Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   10/26/2023

The October 26th Regional Federal Partnership meeting.

Welcome everyone.

Our first order of business today is going to be to vote to approve Lucas Haynes from CHARL.

And is Katie on screen?

I don't see her.

She's not there yet.

Well, let's go on and vote to approve Lucas Haynes

to officially to be able to join our meeting by Zoom.

Yes, ma'am.

All right, great.

With that, I would like to entertain a motion to approve Lucas Ames to join our meeting via Zoom.

So Boyd had the motion and they didn't have the second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

You're joining us.

Thank you very much.

And if you all would let me know when Katie joins, yes, we'll vote for her as well.

So with that, welcome everybody.

Let's do a round of introductions first, as we always do.

And I do have a couple of announcements first.

Let me just say that we have a new person at the table, Scott Sillsnorf.

That's right.

I got it right.

Who is the new director of Parliament and Transportation for UVA.

And as we come around with the introductions, I'm going to give you an opportunity to say a little bit about yourself and your background and why we're here.

And we also have a new member of the board.

Peter Craig is joining us today as a non-voting member.

And Peter is here and will be joining the board as of today because Piedmont Environmental Council exercised their right, as spelled out in our final office, to have a non-voting representative on the board.

So as we go around, Peter, we will get you to introduce yourself to the members.

All right, with that then, let's start looking at Garland.

Garland James Brett, DeShawnsbury, the transit to the U.S. public, and you.

Lloyd Snow, Mayor of City of Charlottesville.

Christine Jacobs, Mayor of the council, I'm the planning and visitor of Michigan.

And now I'm going to represent the Whitehall District, which is in its third area of the rosé and following the energy as a principal from there.

Hello everyone, I'm Scott Sulzor from the new Director of Parking and Transportation at UVA.

I started August the 9th, I believe, was the first day.

I'm happy to be here briefly about myself.

I'm a 1991 UVA undergrad in architecture.

Spent five years in the Navy because I was a Navy ROTC while I was here in Charlottesville.

Met my wife in the Navy and spent the next 25 years with her sailing the world, but mostly in Norfolk, Virginia.

Along the way, I got a graduate degree in urban planning and transportation engineering focus.

So I worked for 10 years for Parsons-Brickerhoff, which is now known as WSP, as an infrastructure engineering company, doing a mixture of transit, highway, pedestrian, multimodal studies, and not so much engineering, but more planning work.

Couple years as a stay-at-home dad when we were stationed overseas in Japan and then came back to Mulbrick and jumped on the opportunity to be the director of parking and transportation at Old Dominion University, which is where I was for the last 10 years.

So I'm excited to be here.

I live in Crozet.

If you know Becca, Becca White, she's literally a neighbor of mine down the street.

Sped here along with these other fine folks from UVA, from Williamsburg.

We were at the Parking Association of Virginia conference the last two days talking multimodal and parking needs across the Commonwealth.

Right.

And I'm sure this

Yes, I'm very happy to be here.

Yes.

I'm Allison Day, also from UVA.

Lucinda Shannon, TJPDC.

Gretchen Thomas, TJPDC.

Hello, I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm an urban planner.

I focus on walkability, bikeability, transit, and high quality of life.

I'm honored to be among you all virtually today.

I'm in Montreal enjoying the awesome transit and

I'm getting a little bit jealous, but we do hit above our weight class in Charlottesville, Albemarle, so I'm not getting unrealistic.

And thank you so much.

Right.

All right.

And I think Katie is there.

Well, we're behind the witness.

I'm trying community development.

I have a part also with UVA.

Katie has not joined us from here.

Okay.

All right.

We'll move on.

Our first order of business is to approve the agenda.

So I will make a motion to approve the agenda.

Second.

And a second.

Thank you.

All those in favor of our agenda,

Next item is approval of our draft meeting minutes from September the 28th.

And before that, we're in our packet.

But I want to just make a couple of clarifications on page two.

Under the joint transit provider updates,

Gretchen had a hard time hearing the recording, which does remind all of us that we need to project our voices and speak up because she's trying to record our conversations.

So there it says they started the rural, we should insert transit means assessment goes into that spot.

and then up above DRPT since Katie's gone here, we still have a blame for her comments and you'll just have to leave it at that.

But I would entertain then a motion to approve the minutes from September the 28th as amended.

Okay, so we have a motion for nay and a second from Brian.

All those in favor to approve the minutes as amended.

Say aye.

Aye.

Any abstentions?

Any nos?

All right.

So we have an agenda and we have our minutes approved, which is great.

So does anybody in the room want to speak?

So this is matters coming up.

I don't know what that white hand is.

That's not a chat.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Then, our first agenda item, Garland is going to present, we're all excited about this, Garland, about the micro-cap, finally, that is starting in Albemarle County, and it's being launched.

This week.

Yeah.

All right.

So the launch is at the lemonade, again, out at Marco's,

Sintera, Robert Jefferson Hospital.

And the time is 11 o'clock.

It should take more than about 30 to 40 minutes.

Okay.

So when are you going to bring up one of the bands down here?

Yeah.

I'm just an album zone.

All right.

So this is the presentation that was presented to the Board of Supervisors on September 20th.

So I have not changed this.

I was going to talk through some of it and what we wanted to do and what we did on the 20th, but basically go through these five items of the board.

We gave them a kind of a basic overview of who we were, which is to tell you that one, the

RFP procurement process that we went through.

We gave them a general overview of what microtransit kind of entails, our marketing strategy, key dates, and kind of the launch roadmap.

And then you'll see all that as we go through.

So one of the first slides, and actually, Mr. Henry actually brought us all up and introduced us to the board.

He introduced the team that had been working on this behind the scenes.

myself, Abby, Trevor, and Kevin.

Then we had two key members that were from VIA itself was Jake and then Alejandro.

Alejandro is actually in town now.

He has the boots on the ground to get to launch.

So we launched the MicroCat service soft launch Monday.

The app went live.

We actually started taking rides that day.

So we had our first ride that afternoon.

It went well.

No major pick-ups, which is what we wanted to hear.

So we're following real fast to Monday.

I was going to say we've got a couple of things that we're trying to work through.

A couple of the wraps for which you'll see that as a part of the presentation, but the actual product looks like.

But the wraps should be done tomorrow, just in time for our next week, Monday launch.

So give you a little background.

So there was a study that was completed by the TAEDC and Albemarle County.

It looked at, you know, the Albemarle

The Albemarle County Transit expansion plan that was done, once that was completed, it identified two particular areas that we wanted to look and target for rival transit.

That was 29 North corridor and the Pantops.

