MPO Policy Board Meeting   1/26/2022

We are being recorded.

And I'm glad everyone is here in person or online.

And my thing is agenda is jumping around here.

So let me catch that and then I will move on here.

So we have some official documents that Sandy needs to read.

And then we will move on to matters in the public.

This meeting of the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO is being held pursuant to the Code of Virginia Section 2.2-3708.2, which allows a public body to hold electronic meetings in the locality in which it is located has declared a local state of emergency, and the catastrophic nature of the emergency makes it impracticable or unsafe to assemble a quorum in a single location.

The purpose of the meeting is to provide for the discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities.

This meeting is being held via electronic video and audio means through Zoom online meetings and is accessible to the public.

There will be an opportunity for public comment during that portion of the agenda.

Notice has been provided to the public through a notice at the TJPDC offices to the media, website posting, and agenda.

The meeting minutes will reflect the nature of the emergency that the meeting was held by electronic communication means and the type of electronic communication means by which the meeting was held.

A recording of the meeting will be posted at tjpdc.org within 10 days of the meeting.

Would you like me to call attendance, Supervisor Malek?

Yes, please.

All right.

And Mr. Nelson with VDOT.

Present.

Ms. Monteith with UVA.

Present.

Mr. Williams with CAT.

Mr. Hudson with DRPT.

Do we have anyone here from FHWA?

Mr. Long from FTA.

Mr. Fessell with CTAC.

And I am present for the TJPDC.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Then next on our agenda, if we're done with all of our official call-ins, then we will move on to matters from the public.

Limit of three minutes, please.

You are welcome to provide comment on any transportation-related topic, including items listed on this agenda.

Supervisor Malek, I did not see any answers, but I did receive a letter that I can read to you.

This is from Paulina Kirk and she is writing to express her concern about the lack of bicycle infrastructure in Charlottesville and the surrounding urbanized areas of Albemarle.

There are currently insufficient means for bikers to easily and safely get around using the sparse existing infrastructure.

Additionally, there is an absence of bike lanes on busy roads such as Route 29.

Cars, buses, trucks, and other vehicles are ubiquitous in our society, unfortunately creating a way of life that is dependent on fossil fuels.

This is a problem globally as the transportation sector accounted for 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, but it is also an important local issue.

According to the City of Charlottesville's report, in just 2011, the transportation sector was responsible for 16.7% of the community's greenhouse gas emissions.

These greenhouse gas contributions make transportation a large driver of climate change, which poses a threat to every continent, country, state, county, and city.

A wide range of policy options already exist or have been proposed to grapple with emissions from the transportation industry.

Currently, there are national greenhouse gas emission standards in place, but the EPA recently proposed to make requirements stricter.

This would control emissions at the source of vehicles, perhaps resulting in more efficiently designed internal combustion engines.

Wherever there have been lots of initiatives supporting the development of electric vehicles in Charlottesville.

The City offers citizens access to public charging stations as well as information on alternative fuel incentives and tax credits.

While EVs help shift emissions away from fossil fuels, they are not a perfect solution as long as we do not have a 100% clean electric grid.

Alternative options such as walking or biking do not produce any emissions and provide extra benefits of exercise and fresh air.

However, they are overlooked as methods of sustainable transportation.

I understand that one of the limitations of biking is distance, but that is why it is crucial to enhance other types of bicycle infrastructure.

We should ensure that public transit buses are equipped with bike racks and that the public is educated on this feature.

And this would help broaden the scope of bike usage as riders would not have to be deterred by distance, weather, or any other factor.

Thank you very much.

And perhaps when Mr. Williams does his roundtable report at the end, he could talk about if all of our buses are equipped with bike racks at the moment.

I think many of them are, but I would like to know as well.

Sandy, I'd like you to take the lead on these next five items.

Item on our agenda under general administration is that we would like to welcome Counselor Pinkston to the policy board.

He will be, I don't want to say replacing Mr. Payne because everybody is valuable and nobody can be replaced, but Counselor Payne is no longer serving as the second city council representative on the policy board and Counselor Pinkston will be filling that position.

Yes, we are very excited to announce, I'm not sure if we introduced Bella O'Brien to you all at the last meeting, but we have hired two new planning staff.

One is Bella O'Brien, who's joining us as an environmental and transportation planner, a recent graduate from UVA.

And then secondly, I'd like to introduce Ryan Mickles, who has been here.

I think, Ryan, this is your third day, correct, at the PDC?

So he will be supporting, he will be largely supporting the MPO program.

So we're thrilled to have both of them.

Ryan worked for the PDC, did you say about 20 years ago, Ryan?

So he's moved around a little bit, but he's returning back to his roots at this point.

Wonderful.

Ryan's name was very familiar, so I'm glad to know in which category I might have met him all those years ago.

Very good.

And return to in-person meetings.

Yes, we are still following the City of Charlottesville's emergency orders at this point.

No real discussions.

We're continuing to monitor the surge and hoping that the surge goes down.

And if it goes down, I mean, the time that this resolution is expiring is March 18th.

The time we would have to decide whether to renew it, of course, is about the first week in March.

That means we've got about another month before we really have a good idea of what COVID and Omicron are doing.

So my inclination at this point is, I mean, certainly nothing is going to happen before the first week in March.

Very good.

Thank you for that cautious approach.

That's wonderful.

Review and acceptance of the agenda.

Very good.

Any more discussion about the agenda?

Any opposed?

All right.

We have adopted our agenda.

And next is the approval of the December 7th meeting minutes.

Are there any corrections or items for discussion in the minutes?

Very good.

Very good.

Then I will second since Ned wasn't able to be here.

And any more discussion about the minutes?

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All right, thank you all.

Then let us move along to officer elections.

And we have a nominating committee report.

Is that Julia or is someone else going to do that?

There she is.

Hello, everybody.

So we met and discussed in terms of the approach.

I think everybody knows that typically the role of the chair alternates from the city to the county, which would put the chair with the county at this time.

And so, Ann,

Did some background work, which I will let her report on.

