MPO Policy Board Meeting   5/25/2022

This meeting of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization is being held pursuant to code of Virginia section 2.2-3708.2.

which allows a public body to hold electronic meetings when the locality in which it is located has declared a local state of emergency and the catastrophic nature of the emergency makes it impractical or unsafe to assemble a quorum in a single location and 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 notice at the TJPDC offices, to the media, website posting and agenda.

The meeting minutes will reflect the nature of the emergency.

The meeting was held by electronic communication means and the type of electronic communication means by which the meeting was held.

Thank you for that.

And the first item we handle,

Sorry, if you are, if you're not speaking, if you could mute, that'll help with any background noise.

If we could go to matters from the public.

I will first see, do we have any folks who would like to speak from the public?

No, Supervisor Galloway, I do not see anyone.

with their hand raised.

I don't know where that background noise is coming from.

Oh, you're the troublemaker with the background noise.

All right, we will close matters from the public as there are no takers.

And we will move to number three.

So Ryan, you're gonna stay on board here.

So the first update is return to in-person meetings.

The MPO in-person meetings will resume in July.

Remote participation is an option under the following circumstances.

Personal matter, limited to two meetings per year and must specify a nature of personal matter.

Disability or medical condition,

Family members medical condition.

Principal residence is more than 60 miles from the meeting location.

Any questions here?

Yes, sir.

Supervisor Galloway.

Just to confirm, was that the final, was that the only update?

There was a staffing update listed as well.

No staffing update?

I'm seeing some heads shaking out.

Very good.

So we will move to review and acceptance of the agenda.

Is there any additions to the agenda that has been proposed?

All right, seeing no changes, we'll need a motion to approve the agenda.

Move to approve the agenda.

Second.

All right, it has been moved by Mayor Snook, seconded by Supervisor Malek.

Yes, sir.

Supervisor Malek?

Yes.

Councilor Pinkston.

Yes.

Chairman Galloway.

Thank you.

Yes.

And then we have a slate of minutes to approve.

That one change on the January 26th meeting minutes, it had me as not being checked as present.

And I was there.

All right.

Second.

Right.

Yes, sir.

Councilor Pinkston.

Yes.

Yes.

Very good.

Thank you.

And that will take us to item number four on the agenda.

And Ryan, I'll hand it over.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

As you know, MPO staff has been working to develop the FY 23 Unified Planning Work Program.

At your last meeting, you all saw a draft.

Subsequent to the meeting, staff made updates regarding some funding.

We posted those

or we posted the draft of the UPWP on the website.

This table shows the FY 23 budget allocations for FY 23 for the MPO with the exception of any potential revisions to the VDOT SPR budget, which funds the support of VDOT staff and does not go through our MPO program budget directly.

This table shows the proposed budget allocations and work program for the MPO for FY23.

The only adjustments from the previous budget that was presented to you were related to finalizing FY23 annual program funding from FHWA.

The draft UPWP was posted to the website and available for the public for comment.

We met the minimum requirement of providing 15-day opportunity for public comment, and we did not receive any public comment on the plan itself.

All right, there was a resolution included in the packet.

Is there any further discussion?

All right, we can call the vote, please.

Supervisor Malek?

Yes.

Mayor Snook.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Moving right through this agenda.

The next item, number five, we have our SMART SCALE resolutions of support.

Included in your packet are two resolutions of support, one for MPO projects, the other for PDC projects, which were all created by Albemarle County.

The first resolution outlines the four projects that the MPO will be pursuing.

Those projects are

District Avenue, Roundabout, Avon Street, Multimodal Improvements, Fifth Street, Multimodal Improvements, and the Rivanna River Bike Ped Bridge Crossing.

On your screen, I would like to provide a quick update.

Brian, should we be seeing anything on the screen?

Yes, sir.

Those were not up when you originally went through them.

No, sir.

There were no other slides except for this one here, because I did want to point out an update that Ms. Sandy Shackelford wanted the policy board to be aware of.

And it's regarding the Ravenna River bike bed crossing.

Since the last meeting, the Virginia Department of Transportation has provided the MPO with a bridge concept that you see on your screen.