We were successful in applying for a demonstration grant that was $1.9 million.

from the TJPDC for $388,000 match from the county.

This is two year grant.

First year is being paid for through the state and with the match in the county and the second year is on the county.

That's partly what we get to do.

So Dia was the company that won.

It was four

really competitive companies that were a part of the original procurement process.

BL was the one that was selected based on how they were performing and quite frankly they were the best.

They had the lowest cost of all of the providers in the model and

because of that and a lot of flexibility if you need to scale up because we're hoping this will be well and successful and gave us the ability to do so without having to go back and change the original budget or ask the county or the state to audition.

So VA is all over, they have 650 partners, they're in 40 countries, 128 million riders serving today.

What does that mean for us?

VEA has actually been operating in Virginia.

We will be the seventh location.

They have services and wives, Roanoke, Williamsburg, Gloucester, Hampton Roads, Alexandria.

This is the seventh location.

We've been very happy with all of the cooperation that we got from them.

They've been very receptive to

some changes, and we're going to talk about one of those as we go through the presentation.

But the ABCs of microtransit, it kind of fills a gap where the fixed route networks, fixed route can't get everywhere.

Microtransit has the ability to complement that.

Compliment fixed route, where we have fixed route service, but it may not necessarily be as frequent as we would like it to be.

There's an offset by using microchangers to fill that gap also.

And converting underserved fixed route areas to an on-demand service is one thing that microchangers have the ability to do that also.

And it also just really increases mobility options.

You have fixed route and then you have the micro transit on top of it.

Mobility is increased exponentially.

So these are the areas that were assessed.

The US 29 North portal.

As you can see, Halimi, the airport is included.

We've actually made a modification on the southern end.

We brought in

the mall and actually Albemarle High School is actually in the zone now.

Those were modifications that were added with no additional costs and the VA was also able to do it without having to add any additional vehicles at this time.

But if we needed to add a vehicle, there is money to do so and add a driver to make the model work.

I just want to reiterate, via coming in or via coming out, they looked at our study, they looked at the zones, the first thing they said was that we should connect them, that makes more sense.

As we drill down and we're getting ready for the launch, we were looking at around the high ground area, it was not in the original study, we worked through that.

We're excited about their willingness and their experiences.

You really need to include that.

And so, you know, with no difference in cause, we've been able to incorporate that in.

So I think it's going to be our best chance to be successful in this problem.

And just clarification for that because, and I didn't ask if you wanted us to ask questions.

That's correct.

That's correct.

And Lowe's and Tish's?

Across the street.

That was my understanding, but I wanted to say to everybody here that they want that they want to that to our attention that they were able to make them off the page and add it.

And based on adding that, they didn't believe that they would need an additional vehicle, even with the high school being a high activity center.

Right.

Obviously, we are all thrilled with the Landslide campus and the lowest officials.

Just for clarity again for the public, though,

The area that you're discussing goes from the city limits to the county limits up 29 North, essentially.

So the county limit up to Boulder's Road all the way.

Boulder's Road, not Boulder's Road, Boulder's Road.

Right, there you go.

And then on Pine Pops, just so everyone knows, it goes from the city limits

I think it's just just back.

Right.

And we've connected both of them.

So in the original study, it was contemplated that they were going to be independent and you take the microtransit vehicle.

And if you needed to go to any of the other zones, you would have to use Fitch Route.

But they came in with an enhancement and said that they believe they could connect the two with no issues.

And that was obviously so much better.

Absolutely.

We have an online comment from Mr. Krebs.

Sure.

It does.

This was done right after the presentation.

This was the presentation we made to the Board of Supervisors on the 21st Center.

Right after that, we had a detailed conversation with the, and we were able to see if they could modify because there was growing interest in connecting the screen and connecting the model.

Well, we've struggled with the Landslide Campus.

because a lot of the folks that had children on that campus couldn't get to the campus.

Yes.

Yes.

OK. That's Boulder folders.

Yeah, it looks like it's right on the bubble.

OK. OK. Got it.

OK.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the data before this briefing sessions.

What does the microCAT product look like in software?

So if you download the app, what you will see is a microCAT.

And basically on your right-hand side, it gives you kind of the turnkey solution that we were able to get from VMs.

And then you look at the software applications on the left, you see when you load the software, it will say microCAT, hi, we're microCAT.

allowing you to kind of use the capabilities of the mapping.

So it will identify where you are in conjunction with the zones.

If you're in the zone, it will pick you up and allow you to take a ride.

If you're out in the zone, it will not allow you to book a ride, of course.

That's one of the beauties of these kind of services.

You don't have to necessarily know where you are and the zone will pick you up.

And then it will basically allow you to book a ride as long as it's in the zone.

If it's not in the zone,

So there's no ambiguity on that side of the house.

So it won't be like today, you were able to go here to the bar and you won't.

You know, it's in the zone.

You're not able to go there the whole time or you're not able to go there right now.

So it's just connected the two.

So if you're in the zone and you wanted to go, let's say, out of the Carson between the two, you wanted to stop off in Richmond.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it's designed today.

But we can make modifications about that later.

But right now it's connecting the two dots.

So just giving you kind of a more detailed look at how your smartphone would look.

So if you're booking your ride and telling them where you want to go, it'll basically, just like you, Uber will basically identify where you are, allow you an opportunity to tell where you want to go.

It'll tell you the distance between the approximate time that it will take to travel.

And that's the middle section.

And then it'll basically give you kind of a step-by-step if you needed to do an additional walk zone from here to there.

If we're only able to put you off here, you need to do an additional walk across

So that's what the software looks like.

And I think it's a really pretty robust system.

A lot of other user, there are other users of VIA who use their software.

So it's not just that they do the total package, but they are also a software provider to others who do minor training.

So the key four things that we're adhering to as far as the marking plan is concerned,

Convenience, Micro Transit, MicroCat specifically, makes it easier for everyone to get around the county.

Connecting to CAT, so one of the things we wanted to do is make sure we also emphasize Micro Transit may not be able to take you everywhere you want to be, but it also connects you quicker to CAT service to get you into the state downtown.

Accessibility, giving you to work, shopping, appointments, errands,

and more.

I think that's a plus as a part of this.

Providing more mobility options is always a great thing.

I actually had a conversation with 29 people this morning about how Apple is adding, you know, micro, adding transit services to all of their platforms and Charlottesville is actually one of the areas that is added to its platform.

So public transportation is becoming a

I think it has a major infrastructure improving for everybody, right?

So it's woven into our fabrics now.

The more we can use public transportation, the better we are at being a marine city.

And we don't want everybody who visits us to have to have a car who want to be able to provide them with mobility options.

We make this very affordable.

CAT is running zero fare right now.