And I coordinated with the city on the vice chair position.

And then in the case of the city, we thought that it made

The most sense for Lloyd to be the vice chair since Brian is fresh to the chair, let's put it that way, and let him get a little experience first.

Very good.

Thank you very much for all of your coordinating.

That's terrific.

Are there any nominations from the floor before we move on?

I'm watching to see if anybody's jumping up and down.

And I don't see any action here.

So then we will bring forward our slate of Ned Galloway for chair and Lloyd Snook for vice chair for the upcoming year.

And I will ask all in favor of our nominees.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Very good.

And I hear unanimous adoption of our new officers and thank you all for being willing to serve.

And I am happy to turn the gavel over to Supervisor Galloway now and get back into my more relaxed role.

So thank you very much.

And Sandy, you're going to do the meeting schedule next, I guess.

So that'll help that get squared away.

Very good.

Yes.

Thank you, Supervisor Malek.

Yes, the next item that we need to take care of tonight is adopting the meeting schedule for 2022.

So as most of you are already familiar with, we meet every other month, typically on the fourth Wednesday of the month.

So we will plan to do that for January, March, May, July, and September.

Normally, if we followed that schedule, we would meet the fourth Wednesday of November, which is right before Thanksgiving.

So we have traditionally moved that to early December.

Following the same schedule that we followed this year, that would put the last meeting of the year on December 6, 2022.

Correct.

Second.

All right, a motion and a second has been made.

Any opposed?

All right, very good.

The calendar is set.

I would ask.

The first Tuesday is so off from the fourth Wednesday.

The extra reminders when we get closer in November would be very helpful.

go by historical habit more than anything.

But thank you for that.

So number six on our agenda today, resolution of funding support for Transit Governance Study Technical Assistance Grant.

And Lucinda is with us, I believe.

You're taking point on that one.

Good afternoon.

Sorry about that.

Can you see the slides?

Yes.

Okay.

So in your packet, you'll find a resolution to support a grant application to conduct a governance study.

Some of you are probably already familiar with this and also familiar with the regional transit vision plan that we're currently conducting.

In the last regional transit partnership meeting, the consultants for the regional transit vision plan

discussed a need to generate additional funding to support the community's transit vision.

In addition, TJPDC has studies dating back to 2005, suggesting that the community develop a structure to support regional transportation services.

The Regional Transit Partnership is considered a first step in forming a regional transit authority to meet these needs.

and a governance study will recommend the appropriate governance structures and revenue sources to move our transit priorities forward.

After the transit vision studies recommendation to form a transit authority to generate more revenue, TJPDC staff spoke with DRPT staff.

We reviewed the TJPDC's past studies and other resources on the history of transit authority attempts in this region.

We reviewed the Central Virginia Transportation Authority's governance study and met with their staff to kind of ask about the process and what they thought about it.

We also met with CAT, Jaunt, and Albemarle County staff to discuss conducting a governance study.

And we decided to pursue a DRPT technical assistance grant to conduct a governance study to recommend the appropriate governance structure to support the regional transit vision.

There's a scope of work and if anybody wants to see a draft I can email it after this meeting.

Some of you have already seen it in other meetings.

We consulted with DRPT, Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and Jaunt staff as we developed this scope of work.

They all had time to review it and we met with them several times.

The study will review our existing transit governance structures.

It'll investigate successful structures in peer communities and identify additional revenue sources for transit for our region.

It'll develop alternative governance structure scenarios, evaluate the alternative scenarios, and make a recommendation on the most appropriate governance structure to increase and improve transit services in the Thomas Jefferson region.

Just as we had engaged the transit stakeholders during the development of the scope of work,

All the stakeholders will continue to be engaged during the study.

There will be multiple presentations at RTP meetings and individual meetings with the City of Charlottesville.

Albemarle, Green, Savannah, Louisa, and Nelson counties, and with CAT, Jaunt, and UTS staff.

While the rural counties may not have traditional transit services, there's a need to, there's still a need for transportation for people who cannot drive in those areas.

And we want to include the rural counties from the very beginning and try to have the recommended governance structure include them as well.

So we drafted the scope of work and distributed it to VDOT's bench consultants in December.

We received two excellent proposals in January and will convene to select a selection committee and notify the chosen team in February and March.

The DRPT grant application is due at the end of January and notices to proceed will be awarded in July.

If we are awarded the grant, it will be an 18-month project starting in August 2022 and ending in January 2024.

The total project cost is estimated to be about $180,000 with a 50% match requirement.

The City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County have been very generous in contributing part of the match and we're asking the MPO to contribute up to $30,000 as part of the $90,000 match requirement.

Sandy knows the splits for this, but

The MPO is going to contribute most of the $30,000 and the TJPDC will also be contributing some funds towards that $30,000.

I show hands, questions here?

Thank you.

Lucinda, you mentioned

Presentations at many groups.

Will there also be presentations at the MPO throughout this process?

Yeah, we hadn't planned on it, but we can add that.

The scope is still in draft.

I think it might help, just with general knowledge, a little bit at a time, will help us all to stand for them.

Thank you.

Mayor Snook?

What do they do for 18 months?

So first we're going to look at the existing conditions and kind of do a benchmark of where we are now.

That should take like a month or two.

And we're also going to have kickoff meetings at the Regional Transit Partnership and individual meetings with the regional

Transit Partnership, University Transit Services, CAT, and the School of Transportation for Albemarle in Charlottesville County.

Those meetings will take a couple months to schedule and conduct.

And then there will also be a legislative review during that phase one.

The second phase is to review peer governance structures, and they'll be talking with peer

communities around that have a current successful governance structure, most likely an authority.

So that'll take a little bit of time to schedule those interviews with them and pile that data.

And then they're going to look at potential revenue generation, which will also take a presentation at the RTP meeting.

And they'll have like,

potential revenue sources and trends analysis available at that time.

So again, that will be like another couple of months to schedule that meeting.

And then they're going to develop governance structure scenarios.