Compared to the original bridge design at the selected location, the proposed bridge uses five piers, three of which would be placed on the sediment island.

This provides greater opportunity to increase the height of the bridge and clearance over the river, as well as reduce the overall project costs.

The bridge does not have a bend in it, but the landing sites are in roughly the same places as was proposed in the original alignment.

I would like to also point out the rendering

that the MPO was provided from VDOT.

And as you can see, this rendering shows a much simpler bridge concept, which would be cheaper in cost.

And I believe there are some VDOT representatives at the meeting.

Ryan, this is Chuck Proctor.

Yeah, the only thing that I would say is when it came out of the meeting, we were only looking at using three beers.

And we're also looking at including lighting with the application.

Yes, so Chuck, can you tell us a little bit more about the lighting?

We weren't going to have poles in the air.

We were just going to have something integrated into the railing system for the lighting.

Do we have a question, please?

Yes, sir.

Councilor Pinkston.

We're hoping so, but depending on the applicant pool, I don't know exactly how competitive it's gonna be.

It's the cheaper, the least expensive option is usually the best option to go for at this point, because it's gonna be the most competitive.

And so this goes away from a truss type structure and instead adds more piers.

Is that the idea?

Okay.

Thank you.

Once you get to a certain distance, the truss becomes cheaper than the beams because the beams get taller.

So it's just a matter of finding that sweet spot between the beams and the trusses.

And this was right now with the, uh,

Okay.

All right.

But y'all, I guess, considered opinion is that this is the better piece, the better model to put forward for this application.

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

That was one of the considerations.

We're not gonna go with a wood deck.

We're gonna go with concrete.

Now, whether it's precast or cast in place, those are both considerations.

And I don't know if one's cheaper than the other one.

All right, additional questions.

Yes, I just wanted to share a little bit that what Chuck had described during the neighborhood meeting, which was that these piers are round.

So they will not be catching debris because when something isn't flat and holding the logs, things will tend to slide away.

So I'm really excited about this aspect and the design is certainly quite svelte and nice looking.

So I'm pleased.

Other questions on this or other items in the SMART SCALE items?

I don't know if anybody has it.

I was looking to see if I had it.

I'm sorry.

That's my fault.

Ms. Jacobs, I can quickly try to find it on my computer.

I'm just trying to clarify.

There's the talk of the through cut and then

complete slash close the existing median between Pantox Mountain Road and Peter Jefferson Parkway.

I just wanna make sure I'm understanding what the visual improvements will be.

I mean the through cut, that's gonna keep items traveling west moving I'm presuming, is that right?

Yeah, this is Chuck Proctor again.

I can speak to that.

The through cut, what it does, it eliminates the through movement, allows the left turns to still occur.

There's very little traffic that goes through in either direction at this intersection.

So by eliminating that movement, you're saving a fade of the signal.

Okay, I can help.

250 is running across the page from left to right.

And then Peter Jefferson Parkway is coming up from the bottom of the page.

So the hospital's on this lower portion of the project.

The hotel entrance is right here to the left next to the legend.

And that's where we're closing the crossover at that point.

And basically, that's it.

We're closing that crossover.

We're adding a right turn lane to the eastbound approach on 250.

And we're doing some intersection modifications to both sides of the road to eliminate the left

This is connected to the bridge, right?

No, no, no.

This is a totally different thing.

This is a separate project.

There were, there was, this is part of the pipeline study.

There were two pipeline studies for this corridor.

One was the Pantops corridor.

The other one was 250 East.

And for this project portion of Pantops, there were two projects submitted.

This was one of them at Peter Jefferson Parkway.

The other one's up at Rolkin where we're doing some intersection improvements.

to accommodate crosswalks and sidewalk on the south side of 250.

So just to clarify, the green area on your map is to be closed.

If they want to go into the hotel, if they're coming eastbound, eastbound is heading out of town.

So if they want to go westbound, there's two ways they can get there.

If they go up to the intersection, which is just off to the left of this page, that's Westminster Canterbury.

So they can go to that intersection and make the left hand turn at that signal and enter the hotel property.

