be nice for everybody to know.

Garland, why don't you give us your update from the city of Charlottesville schools?

And then if Jim Foley is able to come in later,

So schools started, of course, and we started providing in person transportation.

Our numbers were limited because of the restrictions associated with school bus, which limited our numbers to about 200.

We can barely hear you Garland.

That's better.

All right.

So what I was saying is we started school and we were able to provide our level of service, which is about transporting 200 kids per grade level.

That kicked off.

There were some issues in the beginning, of course.

Parents that wanted to get their kids on the bus, like the first day, walked out to the bus stop with their kid and of course were

weren't able to get on because it was by reservation only.

So that kind of cleared up.

It took a couple of days, but we're operating well now.

There's been no issues, knock on wood.

We've actually added two additional trips per the school's requests in the morning and afternoon for the middle school.

So that's been very well received, helped with some overcrowding issues and allowed some more kids to get to school in person.

So I think it's been working well.

We are actively working through final stages of a contract.

So we're hiring a headhunter firm to basically get us some school bus drivers.

We're hoping to sign, well, they're working through the last pieces of becoming a city vendor now.

So we're hoping to be able to sign this contract by Friday of next week.

Becca, looks like you have a question.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Any other questions, comments for Garland regarding school transportation?

Excuse me, B.

That's okay.

I was late raising my hand.

Mr. Williams, could you please tell me, it looks like you're working with the school districts.

Okay.

Cause I know when I was talking with a school board member, they were saying how hard it was to get the kids back in school because of the fact that they have a social distance and such.

So our issues are I just need drivers.

We've got enough vehicles.

So we're hoping to be able to flesh that out pretty soon.

I know the school system actually reached out, I believe, to Karen and seeing if they could help with some transportation issues.

And I'll let David speak about that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Questions?

All right.

We'll go on to the transit provider update and Garland, you can put on your cat hat and start with cat and, uh, and then we'll move on to, uh, to Becca and Karen.

Perfect, thank you.

So the presentation was last RTP meeting.

I think it went over pretty well.

We've gotten some good feedback from individuals who have seen this online.

Based on the projected budget, we're making some changes, smaller changes to the system to get down to the funding level.

those should be able to, we're working through the final pieces.

We're trying to make sure that we stay to the core principles of making sure we alleviate all of the, you know, 60, greater than 60 minute service model service routes, which is route four and route nine, at least get them to 60.

We're doing some extensions, we're changing some of the, you know, the components of the seven,

extending it out to Walmart, sort of do seven days a week.

We're moving the 12 from our system, which only operates on Sunday.

So we're still trying to keep through the core principles of that.

It looks like we'll be able to have final iterations that we'd be able to share with the public probably in another couple of weeks.

We'll have to take these changes to the public for probably at least two rounds of public participation.

to meet our Title VI requirements.

There's a Title VI analysis that will begin as soon as we get kind of final confirmations that the budgets are set from jurisdictions.

So there's a write-up that we have to do that has to be given to city council as a governing board.

They have to sign off on it.

And once that is done, then we can actually kind of move forward.

All things are lining up.

It looks like we're going to be able to do the majority of the service adjustments that we wanted to get done.

And I would just say this is kind of the first iteration.

This is kind of not the end all to be all, but this is the first round of what we need to kind of spin the tie and make sure that we don't have declining ridership where we can turn it around and get our ridership back on track and improve.

The other update I will give is

We have an additional procurement that's going on right now for our, actively going on right now for our APCs, our passenger counters.

That hopefully will be done in about two weeks.

If that's the case, then we should be able to start that process.

It is a pretty lengthy process.

So it's not just we get it done and it's, you know, put them in and it's all done.

It's about an eight to 10 month process, but it does get us in the path.

Right.

That will help us with the data that we've been needing for so long.

Did I hear another question from someone?

I thought I heard some.

Will you just clarify for me because when you were talking the route numbers and the changes, I grabbed my handy dandy chart.

So the route 12 is only a Sunday route.

So it actually is designed to facilitate movement from downtown up to Walmart.

So the thinking on the adjustments were,

The seven and the 12 pretty much cover the same footprint, except for the 12 on Sundays goes out to Walmart.

So we're incorporating that northern portion of it so it goes all the way to Walmart seven days a week.

So what you eliminate having to have the 12, which means it provides consistent service and you don't have to worry about what day you are to figure out how to get to the Walmart.

So that's the major improvement on that piece there.

There are a number of other changes.

Like I said, on the four, which is the Cherry Avenue, Harris Road route, that one has, the frequencies are all over the place.

So like in the early portion, it's like a 20 minute frequency or 23 minute frequency.

Then it goes to like 10 o'clock to 45 minutes.

And then it goes to 70 minutes and then 23.

So we are cutting all of that out.

trying to make it much more consistent.

So there is at this point contemplating doing basically a 60 minute service all day.

That will make it easier for folks to use the service.

And then if we, you know, have, you know, requests for additional service during the peak period, we can cost them what it would cost to put in kind of a triple model during the peak period of time, but still keeping that 60 minute, which would

You know, putting a tripper in would create a 30 minute model during the peak periods of time.

But those are things that we're working through and seeing where the funding is.

So our budget, once it's set, it's set.

It's not like we have a contingency fund that's sitting out there.

Thank you.

It's helpful at least for me when I know where those buses are going as opposed to the numbers.

Are there any questions for Garland on the changes?

Becca, would you like to talk about UTS?

Sure.

So on grounds, you know, of course our entire service area is in that last mile that people drive.

So, and so much of our demand is really based or aligns with parking demand.

And so I just thought,

It would be interesting to share that at the hospital, and Sally can help correct me on this one, but we're back up to about 90% of the pre-COVID demand for at the hospital.

And of course, as you know, we transport

all those people that last mile, we intercept them in a big parking area and then shuttle them to their final destination.

On the academic campus, we are creeping up, but it is still extremely low.

We're back to about 55% ish of the parking demand on grounds and so many of the classes are still not in person or hybrid and such that that whole class change thing isn't really

still is not happening.

So we'll be running our COVID routes probably at least through July.

And as we prepare for the fall semester and more of that comes into view, we will be more clear about it.

But as the rest of this academic year, and as you know, on grounds, our transit is really, other than the employee shuttles, which never change, our academic routes do go by the academic calendar.

Just to remind everyone, there is no spring break as traditionally known in the past where we got five days straight of suspending classes.

Those days are being spread out in hopes of people not traveling outside of the area and then coming back.

So we only have a couple more days, one on March 29th and one on April 15th.

That's our version of spring break this year.

For everyone else, as it ebbs and flows,

Courses will, last day of class will be May 6th.

Last day of exams is May 15th.

Graduation or final exercises as they're called is May 21st through the 23rd.

And UVA made one announcement that like, yeah, we're gonna go virtual.

And then of course, as the governor has lifted some restrictions and redefined gatherings and events,

UVA pulled back and said, okay, on April 2nd, we will announce what the final exercises will be like that weekend.

They're of course engaging with the class, the graduating class themselves, and really studying the new definitions of gathering and what the governor's guidance and CDC and such.