So this is where they'll develop at least two scenarios, different scenarios of a type of authority or governance structure for our region.

They're also going to look at the types of revenue sources and

and present those structures at an RTP meeting and then also have one-on-one meetings with each jurisdiction like they had done in the existing conditions section.

So that is going to take another couple months to schedule those meetings and meet with those entities.

And then finally they'll evaluate the structures based on criteria developed and present those at at least two regional transit partnership meetings and then also meet again with each jurisdiction.

So there's a lot of meetings happening with the jurisdictions and the partnership in order to build kind of a coalition and collaboration among the entities.

So that by the time that we're done with the study, there'll have been a lot of communication and collaboration among the entities.

Okay.

I got a question.

The resolution is correct.

The PDC more generally, which houses the MPO, will contribute $30,000.

We're asking the MPO to commit up to $25,000 of that.

That will be programmed into next year's Unified Planning Work Program.

Forgive me, so this is partly me just trying to come up to speed.

So is the idea with this study to sort of set the table and begin the groundwork or continue the groundwork for eventually getting to a full transit authority?

Yeah, that is the idea.

We didn't want to come right out and identify that we wanted a transit authority because

The motion has been made and seconded.

Everyone in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No opposition?

The motion carries.

Very good.

My agenda went away.

So next up, we have number seven, approval of safety targets.

Yep, that's me too.

So the Federal Highway Administration gives us funding for transportation and requires the state to develop and track performance measures for the condition and safety of the roads.

VDOT asks the MPOs to set targets for the performance measures.

And VDOT has developed the performance measures.

This year, we're asked to update our safety targets for the safety part of those performance measures.

There's a memo and workbook in your packet.

The state provides this data for the MPOs.

After a considerable investigation last year into how the performance measures work and the way that the targets are set,

The Policy Board decided to adopt state targets.

The reasoning behind adopting these state targets is that the state has more control over the improvements and the ability to meet the targets.

The state builds and maintains the Federal Highway Roads, and so adopting the state targets makes sense.

The MPO is not responsible for meeting these targets, and there's no ramifications for the MPO.

Either way, if we meet the target or don't meet the target, it is and we also as an MPO have a few resources to affect changes to meet the targets.

So it is in our best interest to adopt the state targets and continue with the state program.

Does anybody have any questions?

Any questions at this time?

You jinxed it.

I don't have a question because I find this can be completely mind exploding.

Go ahead.

All right.

Any further discussion?

That will catch anybody.

All right.

Now all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The motion carries.

And the safety targets are approved.

Thank you, Lucinda.

All right, we'll move right on.

We're running well ahead.

Number eight, the UVA master plan.

Yes.

So

I'm going to be presenting where we are with the UVA Grounds Framework Plan, which is essentially our campus master plan.

The last one of these that we did was completed in 2008, and we roughly do them on a 10-year cycle.

We were just queuing up to do this in 2019 and hire somebody in 2020, and the world had other plans for us, so the project went on hold.

And then we reengaged the process last spring and hired a consultant team.

So I'm going to be giving a bit of a preview of some of what they've learned to date.

I also just encourage people to jump in.

I mean, certainly we can take questions at the end, but if you have questions along the way, we can make this informal.

So feel free.

So I'm going to provide some background, part of the opportunities and challenges that the consultant team has been discovering, conclusions and draft planning principles, and next steps in this process.

We've hired Urban Strategies out of Toronto.

They're a very well-known award-winning planning firm.

And I've been aware of them my whole career.

So we have a great team working with us.

Unfortunately, it's been a little bit challenging for them to come to town for obvious reasons, but they have visited once and are queuing up for another trip quite soon.

They are very broad in the world of planning.

They do campus planning, but they also do

City Planning, Regional Planning, Public Consultation, and Park Planning.

So they have a quite broad skill set.

And they recently completed the Princeton University Campus Master Plan.

In terms of the schedule, we started last summer.

This plan will take about a year.

They're planning to wrap it up

in fall of next year.

And so to date, what they've been doing is really coming up to speed, doing a background review, data assembly, interviews, and quite a bit of analysis and understanding of who we are and what we've done to date.

That's been quite a lengthy process.

And as part of that, we have established a technical advisory group, which is made up of UVA stakeholders.

We also have a steering committee and we've been working with the Master Planning Council.

We have visited LUPEC twice.

We're visiting you today.

We also have had leadership interaction at UVA.

And we've had over 30 interviews with both UVA and regional entities for the design team to learn about our community.

So they've moved from phase one into phase two, and they've really just started phase two.

So what I'm going to present today is not conclusions of the plan, but early beginnings of the plan.

And then the phase three will be the documentation and the deliverable that they'll be working on late spring and summer.

So one of the things that's really important for this plan is for it to be a sister document to the great and good plan, which is UVA's strategic plan.

So it will honor all those strategic goals and key initiatives.

Of course, building on our programmatic strengths and physical assets and establishing clear direction for future facilities, emphasizing sustainability, resiliency, equity, accessibility, and flexibility, and then thinking about the potential of existing and new facilities while promoting a holistic integrated campus of mixed-use buildings and green spaces.

So one thing I want to emphasize is that this plan will build on the 2008 plan.

For those who may not be familiar, we delineate the grounds into three

Precincts, Central Grounds, West Grounds, and North Grounds, of course with the Academical Village at the center of Central Grounds.

And we're also going to be considering the context of some of the foundation properties, UVA Foundation, so Westover, Boar's Head, Birdwood, Foxhaven, and Blue Ridge, which is just slightly off this map.

The 2008 grounds plan established a premise of redevelopment zones that are all focused on grounds and really planning for smart compact growth.

And we're considering, we still have quite a bit of capacity in those redevelopment zones.

We'll be reshaping them a little bit, but we're considering the context of the foundation lands not

to move facilities out to those areas but to think about them as a sphere of influence.

Leading up to getting started on this plan, we did a number of pan-university studies that we see as enabling documents to informing the grounds plan at large.