And this service is also being

It's really easy to use.

It's app-based, but if you don't have an app, I think this is the most important piece.

If you don't have an app, there's a phone number that you can call and book your ride and tell them you're going to be able to book the services for you and allow you to use the services just like anyone else would be able to do.

Do you have the phone number?

No, we weren't able to get that.

We haven't had that conversation.

All right.

Sorry, sorry.

The goal is, so CAT is running fare-free.

or Zero Fair till June 30th of 2026.

So that's a long time for us to try to figure out between now and then as to whether we're going to bring fairs back.

And the original way that we advertise this, it was not set up to have equipment to

allow a change service.

So we have to do that.

We actually probably have to go back out to modify the existing contract.

If it's within that time frame, which it will not be, or in the new contract, we'd have to add the ability for them to bring on software and hardware to collect the fares.

I'm sorry.

What do you mean smoke?

Hey, what are you doing?

No.

Well, no.

I would say they may not know, but soon they know.

I'm going to skip to the next slide.

So it really allows us to figure out where we are in the timeline.

We're at the point now we're getting ready to launch, but if you looked at, so when we started September 1st, we were able to solidify a contract that we moved quickly into the implementation phase.

We're in the testing phase as we speak right now.

The official launch, which will actually, Jennifer DeGruyl, the

head of the Virginia Department of Railroad and Public Transportation will actually be here on Monday at the end of this launch, which is outstanding.

It was the state that offered us the money, so we want to thank you to her and allow her to bask in its glory.

Also, this is a big win for this region.

It's a big step for CAT.

It allowed us to add mobility options

and hopefully expand our capabilities around the region.

Eventually, though, we're going to have to have conversations about, you know, hopefully this is so wildly successful that we're going to be able to expand this model.

So I'm looking real, I'm looking today at what's happening faster than being anticipated.

One thing that occurred to me as you were just speaking, if someone is in the VF vehicle, is there a way for them to catch up with a fixed route bus?

So that connection is happening.

Well, so we're working through that now.

So we didn't want to slow down the launch.

So what behind the scenes, you have to take our GTFS feed, drop it in and make sure that it's calibrated so it calculates when the bus is going to be there and the nearest stop.

That take a little while for them to do on the Sawhorse, but we wanted to make sure we lost the service.

We made a promise to this region and the board about making sure that we got this up and running as soon as we possibly can.

We have an online comment.

Do you want me to read them?

From one of our members, Mr. Thompson.

So we are working through that now.

There was a limited budget and we're hoping to be able to use, there was only $100,000 in the original plan.

We're trying to use that as best that we can.

But there may be a little bit of money, we've talked about that, about $40,000, I remember, left over in the budget.

and we are participating in an app for traditional television ads, radio, public service.

So that's the next steps.

We're gonna try.

I'm not sure every Monday, but we're gonna, so hopefully they'll get tired of hearing about it, but if we get a commercial out there, we can continue to nail it home, you know, segment after segment, at least for the next, you know, six months or so.

So this is what the new MarcoCAD vehicle will look like.

We have perfect.

And the original proposal from the end.

They proposed six Toyota hybrid vehicles.

And this is what the new graphic campaign looks like.

So I think it's really allows us to identify, I think, you know, this is a new service tail, but it also is an extension of that.

So what do you think about the design?

It's awesome.

So there will be two wrapped vehicles at the launch that look like this.

And then the other we have, there was a backup on buying more Toyota Seattle vehicles.

Those are on order, but they have

We have another online comment from a member.

Mr. Krebs says that the operation has good potential for our media.

We're offering rides are available right now.

Anyone who wants to take advantage of the service today

Even though we're in the soft launch, we can ride service today.

Just download the app, get into the zone and take a ride.

So you can, before all the fanfare, you can see how we are making the sauces because we're actually working out the kinks as we work through these final days before the official launch.

That's really amazing.

The question I had, I guess, was how did they come up with six cars?

They have some sort of sense of what the demand is going to be, I guess.

So what they looked at is the zone and the parameters we gave them to try to make sure that you'd have your wait time is 15 minutes.

And based on the zone and the ability to move between the zones,

Our original thought process was four vehicles.

They said, no, you're going to need six to make the model part of it.

Are we going to need the unconstrained or?

We still don't need that because smaller neighborhoods, some neighborhoods are really tight and you're not going to be able to get a large vehicle into those neighborhoods.

So this works to be able to get big buses.

So, yeah, that's because I think the model would be, so everybody's not going to be able to get a microtrain vehicle.

But if we have a robust network and it's convenient, then they don't have to worry about micro transit.

They can just go to a convenient bus stop and use the service.

But if I'm in a neighborhood that is not necessarily connected for, you know, I'm having issues with mobility myself and I can't walk to a bus stop, micro kind of is a potential option for that.

So we're looking at, we're going to be doing a study here, hopefully soon, about

looking at the next phase of what it potentially could look like.

So this is phase one.

Phase two could be adding more zones, even bringing in a city component to it, making it more regional.

And there is money potentially to be turned into a regional option that would offset expenses that county has been here to.

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but when I think about the constraint and the unconstrained options that we receive,

based on having an authority.

It's what you're referencing.

The options were, those two were presented to us, but we could always do something in between.

So our next presentation is actually talking about the TSP and we have our consultants that are working on that.

So you're going to hear from the consultants, Kim Nighorn, who we've hired and are helping us work through this model.

Kimmy Horn is looking at kind of, you know, Kat hired Kimmy Horn back in 2021 to look at kind of optimization study.

The optimization study will actually be that first phase for us, implement that in the first five years.

Years six through 10, which is our TSP is a 10-year model.

We were talking about how we phase in the constrained model, not the unconstrained.

It's too expensive at this point in time.

So fixed route will get Mike and Tracy working correctly.

And their role for all of us as a part of TSP, Jumpers, UTS, and CAP all working together to make this model work succinctly.

It's exciting.

Yeah, I'll definitely give you that.

We're anticipating being able to apply for the $0.26, $0.25, I'm sorry.

One, I just downloaded the app, Garland, so I will try the service and let you know.

I'm super excited to have expanded service in Pantops.

So just a personal thumbs up for me.

But a couple of questions.

6 a.m.

Okay.

It's an on-demand service.

Only on demand.

It was the same question, but I have another new one.

Let's say UVA for our on-demand service, let's say we went with VIA just for the app.

So it's interesting you talked about that because Ted is actually working on something, a study that's going to look specifically at that, how we can share software and make it more a robust model for this region, being able to

Well, I think I mentioned before, we're looking at microtransit as a service delivery option for jobs.

There are different shades of all that, but we're trying to figure out how best to integrate it.

