Board of Directors Meeting   12/14/2020

Well thank you everybody and good morning.

We appreciate your patience as we are getting started with this new platform here.

If you do have any technical difficulties, please do note the phone number that is on the front slide here for Michael Henderson down at the bottom of the page.

You may want to jot that down and Michael is our technical support today should we need that.

But first of all,

Let me read this statement regarding our public meeting today.

On November 19th, Governor Ralph Northam signed House Bill 5005, Virginia's revised biennial budget, which includes new language for meeting electronically.

In light of the continuing state of emergency declared by Governor Northam, we are conducting this meeting in a remote setting, keeping safety top of mind and mitigating the impacts and spread of COVID-19.

Yes.

Will the board members present please respond by saying aye when your name is called?

Ms. Bolivar?

Ms. Butler Painter?

Aye.

Mr. Cardwell?

Ms. Dorsch?

Aye.

Mr. Facet.

Aye.

Mr. Hall.

Aye.

Aye.

Mr. Nichols.

Mr. Spore.

Ms. Zimmerman.

And I just want to make sure that you can hear me.

This is Sharon Bulova.

I'm on mute now.

Perfect.

And Madam Chair, that concludes the roll.

Okay.

And I do see, I know Haley, who's our technical director today.

Haley, I see a couple of board members that are still

showing up under the attendees as opposed to the staff.

Looks like Jim Spore and Rod Hall are over there, and Mr. Cardwell.

So perhaps you can continue working with them to get them in the capacity to be able to unmute themselves to speak.

So just a few reminders again.

I know we are all old hands at this by now, but please do mute your devices to avoid any background noise or other audio interference.

and today the moderator does have the ability to mute anyone on the call if you do forget to go mute.

Today's meeting is open for the public viewing and is being recorded.

The recording will be available on the DRPT YouTube channel tomorrow and the link will be posted to the DRPT website as soon as possible.

Should you have any technical difficulties, please log off and try logging back into the meeting.

If you still experience issues, please contact tech support, Michael Henderson,

His phone number is shown below, but it's 804-592-7985.

There will be a designated public comment period following our closed session today.

You can sign up ahead of time by emailing drptpr at drpt.virginia.gov.

I believe that was also shared with the public notification for this meeting as well.

You can share your feedback at that time or provide comments after the event using that email address.

With that, I would like to bring your attention to our agenda today.

We have a number of things to bring you all up to speed on.

We'll be going through our update on all of the projects that we're working on in the Transforming Rail in Virginia initiative.

We'll be talking a bit about the organizational structure for the Passenger Rail Authority as well as the budget too.

Very happy to have Rich Dalton with us today who's going to give us a presentation about VRE.

We'll also be going over our BRAC personnel policy and some administrative items as well.

So with that, I would like to ask for a motion.

Oh, one more housekeeping item too is if when you are making a motion or a second, if you could please state your last name so that our

Bridget, our assistant here, can make sure we get the right names down with that.

Yeah, great.

Yes.

All right.

I will call the roll.

All those in favor say aye.

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Mr. Moorman.

Aye.

Ms. Moses-Ned.

Aye.

Mr. Nichols.

Mr. Sude.

Aye.

Mr. Spore.

And Ms. Zimmerman.

So just a few updates from me before we go into the rest of the meeting.

At our December meeting of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, which was held last week, we did actually approve our six-year plan for the fiscal year 21 to 26, and this was a

plan that reflected the impacts of COVID on the statewide budget.

Using the flexibility, though, that was provided in a budget amendment that was approved during our special session, the CTB was able to manage the financial impact of that by shifting some revenues from out years for allocations from out years to be able to support and continue projects that are still going on.

So that did also include an update for our

a statewide DRPT budget as well, and funds that will be going to the rail authority from the CTB.

We also did bring forward an item on our VPRA budget format, which we'll be talking about a little bit later, which was presented for review by the CTB as well.

DRPT is going to start updating our statewide rail plan in 2021.

That's something you all will hear a lot more about as we're going forward.

it will be addressing some changes that we've seen in the rail industry over the past few years and being able to prioritize the state's long-term investments.

Again, DRPT will continue to be the agency that will be managing the statewide rail plan for the project or for the state, which is also something that's going to be required by the Federal Railroad Administration as well.

One more note too, some of you may have heard that we have some federal legislation

pending related to the Long Bridge Act of 2020, and this is legislation that will permit the National Park Service to be able to transfer property to the Rail Authority for the purpose of constructing the Long Bridge.

This was it, Long Bridge Act itself, which was introduced as standalone legislation by the First District, Rob Whitman, and Eighth District, Representative Don Beyer,

This will allow us to move that forward.

We also understand that we'll have separate standalone legislation introduced by Senators Warmer and Kane in the Senate as well.

Hopefully, we'll have good news to share with you soon about that legislation passing.

So with that, I was going to go ahead and turn the rest over to Mike McLaughlin now who's going to give us a presentation about the Transforming Rail in Virginia initiative to in our major capital projects.

Sure.

I want to make sure everyone can see me and hear me.

OK, and I believe Ashwini, one of our staffers, is helping me move the slides along.

So just a quick update, sorry, quick recap on myself.

I presented last month Chief of Rail Transportation, and I'm helping to move DRPT and VPRA through these projects.

We have briefed all of you in one way

or another on some of the details of these projects.

So what we want to do today is go into more detail.

So I think you've seen these slides before, especially the one on the right.

Just as a recap, it's a $3.7 billion program, Transforming Rail in Virginia, and about $3.2 billion is for capital projects.

They'll be constructed in phases.

The Phase 1 should be completed about 2026, and Phase 2 completed about 2030.

and we are close to finalizing the definitive legal agreements with the various parties, CSX, Amtrak, and VRE, but we do need those to close so we can continue moving forward on the projects as well.

On the last slide,

slide, which you saw the various phases with the projects.

They correspond with various phases of service.

And service is very important to us in the Commonwealth.

Secretary of Valentine and Director Mitchell told CSX and others again and again, this isn't about us buying real estate.

It's about service for us.

And that's why I have the slide up top.

As you can see by the dotted red lines on the right, we are increasing VRE service to Spotsylvania on the Fredericksburg line.

over five trains by 2030.

One of those we'll get after the signing of the final agreements.

We also have rights to the first eight miles of the Manassas Line.

I'm referring to the blue dotted lines on the left because the Manassas Line over the last eight miles, or the first eight miles, travels over CSX tracks.

But to receive those four new

round trips, we would need agreement with Norfolk Southern to get those new trains to Broad Run.

And if there's ever questions from folks while I'm doing a presentation, feel free to jump in.

Otherwise, if I don't hear anything, I'll just keep moving along.

Next slide, please.

And this is the proposed future Amtrak service plan.

As you can see, we'll be adding six round trips, the six round trips on the right, to

Richmond, and beyond.

The first round trip would actually be the third Norfolk train that would extend to Norfolk.

And there's also a train that does extend to Newport News.

So at the end of this, at the end of Phase 2 in 2030, we'll have three round trips to Newport News and three round trips to Norfolk, with six to Hampton Roads.

That's a good, healthy schedule.

And it'll be doubling of what we had just a couple of years ago.

We only had three a couple of years ago, and we added the

second round trip to Norfolk in March of 2019.

There is also a trip that is contingent again on CSX.

That's the blue dotted line on the far left side of the graphic.

Again, that first eight miles is agreed to by CSX, but we would need an agreement with Norfolk Southern to run that round trip Amtrak train to Roanoke.

Next slide, please.

So this is the acquisition map that was an inside of the other map.

We thought we'd blow it up, make it a little bigger, just to show everyone that it's really not just about the D.C. to Richmond area.

It's about the whole Commonwealth.

It stretches from the Allegheny Mountains in the west on the Buckingham Branches of Allegheny to Richmond line to Richmond, and then the S line from Petersburg to North Carolina.

But our first two phases of construction projects are focused on the D.C. to Richmond area.

because that's where the capacity constraints are, and we'll get into that, especially with Long Bridge.

Next slide, please.

So, this is a zoom-in of the top of the map.

As you can see, this is, again, the phases and also the miles of railroad and track that we are purchasing from CSX.

Just to remind everyone, we, on the RFMP, we are purchasing the east side of the corridor,

Splitting the corridor in half, not tracks, but corridor.

I'll get to that in a second.

Splitting the east side of the corridor south of Franconia, and we'll have the west side of the corridor north of Franconia.

Now, the corridor from DC to Richmond is about 100 feet wide, which means you can fit four tracks in there.

So right now, if there's two tracks in the ground, the long-term plan will be to add two more tracks that will be dedicated to passenger use.

And in areas where there's three tracks, such as up in Alginger and Arlington, we'll be adding one more track.

to make it four tracks.

So there's enough room for the most part.

There are some places, like in Ashland, where there's only room for the two dedicated tracks.

For the most part, there's room along the way for four tracks.

So these phases are first two phases, and they will really start getting us to a dedicated track, one dedicated track when phases three and four are built to Spasovania.

So there's some sidings and other third track projects.

that will get us started.

And then future phases will allow us to continue to build out to get three tracks to Spotsylvania.

Eventually, we would like to get four tracks to Spotsylvania, three tracks to Richmond with some sidings to Richmond between Richmond and Spotsylvania.

So I'm going to move on to the next slide now.

