Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   3/28/2024

I will call the meeting of the Regional Transit Partnership on March 28th to order.

Welcome everyone, we're glad to see you.

Our first order of business, I'm looking at how, is to entertain a motion to allow Hal Morgan to join our meeting remotely.

OK, I'm Hal Morgan.

I'm the joint role representative, and I'm at my home in Pimaero, Virginia.

All right, sounds great.

Well, we're delighted you're here.

And I'm going to take a motion.

So moved.

All right, second?

Second.

All right, so all those in favor to allow Hal to Zoom and join our meeting, please say aye.

Aye.

No problem.

So Hal has just introduced himself.

So let's come around to the table and have everybody else introduce themselves.

And I always find myself sitting here.

So I'm Mike Murphy, with John.

Online, I'm Evan Price from DRPT.

Great.

I see him.

Wrong.

She cannot share her video.

Okay.

I can hear you guys.

That's great.

Thank you.

And with that,

I think we can move for a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

The agenda motion has been moved and seconded.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any abstentions?

All right.

Approval of draft meeting minutes from February the 27th of 24.

They were in your packet.

I don't know if anyone has any.

changes, but if not, then I would have a motion to approve the minutes from February 22.

So moved.

Mike made a motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

Now to make the second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any abstentions from not being present at the meeting?

No.

So we have our agenda approved and our minutes approved.

We have three attendees online.

Then we will go to our first item of Real Business,

Jen, we appreciate you being here, and everybody else is set.

And I think you can start your presentation.

Thank you.

Yeah, we can.

Thank you.

So thank you for having me and, or again, for the first time, second time.

So I'm helping to explain and take you through a journey that starts with the Blue Ridge Health District UVA Health and Centennial Martha Jefferson Hospital Community Health Assessment, which

Locally it's called the Map to Help.

So some of you heard about the background that from the fall when I presented originally on what we were doing for the pain health improvement plan.

For those of you new to the table, quickly that's an assessment that's done every three years by all three health systems.

It's required of Sentara as a non-profit hospital for the IRS.

UVA and Blue Ridge participate for accreditation and because we should.

And so we all take a survey of the communities that make up the district, which are all the same footprint as TJ, the Thomas Jefferson district, and determine what the priorities are for those three years to achieve and then how to implement them to best move the needle on health.

The last CHA was done, or Map to Health was done in 2019 and the, I just want to check something on the slides for a second, the four priority areas that came out of that CHA for the 2022, sorry the last CHA was done in 2022 and the four priorities that came out of that were transportation, the healthcare workforce diversifying it essentially.

Digital Access and Skills, expanding broadband skills, and then mental and behavioral health, which includes kind of all resources that go to that category.

So transportation is underlying because what does the health department and UVA Health have to do with transportation?

Not much on the ground, but behind the scenes, we're always intersecting with patients and community members with transportation, and we know that in all of these areas, I mean, we don't put up broadband towers either,

These are the social determinants of health and we know that improving these improves the health of folks much more so than how close you live to a hospital or the health department.

Certainly your transportation in general is one of your indicators of health.

In fact, the community resilience estimates, which are a local census tract estimate of

Household and their risk indicator in a catastrophe have ten indicators that say okay if you hit three or more of these you're at a high risk for kind of devastation in this census tract and we have five census tracts in the district that have three or more of those indicators now some of them are like you're over 65 and one of them is you don't have a car and

So the other may range from non-native speaker, level of education, but none of those indicators are how much you like your doctor or how good is the health system next to you.

They're really about how close are you to a dentist and a provider.

So we know that not only in those five census tracts of this health district do we have three or more indicators per household, but that they're

the proportion in those census tracts are higher than the nation.

So this CHA chip, this map to help that's happening right now just got kicked off in January.

We'll be really looking at those census tracts in particular.

In the city, it's track 105, which is Fifeville.

And in the county, it's a northern part of Albemarle that includes Mallside.

I can't remember the number of that tract, but it's a smaller tract.

The other ones are Nelson, Louisa, and Klugbana.

So going back to 2022, what we found out was in transportation, folks wanted better transit, faster service.

This is not news to all of you.

You've heard all this before.

And then these bullet points show what we decided as a group.

And that group was not only people who participated in organizations in the map to help, but also transportation leaders.

Some of you attended these meetings.

to determine what goals can we set, what was doable within three years, because again, now we're on a new cycle, and in what timeframe could we do that?

What were the targets we were gonna hit?

So the progress we've had on these is what I wanted to report out last time and today.

So this is bus shelters were one of the things on our list.

And so in the map offsets, we heard from the communities,

We can't get to bus shelters.

There aren't enough shelters.

They're not mobile and older adult friendly.

So we worked with learning where we were in that bus shelter process.

We talked to Bethel at DRBT.

They gave us some insights on how to redesign bus shelters and how that very complicated process gets built.

and now we know as of midnight on April 8th if the governor signs in HB 286 then 285 then we will have a much easier time making bus shelters not have to go through a very heavy cumbersome process to be approved now that approval will only be good for one year so I'm not sure what that really means how many bus shelters can we put up in a year everybody but um

It's summer.

So that, we were tracking that.

The governance study was also part of the community health improvement plan.

And that presentation came from TJPDC this month to continue that work.

Medical transport was one of the big ones.

Now obviously that's where the health systems and transportation interact, particularly for UTS and Jaunt.

So one thing we did a lot of research, and when I say we, these are community partners participating in the CHIP as well as

the transportation providers themselves.

So in the medical transport research, we realized there were lots of needs for patients after hours and on weekends.

They were getting stranded at UVA Hospital and at Santerra, Martha, Jeff.

There were multiple nationwide surveys done, and we weren't the only health system that saw people readmitted to the ER because they couldn't get home.

So that's $15,000.

I don't know if you know that.

But if you had to stay overnight because you couldn't get a ride back to Louisa from on a Saturday night at 9 and you missed your meds and you were stuck in the lobby and no one caught you in the gap and then you had to get readmitted to the ER just because you couldn't get home.

That was like, OK, we need to fix this.

This has got to be part of the chip.

So we've been in ongoing conversations.

UTS has been a great lead in these with mobility management.

to try and, one, just for the social services teams at UVA, figure out, well, how many people really do need a ride?

It's not a big number.

It's a low number.

But that doesn't mean it's not justifiable for making a change.

So we tracked for a month how many people needed a ride from 7 PM to 7 AM from Friday to Monday morning.

And the numbers ranged somewhere around about 40 people.

Most of those meeting rides out of the city center.

So we're working looking at Rappahannock and their models.

We've been, again, these conversations going on and how we might best solve that problem.

So that one's in progress and active.

One of the requests from the child was to have John improve its locality service.

What does that really mean?

and we define that as the scheduling service was updated and easy and that it was sufficient for residents' needs.

So right now they have going on the rural needs assessment and that's been an ongoing project that's really trying to capture the actual, evaluate and assess the actual needs of rural users.

Last time we were together, we talked about the GPS app for the three providers.

That conversation started back in January of 2022

And Kat had led the way and say, okay, we're going to make one.

And yes, we want to share it with everyone.

So we're keeping we're trying to keep that conversation on the table.

We have heard from riders that one, one app for all three would be the ideal we know from the physicality of sticking this on the buses, the routers and

that technology that that's a lot easier said than done.

But we were happy that that was there seems to be an agreement that that could be something that might happen.

So that's in progress.

And then community engagement.

