MPO Policy Board Meeting   12/11/2023

Very good.

All right.

Supervisor Malek with Albemarle County, Supervisor Galloway with Albemarle County, Mayor Snook with Charlottesville, Councilor Pinkston with Charlottesville, Mr. Nelson with VDOT,

Ms. Londrey with VDOT, Mr. Rieck with Jaunt, Mr. Williams with CAT, Ms. Monteith with UVA, Mr. Wagner with DRPT, Mr. Minor with FHWA, Mr. Koenig with FTA, Mr. Kondor with CTAT,

All right, Ms. Jacobs with TJPDC.

Present.

All right, and just to go back, we were just joined by Mayor Snook with Charlottesville.

Do you want to indicate your attendance?

We're pleased to have you and Ms. Monteith with UVA.

Fantastic.

Okay, so

At this point, I'd like to ask if there are any members of the public you'd like to provide a comment.

There's one of them that's bring them in for speaker and Sandy will lead the time.

Is there anyone in the room with a question?

No?

Okay.

Anyone online?

Okay.

Fantastic.

So everyone should have a copy of the agenda.

Are we here or e-mailed to you?

So what I would ask, please, is for a motion and a second to adopt the agenda, unless something they'd like to add to whether it has the credit influence on it.

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OK, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

OK, anyone opposed?

If not, OK, we'll move forward to that.

And then we have the October 20 meeting minutes.

Second.

A motion and a second to approve the minutes.

All in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

Okay, so there we have it.

We have an agenda and we have a meeting to go to.

Now the next piece on the agenda has to do with officers for next year.

This past year I've had the honor of being chair.

Supervisor Malek, Vice Chair, we get to upset the apple cart, I guess next year we'll get to upset and just kind of change things up.

The practices, the alternate chair, we're always a chair between the county and the city.

We go before next year, it'll be sort of the county.

First thing we need to do though is select a nominating committee to help us figure out who the controlling anomalies are.

So I'm grateful that Ms. Monteith is willing to serve on a nominating committee.

Thank you for that.

And Mr. Nelson is looking to as well.

The third person will be either Ann or Ned, we were thinking,

What are the other obstacles?

During December is when this action will happen because sometimes there are changes in who will be, you may have to be a person starting in January.

So we might not have an answer until after that.

How would you personally vote city council?

No, to confirm, it doesn't preclude anybody on the nominating from serving as an officer.

So I'm sure Mr. Nelson is already kind of getting teared up.

Just give me a hard time right there.

Okay, fantastic.

So I think that takes us to our fifth item on the agenda, which is the Trends in Governance study.

This will be our

I guess I'll update.

We're in the PDCs in the final stages of completing the regional train of the government study.

Dr. Stephanie Gennelly, Angson, private manager of 80,000 has been joined, four has been joined, five has been joined.

Good morning.

Great.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Can you all hear me?

All right.

Excellent.

So thank you again for a chance to present an overview of the work that we've been doing over the past year.

I think throughout the process we've interacted with many of you in the room for this governance study and so as we round up we wanted to just summarize this and provide a means for continued engagement to continue to push this effort for setting up a

transit authority.

Now this study has been in collaboration, like I said, with TJPDC and my AECOM colleagues, but we've also had continuous engagement from the City of Charlottesville, from the Albemarle County and DRPT in our engagement.

So

This work is really a part of a step-by-step process that has been taking place in the region as far back as 2008.

There were efforts to set up a transit authority and that eventually ended up with setting up the regional transit partnership that was formed to coordinate transit activities throughout the region.

Following this, there have been other studies in looking at improving transit in the region.

One of these studies was the Regional Transit Vision Plan, which concluded last year.

And part of that was the development of networks that improve transit service throughout the region.

One of those transit networks was developed with the assumption that, or with a recommendation of setting up

Some sort of entity that could provide for additional transit revenue to pay for those additional services that are recommended in the transit vision plan.

And so this study, this governance study really is following up from the transit vision plan.

And throughout the study, we've had two main goals.

The first is to identify governance options for regional transit.

What could that possibly look like?

And then two, identify potential funding mechanisms for increasing those transit funding.