So in 2019, we did a landscape framework plan

that looked across the grounds for how we can improve the fabric of the campus and create better connections whether those are for peds, bikes, etc.

So that plan established a lot of the framework that the Urban Strategies team is building upon.

We also completed a strategic framework for academic space in 2018 that looked at across the academic portfolio, it looked at research, it looked at classrooms extensively and where we're doing well, where we can be doing better.

So one of the things that we learned is that we need more opportunity for interdisciplinary research.

We need to optimize the use of existing resources to enlarge the pie for potential reinvestment, including looking at utilization of some facilities such as classrooms and how we can utilize them for longer scheduling hours, let's say, and get better usage out of them.

The consultant team also suggested that we look towards a more centralized governance structure for the academics facilities at large and then really think about integrating the physical, academic, and financial planning together.

In 2019, we completed our third parking and transportation plan of recent time.

We did one in 2007 and one in 2011.

And this plan really takes a hybrid approach towards transportation that really looks at transportation demand management balanced with more traditional transportation planning.

And we have been putting TEM efforts into the grounds since 2007, we've added a whole

menu of amenities that are oriented towards multi-mobility, but we will continue in that direction.

Of course, the road network is the purview of the city and the county in VDOT, so that's not for us to decide, but we do coordinate quite a bit, particularly with the city on improvements that we can make for safety and likewise.

And we're always looking to see where we can get shifts since we don't have a really mass transit approach in our community.

It's important that in order to get to work that people are sometimes in single occupancy vehicles.

So we're always looking for the shift to improve that.

We also completed, so where we have redevelopment zones, you're not seeing all of the redevelopment zones on this map, but where we have redevelopment zones, when we want to move forward with a project or projects, we also always complete a master plan for that redevelopment zone first, so that when we're siting buildings, we're sure that we have the bigger plan

of what we're trying to achieve.

So we've done all of these master plans since 2016.

Brandon, which many of you are probably familiar with, is largely built out at this point.

Ivy Corridor, I'm sure you're very familiar with what's going on there, given that the construction is underway.

Ivy Mountain, where we just located a new orthopedics building.

Fontaine,

where the plan is to shift some of the ambulatory uses in the UVA health system to Fontaine Athletics, which is always growing in one way or another, Stacy Hall, which is closest down West Main, closest to downtown, Emmett Housing, and Ivy Gardens plans.

So all of those plans have been completed and the Urban Strategies team is building upon

The major concepts in those plans.

So just in terms of, so what the, you know, part of what they're doing is looking at everything that we've been doing for the last 10 to 12 years and bringing it comprehensively together.

They're also going to review and update and prioritize our redevelopment zones and I'll give you, I'll show you a diagram of that a little later in this presentation.

And then making sure that everything fits together holistically to the extent possible.

One of the early things that they did was develop this set of draft principles.

Of course, a framework plan of this type is going to be looking at placing character, land use and facilities, and transportation and connectivity.

But equally important to us are equity and inclusivity,

community well-being and sustainability.

So they're thinking about all of those physical and cultural aspects together.

This is an image of the Brandon Green Street for those of you who may not have visited it yet.

It's right below the lawn and it's a redevelopment zone that is becoming a new neighborhood that has a major green space element down the center.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of this, this fire remediation basin, which is also a park space, is over a thousand feet long.

And it creates a stormwater district for this entire area.

So all of these buildings that are LEED certified, built around this public realm, feed into this stormwater system.

So sustainability, we have set rather high sustainability targets to be fossil fuel free by 2015 and carbon neutral by 2030.

And we're working hard on how we're going to achieve that.

So they're building upon that as we're looking at this at both the UVA scale and the regional scale, working with the city and the county.

And we're currently underway with a grounds-wide thermal energy study to see how we can really reduce those energy impacts and think of new ways to manage our energy infrastructure.

Of course, equity and community well-being is very important to their approach.

Thinking about the diverse community context with a complex history

Working cooperatively with the city, the county and surrounding community groups, recognizing UVA as an important cultural and entertainment hub.

And then, you know, acknowledging that the city has completed their comprehensive plan and the county is starting on theirs.

So it allows for tripartite discussions on common issues.

And then, of course, I think you're all aware that UVA is committed to

Facilitating the development of 1,000 to 1,500 affordable units.

So that's part of our discussion also.

So the Academical Village will always be the central gathering space at UVA.

I think most of you are aware that it's a UNESCO World Heritage site, very carefully managed.

but we also have a landscape across grounds that we need to think about and how all those pieces coming together.

And then that sports and recreation play a significant role on grounds.

Well, UTS, our university transit system is customized to meet a range of UVA transportation needs.

We work actively with CAT

and coordinated with UTS.

So those two systems are actively working together.

One of our challenges is that the growth of EVA health has been driving parking demand and that's been something that has been really challenging.

Right now, it's not quite so bad because there are not so many people on grounds, but once everybody's back again, we'll be still managing that issue.

Both the integrated and dispersed land use pattern.

We have what we call a mixed use land use pattern.

So some campuses would have all of their athletics in one area and all of their residential in another area.

We really have a pattern of a mixed use across grounds.

So that is actually quite beneficial, but it also can sometimes bring some challenges

in terms of everything feeling holistic.

So we're working on that.

And then I mentioned that Fontaine Park is intended to accommodate more ambulatory services and research facilities.

We're trying to, to the extent, reduce congestion at UVA Health and so move some of those facilities out to Fontaine where they're

It's easier to access and more distributed in terms of transportation.

Eventually West Complex will be decanted and trying to figure out A, how to decant that is a seven-year process, quite complicated.

But then in the end, thinking about how that important redevelopment zone will be used in the future is something that we're all working on.

And then just some opportunities that they've recognized.

The images here are images from other campuses where they've applied some of these principles, but certainly looking for enhancing link, which is between urban and natural settings, maintain the historical pattern of the campus core, use redevelopment and landscape to improve connections throughout the grounds,

and Aligned Placemaking and Mobility Initiatives with Land Use and Facility Planning.