So that's Northern Virginia, as you can see.

This is Central Virginia.

Just to give you all an idea of the projects there, these are a lot more of the sidings.

Northern Virginia was Long Bridge and Fort Track.

These are sidings that can be used as passing sidings and also sidings that are, as you can see, making some contiguous third tracks for a decent amount of miles.

The Woodford and Milford Third Track, that's in Caroline County.

Crossroads is also the name of the VRE facility where the VRE trains come in.

That's just south of Spotsylvania.

Potomac Creek, as you can see near Leland,

and Aquia Creek is north of Brooke.

Unless there's any questions, I'll move on to the next slide.

This is the southern area for the RFMP.

And there's one project here in Hanover County called the Hanover Third Track.

I do also want to point out, though, that we are already starting to plan, and Jennifer knows very well, for some activity around Richmond Main Street.

While it's not on the map here, it's not on the map because it wasn't part of the

of the agreement with CSX, although we have been talking to them about expanding, and we have the rights to expand all of the trains to Richmond Main Street.

That's very important to us.

Some folks might know that only the Newport News trains come into Main Street, but we would like to get all of the Commonwealth State-supported trains, and again, the State-supported trains are the ones that are funded by the Commonwealth, to Main Street.

So that would mean the Newport News trains as well, and we'd also like to get the National

and other state-supported trains such as North Carolina's Carolinian train to Main Street one day as well.

But we do need some infrastructure improvements around Main Street to make that happen.

For those who have been down to Richmond, it's quite an interesting area around Main Street, the famed Triple Crossing.

There's a lot of crossings there with CSX, Norfolk Southern, and the ability to get over the James River.

It's not a simple task.

So we need some infrastructure upgrades also at Main Street Station as well.

to be able to serve Main Street.

So that's something we're working on and we'll plan to brief you on in the future.

So next slide.

So we're going to go into individual project profiles.

Next slide.

So Long Bridge.

I think you all heard a lot about Long Bridge.

Jennifer mentioned during her opening that we are working on some legislation to allow Long Bridge to be built on National Park Service property.

We're hoping for good news on that soon.

This is the biggest constraint in the Commonwealth.

All of the passenger trains in the Commonwealth travel over Long Bridge.

That includes the trains from Roanoke, the trains from Newport News, the trains from Norfolk, and the trains from South Carolina, Florida, North Carolina.

They all travel over Long Bridge.

Right now, it's a two-track rail bottleneck.

There's three tracks on each side.

So just as you might have heard me use this phrase before, just as though if you're in a road and you have

three lanes coming into two, this is going to be a bottleneck.

And the fact that we're almost carrying 80 trains a day, that's Amtrak, VRE, and CSX trains, and we want to, and it's already at 98% capacity during peak hours, that shows the need there that we need to expand Long Bridge.

And the good news is that we're pretty well along the way in this task.

Environmental clearance was finalized in September of this year, back with the record of decision from the FRA.

which also designated Virginia as the lead on design and construction.

One of the reasons I like this map is because it shows the Long Bridge just isn't about the bridge over the Potomac.

As you can see from the numbers, there's five other bridges, the bridge over GW Parkway, bridge over 395, Main Avenue, so on and so forth, over the Tidal Basin.

So this is a complex bridge project in a tight urban confines, especially on the district side of things.

And this is a $2 billion project

that we, again, we are finished with the environmental and well into preliminary engineering, which I think we get to in the next slide.

Next slide, please.

So, it's estimated $1.9 billion-plus cost.

We're currently at 15 percent design.

This district of Columbia's Department of Transportation, who we work closely with, took the – they're the ones who got us through the environmental process, and they also took the project to 15 percent design.

Although, as you know, the industry standard is to take it to 30% design.

And we have had a procurement out there and we're working on to bring it to 30% design.

That's not yet final, but we hope to have that final in the near future.

Another aspect I want to raise is that this is not just a railroad project, this is a transit project.

Obviously, VRE, you see Rich here on the screen, is also a transit entity.

So we are eligible to apply

for the FTA's core capacity program.

It's the 5309.

I know some of you are very familiar with the 5309 Capital Investment Grant Program back in 2012.

It was expanded to include something called core capacity, where you're adding infrastructure to expand the core of the system rather than just adding on the end of it.

That was a new start, was adding on the end or building a new project.

This is adding to the core.

And what we're doing here, obviously, in Vigory's territory, is adding very much to the core of its network.

Long Bridge and the associated track on the Virginia and DC side.

So we're eligible for the FTA's Core Capacity Program, which we'll be talking to you much more about in the future.

I actually had experience with this in Chicago.

I was proud to be one of the leaders of a team that got the first core capacity grant at the Chicago Transit Authority.

So I have some experience with this.

I know Jennifer's got a lot of experience with the FTA's 5309 program as well.

So I think we're well placed.

We've already had conversations with FTA.

to go after this grant.

It could be up to $800 million or so.

We can only apply for the VREs portion of this, but during rush hour, there, the vast majority of the traffic is at Rich Knows.

Amtrak's more of an all-day long thing, but FTA looks at core capacity eligibility as during the peak hours and where your constraint is, and obviously, there are constraints at Long Bridge during the peak hours.

As you can tell, I can go on and on for hours, so I better move on.

I'm happy to probably bring that as

topic to discuss in future board meetings.

During preliminary engineering, we will determine the procurement method.

Whenever we have an industry day or talk to folks in the contracting industry, they're always interested in, are we going to do a design-bid build?

Are we going to do a design build?

Are we going to do an alternative method?

That is often determined during the preliminary engineering phase, and that's what we plan to do during the PE phase, is to determine our method of procurement.

And as I already mentioned, we're working with District of Columbia and others

Amtrak is a huge partnership here, so is VRE.

Amtrak's contributing $944 million.

VRE's contributing funds as well, along with other funds from Northern Virginia to this project.

So we'll be working with them as we have been.

Both parties have been on the management teams for the DC DOT's environmental planning and preliminary engineering.

We'll continue to work with them on this project.

PE will take a couple years, and then we'll do final design and construction.

But again, not sure if it'll be design-build or design-build-build.

and we're hoping to have the project complete by 2030.

Unless there's any questions, I'll pause here for a second if there are any questions.

Hey Jeremy, this is Wick.

It does not.

It does not.

That $3.7 million we've put together based on the funding plan we have now, since the core capacity money will take a few years, usually takes about two years to get through project development, another year from then on to determine if you're doing design-build, if you may receive the grant.

So it does not yet.

However, if we do receive that fund, we've already been in conversation with Amtrak and VRE and others.

If we do receive those funds, we will work to reallocate funds

along the $3.7 billion, or maybe even start on Phase 3.

One other note I want to make, due to some technical difficulties, it might appear that my name is Jeremy Latimer.

I had to first log in under Jennifer's.

I never, again, due to some technical difficulties, I had to kind of crash the party here.

So if it says Jeremy Ladder under my picture, I'm Michael McLaughlin.

Trust me, Jeremy Ladder is much smarter and better looking than I am.

Thank you, Michael.

And we'll compare it.

I have no doubt what the answer will be.

Next slide, please.

So we're going to have about two pages on each of these major projects.

There are some other projects that are in 3.7 billion, but I'm just focusing on the major projects.

I'm going from north to south to make it easy.

This is the fourth track project.

We call it from AF to RO.

So if we ever get into a railroad speak or engineering speak,

AF to RO are the interlockings and control points.

AF being Alexandria and RO being Roslyn.

And if you ever hear us say CP, Virginia, that's actually the control point up near Union Station.

So much as I mentioned that traffic jams cause when you have multiple lanes of traffic coming into reduced lanes of traffic, we have three Fredericksburg line tracks and two Manassas line tracks coming into three tracks.

and Control Point AF just west of the Alexandria Station.

So obviously, this is a huge bottleneck.

And this would actually also be part of the core capacity project, because we see these two projects intertwining, because we're planning to build these in concert with each other, the Alexandria-Arlington four-track project with Long Bridge, because we want to have four tracks through the whole quarter, four tracks through Alexandria-Arlington across Long Bridge.

And also, even after Long Bridge ends,

Rich, Dalton, and Veery have a four-track project that will then carry to CP Virginia that I just mentioned where, I don't know if Bruno's on, but Bruno and Amtrak then take it out from CP Virginia.

So we want an eight-mile four-track corridor all the way from Alexandria to Union Station, or to just south of Union Station, which makes sense because, again, that's where the Manassas Line and Frederick Square Line tracks come in.

So I also do want to mention that

There are some other projects going on in this territory at Crystal City and Alexandria that are led, again, by VRE, and we're working very closely.

I don't think a week goes by that we, Jennifer and I don't talk to Rich and that our engineers, probably each day, they probably talk.

So we're coordinating that very closely because obviously it'll make a lot of sense to do construction at the same time rather than have to do surgery two different times on the Algendre Station and the Crystal City Station.

We did receive a $45 million FAST Lane grant

from the USDOT back in 2016 for this project, which we have met the statutory deadlines for.

And I'll get into that a little bit more in a second.

And CSX is actually planning design and builders for us because where there is territory to build the foretrack is on their part of the territory.

As I mentioned earlier, we are taking the tracks on the west side north of Franconia.