So just keep that in mind, you know, because it really does affect

our transit and it affects the region as these things unfold.

So I'll let Sally jump in if she wanted to add anything, but those are my updates.

No, I don't have anything.

Becca covered it.

Okay, sure.

Are there any questions for Becca?

Anyone have any questions?

I would just like to, from my viewpoint, thank you for the spring break piece.

All right, then let's move to Karen Davis with John.

Thanks, and actually, Becca, thank you for the celebration piece, too, because my daughter's getting her master's from Curry School this year.

So I wasn't actually planning on attending her ceremony, but maybe there will be one, which is really exciting.

So keep me posted because she's not keeping me in the loop, obviously.

So much like what Garland was mentioning, we're definitely in the throes of finalizing budgets and projecting ahead for the next fiscal year.

Our ridership is starting to tick up and we're putting more drivers out on the road.

More of them are

able to have a full schedule, although we are at reduced capacity and we're actively keeping an eye on how COVID rules will change and impact transit and also reopening the main office.

More and more staff are starting to return as they are vaccinated.

And of course, we still have strict protocols in place.

But I know that there is a there is a urgency to get back up and running and get back to the old ways.

They just have to kind of keep them at bay till till we get clear direction from the governor about that.

We are excited.

We have some projects coming up this year that we're really excited about.

We are doing a facility study.

For anyone who's been here, you know that we've completely grown our location.

We're landlocked and can't possibly, when we all do come back, I don't know where everyone will park.

We have absolutely

No space.

So that'll be exciting for us.

One of our challenges is keeping an eye on the Crozet Connect service.

In particular, right now we're running what we're calling a holiday schedule.

We didn't have the foresight to call it something cool like Garland did with the Lifeline program.

If I could turn back time, I would have come up with a different name for that service.

But we are, you know, I've been in conversation with Becca and we're going to do a survey of current riders and send out some ambassadors to ride the buses, speak with the passengers who are riding with us to get an idea

who's going to continue to telecommute, who's going to actually come in and when that impact and service change will occur.

Up until this point, we have pretty much changed our service structure to demand and so we'll do the same in Crozet.

It was such a shame because it was flourishing and growing so strong and then COVID hit and it's just like, oh gosh.

But we'll see.

I mean, I think if, you know, even if the,

The employees work part time or whatever, they'll be back on their service and we're ready to go when that happens.

I'm really excited that we're in the middle of a rebranding effort.

And I think come late summer, we'll be rolling out a new look on our buses.

And some of you have noticed that now Jaunt is just a capital J, lowercase a-u-n-t, we're just going with the word.

as opposed to an acronym or anything else.

And I think I'm very excited.

We have a very talented public relations director on board and she's doing some great work.

So that'll be exciting.

I think that's all I have.

Any questions or comments for Karen?

It's not a question or comment.

It's just on top of, Karen and I, I believe, are still contemplating in our 22 budgets operating fare-free, correct?

So that's a big thing for the community.

We want to make sure you're on record as saying that.

We have it in our numbers for three years.

Oh, wow.

Because we would be able to use the remaining balance for the Cares and the American Rescue for the three year mark for three years.

That's great.

Well, so that is something that I need to dig down, but I'm paralleling what Garland is doing.

And I do think, especially going fair and free in this next year will really enable us to get our ridership back up and running.

So I think it's, I think it's a

Well, for me, I want to put together a proposal and really engage all of you and Albemarle and Charlottesville in the discussions to make sure that we all understand but Garland has already and Neil can attest with as well that there, you know, there are also grants available to help.

I think it could have a really positive impact.

Not only is the cost of a fair kind of daunting and we see that all the time at Jaunt, but it's also just knowing how to pay.

Is there a pass?

Is there a ticket?

Is there cash?

Credit cards?

When you take that barrier away for passengers, then everyone, you know, the risk of trying to use transit, you know, is so low and people, why not get on the bus and see where it goes, you know?

Well, I remember we, this board had some discussion around fare free, recognizing that someone's paying.

Not the customer, right?

Yeah, I would just say someone is paying.

So in this case, it would definitely be the federal government using the CARES money to offset that cost is how CAT, and I assume John is pulling that off, especially for a 22 and especially for us for a 23,

it becomes more of a nuanced after that.

There are grants that we are looking at.

We're working on doing a study to see whether it's feasible for CAT to go fare-free permanently.

So that study will probably start in about, keep my fingers crossed in about less than 30 days.

So that will help us be in line

There is a grant that the state has that's talking about potentially funding transit agencies.

And that's what Karen was talking about, trying to figure out whether there's some coordination between the two organizations to do that, or maybe we do it separately and attack it and get more money for the regions that way.

But that is a way for us to potentially tap into a resource

to allow us to continue that model, it's not permanent, right?

So the goal is, if we do get the funding, which I'm anticipating that we should make a pretty good case to do so, that the increased ridership on the CAT side will help us to close that funding gap on the back end after a five-year model.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions?

Very interesting.

All right, with that, Jessica, I think we're back to you.

We're going to talk about the work plan for 22, which is, I think, the roadmap that would begin July 1 of this summer.

Great.

Thank you, Diane.

All right.

So historically, the RTP's work has really been guided by the 2018 RTP strategic plan.

But with the regional transit visioning process that we're undertaking, we're very near to completing the longer and shorter term action items identified by that strategic plan.

So TJPDC staff would like to try creating a work plan for the RTP for the coming fiscal year.

And it's like a roadmap for the RTP's activities and for our staff's commitments for the coming fiscal year.

And the goals of the work plan would really be to complete the remaining actions identified in the 2018 strategic plan, to prepare the RTP for a new strategic planning process, and to ensure that all activities undertaken are consistent with the partnership's mission and are mutually beneficial to all of its members.

So this work plan is intended to be similar to other work programs that the MPO and the PDC do.

You're going to hear a little bit about our MPO work plan from Sandy later, but we just want to make our RTP work consistent with what we're doing in our other programs.

All right, so we've kind of broken up this work plan into essential activities and optional activities.

So first I'm going to go over the essential activities.

These are the things that we think really need to happen in order to ensure the continued success of the RTP.

So first we have program administration, then we have transit grant support, and then we have a lead-in to a fiscal year 23 strategic plan.

I'm going to go through these one by one, but again, a reminder that all of this info is in your packets.

So first, activity one, program administration.

This is really just the day to day running of the RTP, making sure that the agendas and materials are there for all of our 11 meetings that we have planned for this calendar year, writing the minutes up, handling public participation, updating the committee websites, a lot of those really basic things to ensure that our meetings are a success.

We also will work to share transportation related information with voting and non voting members of RTP, local officials, the policy board and the commission meetings and the general public.

And what we're envisioning here is a lot of two way communication so maybe that looks like transit agencies wanting

TJ PDC staff to share information about efforts that you guys are doing on our social media.

But it will also look like us trying to bring in the RTP into the MPO and the PDC's transportation planning processes.

And you're going to hear a little bit more about that from Sandy as well after this.

Activity two is transit grant support, and this is broken up into two sub activities.

So the first sub activity is regional transit vision plan support.