In terms of transportation and connectivity, we're looking to continuously better integrate UTS CAD and regional transit systems, make north and west grounds more inviting for multimodal use,

Look at different ways to achieve that, including thinking about prioritizing McCormick Road for pedestrian use and looking at comprehensive wayfinding.

And this image here is at University of Toronto, where they've repurposed a roadway to better prioritize for pedestrian space.

And that's something

So in terms of land use, one of the things that they're thinking about is building upon our redevelopment zones and making community nodes of teaching, research, and social space.

And you'll see that in one of the last slides here in terms of

And so what you're seeing is the redevelopment zones, which are essentially in, for the most part, in the same place that they've been in the 2008 grounds plan,

We're revising some of them or reshaping some of them.

The blue ones are academic mixed use.

The yellow is residential mixed use.

Where we have the yellow redevelopment zones, we already have housing in those areas.

So it's really reinforcing those areas.

And for instance, for those of you who are familiar with alderman housing, which is in here, we did have a redevelopment zone there before

And that's been largely built out with the redevelopment of the Alderman housing.

We also had a redevelopment zone at Brandon Avenue, and that's been largely built out also.

So when things have been built out, those redevelopment zones come off the map, but we've added some new ones.

So Fontaine, for instance, got larger, et cetera.

So what they're looking at is activating these redevelopment zones with these nodes of activity that they've been working on and then interlayering that with the transportation system and looking for opportunities for enhanced transportation.

So I put a few questions in here that

I'll start with a question.

Let me find it here.

What did I do with it?

There it is.

OK, so you mentioned

Five different outside projects, Westoverburg with Foxhaven Blue Ridge and Horsehead, which are all in the county.

So my question that follows that is what is the county's interaction on the development of what's gonna happen at these places?

Yes.

So we have met both with the county and we've met with LUPEC twice.

So we haven't gotten to that part in the plan yet.

And the idea is not for them to propose uses for those properties, it's to think about them as a sphere of influence and what that means for the grounds.

So it's not as if the consultant team is going to come up for an exact use for Foxhaven or for Westover,

Consideration of what the role of that property might be in the future without thinking about it in terms of a particular land use.

OK, well, thank you.

So I have a couple of questions about some of your maps.

There was one map that showed an area referred to as Emmett housing.

And would that be along the area that is to the east of 29, but between the railroad tracks and University Avenue?

Right, except Lloyd, there's also a rather aged

A place called University Gardens, which at some point will need some redevelopment.

OK, that's a pretty low intensity use for prime real estate there.

Yes.

And on this map, the yellow area that is

To the left of there.

To the left of where?

I'm sorry.

Oh, yes.

Do you all own Ivy Gardens?

OK.

According to the tax map, it's still in the name of an LLC.

So maybe they just haven't caught up with it yet.

Correct.

Yeah, the idea would be to redevelop it for some higher intensity, but not anything high, high intensity.

It's just that once the buildings are no longer suitable, we would like to do two things.

Have it be slightly higher density and also have it be more integrated into the North Grounds.

And so the plan, the master plan that we've developed for that addresses both of those characteristics and also allows for some use of academic space to be built within that housing.

Yes.

Well, we're very aware that the county is sensitive about Ivy Road, Old Ivy Road, and additional usage of Ivy Road.

So the transportation network, in other words, the access points,

Any idea of the timeframe?

I would put it a ways out.

And the last question I had was, you mentioned doing something different.

I've never heard the word decant applied to a building.

But the West Complex, which I take it is what we would call the old new hospital.

What are you planning with decanting?

Well, it's actually seven buildings together.

which a lot of people don't fully recognize.

So there's some historic fabric there that we would retain, such as the old medical school.

So there's some pieces of it that are important to retain, but there's a lot of that space in those areas that we would retain.

are underutilized because it's really not up to snuff with current medical usages.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

These are all new plans to me.

I hadn't seen any of it before, so I was intrigued.

Who would like to go next?

I guess I have a long-term question, Julia.

I mean, it seems parking is an incredibly difficult thing for you guys to deal with.

I mean, you've got employees day in and day out, you've got a health system, you've got students, you've got tourism, you've got huge events that could happen, both sporting and other, JPJ.

I mean, when you guys think long-term or discuss parking long-term,

relative to all of the land use planning you're doing?

Yes, well, it's interesting because just like roadways and people speaking about roadways and adding lanes to get more capacity,

The conversation in regard to parking is building additional parking garages, but there are some people who are looking into the future who think that building a parking garage is not a wise decision at this time.

So yeah, it's a challenge.

I think one of the biggest challenges that we have, Ned, is the overlap and the shared use of event space and everyday parking.

So when we have events, people need to leave their parking spaces by let's say 5 p.m., which is an impact, particularly if you're working in the house system.

So it's that shared use of parking, which is beneficial in many ways, which is also quite challenging to manage.

So that's what we are continuing to juggle

Right now it's fine because we're not at full capacity in terms of our parking facilities.

But we're trying to, we have, if we need to, we can build more, what our approach at UVA has been what we call intercept facilities.

So building parking garages where people park once and then go to whatever their occupation is on grounds rather than driving around grounds.

And then having UTS be the provider of the circulation for wherever people need to go from their buildings, from their parking.

And we'd like not to build new parking garages, but if we have the space to do that, if we need to do that in the future.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

You mentioned about having the Old Ivy Road complex, having access off of Leonard Sandridge, but certainly in my experience, whenever there's a football game, there are thousands of people who walk down Old Ivy Road and struggle with the cars under the railroad trust.

So I do hope that

The university will take on its responsibility for dealing with that trestle, either a walk over the top or something for pedestrians, because it really is dangerous for every day for the people who live there now.

And I did see on the map you just were showing that there is housing now at Fontaine.

There's a big yellow blob right there next to it.

Oh, that's Piedmont.

That's one of the sites that's been discussed for affordable housing.

I know where it is.

OK, very good.

Sure.

And then I'm sorry.

Old Ivy Road is not our purview.

That's County VDOT.