So this was to initiate a sustainable mechanism for including community voice in transit decision making with the help of the Charlottesville Area Alliance and an AARP grant that they had secured.

Blue Ridge and Partners were able to attend a two-day work session with a lot of partners here and kind of work out how that might happen.

And I'm going to give you some insights on that.

Microtransit, that is my son.

He's 14.

He got himself.

This was the second day Microcat launched and he was out there with his best friend and they went to Target and bought dog food and came back.

That was their mission.

They really love it.

Now they ride it all the time.

What we know and what was just presented to the board that there have been 13,324 rides.

Getting that pilot launch was part of the Community Health Improvement Plan as well.

We had the highest request day in March of 224 rides in a single day.

The provider had told us that they were aiming for 600 rides per week to consider it successful so we can kind of extrapolate that if they're doing 224 in one day that that's probably they're getting close to that goal.

and they have a 95.5% demand rate.

So of all the times someone calls, 95.5% of the time they're getting where they want to go on time.

So that's, we're still tracking that.

We are looking for more of a marketing presence for MicroCat.

We're hoping to get it on the Cat website.

We're hoping that the county can promote that even more, get it on social a little more frequently.

We advertise it once every month.

We have also started a training process with a

Community Health Worker Class at PVCC, which is part of their job is to learn how to navigate transit and transportation.

And they are learning how to use MicroCAT as part of that service offering as well as learning how to use John in UTS.

And then finally, the Mobility Management Program was part of again, the Community Health Improvement Plan.

and they've got Java Standing Up Hotline.

You've heard all of the great things Lucinda is doing leading that cause.

Here to stay in Nelson County, got a vehicle and insurance to provide grocery shopping trips for members of their group.

And that was kind of part of that mobility management.

So we're hoping that crossover with UTS, John and Kat can help even tackle maybe some of that hospital ride issue and some of our other kind of improvements that were part of the original assessment.

So, questions so far about a community health assessment, a map to health, or a community health improvement plan and why you're here in the health district about your area of expertise.

Okay.

For questions?

Great.

Just a quick ask of Garland.

So this is now here's how like the rubber meets the road right so so it is pretty crazy to try to tackle transportation in three years as a health system so one of the places where we really could we have we have the expertise or the spaces to leverage is community engagement right so we are in all of the neighborhoods we have community health workers and

from COVID, I can speak personally, I led the district's vaccination deployment back then.

We really made an effort and we have a mobile unit to kind of go out and meet folks.

And so we teamed up with Charlottesville Area Alliance to really look at the addressing the challenge of community engagement and transit decision making.

So this came from a DRPT 2022 report on the transit equity and modernization study, which you guys have seen.

but we the Charlottesville Area Alliance had a transportation work group and they received one of the technical grants from AARP that allowed us to hire a consultant to work on this and then this even continues on so CAA is now working on their third year cycle of grants that will do a walkability audit and recommendations again part of that technical grant so we're staying connected with them as it

rose out into mobility.

But for this specific this came out of specifically that DRPT report that transit riders have limited opportunities to be a part of the decision making process.

And so how can we help that?

The goal being to establish a pathway for community members to be heard, engaged and included.

And then kind of the barriers we were having was there's there's a lot of like

You know that we have more nonprofits per capita than most cities in America.

Like there's no need to steam up another nonprofit.

And we're all pulling from the same pie.

So it's also not really productive to do that.

So how can we host that mechanism?

And should it be an advocacy group or was it advising the RTP on what the population, you know, what community voice was?

Thank you so much.

Actually, Peter.

So CAA is, we're an informal group.

We don't have any legal 501 status, but it is about 25 organizations in our community working together for a more age-friendly community.

Almost everybody at the table is a member.

The city is.

Albemarle County is.

Flavana is.

John is.

TJ PTC is, Blue Ridge Health District is, Java, The Center, OLLI, Meals on Wheels, a lot of other organizations, United Way, Legal Aid Justice.

And we did the work to get the city of Charlottesville, Albemarle County officially entered into the AARP age-friendly alliance.

And it's research-based, eight dimensions, a very holistic approach to what an age-friendly community looks like.

And age-friendly can be certainly focused on our aging, older population, but really it is cradle to grave.

The usual example of curb cuts are friendly to a mother or father or anybody caregiving for somebody in a stroller or anybody in a walker or wheelchair or crutches or whatever it may be.

and so we've been doing that work.

We did a study several years ago where we formed because we do not have staff or a budget.

It's a bunch of people that I mentioned coming to the table to work together.

We did a study, a couple different surveys including a partnership with the health district to say what are the priorities because we can't tackle all eight dimensions.

So we are focusing on three dimensions, housing, transportation, and social engagement.

And as the chair of the transportation work group, that's why we're a non-voting member here.

at the RTP.

And so we look to be a resource for others and to work together to raise awareness for and educate about being a more age-friendly area.

And just to amplify again, AARP Virginia picks a community every year to get pro bono technical assistance on the ground.

And they have picked the Charlottesville, Albemarle for three straight years.

and to focus on transportation because they know that's a lot's happening in this community.

There's a lot of talk around that.

They want to not only help us succeed locally, but help that be a model for other communities in the Commonwealth that face similar issues.

I just want to make sure everybody... No, I appreciate that because I'm seeing some of us like, oh, okay, because yes, we have a lot of very new, not just to the table, but to our community.

and we will be sending emails to the county and the city shortly as soon as I make time to do that on a rainy day about some of the transportation things that are in the budget and the strategic planning right now.

And you will be hearing more, as Jen mentioned, this is our third year we're going to be doing a walk audit training for city and county citizens and officials in June of this year.

So what we did, we met with a consultant.

We had two full days of three hour sessions of 14 and 13 participants each day.

And we looked over why community engagement was needed in the first place in transit decision making and then what structure, what mechanism would best support community engagement.

So we did two Zooms and worked out kind of

One main question the second day, but five other questions that first day.

Why is community voice important?

Who needs to hear the voices?

So from day one, one of the quotes was from a purely in community engagement perspective, it's about responding to the needs of the people rather than the system and its needs.

So some of those answers were people who need transit most and even donors and philanthropists think community voice is a good idea.

But what change could they bring?

Better transportation, community empowerment through that voice, action and solutions to operational problems.

I've heard a smattering about it.

I've been attending RTP since last year.

Even when there's a survey that's about a long-range plan, in the responses there'll be

I want this on that.

And then there's nowhere for that to go.

So that sense of like how to impact operational problems and build trust between the system and the communities.

So that's one of the pieces that's that was why voices should be heard in transit decision making.

So this was just a smattering of thoughts that we pulled out from that first day, which was really again, that day of like bigger like five questions to get us turning about community engagement and that that should have

the engagements have a clear purpose and the impact of that engagement should be reported back to the community.

So that gap doesn't happen, right?

We don't have a way to say, we did what you asked and we made it happen.

And nobody knows that.

And so then they then like they go continue to feel discomfort and disconnected from the providers.

And then that kind of will bulldozes down.

And then

People are tired of giving feedback repeatedly if requests weren't implemented.

We're seeing a lot of engagement fatigue.

It's, again, I'm very hesitant right now to start another assessment and start asking questions.

Folks are, I hear repeatedly, repeatedly.

I wish, I should really track how often I hear it.

I don't want to talk to you because you don't do anything.

You literally do nothing for me.

You just keep asking me and you never do anything.

And

You know, I work at the request of the governor and whatever governor mood is going on is what we are funded to do, but that's not an excuse.

So that community engagement fatigue is real.

