Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority Meeting   7/23/2026

We'll go around the table for introductions real quick and then if there are any announcements and then we'll have two of those on the agenda.

I'll phone you.

Ben Chambers, transportation planning manager at the City of Charlottesville.

So you're not going to have to send your translation letter for the video.

Mike Ruh for the job.

Sally, would you like to?

Sally Duncan, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

Grant, would you like to say hi?

Good evening, Grant Sparks, Director of Statewide Transit Programs, DRPT.

If other people would like to go as well, they're welcome to go ahead.

Avery Daugherty, Senior Transit Programs Manager with DRPT.

Katie Miller.

Go ahead, Katie.

Katie Miller, Transit Program Manager, DRPT.

Christine Jacobs, Executive Director, Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

And then we'll have a motion to let her.

I'm zooming in from home because I'm sick.

Oh, no.

We'll send it.

Yes.

I would like to move that we line up, summarize it down, and introduce our participation in the event.

Are there any corrections or notes that anyone would like to make on this, or is there a motion to approve?

We approve the minutes.

All in favor?

Aye.

And then we've got the schedule for the special meeting that we have to decide.

And so if there are any that do or don't work,

I would have a very hard time joining the Thursday and Wednesday meetings.

School starts for me that Thursday, so the Wednesday and Monday are the only ones I could go to.

So Friday's not going to be silent?

But if everybody else can, I know my schedule is going to be hard.

I never had my speaker on.

So we were saying Monday the 24th 5 to 7 is our best bet right now?

Is there anyone online?

We have three online as attendees, but I don't see any hands raised.

OK, if no one would like to speak, then we will move on to our first presentation beginning of the Virginia Breeze update.

Are you able to see that online?

Not yet.

How about now?

We see that you started sharing the screen, but there's no graphic on there yet.

Okay, there's just a little bit of a delay, so it should pull up here in a second.

I'm going to take a quick pause and see if that has shown on your screen.

So we can see the graphic, but now your words are a little bit delayed.

Any luck?

Sorry for the technical issues.

All right.

Are you seeing an overview slide?

Yes.

that we're conducting a comprehensive study needs assessment to evaluate travel patterns and identify more opportunities for service improvements and multimodal connections for the system.

Hey Avery, can I turn for a second?

Sure.

If you've got questions, would you like us to save them for the end or ask them as we go?

I'm happy to take questions as I go along.

That section to the end, for example, that counts as too right, that's right.

Did that answer your question?

Or what is the, is there a trend at all for the segments?

So did that get at what you were asking?

How much capacity is left?

And we hope to continue to do that.

Thank you.

Appreciate the support of the Virginia Bees program and happy to answer anything I can.

You know, bi-directional multiple times a day so that people could go back and forth in a day.

So that is a big part of the comprehensive study that is underway, kind of looking at and examining long-term funding options and keeping the service affordable for riders.

What's the total for a rider subsidy being?

But I'd be happy to follow up with you.

Cost to the user, cost to the government, ridership, even the list.

So what consideration is there for differentiating rides versus cannibalizing service, or how is that timing and duplicativeness factor into decision making?

I hope that answered that question.

But I'm just wondering if there's like, you're still connecting to Union Station, but if you need to get there by two, you can take the impact, you can get there by five, you can take the breeze and it leaves at a different time just to provide an option that's different, not just in price, but in schedule.

Right.

So all things we're looking at.

This is just, I want to make sure we, you know, it's as optimized as possible, which I know is everyone's home.

And it seems to be really quite successful at UVA.

We're not the only one from this, you know, problem solving this way.

Everyone here likes a bus and will throw money in a bus.

If I could add specifically to that, and that is a great point,

I just want to mention there's some restrictions with commuter providing.

Okay.

Any other questions for Avery or comments?

Avery covered what I was going to mention about the federal funding and not allowing the service to be commuter service exclusively.

I look forward to seeing it continue to grow and be utilized.

So thank you very much for the support.

Well, I'm probably not going to help you get back on schedule.

I'm so sorry.

There we go.

And then you just leave those there.

Awesome.

I gave you something that you can read a whole lot better than what got sent out with the packet.

We'll go through that in a minute.

and then we can keep working through it.

Does the footprint definition, is that something that's defined at like a federal level or like a best practice level or is that something we teach ourselves?

That's a planning type definition.

It's something that we use to constrain the discussion.

Yeah.

It's in the vision plan, but we've sorted those out for this analysis just to kind of hone in on CARTA.

It's not a service that exists in the real world.

It would be something brand new from a footprint perspective.

Yes, thank you, Mike.

but it does give you a metric of how much does it cost to provide this service when you look at how many people you're moving with it.

So for each of the tables, we're gonna show all of those columns.