I know that there's a tremendous amount of concern about pedestrian activity on Old Ivy Road, both for people who are living and working on Old Ivy Road.

And in addition to anything that we might be contributing,

We've had continuous discussions with the county in regard to Old Ivy Road, and I know that Sean might be able to address this, but right now VDOT is studying that fairly intensively because it's so constrained at either end, both by the railroad trestle and by the railroad facility on the other end.

So I know that

We're waiting to hear back from what the thinking is to approach that.

Other questions, comments here?

All right, well, seeing none, Julia, thank you.

Yeah that'd be great the link I think would be

If you want to share it, then we can direct people there.

Sure.

And obviously, this is a point in time.

We're not coming to you with all of our conclusions yet.

I think that's a good idea.

All right.

Well, very good.

Thank you very much.

All right, board, we're going to move to number nine, staff updates.

So we have a series of these.

Yes, thank you, Supervisor Galloway.

The first thing is that I am pleased to be able to inform you all that we were successfully notified by the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment that we have received just under $100,000 in technical assistance to support the development of a performance-based project prioritization process.

So just real quickly, I know we had come to you all at your meeting in December just to ask for you all to support the application.

The idea will be that this will formalize some of the processes that we already go through in terms of identifying projects to consider for inclusion into the long-range transportation plan.

And this will help us develop a methodical way to show

The pipeline that projects go through from conception to recommendation development to inclusion for funding recommendations.

The general idea is that the process will start with a need identification and prioritization process as far as looking at current system operations.

And then from there, we won't be able to start obviously with existing

Planning studies recommended through this process.

The good news is that we already generally follow this process in identifying the planning studies that we'll pursue.

But this will help us create a much more transparent and clear framework for moving projects through a pipeline to where they are included and pursued for actual funding applications.

This will be a 12-month grant.

And we should be hearing back from the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment pretty soon to schedule our kickoff meeting and get this project going.

And if you have any questions on this, I'll be happy to answer those.

It was a pretty quick turnaround from application to notification.

Any questions here?

All right, very good.

Yeah, so I can give you a brief update.

We do have some extra time on the agenda, so if there are any questions, we can answer those in a little bit more detail.

But as I think you all are aware, we have been meeting with the Stakeholder Advisory Group to develop the Ravenna River Bicycle and Pedestrian Crossing application into what can be forwarded as an application for SMART SCALE in this upcoming round.

Just so you all are aware that in March we will need to determine which of those alignments we want to pursue.

So I'll be providing you with some in-depth information prior to the meeting and we'll plan to spend some time on our agenda in March to really discuss which of those alignments you would like us to move forward with.

The committee has met three times and then we also have one on-site visit, so I guess if you count that one we've met four times.

Supervisor Malek was able to join us, and I think it was really instructive to hear from the residents.

There are a lot of really vocal folks, and I think there are a lot of different competing priorities, so there are going to be a lot of factors to consider, but this is a project that the committees are, or that the residents, especially in the Woolen Mills area, are following very closely, and so we'll have a lot of information to be able to provide

to UL for your consideration.

The other three projects that were identified by the MPO as moving forward for SMART SCALE applications, we had a meeting earlier this week to discuss those in a little bit more detail with Albemarle County and VDOT and the City of Charlottesville.

So those will be intersection improvement recommendations at 5th Street and 5th Street Station.

That also includes some multimodal infrastructure improvements.

going in both directions from that intersection along 5th Street.

We'll be looking at some multimodal improvements along Avon Street starting at the intersection with Druid Avenue going to south to I believe that's where the bridge is.

So looking at that intersection where the storage facility is on Avon.

And then the third project that we'll be moving forward with at this time is going to be that roundabout at District Avenue and Hydraulic Road.

We will plan for a public meeting in early March to discuss that there's projects along with projects that will be submitted

within the MPA region by Albemarle County, the City of Charlottesville, and the PDC.

And then if there's any additional engagement that's needed following those meetings, we'll plan to do that after the pre-applications are submitted prior to when the final applications are submitted.

The pre-applications will need to be submitted by March 31st, and then final applications will need to be submitted, I believe it's August 31st.

Thank you.

And yes, the walkabout in the Woolly Mills was very informative because it's really important to see at ground level.

And so, Sandy, who is going to be sort of riding herd on the ideas that were discussed, especially the one about

How to control the traffic at the end of East Market Street, and also at the same time solve the grade problem by entering a bridge much closer up to the city-county line and have an angle.

We talked about this on the street.

I'm not sure if you heard all of it, but certainly Tim Padolino and Daniel Butch and Chris Jenzik were part of this conversation.

So I just want to make sure that that idea doesn't get lost along the way.

Who, where will we do a big sort of wrap up thing?

You're saying we have to pick these out, pick this out before the end of, we're gonna meet again, we're gonna do this.

We don't have a meeting scheduled.

So what my plan is right now, our next meeting is scheduled for March 23rd, which is our deadline for when we have to make a decision.

So my goal at this point is to provide you all with a very detailed summary of the discussions and different considerations that need to be factored in.

And then I'm happy to schedule any meetings individually to answer any sorts of technical questions.

Please consider whether we might have an extra meeting altogether.

Only because I think it'd be much less chaos if everybody hears the same thing all at once.

Probably easier for you than doing 12 different meetings of two people.

So please consider that.

I really hope this continues to go as well as you have gotten it to go already.

And I certainly don't want it to go off the rails now because everybody's still going in different directions instead of coming together.

Other questions or comments?

We could potentially schedule that meeting for February since February would be an off month.

The only thing that I will mention is that there may be still some additional information.

We have not engaged the broader community at this point, so the hope is to do a survey that we can get some additional input on.

I can do that.

Yeah.

And then I often find that as you're planning to send out an information packet,

When we have the information, then have an opportunity to meet and ask questions, then we come back in for the actual meeting where we take the vote.

So we may have to jam a meeting in there somewhere in between the time your information's ready and the voting meeting.

Any other questions or comments here?

All right.

Thank you, Sandy.

Very good.

Yes, that's me.