So since they're going to be building it, and also they need to do the signaling and so on and so forth,

they're going to be building the four track and then they'll be deeding us one of their tracks when they're done with the four tracks.

Next slide.

So project status and next steps, we're estimating this to be about 161 million or so project costs.

The DCRVA covered this and other projects down all the way to Richmond with the environmental clearance, so this was also cleared.

back in September of 2019.

And the PE plans also were part of the DC to TRVA project.

And we're close to finalizing the 30% plans.

We're working through some items with Amtrak and others on what they call the 30% design plans.

And then CSX will take it from there for final design.

I mentioned some statutory deadlines with regard to the $45 million Fast Lane Grant.

One of the early works projects is a crash wall at the airport access road.

I think many of you

probably been on that access road.

That's the one that kind of connects Crystal City to National Airport.

Putting up a crash wall there to make sure that obviously that if a train has some issues that there'll be safe working conditions.

And that'll satisfy the grant requirement within 18 months of the DOT grant agreement.

We're working very closely with Randy Brown, who is our local FRA administrator on this issue.

He's out of the region here in Virginia, North Carolina.

As again, I already mentioned CSX will be the final design and construction on the FORTRAC project.

VDOT is helping us with the crash wall, and VDOT is someone that will be helping us, I think, throughout a lot of the projects.

As much as they did on some earlier projects out of Backlick Road and Staples Mill parking lot, we work closely with VDOT, and Director Mitchell has a very good relationship with Commissioner Bredge, and we've already had conversations with them about helping us on this and other projects.

And final design should be completed in about 2022, and we're hoping construction will be completed in about 2025.

And that's a picture of Alexandria – actually, the other platform at Alexandria Station down there, and you can see the WMATA station behind it.

So, it's a very busy area there, as you can see.

Mike, I have a quick question.

This is Rhea Zimmerman.

Is that agreement with CSX one that's already completed in terms of

It's part of everything working to complete and finalize, but that is one item we don't have any issue with them on.

There will be construction engineer agreements.

Well, there will be that project, maybe one or two others they'll be helping us out on.

But we're working as though that should be done in short order, and our engineers are talking, if not every week, if not every day.

on moving that project forward, and planners as well.

So, good question, but we would like to have that done, so we – also, the flow of funds, and that we'll be transferring them funds so they can help – so they can use the money to design and build it will be important.

So, any other questions?

So, moving further downstream, further south, Franconia-Lorton Project.

It's a six-plus-mile third track.

On the third track currently right now,

If you're at Franconia Station, if you ever have a chance to take a look, look north.

There is a third track that travels from there to Alexandria.

So we're going to extend this further down to Lorton so we can have, again, more fluidity in this area.

And we're also building a bypass, a Franconia bypass.

And as I mentioned a couple of times already, the passenger trains will be traveling, will be only the east side south of Franconia, the west side north of Franconia.

And that's not random.

That's because south of Franconia,

VRE stations are on the east side.

If you've been to Brook or Leland or places like that, they're on the east side.

Now, when you have joint VRE Amtrak stations, it has it on both sides, which makes sense.

It's pretty much throughout the Commonwealth, well, throughout this territory on the RFMP.

When you have joint stations, you have platforms on each side.

But at the VRE only stations, if you think Crystal City, think Brook, think Leland, L'Enfant, et cetera, et cetera, the VRE stations on the west side.

as Rich is nodding his head.

I know you'll let me know if I'm wrong, Rich.

So the Franconia Bypass will allow the trains on the east south of Franconia to go up and over the tracks, up and over the other tracks, especially the CSX tracks, for a seamless maneuver to get to the platforms on the west side.

We've determined, both CSX and DRPT jointly, that's going to save a lot of time.

It's going to reduce a lot of conflict of trains in this area.

So, that is a project we've been working on.

That's a little newer, where the Franklin and Lorton third track's been out there for a few years.

But the Franklinian Bypass did receive some NVTA money, thanks to Jennifer Mitchell's help and others, and that is part of the $3.7 billion.

Next slide.

Next slide, please.

Happy to talk through, I think, what the next slide says.

It talks about, there we go.

So, thank you.

So, the third track and bypass, there are two projects kind of in the same area.

As you can see, the cost for the third track is about 162 million.

Preliminary engineering is complete.

Again, we've done that before at DCRVA.

And environmental clearance is almost done.

We're looking for a categorical exclusion for both projects, for both the Franconia-Lorton and the bypass.

and for those familiar with categorical exclusions, we call it a CE, that is one we're very close to receiving from work with the FHWA and others to receive that CE.

Third track, final design, will begin hopefully in 2021 with construction beginning in 2023 and complete in 25.

The bypass design will begin in 21.

also with construction starting at 23, but complete a little later since it is a larger project in 2026.

That is an artist rendering and preliminary rendering on the right side of the bypass.

So next slide.

There are six sidings that we've talked to you about before, as you can see in the map on the right, that, as I've mentioned, are kind of the tie-ins to the current third tracks

or creating fluidity for the passing sidings, for instance, for a CSX train to pass or Amtrak train to pass the CSX train.

They're generally three to four miles in length, and they're throughout the Commonwealth.

I've mentioned some of them before.

And A, B, and C, the only rhyme or reason for A, B, and C, those are in phase one.

And D, E, and F are in phase two.

So the Potomac Creek, as you can see, I'm not going to read all the words off the slide,

Woodford as in Caroline County and Hanover and Ashland.

And then Slidings DE and F will continue in Phase 2.

Phase 3 and Phase 4 would be a lot more sidings that will tie in that third track all the way to Spotsylvania, which is the end of the VRE territory.

As I already mentioned in the last slide, four of the sidings when combined with other tracks will be the start of the dedicated third track.

Any questions here?

And these slidings were verified by DRPT as useful, not for just CSX tracks, but for passenger trains as well.

So we want fluidity.

We've actually had some negotiations with CSX.

We moved some a little bit here and there to have fluidity both for freight and passenger trains.

Next slide, please.

And the estimated cost combined of these are $472 million, even though they're all their own individual projects.

they're all environmentally cleared by DCRVA.

Again, as DCRVA, for those who might not be familiar, was a dedicated third track all the way to Richmond.

So the beauty of these sidings is that they're already environmentally cleared.

And I already mentioned the next few bullets, A, B, and C will be phase one, and D, E, and F will be phase two.

And we'll hope to finish up the sidings by 2025 for phase one and by 2030 for phase two.

Next slide.

Before I go into future phases, I do want to mention in the $3.7 billion, there are some other projects.

We just focus on the major projects that we're helping to fund, such as L'Enfant Station and Ford Track.

But that is being overseen by VRE.

There's some other projects in Fairfax County, Route 1 and Newington Bridges, which we actually just received a $15 million grant.

Newington will be done as part of the third track that are also projects.

But again, we're just focusing on the major projects here.

Future phases I've already talked about a lot today.

I often tend to get ahead of myself because I'm so excited about these projects.

And again, our end goal is to have a four-track corridor all the way from Washington to Spotsylvania, if not all the way to Richmond, with two of those tracks dedicated to passenger rail.

And again, the end goal, when you have two dedicated tracks, you can have what a lot of other major cities in Chicago and Philly and New York have, which is some skip-stop service.

which we think would be very important.

Right now, you have a decent commute time from Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania to DC, but if we can build out a four-track to Spotsylvania, we could hopefully reduce that trip time if we can have some dedicated track, really our own passing track to get around our own trains, our own passenger trains, to speed up that service to and from Washington, DC.

Additional projects, I already mentioned the Main Street Project in Richmond, that we are actively planning for,

working with the Secretary's offices and Director Mitchell and others on it and CSX on it.

The Commonwealth Quarters, as you might hear, and we can come back and talk to you about this, we will be, the DRPT will be doing a planning study.

What that is is something that's been espoused by various people in the Commonwealth to have passenger service all the way from Hampton Roads to the western part of the state, especially Virginia Tech and where the universities are out there.

And speaking of Virginia Tech,

I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but we are still working, as has been in our six-year improvement program, we're still working with Norfolk Southern to see if we can get an extension of Amtrak service from Roanoke to parts south.

Again, that's been in our SIP.

We've had some, we call it a six-year improvement plan for some planning for the last few years.

We continue to work on that.

Also want to talk about the S line from Petersburg, North Carolina.

That is the gold, the yellow here on the map.

We're working with Amtrak in North Carolina

on that.

That's a very important project for not just Virginia but for the Southeast in that it can reduce travel times by an hour to an hour and a half between Richmond and Raleigh.

By actually building track, what we're buying is the abandoned track in Virginia south of Ridgeway.

There's actually active track that North Carolina is actively negotiating with CSX and kind of received a large $40-plus million grant from the federal government for.

So we're working closely with North Carolina and Amtrak on planning for the SLA in the future, but we would have to build that track up.

And actually there's some spots along the right-of-way that CSX didn't own, so therefore we won't own.

We will be receiving most of that from CSX.

I look forward to working with North Carolina and Amtrak to develop the SLA.

Next slide, please.

I think that's it.

Happy to answer any questions.

and happy to talk to folks offline or in future meetings.

Great.

So I'd like to move on then to the next agenda item.

And I will ask you all just, I think we're picking up some background noise, so if everyone

who's not speaking, that'd be great too.

As we have been going through our plans for mobilization of the VPRA, we have put together a draft organizational structure and we wanted to make sure we had a chance.