Or they can turn it at Peter Jefferson Parkway and go through this business, the commercial, this office complex right here, just to the south of 250.

I appreciate you guys finding this and putting this up.

The visual just helps immensely to understand this.

Yeah, to Roger Galloway.

I'm sorry, I'm tracking here through the agenda and trying to make sure I'm seeing where this is, but I know what I'm looking at.

The first resolution, I'm sorry, I was going to jump in.

The first resolution is approving the four applications that will be submitted under the MPO.

OK, thank you.

OK. Are there any other questions?

And Christine, do you want to do these as two separate?

Two separate.

So the first will be the resolution.

I would be glad to move adoption of the resolution endorsing the submission of smart scale HB2 applications.

All right.

Motion made and seconded.

Yes, sir.

Councilor Pinkston.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

I'll second that.

Motion made and seconded.

Yes, sir.

Supervisor Malek?

Yes.

Yes.

Mayor Snook?

Mr. Nelson.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

That resolution carries.

Thank you.

The next item on our agenda, we have a CTAC appointment to make.

Yes, sir.

Supervisor Galloway, the MPO

We'll need to appoint two members to the CTAC committee.

They are both re-appointments.

One is Ms. Donna Chen, and the second is Mr. Stuart Gardner.

Yes, ma'am.

We prefer them not to know, because then we can continue their service for longer periods of time.

Motion has been made and seconded.

Yes, sir.

Councilor Pinkston.

Yes.

Supervisor Galloway.

Yes.

And that motion carries, thank you.

And we appreciate their willingness to continue to serve.

And well ahead of schedule, we are at two number seven staff updates.

Thank you.

So in your packet, there's several memos.

We have TIP amendments for April and for March and April.

So I'll just go through these.

The first amendment was an administrative adjustment and it was made on April 26th and it changed the title.

It was something that the FTA requested to better describe a project.

And it was just for Jaunt.

They wanted us to change the title from rehab build buses to associated capital maintenance.

So that was changed.

Also in April, there was an administrative adjustment again for Jaunt.

In block 18, they added $140,000 in funding for fiscal year 2022.

to purchase 14 automated passenger counters to install in the Connect commuter buses.

The next adjustment was made in March and there were three adjustments made for fiscal year 2022 for Jaunt.

The first one was to increase operating assistance $1,820,000.

The next adjustment was to add ADP software and it increased funding for fiscal year 2022, $140,000.

And the last one was for mobility management and it increased the funding $85,000.

No, I think it, well, either the K goes and it's 1,820,000 or it's 1,820,000 if the K stays.

And those are big differences.

We just need to fix that.

Because it was reported there was no million in what was read out.

Number one on page 68.

FTA funding.

Was it adjustment 20?

Adjustment.

It was for the- March 24th.

March 24th.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, that one.

Is Mr. Reich on?

Can he, Rick?

Actually, yeah, or Wood.

I can look it up and bring it to the next meeting.

I'll look it up right now.

Hold on.

Oh, yeah.

No, this is just information only.

OK. All right, so we will have the information clarified and confirmed.

Yeah, I'll do that.

Okay, so let's see.

Okay, the next adjustment was also made in March and it was on the VDOT side and it moved some money from preventative maintenance and system preservation to preventative maintenance for bridge groupings.

And that was for fiscal year 2022.

It was $250,000 that was moved.

And oh, that's the last one.

If you happen to have that by the end of the meeting, that'd be great.

If not, then we will send it out to the board via email and then we'll update at the next meeting as well.

Additional questions on any of the other adjustments?

Supervisor Malek, hands still raised, is that from previous?

Yep.

And are there any other questions about these TIP amendments?

All right.

Yeah, so the Regional Transit Vision Plan is progressing.

It should be done in August.

And at this point, the consultants tomorrow at the Regional Transit Partnership meeting will be giving a 90 minute presentation on the project.

And this will be the most detailed presentation.

There's going to be probably, they'll be sharing the progress so far.

And then they have a draft vision network and they'll be talking about the next steps.

So they've drafted kind of a vision statement, goals and objectives, and a constrained and unconstrained network of services for the vision.