We are actually working on five projects across the district.

Two of them are in Albemarle County.

One is along Pan Tops from Hanson's Road to Hanson's Mountain Road.

And the other one is out in the Shadwell area, includes both intersection with 22 and 250 and North Milton Road and 250.

We're preparing to go out for public survey on those starting next week to gather comments based on some

What we've come up through the stakeholders group meetings to get feedback on some options for both locations.

We are looking at potential locations for park and ride lots in the area.

Since the lot at shopping center down by Free Bridge was closed, well, it wasn't closed, but they didn't want to have the park and ride lot there anymore in that shopping center.

So we're still trying to look for a location.

So we've got a couple of options identified for that.

But like I said, that's what we're doing right now.

The public, the surveys go out, go live on the 31st and they run for two weeks.

So hopefully we'll get some comments in.

We've got some news releases that are going out also that'll have that information.

I don't have the links right now to the survey because they're not live yet, but

The will be available and posted to the website as well as on the ads that we're going out through Facebook and Instagram.

Yes, thank you.

All right, other questions for Chuck?

All right, seeing none, the next staff update, we have a ride share update.

Yes, thank you.

So this will be nice and quick, but I like to make sure that everyone here in the MPO Policy Board has the opportunity to track the progress of the Afton Express, the new commuter bus service that started from Stanton, Waynesboro, and Augusta counties over to the Charlottesville area with a couple of stops, particularly at the UVA locations.

So service started again in September, rides were free.

After September, it is $3 each way, so $6 a day for rides.

We have been working closely with the Central Shenandoah PDC to promote this since many of our commuters are coming from across the mountain.

So I am happy to report that as of mid-December, they have seen over 1,800 trips, so that's total.

Per expectations, the end of December, we did see a downturn in the number of rides.

I think a lot of that had to do with folks at UVA not having to report to work for the holiday season.

But rides are starting to trend back upwards for January.

I don't have all of January's numbers just yet, but I have been reassured that we are back to our normal or the type of ridership that we saw in November.

A couple other things that we're doing to help still spread the word since this is a new service still,

A lot of folks are just kind of coming around to being aware of it, so we will be doing additional outreach at UVA at some of the satellite parking lots that staff and faculty and hospital staff utilize.

We will also be doing some targeted marketing for folks on this side of the mountain.

We'll do some geofenced data that will make sure that those messages are getting out to the folks who could benefit from the service as well.

We're also going to do a Bring a Buddy campaign.

So if you ride the Afton Express and you bring a friend, you and your friend get a free ride.

So not too bad of a deal.

But again, it's really just continuing that promotion since the service is still very new.

And of course,

Anyone who takes Athens Express as well as any transit at least two days a week are eligible to sign up for the Guaranteed Ride Home Program with Rideshare so that no one is left behind or stuck when they use alternative forms of transportation.

So focusing in just very briefly on the Rideshare Program, we are working with a local organization called Hive Creative.

to develop and to take a deeper dive into some of the marketing and the outreach that we do in promoting the RideShare program.

So we've been working with them since mid-November and they are helping us get some information that we are also using for our DRPT grants, which we are currently working on.

Right now we are working on the annual operating assistance grant, which we do every year.

And then in addition to that,

DRPT is requiring all of the Commuter Assistance Programs, CAPS for short, to develop strategic plans every five years as they're moving forward, much just like how the transit agencies do those strategic plans as well, so we will be applying for some technical assistance.

to work on that strategic plan next year.

Thank you, Sara.

Thank you.

And you may have to punt this to Chuck, but the ride share lot, park and ride lot, which is I think been approved, Kevin, you may have to help me, approved at the exit 107 or Patterson Mill Road there off of 250.

Is that coming this year?

And how many years away is that?

And then the absent express will be able to stop there.

I would defer to Chuck or Sean if you guys have a schedule on that.

I know that was not one of the projects that was accelerated in the group of SMART SCALE projects that were approved last year.

Okay, maybe there'll be some leftover money in some pot and you can flatten the field and put down some pavement.

I mean, that's really all there is.

I was going to ask that question when Chuck was talking about the Pantops and the folks that weren't participating.

What do you look for?

I mean, obviously parking spaces, but do you have a certain amount that you look for?

We have an analysis tool we use and it looks at the densities in the area but for the most part I look for lots that are vacant and then we try to design a spot for as many parking spaces as we have.

I know the ones, the place locations we're looking at is actually one of them is the state farm facility that always has already has parking a lot there if we could

Utilize some of that space that's underutilized.

That might be a prime location.

There's a vacant lot next to Westminster Canterbury on the north side of 250 that we were looking at.

And the other location is south of 64.

Behind that little strip shopping center, there's an area back in there that's come in a couple of times for development.

I know the county's looked at it for some,

potential development but it's another vacant lot that we're going to try to look at and we just want to get feedback on those locations and then we'll design a lot that will fit on that parcel as best we can depending on the volumes that we can achieve but we're also trying to include transit turnarounds and bus shelter and bike racks and all that kind of stuff too so it's just not parking that we're going to be

Got it understood.

Other questions here?

All right.

Hearing none, I think that was what we had for staff updates today.

Sandy, you have to help keep me in line if I miss anybody going through the round table.

For the newest, Mr. Councillor Pinkston, a round table, we just go around and hear updates from your area or neck of the woods that you're willing to share with the group.

So I'll just start with our friends there in the city.

Thank you, Mayor.

So we have been working with the county staff, TJPDC, and some consultants to look at a microtransit project.

The county approved the concept of doing a microtransit project, applying for the application.

So that will happen.

We're working with the consultants to make that happen.

Very hopeful that we're going to be granted that.

I think it's a robust project that will introduce microtransit to this region.

It'll be kind of a pilot test in the county that can hopefully be replicated in the city and throughout the region.

Additionally, as a operational component for CAT, we have been working through a pretty lengthy process to get APCs on our buses,

Tested.

So we are at the final stage.

We have submitted to NTD for the authorization to submit our ridership data through APCs.