Talk about this one.

So I will give you, Mike and I, we talked about this earlier today.

specifically with Mike and Garland is what's this jump instead of this jump because that's going to give you the ability to pull more things in but we had to start somewhere and we had so many different options we kind of were like what would where would we like to be and then we kind of go to the same thing it's like okay it's three like that's that's a lot of skin in the game for three what you will see in the end will have more than three i will say it's

The town of Scottsville submitted an official note to me saying we all enthusiastically support this, what we need to do to make it happen.

Support the app specifically, or support just more information?

That's what they, I'm telling you, I can vault the email if you want.

Is that the solution for Spotsil, or is that just something that pops up so they're advocating for it, but is there a different thing that would pop Spotsil without the full Buckingham Act?

I hear what you're saying, what would you specifically propose, like an identification that cuts off Sal and James?

What does Scott Phil have now?

Does it spread heard on BBC and the Mobility Management Office so often?

But if you're able to capture more people closer where there's more people who are able to be captured.

And I will also say this is, you know, this is very, again, high level planning.

So I think adding that to create this blended scenario, I think as this moves forward in discussions about resources and where resources come from, having those factors as part of your prioritization I think is important.

Ready to move on?

So we lose Buckingham, we lose the Standardsville 29, which gives you that additional frequency up the 29 corridor.

It does pick up Crozet Connect.

Goals and the vision plan, we're matching those up pretty consistently.

So like the can be in CARTA would embrace

So you're exactly right.

So I just submit that.

To your point, inside and outside of Albemarle, we're really also about inside and outside of the PDC and then the question about eligible costs for capital.

If we're doing them in this and they're all, like, what's... Mike, I mean, Mike has to do this already, so I'm kind of putting you on the spot.

Like, what does it look like when you're...

I would also say, and every route that this would apply to,

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

How does that relationship work?

And then you just say, I spent, what, 90 minutes with the county executive in the movies the other day.

You've got Gordon'sville in there, too.

They should partner with you all, too, because you're benefiting from all those people coming in, working here, and spending the money.

We could do something similar as a region together.

What complications arise from the fact that they are not in the PDC?

They wanted a vote on it.

That could be.

But that's up to that jurisdiction.

And when you cross over that big scenic bridge, the change in the quality of housing, in the quality of roads, the quality of services around you, and the color of people you see is instantaneous.

There's different, I mean, to that, that happens, that's not an unusual construct of, of an authority in code.

But that's something we would have to figure out.

Potentially, yes.

Thanks James.

That one I think is not my question to answer, but that one's a lot more straightforward than the other two.

Hi, Lucas.

Not looking for a very, is that general consensus that I can go work like that and bring you back something that reflects that in August?

I argue that the Blundons make sense.

Especially since everybody on it was a huge difference.

That took up way too much time, but thank you guys.

And then we've got a Castillo Salidas in a chat about the Chapel Hill trip and an update I assume on them filming the visit S.

Just want to make sure I don't hold us up, but I'm also prepared to present if you would like me to.

I think given that two or three transit agency reps are not here, those remarks will probably be short enough that we can fit in one presentation also.

Hi-level overview, wanted to share it with you guys, happy to take any questions.

Before we open to questions, Scott, was there anything you wanted to add?

So I was a little bit eye-opening.

Yes, they did.

Pretty serious.

Like a movie set.

I mean, there were enforcement at the depot after I was on it.

Nobody was on it.

So they're grappling with that question as well.

So I just think that's a really interesting difference, but just something to note.

So, you and I have four.

Yeah, we're going to be in the middle of the weekend.

And Christine, do you mind if people send suggestions to you?

Yeah, that would be great.

Because I assume we'll have transit opportunities already, but if they get a free code with Bayo, I think that would be cool.

It should be easy to do that sort of thing.

Okay, great.

Well, that's actually a good segue to transition to transit agency.

Since Mike had to leave early, he did send me a couple of bullets to read all of them.

So I'm happy to go after.

Okay.

You know, it's a little different than just peer instruction and stuff.

The other quick thing, actually, we talked about that dramatic, one of the big thing.

It's already wrapping up.

Are you getting students at orientation interested in driving buses?

Yes, parents, when I tell them yes, we will pay you to get your CDL and we're among, if not the highest paid job on grounds for a student to get.

If you're decommissioning all the UTS stuff, where does that go in and how can you take your hands on it?

I know we don't talk about that.

All right.

It is our intent to participate in fixed route software selection with CAT later in 2026.

All right, and I didn't see that, and I was wearing a new logo, Jaunt shirt, I think.

I just want to see, I know.

Anyone online have any comments, questions to chime in before we adjourn?

Yes.

It was well appreciated.

Bye, everybody.