So this is for the big vision plan that we've been talking about that we talked about earlier today.

And our goal is just to facilitate the RTP's full participation in this whole planning process, ensuring that you guys fully get to fill your role of the official advisory group.

Some activity to be is identify transit funding opportunities and support transit funding applications.

So staff will work to identify additional funding opportunities for transit, share those opportunities with RTP,

and support transit agencies and other eligible organizations in their funding applications.

I know that you guys can do plenty of your own funding applications.

What we want to do is offer support where possible.

One thing that we're thinking of in particular is, in addition to the vision plan, our other DRPT grant is to look at expanded service for Albemarle County.

And at the end of that plan, there's going to be an implementation plan.

And what we want to do is ensure that the appropriate transit agency has everything that they need in order to immediately apply for funding in order to begin that service as soon as possible.

So we want to be supportive there.

And we're thinking specifically of that project, but also other things.

and TJPDC staff will include the RTP in the SmartScale process.

This is something new.

This is again something you're going to hear about from Sandy later on in this meeting.

We'll be specifically identifying transit projects that are eligible for SmartScale funding and seeking RTP input regarding transit related components of other projects that we are applying for.

And lastly, activity three.

Lastly, out of the essential activities.

We want to lead in to a potential fiscal year 23 strategic plan.

So this is the next fiscal year.

So in the coming fiscal year, we would want

We want to acknowledge that a new round of strategic planning is needed in fiscal year 23 to allow the RTP to refine and update its mission, vision and goals.

And TJPDC staff would spend the next fiscal year preparing for that by developing a scope of work for a new strategic planning process and develop an RFP for a third party consultant to aid the partnerships strategic planning process.

Okay, then there's the optional activities.

So these are the things that

They're just optional.

There are additional things that we should have time, we might have time to do, the TJPDC staff might have time to do.

I just want to clarify that the way we've organized them here into activities and sub activities, the sub activities are just grouped by topic.

We're not asking for you to like pick one from four and one from five.

We're really looking for broad feedback from the RTP on

on these optional activities.

Which of these things are you interested in us doing?

And is there anything that we're missing?

So we'll get to that, but first I'm going to go over what we've described here.

Activity four, broken down into three sub-activities.

One of them is a spring peer city virtual workshop series.

In the 2018 strategic plan, it was noted that the RTP wanted to do a peer visit to Blacksburg, Virginia to look at their transit operations.

We can't do that right now, so what we want to do is

Take a spin off of that and have staff establish a series of three virtual workshops, each with a peer city with one of those cities being Blacksburg.

And these workshops would be intended for the RTP members and the staff and leaders from the peer city to discuss their transit hurdles and successes and learn from each other.

These would likely be part of your regular meeting, like a regular meeting, just like an hour at the end or something.

Subactivity 4B, Ongoing Transit as Transportation Informational Series.

We are not wedded to any of these titles for these informational series.

It's just how we're describing them for now.

So TJPDC staff would invite knowledgeable speakers to RTP meetings to share information regarding regional, state, and local transportation projects that may impact us locally.

So examples of that might be hearing from someone who can describe the plan changes to East Coast Amtrak routes.

We could hear more about details on ridership data from the Afton Express or something like that, or the ways in which transit is being addressed in a local transportation corridor study.

Activity 4C is an ongoing transit and policy informational series.

So in this case, staff would invite knowledgeable speakers to RTP meetings to share information regarding best practices to include transit in transit adjacent planning and policy, things like climate action plans or housing policy.

What can we do to better fit transit into those kinds of plans that are included?

And then activity five.

This is really a subcommittee wrap up activity or subcommittee wrap up activities.

So there is work that the RTP has indicated is important to them, important to the members.

We've started that work in subcommittees.

We haven't finished it yet.

So activity five would be potentially wrapping up either or both of those of those activities.

Equitable Driver Appreciation Project.

Staff would work with the standing subcommittee on this topic to continue to gather information on transit agency driver compensation and appreciation with the ultimate goal to create a public document to better inform potential hires, thus reducing turnover for transit agencies.

and Subactivity 5B is the ridership reporting project.

So staff would work with, again, the standing subcommittee on this topic to continue to gather info on transit ridership and other relevant metrics with the ultimate goal to create a template for a periodically published report that allows the transit agencies to easily share and compare operations data in a meaningful way.

And this report would also be available to the public.

So that is it for my presentation.

So we can look at each other.

I will stop sharing my screen.

All right.

Thank you.

So I think today, Jessica, you're looking for some thoughts about how the committees and the committee feels about some of these options.

Yes, that was really helpful, Diana.

So I'll just expand on that a little bit.

So like I said, this work plan is something that we haven't done before.

We want to put it in front of you so you know what we're trying to do for the coming year.

The essential things I think we really think need to happen in order for you guys to continue to succeed, but the optional stuff is truly optional and we want to know what it is the RTP members want to do.

All right, so guys and girls, take it away.

Who wants to start?

Some comments and thoughts?

This would be added to the optionals work plan topics.

and it's a shared thing potentially between all of us and that's whether anybody's got carbon reduction plans or fossil fuel free goals in the coming years, potentially working toward them jointly if we're able or as a region.

I know as the county and the city and everybody adopts some of these aspirational goals to be carbon neutral by 2030 and fossil fuel

by 2050 that, you know, I don't know about you guys, but we already have buses in our fleet that are diesel, diesel buses that will be burdening that goal in 2030.

So I would throw that out there, number one.

And then I had a question about the funding opportunities that was, I think that was under your vital tasks.

And, you know, there are a lot of grant opportunities for equipment that are electric or alternative.

And so I guess I'd like to talk to you maybe separate from here or as a group, however you see fit, Jessica, to see about how, you know, because none of us want to step on each other's toes about grant opportunities and

Rebecca, I think that is very much in line with what we were thinking for that essential work plan item for that essential activity.

So we, like you're saying, we don't want to step on toes either.

We just want to make things available and share information that we're getting from DRPT.

And Matt and Becca, you make a really great point.

And I think your your

statement around the carbon footprint and that really falls well into the subactivity 4C where we're talking about all of our climate action plans, right?

And that would go very nicely.

I think that would be a part of that discussion.

So opening it up again, anybody else have any comments?

Karen, you're shaking your head.

No, I just wanted to say I think that's excellent.

I'm glad Becca brought that up.

And I also

You know, I like hearing the language with, yeah, if we coordinate our structure and our purchasing and things on a matter like the climate action plans, et cetera, it's kind of one step forward to getting all of our services kind of coordinated and working together as opposed to each of us worrying about our own silos.

So I think that's really great.

And as you know, I'm very interested in analyzing the

pay equity for transit drivers.

It's been on my radar ever since I've been in operations at Johnson.

So that's something that's very, very important to me.

So thank you.

OK. And I see Lloyd has leaned in.

Well, partly I wanted to agree with Becca.

It occurs to me both the city and the county have in the next month or two plans to have a further discussion of climate action planning.

I don't know where exactly the county is.

I'm not even sure where exactly the city is, but I'm aware that we're moving toward a report to council sometime soon.

I imagine the same is happening with you all.