Folks are saying sometimes transit is too persuaded by individual needs, a squeaky wheel, rather than the larger community need.

This, and just to give you some clarity, the group of 14 and 13 were

Three riders, one from each.

Three, they actually all are daily riders and they range non-native speaker, older adult, and a newly arrived resettled person.

And then agencies that work in transit and the health district and agencies that work in advocacy.

So that gives you an idea of who's on those calls.

They understand that things are the way they are, but if it's community voices heard and their advice is implemented, it's very empowering.

So one of the things we heard was we asked, what compensation would you need as a daily rider to feel like it would be worth it to have your voice in transit?

And they were like, oh, no, no, no, I don't need any compensation.

I just want to know that I was heard.

and that my fellow, in that instance, it was like my fellow refugees know that this is, I can spread the word that this is available.

So that kind of bare own, even giving voice and being heard was empowering.

And then

there was a sense that the system is devised now for one that is not reflecting what's happening on the ground now.

So at the very least of the basic level, what we came out with from that guided facilitation is the community needs a public comment forum for all transit and to feel confident that they're being heard.

So, I mean, really like the lowest hanging fruit is like one suggestion box that actually someone responds back and says, I got your message.

We can't do that, but here's what we can do or would you like to help us get there?

I know that asking that is not as easy as putting a suggestion box at city council meetings, but just to give you an idea of where that came from.

The ground level feedback is that all three and all three agencies responded to requests about how do you gather feedback?

What do you do with it?

And so UTS, for example, keeps a spreadsheet and they put it in there and then you see where that call went and who responded to it and what the action was.

and John has a team that answers calls and responds back.

But we don't have a sense as like a public of and we, of course, don't have a sense for the private industry as well.

Like I don't have any idea how many people complain at Wegmans.

Right.

That's not like public data.

Right.

But Wegmans works.

I don't need to know how many people complain about it.

For this, it's more like, well, our transit isn't really working for us, so we want to know more about what you're doing to hear me and change that.

We don't really have a forum for, for example, John saying like, okay, we could check our data to say we made X operational changes based on community input this year.

and that might be valuable for people to hear.

Or Cat says, we launched MicroCat based on your feedback.

Here's one of those things and here's how successful it's been.

So even though internally like Cat has an email that you can respond, write a complaint to, no one knows where that goes and no one has a person to contact.

We heard that like trip planning tools and information would be super helpful and that there was maybe a need for Citizens Academy.

What we've heard a lot from this group is

Well, I complain to the transit provider, but they're not even the ones that make the decision.

City council makes the decision.

So do I need to go to city council meeting?

I can't because I have so many other factors in my life.

How how do I learn how to get my voice heard?

And so there are models in Richmond that are advocacy groups that train citizens or residents to be advocates in the right places on transit.

So that was one of the things discussed.

And we know that their system means, catch on, UTS, you guys need a safe place to connect and coordinate.

That's here, RTP.

But RTP is not really a place for public comment.

We say you have three minutes to talk.

I've been here since 2022, so I've only been here a year and change.

And I've never seen any public person come up and talk.

So I don't know like how that's advertised to the public that they have three minutes to talk to you, but where this is not the place for it is basically what I'm saying.

This is a great place for you guys to work out stuff, but the community does not think that this is a place where they can be heard.

So that responsiveness is great for them, but also you in that responsiveness of talking about community voice through operational change and

communicating that out that could benefit the marketer and he says your brand and the community itself and then this group said they want to be feel the reinforcement the city is competent leadership to rebuild public trust so a lot

Last little bit, here's the proposals from this.

Can each system has its own customer listening approach?

What pathways can your systems respond to customers individually address themes publicly?

That's a big thing to ask, but that was that listening component.

I've circled on this slide the low-hanging fruit.

Mike and I were just laughing.

Jen thinks it's a low-hanging fruit, but it's not.

So create a forum for public comment that is not RTP.

and create a Venn diagram.

This was a request from this group of how Kat, John and UTS overlap.

Not it, I'm not designing that.

Develop a clear statement about what RTP is and isn't and broadcast that widely and publicly.

And then strategize how to host a regional forum for public strategic dreaming and vision.

That's not the MPO, where you don't need like specific organizational connections or expertise to be a part of it.

where it could just be like a lot of that would probably come out to be operational requests.

Since this has happened, this impact session, we've had the amazing mobility summit last week which was hosted by PC and the Mobility Alliance and there were lots of work groups put together.

One of them was around advocating for riders and getting engagement into transit decision-making and so

There are some proposals and we're kind of exploring how to make a, not officially a coalition, but how to get all the organizations in Charlottesville, Albemarle, and the whole district that are working on transportation or have them as a priority, like CAA, like Blue Ridge.

We know that there's at least eight that have that on their docket for a priority.

Can we unify some of that messaging so that when it is presented to Board of Supervisors, City Council,

You guys are getting one consistent message that helps you make better informed decisions.

And that would be a way for us as representatives of that community to put that forward without burdening them with attending city council or having to participate in a way that doesn't work for them.

So that's in the works.

And that's brand new.

That just launched out of last week.

OK.

So let's just stop for a minute.

Is there any comments or questions?

Oh, was that it?

I want to say to you that years ago there was a citizen advisory committee for

because Peter and I, I'm going back into the Dark Ages, sat right here, but you and I sat right here in meeting after meeting after meeting.

So, and it was disbanding.

Yeah, I think what this group was interesting was like they were not only interested in those three are captive riders, right?

They must use transit.

They're interested in also serving people who would be riders but can't.

And so for whatever reasons.

And so there's a lot of overlap with the planning of like walkability and roads to new bus stops.

Come on, we have a year.

Let's do it.

And and operations.

and I think it's maybe even less about, what I'm trying to say is let's not go out and survey them anymore.

We kind of know, but how do we actually work within the frameworks that these three very distinct organizations have to just say we're hearing you and here's how you actually, if you really want this done and you're in cahoots and everyone's agreeing this one thing needs to get done,

you need to go to this channel.

So it is a little bit of, I think it's a little bit of what it seems like I've been told about that group was meant to do and a little bit of like advocacy and then a little bit of marketing.

I think to amplify one of the challenges that the cat advisory group that I think I served on for five years, which Jen alluded to in a couple different ways, was the feedback loop was not happening.

And there's a lot of reasons for that.

We've talked about some of that here.

Some issues can't be fixed.

It just wasn't resolved well and that feedback loop didn't happen which got back to what Jen reported on is people got frustrated because they didn't feel like they were being heard.

I wonder, is there an opportunity, I know the mobility manager wasn't fully funded but is partially funded, is there an opportunity for that role, I think it's being housed at Java right now, to play the role of some sort of a centralized collector of this feedback?

I think the feedback thing is really important and the idea that there's a place, I mean, you really have two levels of things, right?

You have practical things that we can solve today.

Right, and I think my sea build is a good example of something that's clear and transparent and it really gets a lot of stuff done in the city and I wonder if the mobility manager could play that role and also collect some of the bigger picture things that people want to see done that maybe we'd all like to see done as well but are just harder to do, right, that take years maybe of planning and meetings and things like that but I don't know much about that role, I haven't heard a ton about it, what's happened to it but it does seem like the one centralized place we have

Rather than somebody having to go, oh, is it UTS, is it Kat, is it John?

I don't know.

Do they have an email?

Do they have a hotline?

And then where does it go?

I'm the mobility manager.

We work in partnership with Java because they provide the services for the 1-800 number.