I know I've gotten a number of questions from some of the board members about what we think the size of the organization is going to be and what that's going to look like.

As I've discussed with you previously, we're starting with the recruitment of the executive director as we speak, and we will be also moving forward with the hiring of some key positions as well, but we do have a draft organizational structure that is a target that we are moving forward with.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

Let's see, I'm moving my control panel so I can read this here.

And the reason I'm describing this as a draft organizational structure, we've worked with a management consultant that has helped us to put together this draft organizational chart.

We do also expect, though, that when we do hire an executive director, that that director may want to have a imprint as well on the structure of the organization.

but for the purpose of our being able to move forward with some key hires.

We'd worked with the management consultant.

They had done some reviews of other similar organizations and interviews with CEOs and senior managers from other similar infrastructure organizations to get a better understanding of best practices.

And so with that, we've put together a executive management structure.

As you can see, we have the executive director,

We're also in the process right now of hiring an administrative assistant who will also serve as the board secretary to that executive director.

Underneath that, we would have five executive level positions, including a chief operating officer, chief financial officer, chief of executive affairs, or I'm sorry, external affairs, a chief administrative officer, and a chief of legal services.

And that chief of legal services is actually

will be a employee of the Attorney General's Office, but someone that we would envision reporting on a daily basis to the Executive Director of the organization as well.

And I'll break down now some of the functions that we expect to have under each of these major, these executive positions.

So under what we're referring to as the Chief Operating Officer, we would have a Director of Planning and Programming who would oversee

the funding and programming of our projects, a director of construction and engineering, and a director of rail contracting and management who would actually oversee and manage our longer-term agreements with VRE and Amtrak or others.

And then under a chief financial officer, we would also have, let's see,

we would have the budget and financial functions under that, a director of accounting and reporting, and a director of treasury and cash management.

Under our chief of external affairs, what we would envision is we would have both external community affairs under that person, as well as marketing and media relations and government affairs too.

Under a chief administrative officer, as you can see there, we'd have a director of procurement,

Director of IT and Human Resources Director under that.

And then under the Chief of Legal Services, we would have professionals that would assist and support on construction and contracting and also real estate contracting as well.

So with that, these are, again, intended to be illustrative.

We are, as we move forward with the Executive Director recruitment,

We may end up shifting some of these responsibilities slightly, but this is our roadmap that we are moving forward with now.

As I've described to you previously, the three other positions that we're going to begin recruitment on right away would be the Chief Financial Officer so that we can start building out the financial and administrative infrastructure of the organization, a Director of Procurement, and a Director of Human Resources.

Well, since we have no questions, and again, happy to discuss this in more detail with you all at any point or you would welcome your input as well on that structure.

So that actually leads us into the discussion about our draft operating capital budget.

By law, we are required to present a budget to the Commonwealth Transportation Board by February 1st.

And so this is our opportunity to present you with our draft budget.

What we would envision next is having our finance and audit committee review this in more detail and then bring it back to you all for the January meeting too.

So I'm now going to let Steve, our chief financial officer for DRPT, take it over from here.

Thanks, Jennifer.

Can everyone hear me all right?

Thank you.

So, as Jennifer explained, can we go to the next slide?

So the Code of Virginia actually does stipulate certain parameters with respect to budgeting for the Passenger Rail Authority, and I'm not going to read this whole section.

It's really there for y'all to have as reference material, but essentially it requires both operating and capital budget, and it requires the Passenger Rail Authority to submit those budgets to the Commonwealth Transportation Board by February 1st of each year.

and so that's what we're here today is the beginning of that process.

We have internally put together a draft budget working with my team and Mike's team and then Jennifer and Hossain Sadeed.

We all work together to come up with a plan and put together a draft budget that hopefully today I can take you all through.

So next slide.

Once again, this is just laying out

and a few simple bullets, what requirements are.

We talked about the first bullet here, February 1st.

The second bullet is the CTB has until May 30th of each year to approve or deny any of the capital expenditures in the budget.

So, if there's no action taken by May 30th, they're deemed approved by the CTB.

and the other point to make here is they're not really taking any action on the operating budget that's presented to them.

Additionally, the code section does allow for the CTB to provide us feedback with respect to the content and the format of the budgets, and particularly operating budget that's presented to them.

And as Jennifer mentioned earlier in her introduction remarks, we did this past

Wednesday present to the CTB a proposed format for both operating and capital budgets to solicit their feedback.

And in the coming days, weeks, if we receive any further feedback, we'll certainly work to incorporate that.

Next slide, please.

So jumping into the two budgets, I first wanted to take you through the operating budgets and the basic assumptions that Mr. Sadeed and

Chairman Mitchell and myself came up with was on the operating side, we'd be working with a one year budget.

Additionally, we are including an estimate for fiscal year 21, which is the year we're currently in.

A little unique situation there with the Rail Authority starting July 1st, this past July 1st and

not really having time to go through a budgeting process, so thought it important to at least have a base estimate for FY21 that's also included.

The anticipated expenditures are based on a cruel basis as required in the language of the Passenger Rail Authority.

Obviously, since we're starting up, we can be using basically a zero-based estimate, and

Two main elements that I'll take you all through of the operating budget.

The majority of the expense is for the operations of the inner city passenger trains that the state sponsors.

And also there's some, the administrative costs of the rail authority is what I would call the other element.

Next slide, please.

So this is, hopefully you all can read this.

I think

A version was included in the package that was sent to y'all.

But this is essentially the draft operating budgets for FY21 and 22.

And I'm going to just hit the highlights here.

You'll see that there's a large increase from 21 to 22.

And at a high level, what's going on there is in fiscal year 21, obviously, we have the impacts of the pandemic.

impacting our Amtrak operations.

But when the CARES Act was approved by the US government, some funding was provided to Amtrak to offset the loss in passenger revenues in FY21.

We believe that there's going to be another second stimulus bill, but the certainty of that, you know, it's not certain.

So we thought it best to budget in the most conservative form.

and show the anticipated ridership if there is no relief provided.

So with ridership hopefully recovering, some in 22, but still significantly depressed from where we were pre-COVID-19.

And as mentioned, the state supported service, and I think y'all have seen this slide several times now, it basically details the different, six different trains were operating today.

So with respect to the passenger rail administration budget, we worked, we basically utilized the current DRPT general ledger.

And I went through a process of, you know, DRPT has a very robust set of required ledger

accounts.

And so I went through a process to somewhat consolidate those to make it a more manageable list.

That's what you see here on the right of the screen.

And by no means do what I anticipate this to be a final set of general ledger accounts.

I think it's just a tentative set for this inaugural year.

And then as financial system is procured and

put into place, I'm sure there'll be many changes and deviations from this, but for this initial year, this is the level of detail we started the administrative budget at, and then we rolled it up by the categories, as you see in the brown rows, those are the categories we rolled the administrative budget up to.

So, next slide, please.

So that roll up I just spoke of is the chart here at the bottom of the slide.

You see for FY21, it's about 2.3 million, and then we are showing an increase to about 5.2 million in fiscal year 22.

And primarily, the main cost here is payroll.

And without knowing exactly the timing of recruitments and hiring, essentially

In the estimate that we put together, we had 28 potential employees.

And I think the average time on the payroll for FY22 was about at a 75% rate.

I do want to note the training and travel line does include a lot of other items beyond just your typical, what you think of as training and travel.

It includes any sort of employee

we call them incentives like here at DRPT we provide bus passes for our employees or we have a tuition reimbursement program.

The category also includes organizational memberships, work apparel, and that may seem like an odd item but you know when we have people going out to inspect on tracks there's a lot of different

apparel that we need to supply for safety reasons, and the steel-toed boots can run up a fairly large expenditure.

Then we had food and dietary costs.

If we ever do get back to meeting in person, hopefully we could have a working lunch process with the board and other of our partners going forward.

The other significant items are we do anticipate utilizing some outside support services, which includes both having an audit done and then also potential legal expenses from outside experts and then consultants, not necessarily consultants working on the TRV project that Mike just took y'all through, but more so consultants, as Jennifer mentioned, working with us potentially to

hire the very technical skill set of personnel that will be needed going forward in the Rail Authority.

And finally, I guess one other thing I would like to point out the last two bullets here, the IT number is fairly large for FY22 and a big portion of that is procuring an ERP financial system and then implementing that system and then

setting up maintenance.

So I don't think that that's going to be a cost that will annually be at that level.

Hopefully it's a one year type cost that's at that level.

And that's the final bullet here is the similar thing in the office building and related as obviously we've rented some office space, but there's no furniture.

So, moving on to the capital budgets assumptions, working with Mr. Saadid and Ms. Mitchell.

Once again, we wanted to include a budget for fiscal year 21 for comparative purposes.

and then from there we chose to sort of follow the process that the Commonwealth Transportation Board follows today, which is sort of a six-year capital plan.

With the first year being what we're asking the board ultimately to approve, and then the five years after that, fiscal year 23 through 27 being essentially a forecast of future capital expenditures.

based on cash flows of the projects related, which deemed to approximate accrual based expenditures.

It includes about 30 projects and planned future efforts.

And the 30 projects, I don't know if y'all remember from the last meeting, you know, when we started the Rail Authority, there were two existing rail programs that had numerous rail projects already existing.

we had to divide who was going to manage those projects between DRPT freight rail and Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

So that's why you see there is a significant number of projects that are sort of speak a rollover from previously existing rail programs in the Commonwealth.