There could be some economies and some efficiencies, and we were just talking yesterday about it would be nice to have a common platform that you can move between the systems seamlessly.

You've got one app, and if you need to take the fixed route so far, then you can transfer it to your microtransit

So we were talking about that in our study.

We'll look at it.

How do we go about it?

If you think about it, the athlete or whatever we call it, I mean, but if you're looking at the really the greater Charlottesville, Albemarle region,

and what does that look like in tailing with all of the vehicles that are between CAT and UTS and Jaunt and you know you may have to use a Jaunt vehicle at some point and then it takes you to a CAT vehicle at some point and then gets you to the university where you get on UTS bus so

And if you're coming to this region, you just want to use the service.

You're not carrying on whether it's you're riding UTS or John or Kat.

You just want to be able to get around.

And we didn't make that easier for people to do something.

Yeah.

And if we have anybody who operates it, you know, like.

Is it pushing it too far to kind of rope in the parking side as well?

Let's take big steps.

Let's work on getting, I think this is a major step because this is really almost playing in a sandbox nicely, right?

So first and foremost, let's figure out a platform that allows us to do that.

Then figure out whether we can add other pieces where it's parking at the university or parking at the city.

to make this whole model work.

But I think there is, especially on my part, a desire to make something that is usable for all parts.

And I know Ted and I can talk about this yesterday.

That's great.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Do you have a, you said that you're not, we're not there yet with the full integration with, you know, coming from the zone to the fixed route, but

Day one or right now, what's your estimate or feelings on?

Is it more intrazone that you're expecting to see?

Because I've had a few folks and I don't know the cat fixed route well enough yet to offer advice, but a few folks saying, hey, how do I get beyond our current system?

So what is the communication between microcat and fixed route?

Yes, that's what the model designer did.

Because right now you're not able, you're not, you're functioning within the zone, right?

So, but you're able to, you have two zones and you're able to go anywhere in the zone or between the two zones, right?

But if you're needing to go from, let's say, somewhere on the penthouse, let's say you're at the giant, if you want to go to Target,

You've got to be able to figure out how to get that done.

Right now, it's going to connect you with microcast.

But if I needed to go from there and then go back into the city for some reason, I would have to take it for trial.

Okay.

Well, another question, I guess, you know, with the marketing, there would be lots of pre-marketing.

NBC 29, and then the other one is CBS.

But if you could contact them and say, hey, we're doing this.

It's a great new service.

And they'll come on Monday or take advantage of the soft launch.

I wouldn't think they would be very excited.

It's new.

Any other questions?

and you're needing to go somewhere in the zone, you can use the service, but it is also on demand.

So you're not pre-booking your ride, you're paling on the service, so you need to be in the queue to get your ride.

So everybody needs to remember that.

So if you're depending on to get somewhere at a specific time, that may not necessarily be the mode you want to do.

And then just to confirm, we'll do the multiple pickups like at the same...

They will.

In the same area, they're going in the same general direction.

But I would say, I don't know what you said, but it's page one or two of 13.

No, I did not say it, but thank you.

And that was curious when I saw that.

I look at folks all the time and have no clue how old they are.

I know they're all younger than I. Yeah, everybody practically is younger than I.

Having said that, how does a driver differentiate that and you just need that?

It's the app.

It's the app, okay.

That makes sense because you are using the app, so you're, yeah, got it.

All I want to say is if you make the 11 and a half by 17 ads, we'll put them on our buses.

I have one more quick question.

We were told that the viral

who is going to hire locally.

And that's what they're doing.

They are almost fully staffed.

They have enough drivers and they want to have a cushion on the reserve side.

And that's where they're starting to feel right now.

Great.

Good to hear.

Another online note, Ms. Miller joined the meeting.

So we're transitioning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Garland, while you're doing that, let me ask for Katie to come online and help tell us where she is and why she's zooming.

Okay.

Okay.

So sorry.

Hi.

Oh, yeah, we're again, we're interrupting the meeting here to get you on so you can zoom.

I am.

I am in Richmond, Virginia, and had meetings in the office today.

So right.

All right, with that, though, I'm going to entertain a motion for Katie to join us by sitting.

Ann, has made a motion?

Second.

Now I'll second it.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Great.

So Katie, you're part of the team right now.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So I'm going to introduce Nick O'Donnell with Kenley Horn.

Great to be here.

Thank you for having us.

My name is Nick Adamo.

I am a transportation planner at Kimley Horn.

Hey, Lucas, I'm sorry.

No problem.

All right, let's get into it.

So we're excited to be briefing you all today on the status of this effort, what we've done to date, and what we're expecting as next steps.

We'll start with a quick project overview and some planning context that our team is considering as we proceed, give you a really quick summary of all the great work we've done to date, and then leave you with some information on what you can expect next.

And then we'll be very excited to take your questions.

Thanks, Nick.

And good evening, everyone.

Excited to talk with you this evening.

A transit strategic plan is a relatively new initiative that started from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

essentially that is required.

It came out of a legislative mandate from the Virginia Assembly and required some of the larger transit agencies in Virginia to really take a step back and think about the future and the vision for the transit agency and to start with that basis and look forward to the next through a 10-year planning process to what could be implemented during that time period.

And so really it has that strategic element of making sure that the direction that the transit agency has is serving the community and the needs of the residents and visitors and workers of the area.

And also very importantly, it sets the groundwork for both the annual grant application process for, in this case, Charlottesville Area Transit,

as well as kind of periodic more competitive grants.

So, you know, for a while in the past there were, you know, there were agents, there was just kind of a standard process where agencies would ask for a set amount of money each year.

The idea of the transit strategic plan was that there was ensuring that there's a path forward for the service and to be able to lay that out and to make sure that each grant application is

setting the stage for the service in the future and as a logical path.

So you may have been previously familiar with the transit development plan, TDP, they sound very similar.

They are similar.

The transit strategic plan again adds a little bit more of that kind of focus of making sure that there is a set kind of vision and

and goals and objectives for the service.

And then similarly lays out the service for the years to come.

And it really is an opportunity to take a look at the services and kind of making sure that the network responds to those latest trends.

And I think what we'll touch on next, Nick, if you wanna go to the next slide is that the Charlottesville region

You're in a really good spot for this.

There's already a lot of exciting things happening from a transit perspective.

We're building off the Transit Vision Plan, as well as the Ongoing Governance Study.

We just heard about the exciting MicroCat pilot and then building off of other CAT initiatives.

There is a lot going on.

This transit strategic planning process is

meant to really take all of that into account and document what are the potential changes for CAT specifically, again, in order to secure the necessary funding to move that forward.