We've created a database and we are collecting information including if people have complaints about services.

And I would like, I envision the mobility management program to host like house information

for everybody about all the different transportation providers and kind of have a network like that.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, potentially I think one of the challenges I understand at Lucinda is what we're hearing a lot and what again the research shows is that also there needs to be the advocacy role for riders and that the TJPDC can't advocate

Am I representing that properly or misunderstanding that?

The mobility program is going to act a little bit like an advocate because we will have staff that's riding the buses with passengers and we will be able to report back to the transit agencies

that they experienced this issue.

The bus is always late on this route.

We've already been in contact with John about some complaints that we've heard come in and we've been working with John and we want to work with Kat as well on

So maybe micro, but at the macro level, when we think about advocating for the full build-out vision that we've talked about, that requires a level of advocacy that, as I understand it, is not so much in the mobility manager program realm?

I don't know.

OK.

Certainly the collecting of some of it.

It could be a clearinghouse for these ideas that then could be

Before I moved here in 2018 I lived in the city of Falls Church and we had a citizens advisory committee on transportation issues that met, you know,

every month or every two months.

And so I was, I think maybe this is something that maybe should be punted to the counties too, that at the X ask each county, Louisa, Flubana, you know, Nelson, Green, whatever, to have, so form such a committee.

And that way there'd be, you know, people could, you know, come to this meeting and

Mitch complains, say, here's what I need.

It could be a bus stop.

It could be a traffic light.

It could be some kind of transit issue.

But at least it was a forum where people felt their voice was heard.

And then we could bring it up to our city council or our transportation planner.

I was the chair of Fairfax County's mobility advisory committee and they advised the supervisors for Fairfax County and we had a lot of riders and disabled riders and we would write letters to the transit agencies if they were planning on cutting services or you know kind of big policy things we would advise the Board of Supervisors and write letters

Miss Jacobs has had her hand up but she put it down.

I was just going to say I appreciate the line of discussion that's occurring because Peter, completely what you said, the TJPDC, you know, serves our six member governments.

And so we do not engage in advocacy.

We are there as advisory, neutral information gathering, information sharing, coordinating, facilitating.

So I'm probably, I think, yes, I'm the oldest transit provider, but it's not saying a whole lot up here.

It's been four and a half, almost five years now.

Since my coming to this, yes, the old CAT advisory was kind of disbanded.

We've been trying to reconstitute it, but the problem has been

And we do get a lot of feedback from customers asking about doing service changes.

We can't do all the service changes everybody has.

It's impossible.

And what one person wants versus a thousand is a different issue.

If one person comes and says we want service until midnight, that actually kind of falls on deaf ears because it's one person.

and we don't have the funding to do that.

When CAT sets its budget, just speaking for CAT, when CAT sets its budget at the beginning of the year, it's sat.

And we've actually planned out all of the service that we're going to be able to do that year.

If we need to do anything different, we're not able to have a contingency fund to add new service.

That's not how our budget is funded.

We plan out everything we're going to do, all the service hours,

If we need to do something different, that means we're cutting service from somebody else.

That is a difficult conversation to have with somebody because one person wants us to go X when we're our private service in this area.

So it's not that we're not hearing you.

And I think the good part of that was this group, I mean, this is only 14 people, but they knew squeaky wheel is a problem and not everything we're going to ask for is going to happen.

And it's really hard for them to attend meetings.

Like, right.

So they, they knew all, they they're on your side on that.

I think it's more like.

I heard you.

I promise I heard you.

You know, it's more that like feedback loop.

It's that we don't say, did you know there's actually three providers and John is not related to Kat in this way and John is X and Kat is this and UTS is something different?

Like there's not a, can we get a grant for just like a fancy advertising firm to just tell everybody how it works?

That kind of thing.

I would say that the relationship and conversation between the three organizations has gotten better since I've been here.

And I'm not saying it's me, I'm just saying there's been an effort to actually do the same thing.

That is not saying that we are three different entities for a week or so.

What the university does is different than what CAT does.

and their model is different.

They don't have the federal rules that we have.

So I often hear, why can't you do what the university does?

Well, I can't do what the university does because the university doesn't accept federal funding, so they can just turn it up or turn it down whenever they want.

No advertising, they just put it out and boom, here you go.

I can't do that.

We get in trouble for that.

I got to advertise route changes, service level changes.

That's just the nature of the federal bureaucracy that had to deal with it.

John, and I'm not speaking for him, but they do our parent transit for us.

So we're in communication with them because when we adjust our service levels, it affects them.

If we adjust our service level hours, it affects the service level hours.

So it all comes together and we are working to try to

mitigate a lot of the expenses on the general funds from the city county.

So that is part of CAP's main role is to not have as much service as we can, but try to make sure that we don't have to continue to go back and ask for more money.

Transit is expensive.

There is no place in the world where Washington is.

New York City, their subway pays for everything else.

Because they make $3, $5 million on their subway system a day.

You can't have everybody have a car in your city.

So they gotta ride in the subway.

So they are one of the very few transit agencies that are making money.

Everybody else is getting supplements.

Actually, for a long time, the university transit system didn't accept federal money.

COVID, because nobody wants it.

While we're talking about the role of enabling advocacy for writers, I do worry it sounds like we are conflating the three different things that advocates do, like the three different things that lobbyists do, which is capturing experience, educating, and pressuring.

And I do just want to suggest that I think a consolidated single focal point is good at the first two.

I don't know if that's actually effective at this third.

They try to all the time, right?

But like, you gotta pick on Neil Williamson.

Neil Williamson talks to us at every single meeting.

It's very easy to report Neil Williamson because we know what he's going to say.

And you know, when he's from LAJC he comes and presents to us.

It is also very easy

I hear what you're putting down, but I do wonder, like at the end of the day, getting transit right, like if you want, like you know who is an effective pressure tool, are Crozet residents, because they actually make themselves known in individual level, there's a tremendous amount of pressure that actually helps shape decision making.

So I mean, I would say you can't really replace the direct engagement of transit riders in that part of the advocacy, I can see how that's

Could it be a both and, and I think all my time is up, but maybe we can, some other day.

but maybe it is there's a unified voice for the sake of the marketing and the getting people's awareness that their voice can now be heard through this mechanism and all y'all show up to the next meeting whoever can or send someone in your family who can so then there's the you know that it's not all one bland.

It's a matter of resources.

So when we have the resources, we can do whatever you want to do.

And I'll be the first one to be having a bunch of you.

But if we don't have the resources, then there are real hard discussions that need to take place about who are you cutting?

Why are you taking service away from this area and putting it in another sector?

I'm just talking about add.

Yeah, and I mean, it's also like there are different levels of advocacy and there's different levels of information sharing.

So, you know, it's not the same to

I don't know, I want to have a more conference of service.

That's not the same as like, oh, the cable is too hard to pull down.

Like that's just customer service.

That's not advocacy.

But so then, I mean, especially hearing what Carlin is saying, like that advocacy doesn't necessarily mean to be like yelling at cat.

That's not going to be that effective.

And it seems like some of the things where

There has been good progress.

It's not CAT that we're talking to at all.

So the bus stops, as an example, like it really doesn't.

We found out the shelters is what I'm referring to.

It's not especially helpful to yell at CAT about, you know, there are not enough bus shelters.

Christine, go ahead.

No problem.

I just wanted to make the note that as we continue discussions about a regional transit authority, there is an opportunity to consider a Citizens Advisory Committee as a part of that decision making authority.