And they'll be kicking off the last round of stakeholder and public engagement

They'll be presenting to the City Council, the Board of Supervisors for Albemarle, Green, Savannah, Nelson, and Louisa, and they will also be conducting various public outreach activities, including a survey, focus groups, and a public workshop.

So that's all happening, upcoming.

Can I make one brief clarification?

Thanks, Christine.

There will probably be a more extensive presentation tomorrow at the RTP than what the board and council will get.

Is it possible for you to send a link to those of us who would like to listen tomorrow but aren't on the RTP?

We can hear the full scoop.

And that usually starts at four, right?

The RTP is also four o'clock meeting.

So that's probably online as well for those listening that they would like to listen to.

Any other questions on the Regional Transit Visioning Plan?

So the governance study is planned to start in July.

We don't have a notice to proceed yet, but we are hoping to get one soon.

We received two very good proposals and the selection team selected AECOM's proposal.

There will be overlapping staff from the vision plan, so that's good.

It'll be kind of continuous.

The governance study is going to work with the TJPD jurisdictions and service providers to develop a structure to collect and disperse additional revenue to support transit.

It'll create a kind of a regional body.

Well, it'll recommend the

structure of regional body to support transit.

And it's not going to be changing the actual service provider structure at this time.

So it's just recommending an entity to collect

additional revenue for transit and then disperse it.

There probably will be some type of decision making body proposed to ensure that all of the jurisdictions are able to participate in the disbursement of that money

equally, but that's all going to come out in the governance study.

So the governance study is like the next step in the vision plan.

The vision plan is saying, you know, what we could do.

And they made some assumptions about additional funding.

All right, questions here?

I heard Mayor Snook, did you see the comment?

Or no, that's Councilor Pinkston.

I need to be like Supervisor Malek and use my raised hand.

Yeah, so the notion with the governance study is sort of proposing what would be the sort of ideal hope, and then the next piece then would be actually getting buy-in from the relevant jurisdictions to make that happen, as I understand it.

Yeah, so we built into the study engagement with the jurisdictions.

So along the way, they will be meeting with them.

We'll be talking with them about like, what would an acceptable structure look like?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, broken record time.

We will have to go back to the legislature to get the right to be able to assess on this because we do not have that right right now.

We tried in 2010, and we're basically evicted from the committee meeting.

So the and

Without a change in the decision-making structure, I will find it questionable that any county will just agree to fork over more money.

So I hope that this will all be taken into consideration.

I remember reading the proposal, which basically said, oh, we're gonna do all these things, which were the things we've been trying to do for 15 years.

So I really hope they have success.

And there are new players in the room now, and that will be helpful.

but the money's not gonna come from nowhere.

So we're gonna have to figure out how to handle that.

And that needs to be sort of first, I think.

But anyway, I'm glad to listen in tomorrow and find out what's coming.

All right, other questions, comments?

No, that's all.

I'll try to put some information in the chat, like the link to the Regional Transit Partnership and things like that.

Just clarifying the number, that'd be great.

All right.

The next item is a ride share.

Just have a couple quick updates I would like to share with everyone here.

May is Bike Month and it is also Clean Commute Month, which luckily those are synonymous and go hand in hand.

So we have been partnering with Jaunt, CAT, and UTS

To promote clean commuting, there is a contest running.

If you submit a picture with the hashtag of SEVO Clean Commute, you can be entered to win prizes.

We're looking for any type of clean commuting that you do, but we are having a lot of fun with that.

We've engaged a lot of our local partners as well as the bike community in supporting those.

The second update that I wanted to give was on the Afton Express, so the commuter bus route that connects Stanton, Waynesboro, Fishersville area with both Albemarle County and Charlottesville.

The Afton Express actually just had its most successful

month since it began operating in September.

The total numbers for April were 798 riders and with the average or had their highest average rider of 38 for the month that was the average and then one day we actually broke 50 so we thought that was really exciting news that we wanted to pass on to everyone.

In addition to that, there have been some other activities going on with Afton Express.

Afton Express and the CSPDC, who has the pilot grant for this, has partnered with UVA to offer special discounted fare cards for their employees and employees at UVA can contact the Parking and Transportation Office.

to get information on that.