And with that, I don't know if y'all remember, but there's approximately $300 million of funding

that's also moving from DRPT to the Passenger Rail Authority to fund those projects.

With that, we also deemed it appropriate to break the capital budget into two sections, one being a capital project section and the other being a capital grants.

And the primary differentiator there is the management and control

of the projects.

So a lot of those existing projects are really grants that we're providing to outside entities, a lot of them to Virginia Railway Express, some to Norfolk Southern, some to CSX, and the control of the project, and I'll say the more of the risk of the project is with that outside party.

And then on the capital project side, it primarily includes the Transforming Rail

and Virginia Initiative that Mike briefed you on earlier.

And before we jump to just taking a quick look at the numbers, I do want to point out that we sent out in the board packet these same documents as far as budgets go.

We are going to, over the next two to three weeks, one, we'd like to get your feedback and incorporate that, but then two,

We are working to take a narrative, provide a narrative of each of the line items in the budget, like a one short, one pager, so that y'all will know what these projects are.

And at the same time, also prepare an executive summary to kind of put around those, just the schedules of numbers.

So, and our goal for that would be the first week in January, I think it's January 8th, I believe, is that Friday, so

No later than that date.

We originally were talking about before Christmas, but I know we've been super busy and with holidays coming up.

But we'll see.

Hopefully we could, we can make it before January 8th, but that's the latest.

So this is the capital projects budget.

And just a couple of points I wanted to make here.

are the total budget you see is actually the budget, the entire budget for the project's whole life.

And for most projects, they're going to be completed within six years.

However, the Transforming Rail in Virginia initiative is estimated to go to fiscal year 2030.

So you see the 3.758 billion there for the TRV project.

That is through

fiscal year 30.

And so the six year total is 3.4 billion of that project.

And Mike did a great job explaining all the different elements earlier in his presentation.

The other project here is a purchase of a small piece of property down in the Norfolk area that could provide some assistance to us with our Amtrak operations down there.

Next slide.

And the final slide, I know this is a lot of numbers and a lot of lines, so it might be hard to read.

But anyway, this is the capital grants section of the budget.

It does total some, and in this case, the total project budget.

Once again, they are actually contained within the FY 27 window.

There aren't any projects here that extend past that window.

But you'll notice the total project budget here is different than the FY21 to 27 total.

And what's the difference here is we're including in the total project budget here, we're including the funding being provided by our outside partners that are administering these projects.

So example, you see, I'm just going to pick one Newport News.

station platform, $43.9 million.

It's about midway.

And the Passenger Rail Authority is going to provide $20.5 million of that $43 with the other $22 million plus being provided by the City of Newport News and other sources.

And with that, I don't have, like I said, once again here, I

I would encourage you to wait till you get that document that I'm talking about that's going to take each one of these and provide a good one-page narrative with some graphics and various numerical data to better explain what these projects are and how they may tie together.

And with that, the next slide, I just want to take one minute.

run through the process as we move forward with this budget.

So, as I just mentioned, by late December, early January gets you the completed budget document.

Mid-January, make any changes, updates to the budgets that were received from you, or I know later today we're talking about getting an audit and budget committee set up, and I would really like for that committee to provide

the feedback on this budget, especially being the first year.

And then I know there hadn't been a date set, but I think we anticipate the late January meeting of this board where we would ask for authorization to take these budgets and transmit them to the Commonwealth Transportation Board on or before February 1st.

And then in February, we would go to the Commonwealth Transportation Board and give them

a presentation on the Passenger Rail Authority budgets.

And then from February until the end of May incorporate any changes, feedback received.

Steve, this is Hossain Sadiq.

I want to compliment you for this invaluable coverage of the operating and capital budgets.

I haven't had the opportunity to have an early discussion of these budgets with Steve and Jennifer.

I'm really quite impressed with how quickly

They've been able to put together sufficient information given all the moving parts to present today a preliminary operating and capital budgets.

And really, I feel I need to give credit where credit is due.

Steve, and he has a number of members of the finance team that have been working with him, Jamie Motley and others, as well as Mike and the entire rail team have been working very hard to pull all this information together over the past several weeks.

Okay, no questions.

This is Maria Zimmerman.

I have a

A question, comment.

First off, yes, definitely amazing work that you all have done.

That was a lot to take in, but it was really great to hear the progress.

I am curious, a few different questions.

On the budget side, I'm curious if you, how you may, if at all, be thinking about some of the changes with like more telework or real estate needs or any of those things kind of

given the emerging reality we have where work is sort of being transformed in real time and if you see areas for potential cost savings to help bring down the overall operational budget.

So that's one question.

Another question I have kind of goes back to the staffing piece, but I am also interested, I raised this before, but really how do we think about

ensuring we're including some of the staffing needs that may be outside of the rail, so to speak.

So really thinking about, to me, it's more than like the external affairs person, and I'm not sure if it's part of their team or part of the planning team or part of what's happening with DRPT staff or others, but just the continuous need for innovation in the field, whether that's in how we're

setting fair policies, using IT, using all of that.

So there's an innovation piece.

There's really thinking about multimodalism at the stations.

So this is a huge investment that the Commonwealth is making into communities and how are we proactively assuring that local communities are really thinking about all of the things they need to do to help us get that return on the investment and that we're being a good partner with them on that.

And then I was also thinking with the project sheets, Steve, that you mentioned creating, I think it could be helpful not just to have the details on kind of the cost and when things are going to be coming out, but having some narrative early and often that we just kind of bake in about, well, what are we getting for this investment?

What is the potential time savings or what are you know the increased frequency that Mike was talking about?

What are the greenhouse gas reductions that are going to be coming from this?

I think if we could just kind of from the beginning operationalize that we're not just communicating this is a lot of money that's going at the door, but what are we getting for this?

Especially I think part of recovering from COVID.

We have a

really important case to be making about the value of increasing or continuing to invest in rail and why that is so beneficial for the commonwealth.

Yeah I'll jump in and then I'm gonna hand it off to Jennifer but I think on your last point we are you know and

Trust me, the point of those one-pagers is to provide the narrative of what the project is.

But Maria, you've made a great point.

And we may have had some of this in there, but now I think based on your comment, we can make a point of emphasis around, I agree, the benefits of each of the projects.

Really, why are we doing the project?

So that's a great point.

we'll make sure to include that.

As far as the telework goes, I do think, and you know, the space right next door to DRPT became available.

It's not a large space.

I think, you know, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think it could accommodate maybe 10 people in that area.

And I think

You know, Jennifer and myself, Mike, when we were thinking about it, we just, you know, we don't really know exactly, as these presentations are on the size of the organization, you know, we're guessing right now.

And really, an executive director is going to, as Jennifer said a couple of times today, they're really going to shape it.

So, to your point, though, about cost savings, I think we viewed this space as, it was nice because it was right next door, we could potentially share

Workspace with DRPT as far as conference rooms, etc.

But we also thought down the road, you know, pre, you know, when we were thinking about this prior to the pandemic going on for 10 months, that, you know, two, three years later, it might be a situation where the Rail Authority outgrew that space.

But now, 10 months into our current situation, maybe it's the perfect size because

we are doing, as you're alluding to, Maria, more telework and remote work.

And I think we also have an office in the Northern Virginia area in Alexandria, right there at the Amtrak station there.

And I think we had planned, prior to the rail authority even coming to existence, we had always planned when we were doing the Atlantic Gateway project, which is now

a portion of that Alexandria fourth track, it's a portion of the big TRV project.

We had always planned on having a robust staff of folks in that office.

So I would say there's probably room there for another 10 people, which currently DRPT is paying for that lease cost.

And once again, as everyone's doing now, we're all reassessing the need for office space.

Anyway, I will say personally, I look forward to the day that we can all get back together.

I do think there's a value to all of that.

Yeah, Maria.

First of all, on the points about providing more information about outputs,

and outcomes of these projects is very, very well taken.

And I think we'll make sure to incorporate that because you're right.

We want to communicate more about these than just the fact that it's rail and ties and a lot of money going out the door, but certainly that there are benefits to all of these projects.

On the external affairs, as I mentioned, we envisioned a chief position with a couple of people reporting under them.

However, what we would also expect is that our project teams would also have community outreach folks, and some of them may be provided through consultant support, but also through dedicated staff.

On the issue of, you know, what Steve mentioned regarding the office space and operational costs, we have envisioned that for a while we would be

co-located with DRPT and sharing space together.

The space we acquired that opened up on our floor provided us with a really good opportunity to have some starter office space, if you would.

And it could offer the opportunity as well, recognizing that DRPT staff is now actually going to be smaller and DRPT may need less space.

It may open up an opportunity to reconfigure the floor

to expand VPRA into space that DRPT would no longer need.

But we figured that was a decision that could be handled as the organization grows down the road.

But it was a good opportunity for us to be able to do that, because we do see that there's going to have to be just a continued very close relationship there.

So I did also want to just touch base,

On the question you mentioned about the assets and how we're leveraging them, certainly some of the station areas that are being acquired, really the two that we will be acquiring from CSX include the Ettrick Station in Petersburg and Quantico as well.

Quantico is obviously in a bit more of a dense environment.