And that's exactly where I was going to go because what I'm looking at here is

Our TV isn't the place for public comment.

We have had public comment occasionally in the past.

I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time right now educating people to come to us because we are moving towards, I believe, an authority.

And when the authority is established, this organization goes away.

So we're up.

Yes, right.

And I would hope that, just as Christine said, that's what I was thinking.

We need to figure out when we establish that authority.

I know we're trying to move on but we're aware and I hear very clearly and the group heard very clearly that there are challenges and barriers to this but I would hope we would all agree that customer service is fundamental to any organization and as public entities, nonprofit, public, university, whatever, we have to figure out a way to make sure we're hearing our residents and our users

and being able to do as much as we can to either meet those needs or clarify why we can't do them.

Absolutely, and we haven't and that's why this organization, this group was founded in the beginning, right?

And it's just... Well, yeah.

Thank you all so much, and as we move into the new

for your own opportunities to engage with our new assessment.

Thank you very much.

And with that, DRPT legislative update, Evans, there you are.

Good afternoon.

I'm going to turn it over to you for your presentation.

Are you all able to hear me?

Wonderful.

All right.

We only see your picture right now.

Share my screen?

All right.

Come do that.

There you go.

All right.

Wonderful.

Okay, so here we go.

So good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Evan Price.

I'm a Data and Policy Specialist at the Department of Rail Public Transportation.

I'm originally from Charlottesville, so I'm pretty excited to be here and learn about what's happening in my hometown.

But today I'll be providing a legislative update from DRPT's perspective and what happened here in Capitol Hill the past session, sorry, Capitol Square the last session and summarize some transit specific actions from the general that we just passed.

So

There's some quick content that I'm going to go over today.

So I'm going to go over to JWPT, who we are.

I'm going to go through that quickly just to be conscious of your time.

And then I assume you all know who we are in the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

We have a quick summary of the General Assembly session that just adjourned.

And then I'll cover a couple of major rail and public transportation bills, including one that was referenced earlier, the bus shelter bill.

and then about our budget and what that's looking like for public transportation.

Then I'll wrap up with what's coming next for moving on to some questions.

So, Department of Rail Public Transportation, I know Katie is there and she works for us, so I assume you all are familiar with the agency and we provide support, funding support and planning for public transportation and rail across the Commonwealth.

I'm gonna move on quickly here because I want to get us back on schedule.

And we report to the Commonwealth Transportation Board

which is the top decision-making body for transportation across the Commonwealth.

17 member boards, Secretary of Transportation serves as the chair, Deputy Director sits on the board as a non-body member, where they oversee transportation projects and initiatives across the Commonwealth, improve funding, improve bandswaring methodology, prioritize investments, improve regulations, they do a lot of things.

This is the body that is the ultimate authority on public transportation

just beneath the General Assembly.

Speaking of the General Assembly, a quick summary of the session.

It was a busy session for a lot of people.

Going into session, Democrats regained control of both chambers, despite losing a seat in the Senate.

This is the first time they control both chambers about four years, but the priorities of session were funding for K-12, creating this stadium that just yesterday broke news that it's not gonna happen anymore.

funding support for WMATA, which is Metro Rail in the DC area.

Those bills have control on civil rights and all that.

I will say it is not the busiest session for public transit legislation.

In years past, there have been some pretty large changes, including creating of a whole new authority dedicated to passenger rail improvements.

But some important changes still did happen.

And miraculously this year, we had a budget that passed on time

but it has not been signed yet.

And of course, that is a big matter of debate over what the governor's actions will be.

So, and a lot of public transit priorities in session have also been tied up in other priorities, including will MODA funding be tied to passage of sports and entertainment authority?

So moving on to the legislation that passes, or that was included in session.

WMATA is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority.

They are the interstate authority that owns and operates Metrorail, the subway up in the DC area, as well as Metrobus and paratransit system up there.

They're not the only public transit provider in Northern Virginia.

but they are of course the state's biggest public transportation provider and they were experiencing a bit of a budget shortfall upcoming in the upcoming biennium due to decreased ridership post COVID and that was a very that all got tied up into other political priorities this past session including passing the authority to create the Sports and Entertainment Authority as well as other other regional political priorities.

Thank you.

So there are a lot of ABCs.

On this slide right here, you see some NVTC, NVTA, PRTC.

Those are regional transportation authorities.

You all are mentioning Charlottesville Transportation Authority, NVTA, Northern Virginia Transit Authority, and the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission.

I guess that's not an authority, but they're similar regional transportation entities that

plan, provide transit and collect funding for those transportation providers.

There's a bill, of course, that was affecting them.

This is a very small bill.

It's turning a May into a shall, literally a one word change.

But that was one of the bills we were tracking.

I'm not going to go through all of these bills individually, but the main ones to note were HB285, the bus shelter bill, which was already mentioned earlier.

This is supposed to make

I'll go more into depth into that in just a moment.

And then the next most important bills for public transit were these HB 780 and 1001 and the corresponding Senate Bill 374.

These would have allowed collective bargaining of public employees, including public transportation providers.

So these are all bills we tracked.

That doesn't necessarily mean they all passed.

And in fact, quite a few of them did not pass.

Both the collective bargaining one died in both the House of Delegates and the Senate version died in the Senate.

But this bus shelter bill that I'll talk about in just a moment has so far passed and is on the governor's desk.

There we go.

So this bus shelter, it has been this has been the big bill for transportation this year.

It seems like a small issue until you really

really dig into it, and it's actually quite complicated and pretty important.

So the bus, HB285, which is patron by Delegate McQuinn here in Richmond, would remove bus shelters that are on state property from the oversight of the Department of General Services.

Currently in cities, cities own the streets, so putting in bus shelters, it's an easier process, but in counties, VDOT owns the roads, making it a state property.

and therefore any bus shelter has to go through their permitting process to be placed.

Well, the problem is that this is a very lengthy process.

Sometimes at a single bus shelter, it would take years to get approved and has held up to an extremely high standard.

Bus shelters are considered a habitable structure under DGS's process of enforcing the statewide building code.

So they have to be similar standards to say your local convenience store in a lot of ways.

They have similar levels of permitting.

That's at the end of it.

What brought this issue to the General Assembly is attention in the first place with the sometimes about shelter will be built on state property and state right of way.

And then within a few months would be ordered to be removed because something happened in the permitting process that means it was not

up to the state standards.

This would lead bus riders with no shelter at all, not even a bench.

That had to be approved as well, let alone a proper shelter, just a sign that says bus stop and someone completely unprotected from the elements.

So what this bill will do is it completely removes the Department of General Services from this review process on state property and instead says bus shelters are exempt and goes to the local

the local building official who gets permits for buildings in that county.

So hopefully what this will do is it allows the bus building process to be a lot easier.

It does have a sunset clause on it, so that means that this exemption would only last for one year.

This is due to some concerns over the liabilities of bus shelters.

We're waiting to see the governor's action.

The governor could sign this bill as is, or he could amend it and change that.

We've been working on this for four years.

It's almost like building a house instead of a shelter.

The Department of General Services is concerned.

It always seemed like that year was a poison pill.

I'm just saying.

That is the concern we are aware of.

We have the local transit provider here in Richmond GRTC sent along some information to us saying

with the supply chain shortages, we order a bus shelter, which the ordering process takes months because of the procurement rules, and then the provider of the bus shelter, the company that manufactures them, says, okay, we'll get it to you in 12 to 18 months.

So yeah, it's a problem.