And so

One of the things that is a sort of a challenge in evaluating progress and climate change priorities is how we measure it, how we figure out whether we're doing better or not.

So far, for example, I know in Charlottesville's case,

Virtually all of the improvement that we are able to brag about comes from, in our carbon footprint, comes from the fact that Dominion Power is using more alternative sources than they used to, or that they're using more natural gas than coal.

Hardly something we should be proud of, although we get to talk about it as though, aren't we wonderful?

Of course, you know, we would hopefully be able to measure ridership and things like that, but that's sort of a, I mean, we're going to have to start resorting to proxies here to figure out

where we can claim credit for what?

Because when we, hopefully if we have more ridership, we might have a corresponding decrease in the amount of gasoline purchased in the Charlottesville, Albemarle area, which is one of the other ways one could measure.

And so one of the tasks that I hope that both the city and the county and perhaps the RTP or TJPDC can help with

is to figure out what a truly intellectually honest way is to assess all of our

our progress on climate change and to be able to assess the extent to which it is fair to brag about, for example, a reduction in carbon footprint because of transit, because we have been able to do certain other things.

So that's probably under 4C, but it's a little bit more than just having an informational series.

It really is a lot more coordination, it seems to me,

and kind of sitting down with one another and brainstorming what's a fair way, what's an accurate way, an intellectually honest way to make these assessments.

I don't know how the county folks are doing with their figuring out how they're going to measure progress, but that's something that I think the county, city, university, RTP,

Okay.

Well, I'm not sure about the intellectually honest piece.

I can say that the first phase of the climate action plan

has been reviewed and approved by the board late last year.

We have funding set aside, some projects underway that are in supporting of those goals.

And then the staff will be returning to the board, post budget, probably late spring, early summer to talk about the continued work.

We are rebase finding, which I think is what we'll be tying our metrics back to.

and that work should be done.

So that's underway.

I do think there'll be further discussions.

And I think that might be, and Lloyd, that gets a little bit at what you're saying.

I think it might be very helpful for this group to be able to do that.

Well, since obviously this group being the regional transit partnership, we have a natural desire to have City and County University all working together.

Well, that's right.

Yeah.

It's just off by a few months.

But I mean, frankly, when I saw the counties

First draft of the plan, the draft you all approved last winter, last fall, whenever it was, my immediate reaction was to suggest to the city folks, just go substitute the word Charlottesville instead of the word Albemarle, because it was a really good plan.

Well, it would be great to have an agenda item or so around this very topic to share, right?

Oh, Garland.

So I think this is a really helpful discussion and I think that we need to spend some time really working through what it means for transit to kind of adopt this model.

Because when you, when you are talking about transit, there are federal standards that we've got to get through.

There are, you know, the issues of reliability we've got to work through.

There are,

infrastructure concerns we've got to get through and with the changing of, and this might be appropriate time for Neil to, and Neil and I had a conversation about STP dollars not being able to be flexed over for capital projects for smaller transit agencies.

That potentially causes an issue for the infrastructure components for us for the, for alternative fuel vehicle to get that infrastructure put in place.

So those are things we really need to kind of hone in and discuss.

And we can all see what the market is moving towards the EV model.

Understand it.

But the real push right now is on the light trucks, small vehicles.

It's not really on the big bus side yet.

It is coming.

Patera has kind of a monopoly on the market right now.

There are other vehicles that are coming probably in a year or so.

I would say, you know, Gilex has got a product that's coming.

It hasn't been to Altoona yet, but it's really getting close.

But there are still issues of whether we're getting the full charge and because of topography issues, whether it has the power to do what's necessary to be able to sustain it for an all day.

So those are things when we're talking about

having a reliable system and improving our carbon footprint, it's great to have the vehicle, but if it's not gonna run, it doesn't mean anything.

So we need to really think about, work through that, and we're not talking about implementing it potentially tomorrow.

There's a scale, right?

So in five years, the technology is gonna be a lot better than it is today.

So I'm just saying,

I know it's on everybody's, it's on my radar, it's on everybody's radar, but I'm just saying at this point, I think for, I would, if you're asking me, I'm gonna advise the council that I think our first step would be to go out and say publicly, we're not going to buy any more diesel vehicles after a certain point in time.

That would be kind of step one.

What that interim is, and I don't think it's an interim, I think, you know, there's a, I think we,

I'm not a person who likes to put all my eggs in one basket, so I would never really want to go to a fully EV model, period, because if charging stations go down, substations go down, you can't operate.

Great point.

Yes.

Yes.

So actually, I agree with what Lloyd has said.

And but no, you cannot take our document just, you know, white out Charlottesville and Port Albemarle.

at least change a couple other words and then you're okay.

But I did want to ask Garland are we looking into because I hear you saying you don't want to go completely EV because of the fact that some stations charging stations could go down and everything maybe in a storm or whatever because of our weather here are we looking into or have you looked into CNG, LNG buses is that something that we

Great point, and I'm glad you look like you're reading my notes.

So I've been pushing that model and Ms. McKill and I have had this conversation.

I think it's a perfect step for us is to put CNG in place, do away with diesel,

and then as the market gets better and reliability on the EV, then we would have half our fleet, CNG and half our fleet EV.

And I would also suggest maybe working with the school districts so that they also do the changeover at the same time you do, thereby you have an economy of scale.

I know in Los Angeles, Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, they all went, oh my gosh, I want to say 10, 15 years ago.

to CNG vehicles and did away with the diesels completely.

Yes.

We've got the CNG model, what, 70 miles down the road.

So we could always, you know, when everybody, this COVID thing is over, schedule a tour of the GRTC facility, and you would be able to see what the CNG model looks like.

But I think it is potentially a bridge, but not a, you know, it's not a temporary bridge.

If you need any information on, sorry, if you need any information or any context, I still have contacts with the MTA.

I was on that board as an alternative board.

I'm not sure exactly the timing, but it certainly would be a great agenda.

So any other comments or questions on

the optional suggestions, I think activity four and activity five.

Some of you might wanna jump in here at this point.

Peter or Nikaya, anyone have any thoughts?

You okay?

I will say that for me, I think trying a virtual peer city could be fascinating.

I think it's always good to see what other people are doing, and it would be a great exercise.

For me, I would really like to try that.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it would be fun.

And I would really like to see us have some work around our climate action plans as well as housing policies.

I think to have some discussions around affordable housing,

and transit.

We have an affordable housing partnership in this community, regional housing, affordable housing partnership.

Might be great to have them come and meet with us at some point and talk about their work and how we all connect.

So I guess with that, are there any other comments or questions?

Neil, you haven't said anything.

No, I'm fine.

I know we didn't want to talk about the alternative videos completely, but I would just say that the state really does want what you're talking about here a little bit is looking at plans, whatever the regional plans and put something in place.

And so the technology is certainly changing every year and

but we we really encourage that because we just don't want somebody to get a vehicle of either natural gas or or hybrid or electric and then you know say we're getting this detested but really is there a local regional dedication to that in the long run and I know you know that that's probably does very vital and this that Jennifer Mitchell our director has said that because there is a large increase of

capital costs to these vehicles.