There has also been an update to the schedules, particularly to the afternoon pickup times.

As the service has been operating, they realized that they needed to adjust those just a little bit.

All right, thank you.

Any questions here on those updates, the rideshare updates, good news about

On the commute numbers, that continues to improve and go up.

All right.

Seeing no other questions or comments on that item, number eight moves us to our round table updates.

And I'll move around the screen here.

And you can pass if need be, if there's no updates.

And Ryan, keep me honest if I miss anybody.

Yeah, I don't have too much.

UVA, UTS is operating now on summer schedule, or at least will.

Very shortly, which would be reduced headways and such.

The big news that came out, I think it was last week, was that we put in an order for four electric buses to start a fleet replacement with electric buses.

So that's good news.

And look for those.

And I think it's a good year.

And don't quote me, but like a year and a half or so before those are two years even before they'll hit the road.

There's a UVA Today article.

I can't remember the make.

I think it's the same ones they have up in Alexandria.

And they will be just the standard size that we have now, as far as I know.

All right, any other questions for Mr. Palmer?

I'm not sure if that's part of what they're looking at for upgrades.

We've kind of assessed all our roofs on grounds for solar and continue to make improvements when we can, but I don't know specifically for the Millmont facility.

Any other questions here?

All right, very good.

Mr. Williams of CAT, I see your square next.

Your camera turned on.

Thank you, sir.

The only update I have is CAT has launched its study per FTA requirements to look at alternative fuel vehicles, whether they be CNG, hydrogen fuel cells, or battery electric.

We have hired Kimley Horn.

Our kickoff meeting was about a week and a half ago.

We'll start our every two-week meetings in probably next week.

And once that gets kicked off, we're anticipating about six to seven months before the study is complete.

The timing of the study is designed for us to be having a fully functioning document that flows into the application process for FY24.

So that's really where we are in our targeting.

Thank you, sir.

We've got folks in Albemarle very excited about the microtransit pilot that I know will be coming

We're hoping.

And we're excited.

So I'm saying that goodwill is out there.

We're hoping that it's going to pull things together.

Thank you, sir.

Let's see.

Next up, Stacy Londrey.

Hi, everyone.

Thank you very much.

And then let's see.

Michael Barnes, is that a

Thank you, Ned.

It's Michael Barnes here.

I have no updates.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Sure.

Just on the bike ped projects we have going on around the county, you're probably seeing a lot of the projects we have under construction currently including out on Lambs Lane at the Albemarle Greer Jewett school campuses.

That's underway.

Ivy Road sidewalks are underway, Avon Road sidewalks, Rio Road sidewalks, and Route 250 out in Crozet sidewalks, those are all under construction and moving along really well, and we expect completion on all those by the fall.

Lots of new sidewalk going in.

I'll leave most of the other project updates to VDOT if they want to give updates on the ongoing construction projects.

The only other thing I'll add is that in the draft six-year plan, it does look like our application for Eastern Avenue.

is going to be funded to extend Eastern Avenue over the Lickinghole Creek.

So that's in the draft.

We got to wait and see if the CTB approves that in the final version.

But looking forward to getting that started hopefully in the next few years.

Kevin, any questions here?

All right.

My square shifted.

Wood, I think I have you next.

Sure.

Couple DRPT-related updates.

First is the FY 23 draft SIP is available on our website, and that should be going to the CTB for final approval here shortly.

The Transit Delivery Advisory Committee, which is what we refer to as TSDAC, has begun work to update the Merit Capital and Operating Programs and transit strategic plan requirements.

If you're interested in virtually listening into one of those meetings or reviewing past meetings, links are available on our website.

We continue to make progress on the House Joint Resolution 542 Transit and Equity and Modernization Study.

This month has seen several meetings related to that.

Also, May is Bike Month.

Throughout the month, we have been encouraging Virginians

participate in bike commuting activities.

Bike to Work Day was actually held on May 20th.

If any of you need materials for like social media posts and other resources related to Bike Month, we have a bunch of materials up on the bikeva.org website that are available for folks to use.