But unfortunately, at this stage, there's nothing we can do.

It's up to the Governor and the General Assembly to make any changes.

This issue might come up again in session next year.

Well, I will say DRPT has been wonderful in trying to help us solve this problem.

You all have been great.

Please let us know and reach out to us if there's anything that occurs to you guys or anything we should be doing because I know the city and the county and the other localities would love to help.

Of course, we are happy to help and we'll keep you in contact about this issue.

The one other bit of legislation I wanted to mention that's most important is this Northern Virginia Transportation Study.

It's not a bill, it's a resolution that creates this joint subcommittee in Northern Virginia Public Transportation Systems.

This will study funding and planning and cost controls for transportation systems in Northern Virginia.

What we're expecting is that within a few years, this joint subcommittee will come to us

because of the General Assembly with legislation saying we're going to create one set of transportation, sources of transportation funding for Northern Virginia, one large authority to govern all this so that they have one unified set of funding sources.

This will provide funding for Wmata that I mentioned earlier to the metro rail and all the counties and cities and their local transportation providers.

I bring this up to you all because this is

A lot of other transit agencies have noted this and said, you know, we would like to identify our sources of funding as well.

So something to keep in mind.

We'll see where this goes.

So I'm going to quickly go through our budget.

I'm not going to give full detail of how our budget process works, but the gist of it is we're driven by a formula fund.

We have about $2 billion over the course of the biennial budget in transportation and rail funding, which is driven by formula, which comes through this Commonwealth Transportation Fund.

JPT receives the mass transit fund and the rail fund, which are derivatives of this larger fund, and I'm using some big technical budget words, but what that means is this is how we provide our funding to local transit providers.

That green slice, that is for MoMata,

Metro Rail up in DC.

That large blue slice is transit operating support.

That is what the state provides to Charlottesville Area Transit, Jaunt, in support of their operating costs.

Say that again.

Okay, I thought I heard something.

That purple slice there, the transit capital support is what the state provides for capital purchases, anything from security equipment such as the security cameras all the way to purchasing to capital expansions like a new maintenance facility.

We also provide a couple of other programs through our budget via VRE, which is the commuter rail that serves Northern Virginia.

It's the size of our budget.

And then special programs in this program, transit ridership incentive program.

This is the program that's keeping the Charlottesville area of transit fare free temporarily.

This also provides funding for regional connectivity projects, public safety projects, and passenger amenity projects.

So we just want to give you that background of how transit is funded.

It's all formula and grant driven.

So to wrap up, you want to provide a schedule of what's to come.

So I mentioned the journal will also be adjourned.

The journal is adjourned on March 9th.

So the legislative process has ended.

And then on April 8th, which is two Mondays from now, is the action deadline for the governor.

He will either sign, amend, veto, or take no action on HB 285, the bus shoulder bill and not the budget.

If he does not take any action on any bill, it might go into effect on July 1st, so we'll see what actions happen.

And then on April 17th, which is two Wednesdays after the governor's action deadline, is when the General Assembly will reconvene and act on his amendments or on his vetoes if he changes, say, the spot shelter bill, the General Assembly will consider his changes.

And then on July 1st, these bills will go into effect, the budget goes into effect, budget cycle begins again, and

We repeat and this time next year we'll have completed another General Assembly session.

So I think with all that, that is the end of my presentation.

That was great, Evan.

Thank you.

We had a lot of good information.

I have a question.

I don't think the governor's office ever offered an official stance on the bus shelter bill, but it's a unanimous piece of legislation.

It passed both the House and the House of Delegates and the Senate without any opposition.

That lends itself to likely being signed without any issue.

The only thing that's up for consideration is this sunset clause in the bill that would remove the exemption after one year.

The question is whether or not the governor is going to just go ahead and sign that off, let that stay, or if he's going to propose amending that.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and I know many of us submitted a letter pleading that they take that sunset clause off, but the Virginia Transit Association was taking the lead on that.

and I know many of us submitted a request.

So we're amazed to be seeing you.

Yeah.

All right.

Are there any other questions?

Thank you, Evan.

Thank you very much.

I would love to, but I have got to get home and make myself some dinner.

One provider kind of a quick update on where we are with MicroCAT.

We'll continue to update that model as we go through.

that we get feedback from users and they kind of fill out a quick survey as they use the services and it's a rate system from one to five and our rate system right now is about 4.9 so people are really happy with the level of service that we're providing.

As of last Friday we had completed

8,170 completed rides.

That was just the launch.

That never continued to grow on a daily basis.

And as of that same period, we had

1995 account.

So to use the service, and I think that's one of the things we continue to emphasize when people look up and try to use the service, you actually have to download the software to see whether you're in the service area and where you're going to go to have an account before you be able to really figure out whether you're right shift.

And you can download it.

If it's not in, you can always remove it from your phone.

But you do have to download and create the account before you really program it out of whether

Our highest daily was actually March 7th and it was 172 riders on that day.

Now, our goal, and I said this when we first saw it, I thought it was picked up demand.

And this is showing that we'll see on the next slide.

Our services have grown.

The first V3 launch we had 502 riders.

That was

Very nice, but our numbers have continued to grow since then.

So we've jumped from November to December to 1,376, where in January we were 2,399 riders a week, and then for the month, I'm sorry, and then we've had 2,600 in

Eight riders for the month of February.

We're continuing to grow this number.

We're going to be fairly close to 3,000 this month.

So it's continuing to grow faster and faster.

And our numbers, you know, the thing that I love the most is the net demand ratio on the side there, 97% of all

The 3% that we continue to talk about is usually for once people download the service, the service placement is outside of the service area.

So that's the 3% that we have not been able to get.

We're already having conversations about expanding the service and expanding the service model, the service area.

But at this point in time, we're only four or five months into the service.

It's growing faster than

faster and better than we, I had hoped it would.

I knew it would grow fast, but I didn't know it was gonna grow this fast.

And we're already starting to have conversations about potential adding service on Sunday, because we're actually running services right now just six days a week, Monday through Saturday.

So just give you a little bit of feedback on kind of the, I won't read all of these to you, but you'll see it, actually I've given the presentation to presented social, sent it out to everybody.

But people are loving the service, I guess is the great part of it.

It was a pleasure to ride with a driver and wave friend.

Very friendly and good conversations.

And like, personalized player was a great driver.

Very friendly and I enjoyed the service.

So we're getting that kind of feedback from folks on a daily basis.

They love the service.

It's the convenience of getting it from the curb ticketing to your point of destination.

So what does it look like?

Where are folks using and going to the services?

So we did a little heat map.

I asked the media to pull this together and basically tell us, you know, the major area

So, Faster Square Mall, people are using it to get to and from the area.

Don't know why they're doing it, but they're growing it.

Some of it may be bused up, but I can't define that because we're not able to track right now.

We're running fare free, so I don't know.

whether they're using it to go from one vehicle to the other.

If we were a paying service, I would be able to see the connections.

You'd be able to see me leaving in a tap at the mall.

And that would help me figure out where they're going or where they're coming from.

Walmart, they're using the service.

The apartments, mall-side apartments, service.

And a lot of folks are using it to go to DMV, which

Speaking of marketing, we are starting our root marketing efforts.

I literally just approved a radio ad that will start, I think it's either Monday coming, so at least April.

So April is supposed to be the push for the radio ads, but we're also having at the airport, you're seeing pictures here of the ads that are placed in the airport at this point in time.

And we're gonna use these boards and continue to market our efforts

A lot of folks are starting to potentially use the system.

