Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   4/25/2024

Katy, are you there?

Yep, I'm here.

Can you tell us where you are and your reason for Zooming and then we'll get a motion to get you there.

In the DRBT office in Richmond, unfortunately I wasn't able to be with the office all day today if you came out.

So moved.

Brian made a motion, is there a second?

Second.

Should he be attending?

And Mike, it seems like I always looked in my book.

I'm still Mike Brimley from Jones.

I'm Hal Morgan from Atlanta County.

Scott Silsdorf, Erica Barkman, your transportation for UVA Mike Pruitt, Albemarle Supervisor, representative of the Charlottesville District Ann Wall and I serve as Deputy County Executive, Albemarle County, Diantha McKeel, Albemarle County, Board of Supervisors member Brian Pinkston, member of Charlottesville City Council Natalie Oschrin, Charlottesville City Council Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council Jen Fleischer, sitting in for Peter Thompson from Charlottesville Area Alliance

Ben Chambers, Transportation Planning Manager with the City of Charlottesville, Christine Jacobs, Executive Director, TJPDC, Lucinda Shannon, with the TJPDC, Gretchen Thomas, TJPDC, Dan Ficke, and Jessica O'Shaler, you can go on there.

I would say the only comment that I had is the minutes are not actually in there so either delete those or we'll go back and put the numbers in.

Where it says like this item happened at minute number whatever we just don't have the numbers and we'll go replace that.

All right, is there a motion to approve the minutes from March the 28th as amended?

I move that we approve as amended.

Any in?

Abstain.

Lucinda, do we have anyone from the public who would like to speak?

using the little raised hand at the bottom of the screen.

Garland, would you like me to turn it over to you to get us started?

We hired Kimberly Horne, let's say 15, 16 months ago now.

Yeah, would have been about that.

So Ben has been struggling a lot over the load and we're gonna bring Nick and Lucas in and guys, Kimmy on our team, let's get at it.

All right.

Are folks in the room seeing the shared screen?

We are, Nick, and we can hear you.

which we are putting the final touches on as we speak and we're really excited to be soon in the next few weeks releasing our draft full TSP.

And let me just ask, if folks have questions as we go through, do you want us to save our questions or just somehow navigate your attention and ask questions?

Happy to consider your questions as we go, so feel free to come off mute and raise those and we'll do our best to answer them as we can.

Appreciate it.

So Lucas here with me will walk us through what you all can expect in the draft transit strategic plan document that will soon be public for review.

that agencies of a certain size are required to complete these.

Maybe it's not yours, but is there anything?

Is that any better?

And I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to make sure...

Is that better?

It sounds more like it's a technical problem than just volume.

Test, any better?

You might want to turn off the video because the connection may be a little weak.

OK. How about that?

How about any better now?

I'll just, I can try to speak louder, is that okay?

We'll let you know when you fade out.

And yeah, please jump in if I fade out or you're having trouble.

Yes, stay close to the mic.

Audio okay?

As long as you stay close to the mic.

how some of those short-term improvements have been doing and other modifications, but really looking at by the end of this long-term period to implement the constrained scenario for that regional transition and more than doubling the existing service hours by this point.

Two of the improvements that you were talking about, the route to PDCC, does that also include the regional jail?

Yes.

Of course, we're talking about getting a route to that route to stop at ACRJ.

So you would have constant connections, both directions to jail.

And that would also eventually be a run on Saturday and Sunday.

The first is on Saturday.

It stops at the stop that is near the jail but still requires people to unpay sidewalk bridge.

Right, the orange route would be the one that goes further down past the jail and goes all the way to the Mill Creek Shopping Center and then turns down Mill Creek.

So I believe in the discussion with Martin that it might not go into the jail, but you would stop.

and that would be a great location.

Sounds good.

I just wanted to make sure.

We're trying to get that in as soon as we can.

I believe from that perspective and turn it back to Nick.

Do any RTP members have questions on these more technical elements of the TSP itself before we move on to next steps and our wrap up?

I don't see anybody that looks like they have a question.

Do we have an idea of, or is there a model that's a part of this that gets 15 minute frequencies on five and seven?

So

So the cost and as we partner with vehicles, we graduate.

Okay, so the or better there is doing some heavy lifting.

Great questions, thanks.

And that's a council adopted and approved TSP is due to DRPT to satisfy that legislative mandate by June 30th.

I would say as a

It's just acknowledging that you have built this process and the study is kind of charting our path forward.

We want opportunities to make adjustments to do that and do better to VDRPT.

But the goal is to try and get as much of this implemented as we possibly can.

It would seem like to me government as our work

It really is, but also I would say if we ever get to the authority board, there will be a whole lot more discussions about trade-offs between adding service versus the discussion we had today.