So as we get into the developing recommendations, we'll be considering all of these elements as well as technical data

So the guidelines that have been released and approved by DRPT are pretty clear about what specific chapters must be included in the document, and there are guidelines for each of the chapters, starting again with the vision and overview of the system.

Chapter two is really kind of the nitty-gritty of getting into the data analysis, understanding how the system is performing today, what are the travel trends, our demographic trends of the area, and we are right now in the process of developing chapter three, the planned improvements and modifications.

That's where we're taking the optimization study that Garland mentioned, the regional vision plan, the micro-cat,

Looking at that in comparison to what the data that we saw is in chapter two, and what we heard in our first engagement process, and really combine that into the full document.

Chapters four and five, which would come next, are essentially focused on capital.

So what are the buses and facility needs to make that service?

And operation costs in terms of what will the changes in

So all agencies are required to submit an approved transit strategic plan by the end of June 2024.

Thank you, Lucas.

Touching quickly on our first round of public outreach and stakeholder engagement that we conducted this past summer.

We had a really strong turnout and a lot of interest from folks.

We had an online public survey that saw over 500 responses from the public and folks across the community.

We see that as a really strong turnout.

And as we were kicking off the effort this past summer, we were really focused on getting feedback on people's current experiences with transit, what people really want to see improved about the service so we can conduct our planning process from a really well-informed perspective.

We also held a handful of pop-up events across the area as well.

We held a stakeholder workshop in August.

Many of you in the room were in attendance.

We had some really great and productive discussions around the nature of the existing CAT system, its challenges and opportunities as well.

We've also had some small group discussions with CAT bus drivers,

supervisors and other staff to really understand from frontline employees what a lot of the issues and opportunities are as well.

So we're trying to take a really holistic approach to outreach engagement to supplement our data and technical analyses.

Our first stakeholder workshop this past summer shed a lot of light on what's working really well in the system and where there are a lot of opportunities for improvement as well.

Support for transit and CATS growth across our regional stakeholders is really strong.

So that was really encouraging to see.

And that's a testament to all of you in the room today.

Things like zero fare service, a pretty good network of existing service to key destinations.

A pretty robust street grid, etc.

are seen as strengths of the existing system.

We heard a lot of great stories and testaments to how the service helps people access jobs, opportunities, other services, especially low income individuals.

And our conversations really enforced how important transit is to the city and the region's goals as a whole, both for transportation and mobility, as well as other really important aspects like affordability, livability, equity, climate, etc.

Some of our public survey findings are shown on the screen here.

Nothing that should come as too surprising.

People are really seeking frequent service, reliable service, service that runs later on weekdays, more robust weekend service.

And we heard a lot about the reasons why people use transit and where they're using transit to get to as well.

We also thought it was important to hear from people who don't currently take transit to see what it might take to get them on board.

And again, our findings from that constituency really tied back to frequency, reliability, and span of service as well.

In addition to the public and stakeholder outreach, we're doing a lot of data diving and analysis and other assessments.

We've conducted a pretty robust evaluation of the existing system, as well as the overall, what we call transit markets, in terms of areas of demand, looking at factors like land use, employment and population, demographics, and employment and population growth as well.

We've got a few maps on the screen here that we'll just flip through quickly.

We're not going to do a super deep dive today.

But transit propensity is a term we use to really identify where the highest demand for transit is.

And that's a calculation that takes into account population density in other

Demographic characteristics of folks that might make them more likely to use transit such as senior population, the youth population, low income households, households without cars and persons with disabilities.

So you can see on the map here in the darkest red, those based on our analysis are the areas of higher transit propensity in the region.

We also looked at future employment projections.

And again, in the deep red color here, you can see where employment density is projected to be most intense between now and 2045.

And we did the same for population density, which as you can see is a bit more spread out than the employment density, but very helpful for us nonetheless as we're evaluating service.

We looked at a lot of CAT ridership and operational statistics as well.

Here you can see monthly ridership by route.

Of course, the very sharp dip in early 2020 as a result of the pandemic.

Not surprising, but we're seeing some encouraging upticks on several routes as well.

Average weekday ridership by stop.

weekday ridership by hour.

This really helps us evaluate where throughout the day folks are riding.

You can see here a pretty steady, not super rush hour intensive distribution of ridership as well as weekday ridership per route by time of day here.

All this to say, we're doing our homework.

We want to be very well informed as we develop this really critical document and blueprint for CAT service.

This is just a small snippet of the types of data we're looking at.

And again, augmented by what we're hearing from our writers,

Thanks, Nick.

So as I mentioned before, there is a lot of already existing planning that has been done from the transit perspective.

And really the job of the TSP is to compile and

and prioritize and put into timeframes all of those various elements and making sure that they fit together and identify gaps.

So really, especially for the shortest term, we are looking at the system optimization plan that was completed for CAT.

Then we're working in the constrained elements of the regional transit vision plan, and then looking at any gaps that we see comparing those

with the analysis and the feedback.

Another thing to mention is, you know, while the majority of the TSP recommendations are focused on transit service specific recommendations.

So, you know, for example, a change in alignment of the route or an increase in frequency or an increase in span.

There are also opportunities for non-service recommendations, more policy recommendations or

things like technical studies.

So for example, supporting and looking to advance some of the governing study recommendations.

If there's a technical area that is desired for a future study, those are all great things to document in the TSP.

So when the time comes to do that,

Thank you, Lucas.

We'll leave you with a quick look ahead on what to expect next from our team.

We've made great progress since we kicked off this past spring as we discussed our first round of engagement with the community and stakeholders.

We are in the midst, as we've alluded to, of our development of recommendations and improvements.

And once those are drafted, we will re-engage the public and you all, our stakeholders, with those draft recommendations before they are

Incorporated and memorialized into the strategic plan document.

And we will then take that completed document early in the new year for city council endorsement, which is a requirement as part of the process as effectively CATS governing board and submit that to DRPT in the new year.

Thank you very much.

That was really good.

And just before we open it up for questions, is there a way you can send us that presentation?

Because I'd really like to look more carefully at the public comments and some of the data that you've had.

That would be great.

All right.

We'll open it up to questions and maybe we can show faces again.

My understanding, CAT had several route changes approved I think about a year ago that are still not implemented.

My understanding from City Manager Sanders' office is that the problem remains.

We don't have enough drivers.

You mentioned talking to drivers.

I'm wondering if you're able to comment at this stage on driver shortage issue and ideas of how we can address it since the losing payer this year apparently did not move the needle enough.

And Garland, correct me if I'm wrong.

Mr. Sanders is correct.

and we are addressing that by now.

So our first priority as CAT was to stabilize pupil transportation.

