Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority Meeting   5/22/2025

So, Lucy, do you want to let me know when we can start?

Are we all ready?

I'm Gretchen Thomas.

I'm an assistant for TJPDC I'm Ben Chambers, I'm the transportation planning manager for the City of Charlottesville I'm Ann Wall and I serve as deputy county executive for Albemarle County Mike Cruth, I'm an Albemarle County supervisor representing Scottsville Natalie Ochrin, Charlottesville City Council Diana McKeel, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors David Blunt, deputy director, director of legislative services at TJPDC Christine Jacobs, executive director of TJPDC

Sure.

Glad to have you here.

Sally Duncan, candidate for horse supervisor.

And we have two online.

We have Katie Miller and Katie Miller.

Alright, so there's a motion by Mike, a second by Natalie, and we need to call the roll for all of our votes according to our bylaws.

Right.

If you want to call for a vote.

Supervisor McKeel.

Yes.

Supervisor Pruitt.

Do we have anyone from the public that signed up to speak, wants to speak?

And I don't think Katie... We don't have anyone signed up to speak.

And Ben, you're presenting that.

in the room.

Obviously Cat, transit agency.

for direction of a thumbs up of yes, please invite these folks to our board to be non-voting members and also for us to go draft the amendment that would allow the transit agencies to participate.

Or do you want to just talk about that at the next meeting?

And how about DRPT?

Then the next item is our electronic meeting policy which we all have to

And then finally, this policy, like you said from the beginning, does have to be adopted annually for the code.

Yes, ma'am.

So staff would recommend a motion to adopt the remote meeting and all virtual meeting policy as presented.

All right, we have a motion and a second from our team to my left.

Supervisor Pruitt?

Legislative update and David, welcome.

So with that, I'm glad to take any questions that you all might have.

But it's been a while now.

Delegate Tuscano went alone on the revenue piece.

I may defer to some of the other folks here in terms of the transportation authorities where sales tax was a part.

I think it would be important to see what kind of information is generated from the staffs at the county and the city, so what they would generate and how feasible it might be.

And you all are looking at models.

as them meeting together, but we introduced CARTA and the concept behind it so they understand what we're trying to do here.

And I have started to grapple internally with, OK, what we think is feasible for our residents here.

We had that conversation.

So you can layer them, I think.

that aren't just limited to what people have done before, so.

Remember that?

Just airbnbs.

They were putting a tax on airbnbs, which in a way, I like it when people from out of our community are paying for

I'm just thinking there are also

What if we get 60% of that radio traffic issue?

Interesting

Smart scale can fund some capital improvements, but that's really not where the whole wall ends.

I guess I'd like to start to generally think about existing revenue streams that are captured at the state level.

Well, then you're talking about low-hanging fruit and getting something successful off the ground to get it done that's meaningful and then go from there.

I don't want to dispute the kind of logic and the wisdom of let's not for complicate the first funding round so that we can demonstrate our quality.

And so between those alternatives, if the only thing we're looking at is a sales tax, then we need to have different conversations

He gave us some information on what other localities were doing.

So he did that as well, provided that.

So next steps then, quarter of a day?

We're continuing to talk in the working group at every meeting about what we are doing from the legislative standpoint and what we need to do.

And maybe also there might be some additional conversations that we could bring back some of that information.

Can also bring some of that feedback back.

depending on what happens in November will probably you know influence the conversation as well.

The prediction was if the next session was going to be about transportation and then I read an article not too long ago somewhere and I can't remember that they're backing off from that.

So different discussion, I think, particularly with the uncertainties that we may see in the next eight months with regards to the state budget.

So there are challenges.

you should be prepared to do that but I think it's also particularly if things that are moving elsewhere are more funding related than your authority related to be prepared to go on your own with legislation.

So really this was information and you all are going to be coming back to us with more information.

For the raising revenue of it all, does the existing legislation preclude us from charging a fare or are we allowed to do that?

Right, yeah.

I didn't know where the revenue line was.

That's what we would be going to the General Assembly for, is that authority.

One was the authority piece, the other was the revenue piece.

Prioritization and implementation of feasibility studies.

But we wanted to put this in front of you all today just to kind of get any initial feedback or answer any questions that you all have before we get back together as staff to finalize it.

So it gives us a lot of tools to go through this process.

need to do that, what would it take to do that?

It's a sort of phased approach so we should have a bigger picture idea of what our priorities are

and looking at them in comparison to the existing transit development plan and transit strategic plan of the transit agencies.

I believe that the most recent transportation authority legislation was for Central Virginia and I understand that they came in with a very well done list of priorities and projects and that that was very key to exactly what they said, being able to show we've done the work, we've identified what's most important, this is the revenue.

CBT.

And that was the first win coming out of it.

Well, same thing when we have a referendum for schools.

But this grant and this study can be really helpful

And that CTV meeting is when in June?

I think it's the workshop and action is the next day typically Consultants.

I'm just interested in

The fastest way for us to access a consultant that is going to be able to support us on this grant is to be able to go through TRPTs on the call.

If they can't produce good technology then shove on it, drive down here and present to us in part

I'm less concerned about when they're not physically here than when they very clearly have not ever been here, if that makes sense.

I agree with that, too.

And not very well informed on the level of concern.

What's the date of that partnership?

It's the fourth Thursday?

What was that?

I missed it.