We are looking, we probably will be this year, some areas came in funding those with our normal 68% state funding.

So we do, you know, we do see this as future City of Alexandria, I think has decided to go completely electric.

So they would be somebody to look at and probably

They actually have a few different manufacturers of electric buses, but the big part is getting to the smaller buses.

And as you said, that's not quite there yet for procurement.

Right.

Thank you very much, Nick.

OK, any other comments or questions?

Jessica?

Can I ask a quick question, Diana?

Sorry, just to make sure that we ensure that staff has really good direction for coming to you in the next meeting.

Are there any of those activities or sub-activities that we can say we can eliminate for now?

It might not be the right time.

We can push that into FY23 because I would love for them to be able to build out

a more detailed scope for some of these for you to talk about in April.

So for example, I was being mindful of what Garland said, that they're in an RFP process for your passenger counters, and that could be eight to 10 months.

Would it make sense to push the ridership reporting project into FY23 once we have better data to be able to work with?

I think pushing that ridership, it seems like to me, based on what we've heard from Garland, I think that makes sense.

Is there anybody that doesn't agree or thinks differently?

I think that- I agree.

Timing would be better for that.

Obviously, we can't do everything.

Right.

And we have a committee that's working on the equitable driving appreciation piece.

Maybe we need to let that group have an opportunity to, because I was on that committee and we haven't met with COVID for a long time.

So maybe we need some time to get back onto that particular.

I know it's really important, but it might be good to give some time for that committee to do some work and push that one off a little bit.

Well, I would say that the committee needs to get back together and make that a priority.

But that would be the committee right now.

I know it's part of the work plan, but it is a subgroup, right?

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

I think.

Yeah, I see Karen nodding her head.

Well, I was thinking it was myself and Brad.

Christine, somebody help me with this and Jim Foley and Garland and Becca.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

All right.

So I'm just thinking that it gives some time for that committee to get back together and and do some work might be appropriate.

Is there, I do think there was some energy though around connections with the city and the county and our climate action plans.

There was work connections.

I didn't hear anybody push back when I suggested the affordable housing piece that worked perhaps, Christine, with, you know, the housing policy, because we all know you're not going to have affordable housing and housing if you don't have transit, right?

We've got to connect somehow or another.

And I may have been the only one that mentioned I'd love to try a peer virtual tour of another city.

But maybe, is there any nodding of heads that that might be at least to try one and see how it goes?

I mean, are there any interest in that?

I just think it's always good if we can take a look at what other communities are doing, successful communities are doing, successful transit communities.

Actually, I like it a lot.

I'm just going to be honest.

We are looking at doing a kind of a on call with Kimberly Horn to do a kind of a peer review for CAT anyway.

That was, that's a necessary component for us to,

As we start to build out and ask for more for our alternative fuel vehicles and our facilities, we need to see how we match up as we're starting to ask for more capital projects.

So you could use this one as part of that, right?

Well, maybe.

So I would just say, Ben,

Chambers from Kimberly-Horn is actually as one of the attendees that's sitting out there.

He and I and the team we've been working through, there are a few studies we're trying to get done.

But this is a kind of a critical component for us because it allows us to measure ourselves and it allows the state to see where we're potentially deficient in like our capital needs.

So that is why we're doing the project.

And it fits into kind of the peer review things that we're talking about virtually here.

As we're asking for potentially a permanent location, like a park and ride up on 29, that's going to be kind of a review for kind of what does our overall footprint look like and how we're building out.

Does it make sense to do that as compared to other transit agents similar to our size?

So we're already, we're already going to have to do that component to make it happen.

Does that,

Yeah, B. Yeah, I just wanted to ask Garland, are you looking for your parking ride up in the area of, well, it was former defense, but it's now called North Point up there?

So I would just say what we don't want to do is give the developers a chance to grab the pieces of property from us that we're looking at.

So we are having conversations behind the scenes right now.

We've had general conversations with Trevor and Kevin and the team, and I think it was a great one.

We need to do more about that.

But I think long term, the study is going to help us to determine

Whether the feasibility is there to do it first, and then we can kind of hone in on where it potentially could be.

The purpose would be, you know, to create that model where we get better dedicated service up on 29, facilitate movement down into the university.

And that would be certainly something that might come from some of these visioning plans as well.

Yes.

Absolutely.

So I'm keeping track of the time.

I just don't want us to lose track of the time.

Christine, does that answer, has that helped?

Absolutely.

That gives us a lot to go back with and build out some of these ideas.

This is perfect.

Okay, great.

Lucas, did you have something you wanted to say?

Okay.

All right.

Just trying to keep my time capers out on here.

Actually, I don't think so.

Sorry.

Yeah, thank you.

Let me go ahead.

I'm going to share my screen here.

And for those of you, let's see.

For those of you that attended that MPA meeting last night, some of us will be a little bit repetitive, but I think we'll put a different spin on it for you all.

So there are two things I wanted to mention.

One of the goals that we have right now is to make sure that we are thinking about transportation as a system and making sure that as we do go through our planning process and go through our project identification and things like that that we're

making sure that we are considering how all of the different types of transportation modes of transportation interact with each other to help us meet the regional goals for how people move throughout the urbanized area.

So one of the goals

that I have personally is just to make sure that we are bringing all the information to all the right people so that they can be invested and be engaged in the process and provide different perspectives that we need to consider to make sure that we're doing this well.

So the first thing I wanted to talk about, as Jessica mentioned, is the Unified Planning Work Program that the MPO develops each year.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the little details about how the MPI was funded, we get a majority of our funding from federal sources based on our population for our urbanized area.

So 80% of the funding for the MPO comes from the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration.

That's matched by 10% contribution from the state agencies, VDOT and DRPT.

And then we get an additional 10% from local match.

So that's county contributions and city contributions that go to the PDC to be used for our local match requirements.

So one of the things that we're required to do as a recipient of this funding is to develop a work program that highlights all of the different activities that we're going to be undertaking using this funding.

To give you an idea, the MPO budget for our urbanized area for FY22 is $320,000, give or take.

And then the other thing I want to mention is that if you look at the actual Unified Planning Work Program document, you'll see that there's an additional line item that says VDOT SPR funding.

That is funding that does not go through the MPO.

That is funding specifically for VDOT to provide staff to

to support the MPO and to assist us with projects.

So that's in addition to the $320,000 that we received.

The MPO met last evening and they voted on developing the initial draft that we're going to prepare for public review and comment at the MPO meeting in May.

So this is just a summary of what is included in that MPO work program.

So you'll see that the first task is that administration task, which is very similar to the administration task that Jessica went through with you for the RTP work program.

That's just the administration component, things that we have to do to keep the program running and operational and make sure that we're complying with all of the requirements.

That includes our

Meeting operations and staffing and it includes invoicing and includes making sure that we're completing reports and sharing information, that kind of thing.

I'm going to actually skip down to Task 3 because those are also pretty standard kinds of things that we know that we're going to need to be developing and devoting staff resources to.

So the first one TIP, that's the Transportation Improvement Plan, that basically is once we know what funding is allocated, this is the plan that shows where that money is going throughout our region.