You download the app, of course.

You got to go to the app store, download it, create an account pretty quickly.

It's not hard to do.

And you'd be able to tell whether you'd be able to go from your point from the airport to your location.

So you may not even have to rent a car.

We've heard that from some people that didn't know the service was available.

Now that it is, I'm going to X place, and he didn't have the used car, which was funny.

Because you have a designated space at show now for, that's just Microcat.

Yes, we worked with the airport and actually have a designated area for us to pull over.

For specifically for Microcat.

So they can get, and

Maybe I should say this out loud, but I will.

They would be great to work with.

They waive some of the fee structure because we are not charging.

That's why they waive the fee because normally when Uber or Lyft comes on, there's a fee that the airport charges for the service and we're not doing that.

And then we're blitzing.

So flyers, we've actually given out over 10,000 flyers at this point in time.

We continue to print, so we're going everywhere and anywhere we possibly can.

We're putting out flyers multiple times.

We get calls all the time to send us flyers.

Some of the locations are outside of the zone, so we ask them, you know, you still have to get into the zone to use it, and then when we tell them that, then they say, oh, well, we don't want it then.

I'm up in the Brio Road North Area lot and I see the vehicles but I was behind a vehicle recently at a traffic light and I just happened to notice at the back of it a very small VIA logo but no micro CAT logo.

on the back.

And I thought that was just a lost opportunity to market it right on the vehicle.

It was the VIA, not VIA, logo.

That's the first thing she got them for when they went to council.

She's like, you know, we already have.

That's why I carefully used the right language.

So I want to put it on the cap website.

But there's potentially some issues with our city's IT in coordination between the sharing information.

So we're going to work through some of that.

But it's a pilot for now.

It's funded in one year.

And then I think the council is working on a conversation

I'm confident that we'd be able to handle probably 25, 30 percent more riders, but that's about it.

This might be a conversation better suited elsewhere but we got a presentation from you recently that showed the

level of service across all routes both in terms of time increments and ridership and there's heavy use and more frequency along 5 and 7 that we know and the trialing that we know.

But then there were some that were like 1% of all cat ridership is on this route.

or even like it seemed almost smaller.

And some of that yes probably has to do with frequency but some of it could just also be areas of demand.

I'm glad you said that.

We need to have a different kind of conversation because really it's a discussion about

effective uses of resources and it's also about because we have we have certain areas that have high populations minority populations or

poverty issues, we can't just take service away.

And we also know that because some of our frequencies aren't where they need to be, people who aren't riding, they're finding alternative ways to get where they need to go.

So it's the old adage of which came first, the chicken or the egg?

If we added service, I'm confident that our ridership is going to improve, but is it going to improve to the point where

Well, I mean the micro-cat product right now is a mini-cat.

So we could do that, but back then,

As the ridership grows, the concern becomes capacity.

So we could easily cut an area where we have low ridership right now and replace it with market cap.

But let's say

that area all of a sudden has a economic development project or a new service center or new business comes that area and now you have a high touch point along a route where we just took the service away and MicroCat couldn't

Right, sure.

You know, there's... Yeah, that's hard for Kat to do.

Sure.

Yeah.

Transit agencies aren't designed to be nimble.

They're designed to be fixed.

We put that stuff down, we're not going to be able to be nimble to change every six months.

That's unfortunate.

You had mentioned that the immediate obstacle of getting Micropat on the app website is really

The third party vendor, we manage their operations in concert with them.

having them to create, so that's why you're asked to create your own personal account.

So that information is stored, they're storing that information on their systems.

So if the individual wants to leave, they discount it.

If it's on the cities, it's now stored in public records.

So that's one of the concerns we have.

We can work through that.

but it does change the model once you put it on a public entity's model.

So remember we have a fixed budget so their charges are going towards

the fixed budget that we've approved with them.

So they're not gonna exceed that number no matter what happens.

So we can, and it's kind of counterintuitive, but if I'm driving a ridership that number of hours goes down because I'm increasing the ridership, right?

Because it's being aggregated over

People have asked me a lot about the cost that it is per user because I remember that at one point the pilot looked like it was going to be like $60 a ride or something which did not seem sustainable or maybe the best use of dollars so I'm trying to figure out if you if you've got $2,600 now you say 30% more that's about $3,400 a month you could handle I'm trying to figure out

The numbers would change, of course.

The number I would give you when I get back to the office, we'd be able to provide it to the group about the average cost.

Understood.

I'm just trying to think about what it would be if we got to the max as I understood it that you could handle up to $3,400 a month without adding cars and expenses.

What that cost per rider would be at that point is what I'm trying to get because that's feedback I'm getting a lot of people questioning.

You're getting people out of cars.

You're reducing all of that.

It doesn't work because you have an area that you're covering so you can pick up multiple people.

Correct, that's correct.

I think that's really interesting from an eco or a mean perspective to see if you can pick up that scale multiple people in to know.

But it's on domain, so when you hailed a ride, it's a ride-hailing service, so your question about

Are we putting one toward two?

It could be five at this point in time.

It just spends an hour that the time that the request is being made.

So it's not a constant, it's constantly fluctuating.

So it could be you ask for a ride at six o'clock in the afternoon and it's 30 people who want it.

So you're sharing a ride with five other people.

You got four other bands or five other bands doing the same thing to get all the riders.

As opposed to 8 o'clock at night, you've made a request and it's just you.

Because you're the only one who needs that service to go from where you are to the airport.

So it's constantly changing.

Do you get the chance to say, I need to be at the airport at this time?

So the one thing that I do want to point out to folks is, well, this is a two year pilot.

And one of the things that Albemarle County is working out with this pilot is, this is telling us where people in Albemarle County, at least in these two areas, are willing to use transit.

That's correct.

And so if we're looking at fixed routes,

where would we get the best thing for our buck with a fixed route might be in an area where we see high ridership for this.

You see where I'm going with this?

I've had Kevin McDermott and I sit on a weekly call with the, so actually it was right before this and I actually just had a quick budget thing that I couldn't, this was probably the first thing that I wasn't able to attend that meeting, but Kevin and I are gonna start having more conversations about the planning aspect of this model long term.

And that's, and I don't know if he's mentioned it Anne or not, but

It's getting, you know, it's expanding.

And the request that Kat gets is, you know, we're telling it's a pilot, why can't I go downtown?

That's, you know, or why can't I go here?

You're two blocks outside.

We tell you, you're two blocks out.

If you walk in, you walk in two blocks, you can get a ride.

Well, my neighbor just picked up another house, I want to get picked up another house.

And that's, I had a conversation with a lady the other day, just like that.

Well, my neighbor two blocks away, well she's in the circle.

Well, how do I get put in the circle?

Yes, because remember, all the efforts we've made on the, and I'm switching gears here, on the shelter side, we've spent almost four and a half years trying to get this model.

They're almost there.

It would be horrible for us to go put in the permanent infrastructure and then change exactly that.

But again, this guide's where you put those shelters, where people are getting picked up to catch the micro-cat.

Can I ask an ignorant question?

I'm not sure I understand how folks using microCAT in this corridor a lot translates to a bus fixed route because the use model is so different.

Great question.

So how does it relate?

Because we know that the areas that microCAT is running is a fixed area.

We supplemented the area.

Every area that we're operating in has some level of fixed route service.

So it's the plug and play model.

So we're designed, the model is designed to kind of be kind of a combination one, two punch where MicroCat, if you're in the zone and you don't need to get to a fixed route to complete your trip, that's great.