So our efforts have been focused on making sure that we hire as many pupil drivers first.

So we have really garnered all our efforts to make sure that we fill that hole getting all those 20 spots.

We're at a good place right now where we can hopefully in the next 30 days

really focus our efforts on getting transit drivers in the house.

We have eight candidates in the hopper right now.

So if they all have the criminal background check and a drug test, then we would have their starting class in about two weeks.

So we're I think 11 drivers short right now.

That would be a huge bump in closing that toll if we get all 8s in the hopper and through.

And then operationally, though, we are still short on the mandate that we need for a total driver to make a full implementation of full service again.

That number is roughly 72.

We're authorized for 51.

We're going to hopefully address some of that in the coming budget cycles.

And as soon as we're able to do so, we, CAT has not historically had an issue with getting drives.

As soon as we're able to advertise, we have been holding back on the transit side because once you advertise the transit, people will go to the transit because of the way that the model works.

We are a full-time

on the pupil side.

So we have really prioritized pupil at the sacrifice of the public, but now we'll be able to shift our model hopefully in the next 30 days.

Let me just open it up for questions.

Let's take questions right now for the transit strategic plan so that Kimberly Horn, the groups from Kimberly Horn, can answer any questions on the strategic plan and they can present it.

I would say from the survey that he came out and bought it there, did they want more?

robust service frequency is a major issue.

We all knew that, that the more frequently serviced, the more people are to using the service.

There is a direct correlation between frequency and ratchet that weighed out in the survey.

Hopefully, if we can get more frequent service, I think our ratchet numbers will skyrocket.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a question for you, or can we borrow those?

Couple of slides we're looking at current, you know, hotspots that people are going to need to be projecting out, residential go out and employment go out, like the 2045 one.

So that's for population, I guess, this algorithm you use for them.

Yeah, he's using the sense of data.

So you have standard modeling.

Correct.

The actual local data will be likely different over the next 20 years.

Absolutely.

Yeah, OK.

Yeah.

Yes, Brian.

Yes, thank you for the presentation.

I'm trying to understand how this plan fits in.

There was a slide that had all the other, I know you're working on an alternate fuel study, which people are very interested in.

Yes.

I know that we've got a governance study, which I understand that.

There was a regional transit vision plan?

Is that where the construction was constructed?

Yes.

Okay.

And then, is this the only other kind of study in the hopper right now?

So we, the, okay.

And what's the difference?

I guess this is being done specifically to meet a requirement of the state, correct?

Correct.

It is, but it's also to validate the studies that we've done in the past, right?

And to make sure that as we continue to look at research, evaluate a robust transit model, whether the parameters have changed, right?

So we figure out what we think we know two years ago, are those

because that model is still conducive to the outcome we wanted two years ago.

And if it is, then we continue to move forward.

So we did a optimization study in 2021.

That is the foundational document that we're using.

One to five, right?

And then after that, all of the efforts that were done for the regional study are being incorporated as how we get to that year six to ten.

But there are, you know, we have to be babysitting, not being able to go pull out running 60 miles an hour until we get the foundational bill, which is the year zero to five.

And then after that, you get to the

and then we were really lucky that we were able to incorporate some of the unconstrained components into our model.

Now, with all that said, there are other studies that are going on.

There are microtransit studies that are going on that were contemplated in the beginning.

We will incorporate all that.

So that's what this, I hope I'm saying it correctly, Nick, if you can correct me, we're alluding to saying it incorrectly, but this is the way for us to look at everything that's been going on

Absolutely.

Now, all that effort that was being done is not going to go in the way.

It's not going to sit on the shelf.

We're going to continue to nail home that this claim is done.

Thank you.

Sorry, I was just going to add to that that, you know, while this TSP does have a 10-year planning horizon, you know, DRPT and everyone recognizes that things change in 10 years, and there are certainly opportunities for updates to the plan on a regular basis.

So, you know, as elements progress, as those constraints of bus operators hopefully lessen or go away, you know, these

These recommendations will be revisited and updated to move forward.

Thank you, and thank you, Nick and Lucas, and we appreciate the information and the report very much.

Thanks for joining us.

and we always have a lot of questions for our transit providers.

Yes, I do.

This question for Lucas and Nick.

I think it's great that you guys are looking at future residential and even employment trends as much as possible.

I'd like to point out that I think let's be thinking about activity centers, not just

employment centers.

In fact, I think that's where the Albemarle comp plan is going and the dispersion of ridership across the day, right, rather than these big spikes at rush hour hours seems to sort of vindicate their approach of focusing on activity centers more than strictly

Yeah, that's a great comment, Peter.

All right.

Good question.

Thank you.

And with that, if I can, I'm going to, looking at our time as your official timekeeper, just want to move us on to the transit provider updates.

We always had a question about that as well.

So, but thank you again, Lucas and Nick.

I'm sorry.

We appreciate the report.

Thank you very much.

All right, our first transit provider update.

Just real quick, we've been talking about the 25 budget.

One of the issues that have come up, we've previewed a draft of our budget with six of our seven funding partners.

And one of those was Bill Buckingham.

We run a kind of an App and Express from Buckingham to UVA and Martha Jefferson Hospital.

and Buckingham always had a hard time paying for the service despite the generosity of UVA helping subsidize that.

So we're running a little short.

The service does serve people in Scottsville who also take the service to the UVA.

So we're going to state some money in there and hopefully the county will be willing to help subsidize the Scottsville lane and the top of the Buckingham.

Okay.

Is that it?

Any other questions for, any questions for Ben?

All right.

Charmaine was not able to join us tonight.

Hey everyone.

Ms. Reed, we should definitely jump on a call about that while we can.

Okay.

Yeah, very good.

Also, I don't know if the Ted Scott,

Connection hasn't been made yet, but it's just right now.

I wanted to just say, how about that win against North Carolina?

We also have our alternative transportation and innovation manager, Patrick Clark, in attendance today.

And you know a little worried about people being able to hear you.

Maybe, Luca, if he comes up somewhere, I just want to make sure, because from the back sometimes, with the recording, that's all.

I just want people to be able to hear you, especially the recording.

These are the microphones.

So yeah, over at UVA, myself and a colleague from the Office of Sustainability won an internal grant award in order to implement a program or initiative that will help achieve employee success with a focus also on sustainability.

And the idea that we pitched is called the Commute Club.

It is a rewards and benefits program, a robust one, to help employees

kind of clear the hurdle to try alternative transportation versus commuting via a single occupancy vehicle.

So we're super excited about that.

Right now, we're actually updating, we just secured the contract vendor that we're going to be working with this week.

And we have a tentative launch date of April 1st next year.