That is in process.

We will hear something hopefully by mid-February.

So that is a wonderful step.

A long time coming.

We didn't have any money, so we were very

I'm fortunate to get funding from VDRPT to make the APC project happen.

So that's a great step.

That's it.

Oh, so you asked about bike racks.

All of our buses have bike racks.

All right, thank you.

Thank you for remembering that question from the start of the meeting.

I did not remember that.

No, I don't have anything for the group.

I appreciate the welcome and glad to be here.

Only that I'm just biting my fingernails waiting for all these projects that we've been watching and waiting all these years to start.

I want to see some shovels and bulldozers going on here.

So I think sometime at the end of 2022 is when they'll finally move west and get started out in that side of town.

But there's certainly a lot going on.

And after many years of getting nothing going on, we've had such incredible success in the last several years that I'm really looking forward to getting some more

projects done.

No, I mean, I just want to let you all know we did put something in the chat regarding the parking ride.

And then kind of touch on what Julia was talking about, the 250 route 29 bypass.

I know that we're actually working with the county on that study and the alternatives to kind of figure out what's the best project to put forward for SMART SCALE this upcoming year.

Very good.

Thank you, sir.

Julia, I know you gave a nice presentation today.

Any additional items you'd like to share?

Did Julia have to step away?

I don't see her name there any longer.

She must have had to step out.

Ted from Jaunt and is it Rieck?

Am I saying it correctly or Rick?

Rieck, thank you, sir.

No problem.

We do have a lot going on.

A lot of it's internal related.

But one thing that may be of interest to the group is one of the challenges that John has is to distribute the cost of services among multiple jurisdictions, the different counties in the city.

And we're in the process of engaging a consultant to help determine a formula for distributing costs and funding

throughout the region as it relates to our services.

That may be a basis for a future allocation formula for the eventual RTA if that comes to pass.

And we would hope this project would be inclusive of our funding partners and others who would be of interest to that.

All right, thank you, sir, and welcome.

Well, there you go.

That'll teach me to miss a meeting.

All right, next up Wood Hudson from DRPT.

Sure, just a reminder that our DRPT transit grants are open and that the portal will be closing on the first.

All right, thank you.

I believe most of the other folks are usually covered in the other staff dates, as called upon by the official appointees.

It would be somewhat repetitive, so it'll be very high level.

As you guys can imagine, we are very excited to have two new staff that will be contributing to the MPO.

Having those vacancies has definitely been a challenge for this year, so we are really excited for Isabella and Brian to be with us and with you all moving forward.

Likely what that'll look like is Ms. Shackelford will still be the staff point on the MPO policy board.

But moving several months from now, once we've given them a little more time to drink from the fire hose, Mr. Mickles will likely be the point on the MPO technical committee and the citizens advisory committee.

And then there's still some internal work that we need to do to shift some other duties before we determine other assignments.

We're also really excited that all of our transit grants are moving along well with the successful

Hopeful application for the Albemarle transit expansion, microtransit, which was already spoken about, following the transit vision plan through to the end, which isn't going to be in the fall of this year, starting in on a governance study if we are so awarded.

So there's a lot of really good synergy, I think, and momentum and direction around transit and transportation that we're really excited to be a part of.

Thank you, Christine.

Any questions here for Christine or any others?

Kevin, it's my turn.

Oh, okay.

Well, I will just point out, obviously, Sandy and Chuck have mentioned a lot of the projects that we're working on with them for the Smart Scale, but point out that Albemarle County is also taking the lead on a few applications there.

Avon Street Bike Pet Improvements, that's separate from

The one that Sandy mentioned, which is right on the border of the City County, we are looking at some improvements south of I-64 on Avon Street.

Belvedere Road, Rio Road intersection improvements.

Separate from the Fifth Street project that Sandy mentioned also, we are looking at bike ped improvements south of 64 on Fifth Street.

And then also talking with VDOT about potential improvements at some key US 250 intersections in Crozet.

We're not quite decided on which ones we want to focus on, but we've got a few options out there.

And then the 250 West and 29 Bypass ramp project that Sean mentioned as well that we've been in discussions with.

VDOT on.

Also point out that we had submitted the Eastern Avenue extension to US 250 revenue sharing application last year.

We are eagerly awaiting word on the funding on that one, which I guess we'll be hearing about in the spring.

And then, of course, continue to work on the Library Avenue extension, Crozet Square and Barnes-Lumbery development projects all out there in Crozet creating that new downtown area and lots going on there.

I think we're going to start seeing some construction about a year, year and a half from now on those things.

Also there are some shovels going on out in Crozet right now with some of our sidewalk projects.

We have US 250 pedestrian improvements there at the Harris Teeter that is under construction right now.

I think that's going to be finishing up summer, fall time.

And in addition to those under construction bike ped improvements, we've got them going on.

on Ivy Road between the City Line and the Bypass, on Avon Street, on Rio Road, and also Albemarle, Greer, Jewett Bike Pad, Albemarle High School, Greer and Jewett Elementary and Middle School projects going on out there.

So we've got a lot of locally led projects underway right now.

Good, thank you, Kevin.

All right, we can conclude the roundtable unless there's any additional items here.

All right, seeing none.

And then we did not add any items to the agenda.

And we'll move right to number 12, which are additional matters from the public.

Do we have any takers for comments from the public?

Do not see anybody noticing.

Well, very good then.

We have come to the end of our meeting.

So just to remind, Sandy will be sending out information related to the project we were speaking to and the alignment, because that'll be a decision we'll have to make in March.

When that information comes out, then we'll get together for an informational question asking session ahead of the next MPO meeting.

So if everybody could be on the lookout for that, that would be great.

We'll give as much advance notice to that as possible to coordinate calendars and everything.

Our next stakeholder meeting is going to be, I think it's February 17th at 4pm.

There's information on the website.

Very good.

Thank you with that.

And then the next meeting is March 23rd, 2022.

And with that, if there is no objection, we will adjourn to that time.

Good night, everybody.

Great meeting.