The Ettrick Station,

is actually very close to Virginia Union University and offers really some good opportunities for potential TOD in the future.

I know that it's something that Chesterfield County is also very interested in as well.

So those are two areas at least that we certainly would see some opportunity longer term in the future to potentially be able to develop and leverage some of those assets.

Really VRE owns the majority of the other station areas, at least in Northern Virginia.

So anyway, so it is something that we would like to see some opportunities down the road to be able to monetize some of the assets that the state's acquiring and the VPRA is acquiring in order to, and also integrate them better into the community.

Regarding the, so this is a question for Steve or for Jennifer.

So regarding the operating budget, first of all, good job of, you know, of putting everything together so well and so quickly.

Sure, and that's a great question.

So because you know it's a lot of both the capital and the operating it adds up to a lot of money that ultimately we're asking y'all to authorize and there was no discussion about the revenues.

A big part of that, well let me put you at ease I guess for the TRV project we have been doing a lot of

of financial planning over the last year and a half.

So that $3.7 billion project that Mike took you through.

We have really, and then with COVID-19, we have, I don't know, I don't want to say beat it to death, but we have done work, redone the work, done probably 15 different scenarios with respect to the revenues.

One point I can't remember if I told you all this, on the operational side, in that TRV analysis I just spoke of, of the $3.7 billion, it wasn't just the capital cost that we were looking at a financial plan.

We were looking at the operational cost, which included both the administrative budget and the operating cost of the trains, because we're going to be adding new service as we go.

both of those elements were included in the financial plan that's been developed for the TRV project through 2030.

So to get to more specifically your question, there is a lot of different revenue sources.

The one direct source the passenger rail authority has is the 93% of the 7.5% of the transportation trust fund.

which for the current year is roughly $85 to $90 million for the year we're in today.

And then by fiscal year 26, we'll grow to approximately $150 million a year.

So that's the one direct source.

And at a future date, maybe it's that January meeting, we want to take you all through that financial plan to give you that comfort I think you're seeking, Ms. Boliva.

Right now we're still in the middle of negotiation with CSX and as Mr. McLaughlin mentioned a little while ago, we're working with Norfolk Southern and so some elements of the funding are still in a state of possible change.

But I guess suffice to say the funding is there.

I guess some of the sources I'll talk about are the I-66 toll funds and leveraging those funds.

As Mike mentioned, Virginia Railway Express is dedicating a portion of, they have a fund called the Commuter Rail Operating and Capital Fund.

They're dedicating some of those funds and we're looking to leverage those funds potentially.

Another source that is sort of innovative is we're looking, you know, the pandemic kind of put a dent in these plans, but we're looking to leverage the passenger revenues from our Amtrak service and actually take the revenues and dedicate them and leverage them and to bring in some funds.

But we were thinking in the 22-23 time frame for that, but now that's

to allow the passenger, the ridership to increase.

We're looking more like fiscal year 25.

Significant contribution from Amtrak in those funds.

And then the other major point I'll make out is that $300 million of existing funds that we did have that it accumulated

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do also want to call out the priority transportation funds as well, which are, those are actually statewide transportation funds that come out of the overall transportation budget.

And we have some funds that have been already set aside for that project as part of our Atlanta Gateway initiative that includes the fourth track project that Steve mentioned.

That's about 200 million in priority transportation funds.

and then in our December meeting of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, they did also approve our six-year plan, which includes another $158 million of future year priority transportation funds between FY21 and FY26.

As Steve mentioned, we do have a financial plan that we've been working through, and I will say as well, though, that

We are still seeking other funding partners out there as well.

Prior to COVID-19 had been working very closely with the district as well on potential funding contributions.

Some of those discussions are off track right now because of the impact of the virus on their local budget.

Mike also mentioned the FTA core capacity funds and our intent to apply for those as well.

So there are still a lot of moving pieces and we will be also pursuing federal discretionary grants as they come up as well.

But we'll have more information for you in the future about that financial plan.

So Jennifer, just before we moved on, I wanted to just compliment Maria on the sweater.

The Amtrak Christmas sweater.

All right.

Thank you, Steve.

I'm very pleased to have Rich Dalton with us today.

We asked Rich to

I'll give you all an update on VRE because VRE is one of our closest partners that we work with and on a day-to-day basis and looking forward to hearing from him.

Well, good morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Soundcheck still good.

Haven't had one in a couple hours here.

So again, good morning.

Thanks, everybody.

What I thought I'd do here is

is first start off with just giving simply a brief history of VRE and describe VRE's organizational structure.

And of course, this will be a very brief trip down memory lane for Sharon.

But again, I'll keep it brief.

And then I'm going to talk about VRE's role in corridor improvements over the years.

A lot of discussion previously is about where we're headed

moving forward, which is important, but just give everybody an example of what VRE has participated in in the past.

And then finally, I thought I'd just touch on the present status of VRE as it relates to the current environment that we're in.

So with that, next slide.

So for discussion about VRE history, I always find it important to start back in a time where

Commuter Rail essentially ceased to exist in Northern Virginia.

And of course from there in the 1960s discussions at the newly formed Northern Virginia Transportation Commission or NVTC and numerous other studies started to shed light on the need for commuter rail in the Northern Virginia region.

NVTC specifically was created in 1964 and the founding jurisdictions were the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church and the counties of Arlington and Fairfax.

Loudoun County of course joined later.

NVTC in part was created to represent the interests of the Commonwealth during the establishment of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Association or WMATA.

Next slide.

So then along around 1984 and after the final phase of a series of feasibility studies that were conducted by Royal Banks and Associates for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments was concluded, the planning for VRE really begun in earnest.

NVTC, of course, took the lead and after jurisdictions outside of NVTC could not reach agreement on how to support VRE by joining NVTC,

In 1986, the Potomac-Rappahannock Transportation Commission was formed.

The founding jurisdictions of PRTC were Prince William County, Stafford County, the City of Manassas, and then the City of Fredericksburg and the City of Manassas Park later joined, and then finally on around 2009, Spotsylvania County joined.

In 1988, or excuse me, 1989,

NVTC and PRTC executed a master agreement with the jurisdictions participating in the VRE project.

So that basically essentially established the two parent commissions of VRE and VRE remains a joint project of the two commissions with no independent legal authority.

The commissions, both NVTC and PRTC select representatives to the VRE operations board

and one member from the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is actually the, or technically the chair of the Commonwealth Transportation Board or her designee.

So that makes up the operations board.

The commissions have delegated certain functions to the operations board, such as spending authority and some contractual authorizations.

Next slide.

So then after executing the master agreement or continued in earnest,

Operating Access and Storage Agreements were put into place, rolling stock procurements, both locomotives and passenger rail cars were executed and equipment was subsequently delivered, all leading up to the start of VRE service.

Next slide.

So 1992, VRE service began.

first on a Manassas line on June 22, 1992, and then followed by the Fredericksburg line in July of 1992.

Next slide.

So let's talk a little bit now about corridor infrastructure improvements.

Since before the start of service in 1992, VRE

has been engaged in operating and planning the expansion of service in partnership with our contributing jurisdictions, our host railroad, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, and the Commonwealth.

So in the next couple of slides, I just thought I'd present examples of the multiple projects that have been completed over the past 28 years.

For example, from the onset, it was

determined, and I'll focus you on the picture to the right here in the slide, it was determined that in order to effectively or more efficiently operate VRE, the need for high capacity cars were more prudent than the single level cars that VRE originally purchased.

So we partnered up with Amtrak and

and we contributed to a project to increase the vertical clearance of the First Street Tunnel, which is what you're seeing there.

You're actually seeing the south face of the First Street Tunnel.

A project to increase the vertical clearances.

Of course, that tunnel runs underneath the US Capitol and provides the direct access to Washington Union Station.

And of course, by doing that project early on, it established the opportunity for VRE to operate bilevel cars, which is standard in our fleet today.

And then I'll just note 1995, we were also partnered with Norfolk Southern

to construct a crossover in the city of Manassas, and we did some signal work over there at Burke Center on the Manassas line.

Next slide.

So again, just a little bit, a little more of a trip down memory lane there.

In 2002, VRE and CSX established a corridor improvement program

overseen by a corridor task force which included representatives of the Commonwealth and more specifically DRPT.

So the purpose of the corridor task force was to identify and fund capital improvement projects primarily on the RFMP corridor to expand passenger and commuter rail.

So for example, the picture to the right there, in 2007, VRE led a project

to construct a bridge over the Quantico Creek, which is just north of Marine Corps Base Quantico, and this essentially eliminated a single track choke point.

The bridge was constructed as a two-track structure with one track initially completed

and the laying of the second track across the bridge was part of a more recent Arkandale to Palace Creek project, third track project led by DRPT and the actual Jeremy Latimer actually referred to this in his presentation at the last rail authority meeting.

Next slide.

So we'll talk a little bit about station expansions here as well.

So previously and currently we have multiple projects going on that lengthen existing platforms because initially when VRE first started service, the platform lengths were in that four to five car length.

We have projects going on across the system to lengthen platforms to eight cars plus and

and, of course, where appropriate, adding second platforms and, of course, third track segments to improve, as mentioned before, rail network fluidity.

And that bottom left hand picture is actually the third track project that VRE constructed, again, in partnership with CSX and DRPT when we commissioned the Spotsylvania County Station back in 2015.