So the way the program will work, the vendor will provide a commute management platform

So employers will be able to log into that, report how they commute daily, and there will be rewards and benefits tied to that.

So again, if someone took a cab into or took a connect service, this is the finalizer just as an example, we would pay them a dollar for that day.

And so each day you drive using transit service, we pay you a dollar, or say you ride your e-bike in from the city or county, we pay you a dollar there.

And then the platform, you build up like a little bank,

And then at the end of the pit cycle, that money gets deposited onto paycheck.

So it's kind of like, yeah, it's awesome.

And I know this group will be interested in you coming back and talking a little bit more about this later, right?

Yeah, oh yeah.

Very cool.

Very cool.

Are there questions?

I think I see a lot of slugs.

And you said faculty staff, but who's eligible?

Except students, yeah.

For now, and hopefully we'll get to that down there too.

That's great.

We get our parking right on Thursday, we get all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to go there, they love to connect, and for all the people to

I don't think so.

We downshift down to our commuter service after exams end in December.

And so our student routes go down to minimal, but we're still transporting our daily commuters to UVA Health at that point.

So I don't want to take a whole lot more time other than to say that at some point in time, I think it would probably be helpful if we are able to bring an update to this group about our alternative school studies.

So we are

I could be trying to look at a couple of options to do a little bit of a tour or a couple of tours, many tours for city council before they have to make a decision on a tour to get switched to us.

I think it's important that we get an opportunity to show them what they're going to be voting on because they have real life, in case it's well-bodied, and they think the church will have to put in place to take whatever tomorrow will happen.

These are not, whatever,

It's not a small cost and I think it's expensive and it's labor intensive.

We just need to be, and we're going to do it because it's the right thing to do and it's part of the action goal to announce that we're going to be zero vision on 2050 and putting infrastructure in place that allows us to get that is critical

but I would just say that I am hopeful that I'll be able to work something with the city manager and city council to be able to certify a chore option fairly soon to allow them to see kind of what we're talking about.

We have an online comment from Mr. Crabb.

Sure.

Peter, they have a comment.

He typed it in, I was going to read it.

It would be amazing to work with other major employers to pay people not to park.

We know that the provision of parking is a significant expense for local businesses.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, we've gone backwards, unfortunately.

Now those are running a bar in San Francisco because they've got new stuff in Boston and San Francisco has a collection of old running stocks.

And these other people's leftovers.

I hope we covered that.

We're going to get to, we're almost at a complete number of all drivers.

Great.

So now that's good.

All right.

Then I want to move to the DRPT page.

You have an update from DRPT.

Barry, are you muted?

She's not muted.

We're not hearing her.

We want to come back to you if you want.

Don't go away.

It might be the AirPods because mine stopped working on Zoom.

Well, let's do this.

Let's hear from Sandy about Safe Streets and Roads.

And Katie, we'll come back to you if you, oh, try it.

Can you guys hear me now?

Yeah.

Okay.

Tried to get fancy with using phone for audio and then it decided not to work anymore.

But yeah, so I think the major,

Updates from DRPT.

As I said last time, we're still waiting on the corridor ID announcements for looking at the FRA grant, looking at passenger rail through Charlottesville, both from the Hampton Roads region and then also on the Bristol corridor as well.

And then the other thing, the Virginia Breeze.

Their I-64 needs assessment has kicked off sort of last month and work is being done to assess the impact of adding a new braze route, what the impact could be on the existing system and how it would connect to the national inner city bus network.

Charlottesville is one of the major locations that would be really closely analyzed.

They're looking at the Hampton Roads to Stanton corridor.

Right.

Thank you very much.

Are there any questions for Katie?

Sounds great.

I'm glad to hear all that.

Excellent.

All right.

I do have a PowerPoint but I promise it's short.

I'm happy because we're all done.

We're prepared for the meeting.

I can't remember how many places I talked to about that, but she thought that I had not shared with the RTP what the Safe Streets for Works for All grant is, so we are officially launching it.

I'm going to share a little bit of background with you and hopefully you will all be engaged as we get the grant.

So first of all, the Safe Streets and Roads for All program is one of the new grants that was introduced through the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

And basically, it is a funding program that was put into place to combat what is happening nationally, which is an increase in the number of

fatal and serious injury crashes that are being experienced on our roadways.

So there's a big investment of money.

I think it was between five and six billion dollars over the next five years.

And one of the one of the eligible activities is to develop what's known as a comprehensive safety action plan.

The reason this is important is because there's additional funding that's available for implementation, but you are only available to receive implementation money through this program if your locality or region has already adopted a conference.

So this is the first hurdle that we have to overcome in order to kind of keep us up.

So we were able to apply for our grant to develop a, we're calling it a multi-jurisdictional comprehensive safety action plan because we're doing it regionally.

But the goal is that each locality within a region is going to come up with its own set of priorities and strategies for what is important to them to address maybe some of the highest priority issues that can help reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries.

These are the required components in the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan that you have to meet in order for your plan to be qualified in order to get that transportation funding.

So the first thing that we're going to be starting with, so you all are going to hear about this probably a little bit later this winter or early spring, is we will need to have a leadership commitment from all of our jurisdictions stating that we are all committed to setting a target to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways.

That could be adopting a zero target goal.

You might have heard some of these initiatives towards zero death basically saying that we know that this is an aspirational target, but there's no number of deaths or serious injuries that is acceptable.

Or also an alternative that would be stating a commitment to a specific level of reduction in serious injuries or deaths over a period of time.

So that's going to be the absolute first thing that we are working on as part of this comprehensive safety action plan.

We are required to have an oversight group that is established to develop, implement, and monitor the plan.

We at the region already have those committee structures through some of our ongoing transportation programs, so we'll be relying on those as well as developing a steering committee or a stakeholder committee specifically for this great opportunity.

The development of the plan has to include comprehensive safety data analysis.

We were fortunate enough that VDOT is also providing some support through their Highway Safety Improvement Program to do this.

So in addition to the big federal grant that we got, we also were able to receive some support through VDOT directly that we're very grateful for.

There has to be a large public engagement component, and then we have to make sure that the plan is developed using inclusive and representative processes, making sure that there's equity.

And then kind of what you all are familiar with as we develop the plans, we're going to evaluate, analyze all that data, we're going to identify our priority strategies, and then there's going to be some ongoing monitoring and reporting that the TJPDC will be able to provide.

So a couple benefits of a comprehensive safety action plan.

First of all, I already mentioned one of the things we want to do for this reason is because we want to implement projects that come out of it.

Being eligible for more money is always a great opportunity.