So we have the long range plan that identifies our priority projects.

The TIP is the plan that tells you which of those projects have been funded and tells us when we're going to see funding to make sure that those projects are implemented.

So we know we're going to have to, that's a requirement that we maintain that plan.

So we know we're going to have to do that and we need to make sure that that's included in our work program.

SmartScale is a biannual process.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about that, but one of the things that the MPO identified as being a priority for them was enhancing and improving the SmartScale public engagement process to make sure that there are applications that are getting reviewed by the public early on.

And so we know we're going to have to support that basically every year.

This line item right here, this next line item under Task 3, the RTP, TDM, and BikePED support is really important for you all.

So this is kind of the line item that supports alternative modes of transportation, including the Regional Transit Partnership, Travel Demand Management, and BikePED support.

The reason this is really important is that one of the

One of the requirements in the memorandum of understanding that was signed when the Regional Transit Partnership was first formed is that there would be a standing funding line item in the MPO's unified planning work program to continue to provide staffing support for the RTP.

So that's something that we need to make sure is reflected in our work program every year.

And then we also have some of these other programs that we're required to complete.

We have to provide documentation and set performance targets each year based on safety, pavement, bridge condition, things like that.

We're required to do that as an MPO.

We have the option to either adopt state targets or to adopt local targets.

but it is something that we're required to report on.

Regional transit and rail planning provides staffing support to provide planning, go to meetings, prepare grant applications for things that are more inter-regional in nature like supporting Amtrak station improvements and attending meetings and conferences related to that.

And then this last item under task three is really about public outreach and engagement.

And we also included staffing our Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee here.

So task three and task one are pretty standard.

The projects might be a little bit different.

The specific work might be a little bit different, but those basic items are going to show up in the work program year after year.

So task two is really where we start working on some of the more local identified priority projects.

One of them that some of you may already be familiar with is this Route 29 North Corridor Study.

What we are doing is looking at the portion of 29 in the northern portion of Albemarle County, starting at Airport Road and going up to Ruckersville, basically,

in Greene County and looking at the transportation corridor and evaluating operations, establishing a vision for that and looking at how we can make recommendations for improvements throughout the area to help achieve those transportation goals.

So we're looking at that.

One of the goals that we have is to make sure that we are taking a multimodal perspective to integrate things like transit, like bike-ped infrastructure, to make sure that we're not just evaluating intersections, but we're also looking at how we can best integrate the need for additional modes of transportation throughout that corridor.

We're also going to be putting together scope of work for the long range transportation plan, which has to be updated every five years.

That's a requirement for the MPOs.

We're going to be doing a strategic plan.

And then what's really interesting about your discussion tonight is that in the memo you received this next line item was kind of a to be determined project.

We weren't really sure exactly what was going in there, but we had a discussion with the MPO Policy Board last night and they decided that one of the things that they would like us to be focusing on for that line item was integrating some of the local climate action initiatives into our transportation planning process.

So that's what they selected.

So it sounds like there might be some really good opportunities to do some collaboration and think about how we can be integrating, you know, the focus for the MPO was really looking at what are best practices for making sure that climate action goals are factored in when we're prioritizing and selecting and planning.

specific infrastructure process.

But at this point, it sounds like there might be some synergy around doing this a little bit more broadly.

And so I think our staff will probably be discussing maybe if there's an opportunity to look for some synergy or some opportunities for overlap and see if we can really be as efficient and effective as possible with using our resources to meet all the goals.

But the MPO Policy Board did vote to allocate $30,000 to researching best practices for how we how we can do that well.

Our main focus will be on our long range transportation plan just because that is the plan that the MPO produces.

So it makes the most sense that we would start there since as far as implementation, we won't have the same opportunities to provide the implementation on the ground as the localities or transit providers would or UVA as well.

But we can't start thinking about how do we build in a prioritization for the environmental considerations into how we evaluate projects and what rises to the top.

And then we have an additional $20,000 that was set aside for a future project to be determined.

So that's currently reflected in that on-call services budget line item where there's some flexibility on how that gets used in the future.

And we also would have the opportunity to potentially roll that into a new fiscal year if there wasn't something that came up this time around.

So that basically is just what I wanted to make sure that you all are aware that we go through this process.

The next steps in the UPWP adoption is going to be that we will be advertising this for a public hearing at the MPO meeting in May.

And that's when they're going to be voting to adopt the plan as the formal work program for next year.

But if anybody has any questions, I'm happy to

OK, folks, questions for Sandy?

Any thoughts or questions?

Sandy and Diane, if this question's off topic, let me know and I'll investigate it elsewhere.

But I know the federal government's looking at changing the definitions of SMAs.

Do you want me to answer that, Diane?

Yes, if you can, that'd be great.

Sure.

So the question is about there are, there's some discussion right now about changing the definition of a metropolitan statistical area, which is basically a census designation.

Currently Charlottesville is designated as an MSA, a metropolitan statistical area.

And the definition for that is that it has a population of 50,000 people or more.

And so there is,

Some effort to change the definition of that going from 50,000 to 100,000.

So what we understand right now is that MPO funding

at least for the transportation programs is not likely to be impacted at this time because, and it gets a little bit sticky, but basically a lot of the authorizing legislation and the federal regulations are defined based on urbanized area versus metropolitan statistical area.

However,

There are a lot of different places where this could be a factor.

And so one of the things that we're trying to support is just holding off until better research can be done to indicate what the potential impacts could be.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

I know we talked about that at the board level.

And the county staff folks were trying to look into this as well as to what the the negatives and the positives could be.

So that was helpful.

Thank you, Sandy.

So going back then to questions, any other questions about what Sandy's presented?

And I guess, Sandy, I was confused because I saw staff is requesting that the committees vote on the projects they would like to include.

So that vote is for later.

We're not talking about anything having to vote tonight.

That confused me.

Well, no.

And I apologize.

We were using the same materials for all the meetings.

And it did not occur to me that the MPO Policy Board would be meeting before this meeting tonight.

It's OK.

I just was wanting to make sure we didn't need to vote or something.

All right.

If you have any feedback, I'd still be very happy to hear it.

So any other, any opportunity to offer feedback?

Going, going?

I think it all sounds very exciting, to be perfectly honest with you.

I really like the closer information flow for all of us.

I think this is really very helpful and I appreciate it.

I do yeah so let me share my screen again and Jessica had mentioned as well one of the things that we also want to make sure we're doing a good job about is integrating transit considerations into our applications for funding that includes smart scale.

I will mention just very very high level to you all this will be Jessica has already been talking to the folks at DRPT about about doing

a presentation about specifically opportunities for the transit providers.

We did confirm that both JOT and CAT are eligible to apply for smart scale projects outside of the localities.

So they each are eligible to submit their own applications as well.

And there are opportunities for them to apply for support to

to get technical assistance to prepare applications.

So we'll give you more information as well.

But I think one of the things I also want to make sure that we're doing is that we're sharing all of the resources that are available as broadly as possible to, again, support the entire transportation system.

Network operating as efficiently as possible with a variety of modes.

But what I want to talk about more specifically tonight is the new SmartScale process that the MPO is going to be going through for this next round of SmartScale applications.