But if you do, it is helping you potentially get to a bus stop to complete the rest of your trip.

So we do see, and I've heard from a couple of customers, they caught the service to Aspen Square to go downtown into the city because it was easier for them to just use Mirekette to get to that as opposed to waiting.

Any other comments or questions?

Hugely supportive.

Thank you for making the minimum age 14.

I really, really appreciate that.

We had a lot of conversations about what made sense and we thought 14 made sense.

Total enough.

All right, we're to our round robin and Alwar High School was up first.

William just said to me a couple of minutes ago that they had an incident of something going on in the school's transit.

I don't know what it was, but anyway, he had to leave.

But we did hear that Alwar High School was a popular spot on one of those trains, which is pretty interesting.

Because we have been trying to figure out how we can get

to help solve the school bus problems, how we can use public transit to work to help solve some of those problems as well.

You can.

Well, I have this comment, actually, when Jen was presenting.

So I hate public for my update, because I don't have a whole lot of exciting things to say.

But it's kind of neat to me being a new-ish person now.

I guess at seven months I can say ish.

I've had two students in the past month

reach out to me saying, have y'all ever considered working with Kath?

And I said, well, I'm a little disappointed actually.

But I said, it's a public meeting.

You're welcome to come and hear directly

My mom I think is a second year student and the other one's a four year student.

So second year probably, I think she was from Northern Virginia.

Learning about Charlottesville and my science and policy class.

I was thinking about transit options in Charlottesville and I was like, come on to the Arcadia.

So the other update I had is that really kind of no new news on the three things that I talked about last time.

We are still in the midst of our, we're doing our options for GPS tracking.

Yes, please do.

I was kind of hoping you were going to go first because I know you have an announcement.

So you say it, and then I'll piggyback on it.

April the 3rd, we're doing a demo.

We invited community partners to come and look at, they're going to have a gillik electric BV bus and a school bus.

It's at Cat Property, and I was actually

say the RTP, or if you want to come on April the 3rd, 10 or 9.

10.

10 o'clock in the morning, 10 o'clock in the morning to 3.

We'll be out there, the rep from Gullick will be there.

So you'll be able to go on and check out all the new technology that's on those vehicles.

We'll see if we can get able to do a little ride along somewhere quickly.

It'll be in the back property where I'm scared because we don't know if we'll let people back there but it's going to be okay.

Because there's a lot of activity going back there between the camps and people just switching out of classes so we're going to be very

Careful that day, but we're going to have the buses out there.

We're inviting the public, not the general public, but advocacy groups across, and in the very middle of the snow, we are extending invitations to the competition.

So the next day, and the reason I didn't want to talk about it is I'm not going to be here.

I'm going to be in the spring break.

I'm heading out of town tonight, actually, on this rain.

We met with you like a few weeks prior.

I don't know.

Actually, we don't know.

We need to schedule that lunch day.

We do, really, too, as to whether this just kind of worked or maybe made it happen.

But the bus after we use CAT is actually coming to ETS the next day so that we can kick its tires and check it out.

I really would love to say plug it into our new DC fast-charging system, but it's not yet

We had a nice conversation with them.

I want to take back on something.

Gillick and New Clark are the only two that are approved, have gone through our budget.

2-3-3 is now 2.

I should probably pay more attention to what I said last time.

Our on-demand, I'm piggybacking on MicroCat, our on-demand service, I think you all know, is formerly called SafeRide, runs in the evening, we call it BTS on-demand.

We are pulling that in-house fully from RMC, who has been, there are vehicles, but RMC has been driving them.

Dispatching RMC has been driving them at the end of June.

who's on demand.

I don't know if we're changing the vehicles or not.

We're having some vehicles to use our chargers.

I'd really love to get an electric van, but there isn't one.

Not a good seven to six passenger van on the market, at least in the US.

The last thing I'm going to say is rider survey.

We do an annual survey for all of our riders on BTS.

We're going to launch that Monday, April the 8th.

trying to increase student participation because they are, the academic side is about 70% of our ridership, the health system commuters is about 30%.

We're just talking last year's numbers, the 80% of our responses came in from the health system commuters.

And so we're really trying to engage with the students more and say, give us more feedback.

I think you all know we have some new second year housing facility that's coming online.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, secondary housing coming online in the fall is one on Brandon Avenue.

And so we'll be looking at maybe some changing routes there.

And so we're really just trying to engage more of the students on our routes.

Talked about the demo.

We're finishing up our getting ready to finish up as chapter 45 of our TSP.

So our transit strategic plan is a requirement for us.

We're still on track to have it done

It's important for us by June 30th of this year.

We will be taking that document to city council.

It's a requirement that they see it and approve it.

And when it's appropriate, we will love to have a conversation and involve them in the work that we do.

Yeah, there will be a preamble.

That's correct.

apparently.

I've tortured a UVA student a little bit, a global sustainability student about de-identifying information and some of those requirements, but now they have a project that's approved through the IRB and it's to look at Johnson's

I was trying to be a good citizen for Katie because she told us about a study that VCU's Wilder School folks are doing and I've been contacted with them after filling out the online survey.

There's a follow-up in April.

And I did sign

I think that is a little bit of a long shot, but we'll see what happens with it.

For us on microtransit, our consultant, because of the necessary density and existing routes and all that, is really focused on the work that we're doing in Crozet.

We'll see how that pans out.

The more we go on that, certainly we can

We of course are looking at battery electric as well.

We've had our consultant on site and just this week we've talked about the potential areas where the chargers will be installed at our depot and had confirmation from Dominion

and some of you, including our chair, our rural transit DTSS facility group.

So the Virginia Free 64 expansion study officially wrapped up as of yesterday.

The option hasn't been officially announced, but it will be presented to the CTE soon.

And then they would be willing to find funding and then aim to have the new law enforcement bill 64 West from Hampton Roads area through Charlottesville.

and that will be hoping to launch in summer of 2025.

And then the FRA Amtrak Long Distance Study identified a route from New York to Houston.

It would go through Charlottesville, Roanoke, and Bristol, Tennessee.

It's not funded and it's not fundable, but it would have an impact on DRBT's corridor identification studies.

That's exciting.

And then on the transit side, we're just gonna do the SIP

I do have other business.

I'm going to ask Ann

to give us an update on the work that they're doing towards the far end.

Remember what we talked about that last time?

So you'll just give us a quick update.

Christine's on the phone.

Ben and Christine and I have been meeting regularly to

to focus on the Regional Transit Authority.

And I sort of grouped our work in sort of three different diets.

The first is what I would call structure.

We're working on formulating a set of bylaws, talking about what budgets look like and what staffing might look like.

So around what the structure of the organization might look like.

The next one is around outreach.

We wanted to make sure that we did outreach to both partners,

nonprofit partners, partners in the community as well as the counties that could be part of the RTA.

So that's sort of the next move we're going to go to is to move in and now send off those counties, do some outreach, make sure that we go visit with these counties, understand what their transit needs might be, what the transit opportunities might be, what would make a regional transit authority an attractive group.

So

of wishes and desires related to that.

And then I think the final thing that we're doing is doing some work around sort of documenting sort of history of how we got here as well as what sort of the value proposition, the opportunities, what would a regional transit authority, what would be its purpose, what would it do because we feel like that messaging will be really important

All right.

Well, with that, it's five of, and I will adjourn us on April the 25th, same way, same time.

If that works for everybody.

All right, here are your judges.