Where do we fill the gaps with micro-transit?

add another layer of real detailed conversations about the improvements that are before us.

It's already informed us as to it really, really well.

And the goal is to keep that momentum going.

Nick, how long is that?

folks in the community to basically hear what you're hearing from us today to really break it down and let them know what these pieces of the TSP mean so they can be better equipped to review it and provide us the feedback we need to finalize everything.

So to get comments from people who use this system daily, is there going to be like a QR code sticker that goes on bus stops or some on the bus itself so that people have easy access to it?

I'm sorry.

Not necessarily on the bus stops and stuff.

Yeah, we don't have great places to hang those.

So it's actually easier for us to put, we have inside panels that we're going to use to advertise.

Will the bus drivers be saying something about it to folks?

They're probably going to say more than

When do we need to be...

We need a sustained effort of running up the numbers if we're going to do it that way, and that is something we're aiming for.

So we get our frequency up and we can probably

Getting our ridership up, one way we could do that if we could figure out how to get the University of Virginia transit system or something or another, and I understand that's why I'm saying muddy waters, but that is another pool of ridership.

We can look at something.

I understand, too, that other communities have figured it out, maybe in other states, but I mean, we've got to figure this out.

But I will say, to the university's credit, they're open to having these conversations.

More lunches can be good.

We don't want to put them in a situation where they now dip into the federal pie and they're subject to the same joyous array of cases that we are if we put them in a bind.

Yes.

Got it.

Nick, thank you all.

And I think, Lucinda, do you have this presentation that you can send to us?

Yeah, Nick, if you send it to me, I'll send it around to the board members who might like to have the presentation.

Sure thing.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for having us.

I'm used to asking you to make sure everybody has everything.

We're going to give you plenty of opportunities to give us feedback, but we don't need any more than that, I think.

So with that, Scott, would you like to take the UTS?

Before of CAT with the Gila Plus that came, the next one went to UTS.

I was out that week, which was right after our last meeting.

So, but anyway, we made the application, so stay tuned.

That's my question.

I was gonna say, what program is it through?

It's through the Aloha No Lo.

And does that change anything for how UTS operates?

Is it federal grants nationwide or does it grant money to states to them?

It's $31.4 million altogether, but it's 20% contribution from the University, from our department.

Exciting.

Like I said,

There's a scalable element in there.

So we want electric buses.

So you're charging stations on oil right now?

They're not publicly available.

Does the grant opportunity also include more chargers?

for the training.

And when is, just remind me, when is graduation?

May 17th and 18th.

They're well over this point.

If you see Kendall, give him a big hug.

He's worked really hard and was a little frazzled for the last few days.

Alright, well with that, Garland Cat is up next with the school to the city and the county.

Don't say it out loud, knock.

Tell us a little bit about New Jersey trades.

Right.

I don't know if anybody's seen it, but it was real.

It's in pretty heavy rotation right now.

I know who produced it for you.

It was great.

Kyle?

What's Kyle's last name?

He's our communication staff.

He's got a very good eye for that.

On to John.

For 36 years, I've grown on a palace t-shirt that wasn't for the University of Virginia because my daughter has decided to go to William and Mary.

So she'll be close.

But he has some good members here, and I just, just a quick overview.

See, I knew he could do a quick one-on-one.

Yeah, that's true.

New public service corporations for four years now.

All right, with that, Katie, DRPT.

And then also on the 16th, the deputy will be hosting an event in the office here in Richmond that also everyone is welcome to attend.

I know they then turn to Ann and them, and you guys are going to give us an update on the Regional Transit Authority because you all have been meeting.

And we have spent some time sort of reviewing some of the prior conversations that have existed because we didn't want to have the same conversation again.

Which counties are they?

LaVanna, Green, Louisa, Nelson.

The idea would be to sort of be in a position to, if the decision was made to go forward, when the decision was made to go forward with activating the RTA, certainly on the City County portion of it, what are those next steps?

And it's very exciting.

There's not, in the early stages, not a lot of wiggle room about what that government structure might look like.

If that's what had been done, at least it got started.

Right.

It just made it easy for us to pull together bylaws without having to think through too many of those choices that were already sort of made for us.

I guess part of your plan or list of next steps involved

And this General Assembly might not be the opportunity, it might be the next one, but we need to have that discussion and talk through what we would ask this time versus what the benefit is for waiting until next time.

We talked about staying up to date every couple of years.

You will be presenting to us in June because the May meeting has been canceled because of a conference, I think.

Virginia Transit Association Conference.

And so the next meeting will be June the 27th, and you will be on our agenda for that, is what I'm hearing.

Great.

I know that your studies are June or July, so we have flexibility around that, and we'll touch base with you to confirm.

but hearing no objections, I will adjourn this to June the 27th at 4 o'clock, same place, and have a lovely couple of us.