And again, for those of you who might not be as familiar, SmartScale is the Virginia state process that uses a competitive scoring check.

criteria to select transportation projects to receive state funding.

So in this last round, round four, we were very successful in getting a large amount of funding.

A lot of that was because we had additional funding due to

due to additional support through the omnibus bill that we won't typically have.

But among the projects that we were able to get support for was the improvements to hydraulic and 29, including a pedestrian and bike crossing at the Zand Road area.

So we were pretty excited about that.

But there were also other bike facilities and things like that.

I think that hydraulic project was especially important because it showed a lot of collaboration and consideration for integrating multiple modes of transportation into the project.

The MPO is able to submit four projects, at least if the technical guidance doesn't change before the next round.

and the MPO in order to submit their projects.

The projects must meet some eligibility requirement.

So the first is that they have to meet a need that's identified in V-Trans.

V-Trans is the statewide transportation plan and basically if it's not a need on V-Trans, we're not going to be eligible to submit it and it's not going to get funded.

The second is that it has to either meet a need on a corridor statewide significance.

Again, this is just for the MPO to submit the project, not for localities.

So the corridor statewide significance would be projects like on US 29 or 64

or it could be in the regional network.

VTRANS, that state plan, defines the regional network and tells us if a project would need any there or not, but usually those are based more on improving travel and meeting transportation needs for traveling within a localized region, and it also is what supports a lot of the multimodal efforts.

So one of the criticisms we heard in the previous round of smart scale applications was that projects were getting way too far into the process of applications being submitted without there being public engagement.

And so we were getting to the end where pre-application was already submitted, getting really negative public feedback or realizing there were a lot of concerns that still needed to be

figured out and then having to pull the project back at a date when it was really too late to sort of change what was included in the project or apply for a different project.

And so we took that really to heart and we developed a different process for SmartScale that helps us get out in front of it pretty far.

And well,

and will help us do this public engagement up front so that there is time to make sure that we're incorporating the public interest and needs and considerations into the applications before they get submitted initially, even for the pre-application.

So right now, this is just a little timeline that shows the general process.

We're in these initial discussions in March.

And so what happened is that I met with

The city and county staff as well as our VDOT representative to just identify an initial list of potential projects that we might be interested in moving forward for smart scale application.

So between March and May, really, you know, generally April, what we would like to do is we would like to receive additional project requests beyond the initial list that we were requested.

And so we're giving this opportunity to consider additional projects to the local governing bodies.

So the elected officials, your staffs will be coming to you to discuss if there are other projects or if there's a prioritized project within the list that we've already prepared that you want to.

continue for us to pursue.

But we're also going to let our Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, our technical committee for the MPO, and you all as well bring our attention to any additional projects that you might want us to submit.

And so we would ask for you to, for this group, you can have those discussions in April, and if your committee wants to vote on additional projects to consider, you would have that opportunity at your meeting in April.

And so then in May, we would develop a finalized list of project requests.

So we would take all the projects that staff has already discussed, all the projects that the committees have discussed, and all the projects that the local governments have discussed.

And we would create that finalized list in May.

And then in July, we're going to ask the MPO Policy Board to make a project selection.

Initially, we're going to ask them to choose four projects total because that's the number of applications that we think we're going to have.

And of those four projects, we're going to ask them to identify two projects that they think need this higher level of engagement.

So at that point, we'll be facilitating a public engagement process.

We'll get an advisory committee appointed based on the project.

That will depend on who makes sense for the advisory committee.

And then we'll begin at meeting with the advisory committees in September or October.

In March, what we're going to do, this is March of fiscal year 22, so a year from now, what we're going to do is we're going to collaborate with the city of Charlottesville, with Albemarle County and develop a public workshop to just go through the entire list of projects in our area.

We did this, this last cycle was very successful to give the public a chance to ask questions.

That still gives us an opportunity about a two month period.

If we need to make tweaks or revisions based on that public feedback, we would still have a little bit of a chance to do that before we submit pre applications in May.

So that's the general process that we're going through.

It is a very long, drawn out process, but I think it will be a much better opportunity for there to be public engagement and meaningful feedback.

So before, well, I'll just go through and we can go back to the slides if I need to.

So when I met together with the other staff members and there were a couple of criteria that we use to identify what the potential project opportunities might be.

So the first is that we wanted to make sure that the project met a defined need based on our existing long range transportation plan.

If you haven't looked at the long range transportation plan, it has a really long list of projects.

And of those, there are some projects that are on a short list called a constrained list.

And there are some projects that are on a longer list called a vision list.

It didn't really matter which one the project was on.

We just needed to make sure it was in at least one of those lists.

The second criteria we looked at was that it was multi-jurisdictional.

So the project will improve transportation system operations for both Charlottesville and Albemarle.

We also wanted to build on previous plans or studies that were completed.

So we wanted to continue to move projects from the planning phase to the implementation phase.

And that also helps us reduce the need for additional technical support to get a project ready for an application.

And the last thing kind of builds on that previous planner study, and that's that we wanted there to be some level of public support for the project.

So based on that criteria,

We have this initial list of projects that we wanted to mention initially to go through and discuss.

So this is the list that we have developed with staff.

The District Avenue roundabout and Hillsdale Avenue extension both showed up as being on that shorter list and the long range transportation plans, so the higher priority ones.

And these were identified through the hydraulic 29 small area planning process.

Hillsdale Avenue extension is basically an extension from Hillsdale Avenue down to 250 to make a direct connection.

That was actually submitted out as an application in the most recent round of smart scale and out of 20 projects that were funded that was project number 21.

So it scored pretty well considering that it didn't get funded, but that is an opportunity.

And the District Avenue roundabout is the only other project on the constrained list that met all the other criteria of being multi-jurisdictional in nature.

There's also been a lot of, there's been a feasibility study that Jessica worked on looking at potential crossing options for pedestrians and bikes across the Ravenna River.

So that's another potential option.

and then there have also been some corridor studies that were recently completed on Avon Street and 5th Street.

So that's the initial list.

The 29-250 improvements in blue, those were brought up later by our VDOT district engineers being a potential opportunity for us to do some improvements that would meet a critical need based on VDOTS.

So I think one really important thing to consider for this group is that there might be some other projects that are more transit specific that you would like us to also include in the mix, and we'd be happy to add those.

But I also think that regardless of which projects we submit, it's really important for this group to be engaged to make sure that we are considering where there might be additional transit operations or changes in operations to make sure that we're building those into our applications.

And then the only other thing that I want to mention just in case it comes up in conversation is that there has been a lot of conversations from UVA planning staff, the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County about how much they would like to see the Sunset Fontaine connector.

happen.

And I just want to mention it has been brought up in discussion, but at this point there are a lot of engineering obstacles that would have to be overcome.

So we're aware of it.

We'll look at opportunities to study it, but right now it doesn't seem likely that we would be able to develop a feasible application to submit for that.

Thank you, Sandy.

That was a lot of information just for my benefit and maybe for other people's as well.

So we're talking about projects that would be submitted through the MPO.

But the county and the city still have the ability to submit their own projects, just so everybody remembers that piece.