Thank you Wood, any questions here?

Yeah, we're working on the SMART SCALE applications.

The portal should be open back up to start finalizing the full applications on June 1st.

We're wrapping up the pre-screening of the applications right now.

And then the other thing I wanted to point out was that the 29 North Corridor Study that we had a meeting on last week, we're going to reschedule it and have another meeting next week or the following week, early in June.

So hopefully you'll hear some more about that coming up.

And then there's a quarterly MPO coordination meeting set up for June,

Where the MPOs get together and talk about what's going on across the state over the next quarter.

I know we're getting ready to kick off the tip update, tip step update.

So that'll be something that'll be going on next year.

I know the MPOs looking at updating their long range plan.

So those are big items for next round.

Thank you, Chuck.

Go ahead, Miss Malek.

Chuck, when you get ready to schedule the repeat of the 29 meeting, could you try to avoid meetings when the jurisdictions are actually in their board meetings?

Because I think that was an insane frustration for both Greene County and me last time.

So I know it's hard because everybody's on a different day, but we've got to figure out a way to be able to get people to get the real information at the meeting rather than having watered down information being circulated through

We all do.

I've sent a request to Kevin and Albemarle and to Jim Friedl at Green.

So hopefully we can get some responses from them on a date.

Yes, let me just put this down to my being a relative newbie.

The items that Mr. Proctor just listed off, some of those acronyms I picked up on from having the reading I've been doing, but is there a way to get, maybe this already happens, but for the next time this group gets together, some kind of written summary of progress on those things from the state?

I guess that that update would happen in this meeting sort of verbally or orally, but I was just wondering if there's a way to get some kind of update on the status of the things that he just spoke about.

Yeah, that does.

I can work with Ryan and Lucinda and Christine to put together something for you.

Yeah, that would be helpful for me because it's a lot of, it's just a lot of information to sort of pick up on in a meeting like this and to make sure I kind of know what's going on and having something

written out would be something I'd be grateful for if that's not too much effort.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I remember in a previous LRTP or something there was a definitions list and perhaps that could routinely be appended to the packets that go out so that we all have it readily available

I understand completely because I've been there about trying to keep all these programs straight, it makes you insane.

Stiptip was the one I heard.

All right, any other questions here for VDOT or Chuck?

Christine, did you want to provide any updates?

No, I was.

I muted as soon as you called my name.

I'm good.

While this one is not necessarily a professional one, Sandy, our MPO staff, just wanted to report to you all that she did have her baby.

She welcomed a little boy.

Everybody is healthy and happy, so just sharing that with you all since she's not with us.

We are still, we have a vacant position that we're hiring for, a planner two through four that will help support MPO and rural transportation, so transportation planning here at the PDC, so if you know of anybody, push them our way, and then the tip adjustments that Lucinda revised and then put into the chat

The $1,820,000 is the correct number, not the $1,806,000.

It was just an unusual nomenclature with decay.

So that was $1.82 million.

And then the final one that I have is, oh, those two have already been said.

There is, in the draft SIP, there is money in the budget for the governance study and the Albemarle Transit pilot project that we were talking about, but that's draft.

You already heard that.

Thank you very much.

No, sir.

Must have got called away.

All right, well then that will, oh, there are number nines items added to the agenda.

There were no items added.

I do want to clarify earlier when we approved the minutes, it was my understanding that motion was for the full set of three minutes.

The first one being the one that was amended, but just to clarify that as that question popped, so that that full set of minutes were approved.

And then the next item, number 10, again, second go for matters from the public.

Has anyone decided to speak for matters from the public?

All right, I see no hands raised, Ryan.

No requests there so we will close matters from the public.

I appreciate everyone's attending today and for all the updates.

Hope everyone has a happy holiday weekend and do note that the next meeting is our July 27th meeting and that will be in person.

So don't forget and remember there's drive time involved.

You know, just click on the link and

and instantaneously show up in person.

And you watch, it'll be me that forgets that it's in person and I'll be trying, where's the link?

So get ready staff when I'm asking for the emailed link.

But happy to be back in person starting in July and hope everybody has a good evening.

Thank you everyone.