So I'll just say these types of projects across the system continue.

VRE's total six-year capital improvement program is roughly $818 million with approximately 86% of the program fully funded.

And just to kind of break that down and go back to Steve's previous slides where he was showing some relation to

The grants and how they've been issued to VRE, about 60% of the program, the $818 million program is state funded through various sources.

And then another 30% of non-state funded and approximately 10% is local or funded from VRE's jurisdictional contributions.

Next slide.

So then finally, the next couple of slides, we'll just talk a little bit about VRE and what we're doing today.

But just as some background, I think this slide does a pretty good job of capturing at least the five elements of what VRE is known for.

And this is if we were to do our own self-assessment, we would likely come up with a similar list.

But this assessment typically comes from our peers and our partners and other stakeholders.

I will say on the safe and healthy operations, one of the, and I will go back to the inception of VRE, one of the largest obstacles that VRE needed to overcome, and more specifically, prior to even VRE service, was both of the parent commissions, and that obstacle was the issue of liability.

tangible benefit, if you will, overcoming that obstacle was a sense that VRE needed to perform specifically from a safety perspective, but generally from an overall perspective above and beyond others.

And I think that sense has continued to permeate through VRE service over the past 28 years.

Customer service, quality of service, reliability.

Again, we consistently receive high marks for customer service.

VRE is a very customer focused operation and organization.

And then finally, strong partnerships.

We are unable to accomplish anything we do at VRE without strong partnerships.

At VRE, we consider this a core competency for us.

We actively manage relationships with our partners, and I think a good example is our relationships with our host railroads, CSX, Norfolk, Southern, Amtrak, and of course, the Commonwealth, and more specifically, DRPT.

Next slide.

From an operations standpoint, just wanted to give you a little, we talked before about having two lines, the Manassas Line and the Fredericksburg Line.

This slide will show the Manassas Line

in a traditional transit-oriented map.

That's the blue line there, and of course the Fredericksburg line, which is within the RFMP corridor, is in red.

Again, two lines.

Pre-COVID, we operate a total of 32 trains, 16 on each line.

Out of 19 stations, and that includes Washington Union Station, and then five stations connect directly to Metro Rail.

I do want to point out the VRE staff is considered somewhat lean.

We're at about 50 people, not just at our headquarters, but our various remote sites.

And then of course, on top of that, we have about 140 contracted employees, both on the operations, maintenance,

and various other contracted services, custodial services, et cetera.

So there's about 200 people a day that it takes to operate VRE.

Next slide.

I mentioned at the beginning equipment, and I assume I'll get a positive nod from Sharon Boliv, but my house times have changed from day one of VRE in terms of equipment.

throughout VRE's history.

I think when I first got here in 2009, we had essentially, I think, five different models of locomotives and maybe that many models of cars.

And over the years, through the great leadership of both commissions and the VRE operations board, we have finally reached

What would be deemed in an operation like this is some level of nirvana having a standardized fleet.

So we currently have 20 MP36 locomotives and exactly 100 Gallery IV cars.

Understanding that the manufacturer of those Gallery IV cars does not manufacture those cars anymore, so

is somewhat short-lived, but having a nice standardized fleet is proven to be very efficient, very effective for us, and we'll proceed on whatever the market has for us.

Next slide.

So I did want to talk just a little bit about COVID, and of course, not unlike

any other passenger and commuter rail operations across the country.

VRE has been hit hard by COVID.

Since March of 2020, VRE has been operating at a reduced service level.

In that previous slide, I showed you about 32 total trains, or about 18 total trains right now.

But again, that's a direct result of a dramatic, almost 90% decrease in ridership pre-COVID.

But throughout this unprecedented time, VRE has maintained a continuity of operations throughout the crisis.

This includes continuing to execute capital improvement projects.

For example, today, December 14th, I'm glancing out the window, weather permitting, but we do start construction of a $52 million life cycle overhaul and upgrade facility at our crossroads maintenance and storage facility in Spotsylvania County.

So that's been a long time in the works.

and today was the day, I say start construction, but it's actually the day to start mobilization.

And then, of course, we will soon start construction of the Quantico Station Improvement Project in partnership, of course, with the Commonwealth DRPT and a platform extension and station rehabilitation project at our Rolling Road Station on the Manassas Line.

The key point there is we continue to execute, albeit at some points throughout the last 10 months,

Some things have been a little clunky, but our direction and our partnership with our operations board has said, pun intended, full steam ahead.

VRE is fortunate to have received financial assistance from DRPT and the CARES Act.

Currently, the CARES Act funding will effectively help backstop the loss of fare revenues at VRE and an increase in expenses related to

COVID, well into and likely beyond our FY 2022 fiscal year.

Next slide.

And so finally, I just want to, you know, again, acknowledge Transforming Rail in Virginia.

I know it's been talked about before and just acknowledge the fact that it is transformative for VRE and the jurisdictions we serve in Northern Virginia.

Going back to a previous slide, as I stated, what we're known for is strong partnerships, and we truly look forward to establishing a strong partnership with the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, the Board and the staff, and together to achieve the collective goals of our prospective organizations and the customers we serve.

Great.

Thank you, Rich.

Any questions?

And I just want to compliment Rich.

That was a great presentation.

I especially enjoyed the cartoons at the beginning of this presentation.

How far we've come over, you know, a relatively, you know, short period of time, you know, to, you know, to have a system that, you know, is, you know, is

you know, such a fantastic system and that people appreciate.

So great job.

And it really also, I think, set the, you know, set us up for cooperation with the railroads, the freight railroads, which is, you know, something that we're doing today, you know, but this was really kind of a beginning of a positive working relationship.

with the freight railroads.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other questions for Rich?

Okay.

What I would like to do now is we're going to go into our closed session, and I would like to ask Vice Chairperson Bulova to

All right.

Let's see.

I move that the Board convene in a closed session pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A6 of the Code of Virginia for the purpose of discussing potential transactions where bargaining is involved and where the financial interests of the Commonwealth

be adversely affected if the discussion were made public at this time and pursuant to the Virginia Code Section 2.2-3711A8 for the purpose of consulting with legal counsel regarding provisions in the agreement requiring legal advice.

Additionally, I move that staff and attorneys attend the closed session because their presence is deemed necessary

and will aid the Board in its consideration of this matter.

So moved.

Second.

Great.

Bridget, are you still there?

I just figured out how to unmute myself.

I was on mute.

Ms. Butler Painter.

Aye.

Ms. Dorsch.

Aye.

Mr. Facet.

Aye.

Mr. Hall.

Aye.

Ms. Moses-Ned.

Mr. Nichols.

And Ms. Zimmerman.

And Moses Nett is aye.

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

What I'd like to do at this time, if you all check your email, you have received a new link for a WebEx meeting from Bridget Zavis.

And so what I'd like everybody to do at this time is to log off this call and join the new WebEx meeting.

Why don't we take a break first, though, and give everyone about 15 minutes or so to step away from their computers and rub your eyes for a second.

And we'll plan to reconvene in closed session, let's say in about five minutes after 12.

For those of you that are logging in,

I've been reminded by our technical expert to use your computer audio as well.

For members of the public or others that are listening in right now, we are going to plan to reconvene in public session at 1.30.

All right, it looks like we have just about everybody back and in as a panelist.

So, first of all, I would like to read the following statement and then we will call the roll for a vote.

We are now going to take a roll call vote and I ask that each member indicate their agreement with the following.

To the best of my knowledge, during the closed meeting, the only matters heard, discussed, or considered were those matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and only those public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened.

Do we have a second for that?

Second.

Sharon Bulova.

Second.

OK. Great.

OK. Ms. Bulova.

Aye Ms. Butler Painter Aye Mr. Cardwell Aye Ms. Dorsch Aye Mr. Fisette Aye Mr. Hall Mr. Moorman Aye Ms. Moses-Ned Aye Mr. Nichols

And Ms. Zimmerman.

Hi.

Thank you very much, Bridget.

So now we are going to move into the public comment section of our, oh, no, I'm sorry, we have one more, we have another issue on the agenda to actually

before we get into the public comments section, and that is, let's see, the presentation on the draft personnel policy, and Jeremy is going to lead us on that, and then we'll have one more item after that on administrative matters.

Great.

So I'm going to go over just the draft personnel policy, which is a document that you're going to get ahead of the next January meetings.

This is just kind of an introduction of what we've been working on to date.

Can you go to the next slide?

So one of the slides you might remember from our meeting in October was that we had some priority hires that we were focusing on after we'd worked with WSP, our consultant, and talking with various agencies around

the country about best practices and where to start.

And so, you know, the legislation does call for the board to hire an executive director.

That obviously is a logical place to start and that is underway.

But we also want to focus on getting a CFO to oversee the finances and kind of split those finances from DRPT and their role in it as we have right now.

And then we want to focus on hiring a procurement officer because the legislation does afford

the authority, some flexibility in procurement, and also that would help us to continue advancing design and a number of other steps necessary towards construction.

And then we want to hire a human resources director.

And so the draft personnel policy is our effort to give them a playbook to start with.

It's going to be a draft.

We anticipate that it would change over time.

It will change with your comments.

And then also we imagine as an executive director and human resource director start to utilize it.

Next slide.

So our goal is to really attract that right workforce.