But in addition to that, we think that it's a really great opportunity to just have a better understanding of what is contributing to crashes in our region, taking a multimodal fully comprehensive approach, considering safety for all users, and then also pulling together a lot of stakeholders that don't always work together.

So in addition to all the localities coming together to talk about the different initiatives and priorities, we're also hoping to engage

different aspects of the public safety personnel, health department, et cetera, to make sure that we're all sharing information.

And then also queuing up beyond just the Bay Street to Roseboro descriptionary program, other opportunities to implement some of the recommendations that are identified through other programs.

So we think by doing this multi-jurisdictionally, there's going to be a great sort of economy of scale as far as doing a lot of this analysis and data collection.

People are going to be able to learn from each other as different jurisdictions are talking to each other.

We're going to be able to support more substantive engagement with regional and state agencies.

And we also have VDOT, who has been pulled in as a coordinating partner on there.

And we're really excited to be able to include them early in the process and be able to have them

sort of consider how they're going to be able to support the implementation of some of these recommendations as well.

And then as I mentioned previously, this will result in an individual safety action plan for each of the localities.

The grant that we were awarded is just under $1.1 million.

A vast amount of this nearly happened and is going to go towards stakeholder and public engagement.

We've retained a consulting team of Kimley-Horn and the AVID Corps to lead the effort.

They were procured through a

through a selection committee that consists of staff from all six jurisdictions.

We're very pleased so far with the expertise and the approach that they have presented as we've been getting this project picked off.

McKinley-Horn is also leading the VDOT-supported initiative, so there is some coordination and some efforts that will be easy to align because they're involved in both of these aspects.

and then the TJPDC will do the ongoing monitoring and reporting requirements on behalf of the region.

We're basically just in the kickoff stage, but I think that was mentioned on the webcam meeting last night.

We just want to put it on your radar that we'll be reaching out to schedule a regional safety summit in the winter.

And so many of you should be invited to that.

And we just would request that you look out for that.

I'm reading article after article right now.

about track pedestrian and bicycle deaths.

And all of the articles that I'm reading are citing the proliferation of extremely large trucks and vehicles on our road, SUVs.

It's interesting.

So the more people we can get out of those vehicles and on into transit, the better off we'll be.

Well, lots of big vehicles.

because when you're speeding and you're a smaller vehicle versus being a very large vehicle and you hit someone, it's a very different outcome.

Okay, any other questions, comments?

Thank you, Stacy.

I'm very glad that you guys pulled it in because maybe there will be an outcome of finding easier ways to get traffic coming, which has been a very hurt for us because speeding is what I'm hearing for 16 years every year, urban and rural, and I don't know how

And the statistics, one agency counts deaths, and we need to be able to count injuries and crashes, period.

Because even those crashes, period, have impacts financially on families with their injuries may not be taken to the hospital, but they're still wrapped up for a place often, often for like a disaster.

So hopefully you'll make some progress on those for the first time.

watching the time for us.

Yeah, Christine and Curtis and I were able to attend the Governor's Transportation Conference last week.

And just real briefly there, a lot of this

You all are probably familiar that one of the governor's priorities is economic development, so there's a lot of focus on economic development as part of that conference, but one of the sessions was on transit.

There was a panel of a couple of different folks.

One of them was a libertarian planner, so he had a lot of fun sort of being part of the conversation, sort of living out the oxymoron that maybe that describes, but

But all of the speakers on that transit panel really emphasized the importance that transit is a service that really needs to be coordinated regionally.

So I felt really good about where our region is.

And then related to this emphasis right now on the current administration's economic development priorities, I thought this was really insightful.

One of the panelists made the connection that transit is really important to support economic development in a region because it reduces barriers to people to be out in their community and

You know, not that the reason we want good transit is for people to spend their money, but there are more opportunities for people to support their local economic development initiatives if they have access to get where they need them once they go.

Excellent.

That's great.

Sounds very interesting.

Regional transit and comprehensive study.

Yeah, I think most of you have heard me talk about it over and over again.

So we are in phase four and we are looking at the governance structure and how that would work and how they would make decisions and be accountable.

And we're engaging the jurisdictions right now to see what would work for them and see if we can come to a consensus.

And that's what we're all looking forward to then.

At the Senate meeting yesterday, ultimately, that plan will go before the TJPDC commission for them to then say, yes, we need to move forward in this direction.

OK.

So that will come to us at the right time.

And each jurisdiction would have a direction.

Coming down the wire.

Well, the commissioners would be saying to the TJA staff, continue to move forward with this moment.

So that's all good.

That's great.

And so phase four, put it into perspective, we have

We have five phases.

The final one is recommendations.

We started with, oh gosh, we started looking at peer agencies and what they do and how they fund their transit.

And then we looked at the existing legislation and the existing environment and talked to the transit providers.

and then we looked at revenue sources and so we've got some really nice tables of different sources that we looked at that we found would we think would work for this area and how much it would add to transit over five years and now we're looking at governance structures because it's like the makeup of the board, the allocation strategy,

How you decide what projects to fund, those types of things is what we're engaging the jurisdictions right now.

And that was great.

I think that was really appreciated to have that summary of those different phases.

Any questions?

All right.

And then we also have mobility and management.

Please hand up.

So we are meeting regularly with Java and like a little team meeting every two weeks.

And we have developed a database, a data system to collect the data.

And we're testing it right now with Java.

And we also put out an RFP for a branding and marketing study and applied for funding for that.

And

Any questions for Lucinda about the mobility management?

What we really do, seems like they've been talking for us many years, but we really are coming, things are coming together now in a really bright way.

And it's very exciting.

Other business updates and reminders.

And does anyone have any, I have just one, just to let everybody know, be thinking about the construction and the work around the hydraulic 29 intersection with a roundabout and a pedestrian bridge and changes to lanes.

All of that work will be starting in Shakespearean.

It's going to be on top of us before we know it.

Now that doesn't mean they're going to be moving during the chamber, but just saying the first, remember that that work is going to be starting and we're going to need our community to have patience with construction.

I do have one other reminder and that's that there is going to be a virtual town hall that the Commonwealth Transportation Board is holding on October 31st from 1.30 to 3.30 talking about the smart scale changes so I don't know maybe they feel like something spooky is in the air.

If you want to hear what the comments are, if you have any questions, you need to register and support those ahead of time.

1.30 to 3.30.

Danny, those changes are really critical.

Yeah, it's important.

Yeah, I had that note because I'm going to adjourn us.

Here are no objections.

Thank you, Lucinda.

To December the 14th, and if you all remember, because of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have a meeting that splits the difference so that we're not moving too early on those two holidays.

Our next meeting is December 14, 2023, and same time, same place.