And I can't honestly remember how many.

But this does not rule out the city and the county submitting their own projects.

Thank you.

So thank you, Sandy, for that presentation.

That was very informative.

And what I was wondering is if we are coordinating with Albemarle County or in Charlottesville regarding their projects to make sure there aren't any crossovers.

Because if we have one and you're doing the same one or thinking of the same thing, then we would let you have it.

And we could have another one.

Yeah, I had some initial conversations with planning staff and transportation staff from both localities to start off with.

That's how we created this list.

I actually just emailed Kevin and Diane today to say like, hey, of any of these projects, do you foresee that the county would want to provide or apply for any of these on their own?

Or do you see all these being potential MPA projects?

I can just quickly speak to that because I was on that panel and the Hillsdale extension which is of course in the city that is where if you think about Kmart that's the roundabout location down there and that extension would go to the 250 bypass and then the hill the district avenue is up where you would enter Stonefield

Oh, I see.

Got it.

Those two projects and Sandy can correct me if I'm wrong, but those two projects complete the package of hydraulic projects and in a way were built to work with

what we're doing at the hydraulic intersection to make it all flow smoothly.

Right.

And I remember that presentation where Hillsdale would go all the way through the Croaker and onto 250.

So, yes.

Okay.

And just to clarify,

We're focused on meeting needs that relate to the corridor's statewide significance or the regional network.

Any other comments or questions?

So Sandy, I don't think you need anything from us today.

Okay, and we have time to bring those back at the next meeting?

Email you.

Yeah.

And we can discuss them at the next meeting, right?

I'd be happy to do that.

Okay, all right.

Any other comments?

I see Trevor's going to sign off.

A few people have left.

We have Jim Foley who has joined us.

And Jim, I said that we would get back to you if you were able to join us on the Albemarle County Schools School and Bus Service update.

Sure.

Just real quick, we're doing some hiring.

We're trying to hire more drivers.

I know Garland is too.

And then we're having a lot of traffic at our schools because we're limiting students to one student per seat.

So consequently, we cannot handle all the parents that want to put their kids on a school bus, which results in lots of traffic.

that backs up into the roads.

So we're trying... We've done a few things to get the traffic off the road, but the last big one is over at Brownsville, so it backs up onto 250 for quite a long time, but

We're working on that.

We'll see if we can solve that.

But those are the big things I'm working on.

We just started what we call stage four.

So we have probably a little more than a third of our students actually in school now.

Yeah.

No, we want to get them.

Yeah.

All right.

Any questions for Jim about, Ammar County Public Schools Transportation and where they are?

I really want to take the opportunity to really thank all the transit providers, whether it's CAT, Jaunt,

All of you guys, Charlottesville and Albemarle Public Schools, you all have really done a wonderful job during COVID and taken good care of our community, good care of your drivers, and I just want to express appreciation.

I would like to say thank you also.

I mean, the team here works hard every day.

It's not one of those jobs where you can telework.

So you've got to come in.

And I'll sit behind the seat.

So we really are appreciative of it.

And I would just say the communication between Kat, John, UTF have been wonderful in the spirit of time, marked improvements, and we're going to continue down that path.

Well and I will say as someone who was on this board and some of the rest of you were when we started a few years ago we've come a long ways folks with communication and so I'm just really really impressed but thank you for taking good care of your drivers and taking care of our community so it was really good.

And with that

I don't know that we didn't have any other business.

I hate to let you all dismiss or let you all go 10 minutes early.

I just want to mention one thing.

It's only take five minutes.

So Neil Sherman, if you'll help me with this, is that Neil and I talked, was it last week, or maybe week before, last week about

The funding change with STP funding that's coming down to the region, how it's going to affect all the transit agencies, not necessarily the larger transit agencies.

We've been saying this for a year that we don't have the federal funding that the small urbans, we were able to flex over.

the money that we control.

So we did want small urbans to know that this year that we're not sure what, you know, we are looking to see what we have available, we'll have some.

And when the STIP goes out in April, but this is gonna be a future problem.

There's not a cure for it right now.

I mean, we've increased certainly on the great part, we've increased state funding 68%.

across the board.

So these are things that localities are going to have to consider whether to, in this particular year, use part of your stimulus cares or whatever, or in the future, put aside some of the 5307, which was what everybody had to do years ago until we were able to do this.

And so, I mean, it is something that the agency that we're aware of, obviously have, we've been letting the trans systems know this for about a year.

But I don't know how bad it's gonna be this year, but I think for the future that that's the big concern.

But as a state agency, we are looking at some other alternatives, whether there's another funding source we could use, or something like that.

there are options of which are difficult sometimes discretionary funding for capital that some systems has to start looking at a little more seriously and things like that.

So I think it's just one of those, we were able to get, you know, program more state money, but it is an issue where some localities maybe in the future coming up with 32% match, whether they take that from 5307,

or they look at some other things.

So Neil, let me just frame this a little bit so that I make sure I understand because Garland and I had this discussion as well.

Let me just finish and make sure, because we're running out of time.

At the end of the day, what it means is the locals are going to have to cough up more money for our capital, right?

Well, I, it'll be, the draft will be out in middle April and so I don't want to, I can't really state what that looks like now, even though I've seen some of it, but

Yeah, I think it's a concern for the upcoming years, to be honest, and maybe not as bad as this year.

So what I suggested to Garland when we talked about it, and again, I'm trying to get us out here on time, what I suggested was that it might be helpful

If the City Council and the Board of Supervisors, I think Garland, we talked about a letter to go to City Council and the Board of Supervisors that you would provide us a letter to send to the right people, right?

So I think that's a, you know, maybe an appropriate way to go, but I would also say that long-term

As transit agencies of our size try to become bigger transit agencies, the capital component is a major infrastructure impediment and a hurdle where you've got to figure out how to close that hole.

If the numbers are, Neil, sounds like this year is almost, there's going to be a small impact or maybe no impact, but in the future,

So the only suggestion I would wait on, not to tell you not to write a letter or something later, but I would certainly wait to see the draft come out in the middle of April.

Sure, that's fine.

And then say this is an understanding again, you know, that all the

All the SIP hearings will probably be Zoom anyway, but you know, you all have an opportunity to do will be public hearings this spring.

But it may be, you know, it's definitely, you know, we, you know, we're not hiding, we want to just be right on people's radars that we need to look at things.

And again, the agency itself will probably try to look at some things.

And, you know, we were able to come across this money

The other thing Garland and I talked about was this might be something that the City Council and Board of Supervisors might want to look at with our next upcoming legislative packet.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes.

So that needs to be on our radar screen.

Garland, thank you for bringing that up.

No, I'll just say, I would just say that the state's been wonderful.

So Neil and the team have been wonderful trying to

It's pretty significant and pretty scary.

Lloyd needs to go.

Six o'clock, want to get everybody to their next meeting or to dinner, wherever they might be going or to their children.

So hearing no objections, I believe that we are, we will rejoin on, I don't have the date in front of me.

Okay, so we will reconvene on April the 22nd.

And in the meantime, everyone have a lovely spring.

Thank you very much.