And the rail authority is set up in a way that we can seek to utilize the number of resources at our disposal.

The state is known for having generous benefits, but also we want to incorporate some of the best practices from the private sector.

And so we're going to try and balance those.

The legislation does call for the rail authority to offer the Virginia retirement

Systems plan, so that is a generous retirement offering.

But also there are things like the Employee Assistance Program, EAP, and then the amounts of leave that are offered by the state.

You know, don't start people off with like a week or two weeks, you get a generous amount of leave.

We think that is a feather in our cap for work-life balance and attracting the right workforce.

But then there are a lot of other developed policies with

the state agencies that allow us to incorporate things like a code of conduct and make sure there's that accountability and performance reviews.

These are public employees, so we have conflict of interest training that we do every year.

As part of DRPT, those types of things would be in the interest of the authority as well.

And then there are programs for continuing education.

There's generally

Good Protections for Employment with the state.

And that's something that we want to review and utilize to the extent that we want to mimic some of those policies.

And then the state also has equal employment opportunities that we want to ensure are incorporated in the authority's hiring practices.

So all to give some flexibility as well.

We've thought about

Taking the leave and the structure of leave with the state is currently broken into many different buckets.

But we were thinking of putting this into one bucket.

So we have a PTO system.

And also, and we had one question earlier about telework.

And of course, COVID has completely changed how we operate with telework.

We imagine there's going to be some flexibility in the telework area as well as alternative schedules going forward.

So next slide.

So the employee manual that we're going to send to you, again, a draft, we started with some reference documents.

We looked at the Virginia Port Authority documents.

They were kind enough to share those with us.

We also had the Department of Human Resources that DRPT utilizes.

We also looked at other agencies like Virginia 529.

And so we took the best of those, the ones that we felt were the most progressive, and we started tweaking some of them.

and so we had a group of folks, we had DRPT staff, but we also included our representative Lisa Wright from the Office of the Attorney General.

We had HR participation from VDOT as well as several folks from the Department of Human Resources to help guide us since they are subject area experts.

And so we do have a draft that we're pulling together and as soon as we get that

formalized, and it's an extensive document, so we want to make sure that our executive team has had time to see the whole thing and questions where we want them to give us some direction.

We have those solidified.

It should be very soon.

We'll send it out.

So, next slide.

The major components you're going to see in the document, this is largely the table of contents, so we have the employment, the compensation, benefits, employee relations, safety, and other areas.

This really is where you can see all the areas that we have covered so far.

We've drafted language for each of these topics and expect they'll continue to change, grow as HR director is hired.

And we also expect that you will have comments on these segments of the document as well.

Great.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Any questions from members of the board?

Okay, as Jeremy mentioned, we are going to have this out to you soon, and we'll be able to discuss it in some more detail and hopefully get it approved in January.

So, great.

Thank you.

Thanks Chairman Mitchell.

Yeah, I just wanted to take a real quick moment of your time and just give you all a real quick briefing on a few other items that have been underway.

And then in the coming months, maybe weeks, really, we'll need to involve some members of the board in particular.

I know we're working on an audit and budget committee and there's a few items there that we do need to

Hopefully get, we've been working on and hopefully get some more movement on in the coming weeks.

And those items, I'll start with the smallest item and work my way up.

With regard to payroll services, we've done some work procuring payroll services to basically outsource that process.

I think that's the most efficient way to go.

And in our due diligence,

We determined we're talking maybe two to three thousand dollars a year of costs.

So we've moved ahead with soliciting proposals to do payroll services.

So, as hirings occur, the next several months will be prepared is the goal there.

So, I just wanted to mention that.

Another item that we haven't really done much work with yet is we do have to procure an audit firm as the code section that set up the Rail Authority did require an outside audit to be performed.

So working with the auditor of public accounts, which is the state's audit auditor, we will need to procure an audit firm so that

We get past June 30th of this coming year, and then to August and September, we'll be ready to go to accomplish that valuable task.

So I look towards the Audit and Budget Committee to engage with me on that effort, as well as the next effort, which is looking to get some banking services provided.

And with that, two pieces to it.

One is

investment piece, and then the other piece is the core just banking piece, and at this stage I think we should just stick with one firm to do both, and I think having talked with Hossain Sadeed about this, you know, the thought was that maybe we limit the term, the initial term,

to a year or two years and then have some renewal periods.

And then that way, if down the road there's a reason to split those two functions, we aren't tied into a long-term contract one way or the other.

So, but anyway, it's very important because as I mentioned, there is a large balance, $300 million that we're going to when we get all of the

financial system set up and we get a banking system set up, there's going to be $300 million that will need to be managed through a banking relationship.

So very important.

We are currently, we've worked through with Department of Treasury to make sure that the state's Department of Treasury didn't have a vehicle that we could utilize an already existing contract.

They did not.

But they did offer to work with us to evaluate proposals and

We've drafted a request for proposals of what we call an RFP document.

And they are currently reviewing that document.

And then I'd like for, once we get their comments, incorporate them, I'd like for the members of the Audit and Budget Committee to also take a look, because it's an important item for this entity.

Especially that, I don't know, the Fiduciary Duty

as board members around that sizable balance of funds.

And then the final item, I spoke briefly on this earlier about a financial system and procuring a financial system for the long term.

And for me, we have a process, an interim process in place to get us through this year and even into the next year.

but it is an important step to figure out what type of enterprise resource platform from a system standpoint we want to invest in.

And for me, one of the biggest items here is working with the rail team and really the other, the HR groups to try to incorporate as many features as possible to

not making a silo of a financial system and it doesn't talk to anybody else in the end of the day, but to make it something that helps everyone.

And that process, we've actually put out a request for information and we've received that back.

I think we maybe had about 15 proposers that sent information back and that's not an actual, it's really just asking them

It's telling them what we're doing and then asking them to provide us information back.

So it's not actually a procurement step yet.

And so what we plan to do is take that information, vet it, and then start working towards developing a request for proposals that maybe by February, March, we could put on the street.

So anyway, I just, I appreciate you all taking the time to hear that through and

Great.

Any questions for members on the board about that?

Okay, great.

So, we are now at the portion of our agenda where we are available to take public comment.

All right.

Good afternoon.

If you have a comment to share, please raise your hand in the participant panel at this time.

If you're calling in, you can press star three to raise your hand.

We will unmute your line when it is your turn to provide comment.

We ask that comments be kept under three minutes.

Comments provided in the chat box will be noted for the record along with all other public comments today.

However, your chat box comments will not be read aloud or directly addressed during this meeting.

Please state your name and if you wish to do so, your jurisdiction and professional affiliation.

You will have three minutes to provide your comment.

Once you're finished, we will mute your line.

A friendly reminder, if you wish to provide comment post event, please email DRPT

PR at drpt.virginia.gov.

Subject line DRPT public comment.

Okay, we will now begin.

If you have a comment, please raise your hand in the chat box.

All right, seeing none.

We'll give it a second just in case somebody is trying to call in or raise their hand.

Well, thank you, Haley, for facilitating that.

Okay, so with that, I'm going to adjourn the workshop portion of our meeting and now open up the action portion of our meeting.

We have one action agenda or one action item on our agenda, which is to appoint committee chairs and members.

And first of all, I would like to thank all of you that have volunteered to participate in these committees.

And I know I've had the opportunity to speak with all of you about it.

and Jeremy has a resolution to put forth.

The one thing I do want to note regarding the executive director search, we've put together a committee here, but I think just about everybody had indicated an interest in participating with this.

So I know I've spoken with Wick about it and we're going to find ways to be able to still get input from other board members as we go through the process on the executive director search.

Sure.

Can you hear me?

All right.

So, Madam Chair and members of the board, just one item for consideration this meeting, and that is a resolution for these committee assignments includes the Finance and Audit Committee with Mr. Hossain Sadeed as the chair and the Executive Director Search Committee with Mr. Wick-Morman as the chair and the Governance Committee with Ms. Cynthia Moses-Ned as the chair.

Can I note one thing?

And actually, I think this was a difference between the presentation here and the resolution that's in there.

I have spoken with Ms. Moses-Nett about serving on the governance committee, but not chairing it.

But I think the resolution should be corrected and show you as a member of the committee.

I should also note as well that

Lisa Wright, who is our staff attorney from the AG's office, will also be participating in that committee as a staff advisor.

And this is Jay Facet.

I'll second it.

And my name is misspelled.

My apologies, Jay.

No problem.

Happens all the time.

Okay.

Okay.

All those in favor, say aye.

All those opposed, say no after your name is called.

Ms. Butler Painter?

Aye.

Mr. Cardwell?

Ms. Dorsch?

Aye.

Mr. Fisette?

Aye.

Ms. Moses-Ned?

Aye.

Mr. Nichols?

Mr. Sadeed?

Ms. Zimmerman.

Aye.

This is Dr. Cardwell.

I wanted to say aye as well.

I think I was muted.

The ayes have it, the motion carries.

Great.

Thank you.

So, that is all we have on our agenda today.

I guess before we adjourn, any other business or any comments that any of the board members would like to make?

All right.

Well, we will be back in touch soon.

Thank you again for participating today.

Same here.

Happy holidays.

Stay well, everybody.

Same here.

Great meeting.

Thank you.

Happy holidays.

Thank you.

Happy holidays.