And so the approach we took was first to look at the existing conditions, including discussions with the existing operators and looking at the funding and governance structures of those entities.

And then we conducted a peer analysis where we spoke with

transit agencies, some of them were counties, but basically regions throughout the country that have similar characteristics to the Charlottesville region, meaning they have the urban core, they have some surrounding suburban or rural entities, as well as a major presence of a university.

And so we summarize all of those lessons learned and use that to identify potential revenue generation options.

Now with this, we also looked at existing RTAs in the Commonwealth to see what precedence has been set and what could potentially be applied in the Charlottesville region.

Finally, we looked at potential governance options, again, looking at the examples in Virginia as well as nationwide to develop these options.

Again, throughout the study, like I mentioned in the beginning,

We've had extensive stakeholder engagement, whether in a group setting or one-to-one setting.

We've engaged with local regional stakeholders, statewide representatives, as well as those from the national peers.

And so as we wrap up this study, there were some findings that came up to

That came up out of this study, so I'll just summarize those for us and we can stop me with questions any time throughout the discussion.

So the first was that we realized that throughout the study and our discussions with the localities, there is that desire for some form of regional governance as a desire for improving transit service throughout the region.

In terms of moving forward and keeping the momentum of this study, we are asking the localities and stakeholders to consider setting up an interim entity.

It could be a work group or a working committee that can discuss details of what a transit authority could look like.

as they also in the long term work toward presenting some sort of proposal to the state legislation to pursue transit funding, dedicated funding.

And so what we are asking for this small committee of stakeholders to look like is a team that can work on first engaging the localities, developing draft organizational documents that can be reviewed by

The localities and commented on also pursuing engagement with the university and the remaining stakeholders as well.

And this committee can also begin to work on the details of what the RTA could look like in terms of cost sharing or administrative functions and how those can shake out.

Next, we also came to the understanding that there was a need for rural transit assessment.

In our discussion with a rural locality, something that kept coming up was the general need to understand

What transit looks like for them in their localities.

They wanted to know where their transit dependent populations are located.

They want to know what proportions of the residents are receiving service that is needed.

They also wanted to find out what is the potential for added service for connections outside of Region 10.

So some have

Some travel demand outside of their localities into neighboring counties.

And so they wanted to further explore this.

We understand that Jaunt is currently undertaking such a study.

Next, there was a discussion of what perceived value in a regional approach could look like in terms of local control and having regional governance.

Would the regional

entity be able to serve local needs to the extent that is required.

And so what we ask is for there to be continued engagement as the next steps continue to develop, even if there's a drafting of potential legislation or any kind of proposal that is taken to the state level.

We think that the Rural Transit Needs Assessment would play a crucial role in this because based on the results of that, it can be evaluated against the transit vision networks that were presented in the previous study to identify and evaluate what needs can be added and what things need to be changed.

There can also be accountability mechanisms.

So when it comes to loss of control or getting benefits from any dollars that are invested with any entities that may have concerns, there are definitely accountability mechanisms that can be put in place to ensure that any kind of revenue that is generated is distributed in an equitable manner.

Lastly, we wanted to also focus on collaboration with the university.

Throughout the study, we did engage the university at some level, but we think that more discussion is needed to really narrow down on some of the details.

One thing that we saw or we identified throughout the peer engagement with the regions across the country is that regardless of their governance type, whether they were an independent authority with tax and power or they were a branch of a city department,

or a non-profit or public transportation corporation.

They all had a very close relationship with the university through either funding availability or some sort of contract arrangement.

And so we definitely think there's room to explore a deeper partnership with UVA for the Charlottesville region.

Part of that could come in many forms.

As discussions progress and details on what the regional solution could look like become clearer, there are ways to explore collaboration, to leverage additional funding, whether it's grant funding, federal or state funding, looking at potential ways in which

We can share costs for some functions, for example, whether it's admin functions or garage, maintenance garages, training programs.

There could be many options that could be explored, but then that needs to, the university system and the regional entity can come to some sort of understanding.

Another example that we saw in one of the peer cases was the university and the transit authority collaborating on innovative transit projects to get a lot of public support as well as to be able to get additional funding in pursuing those efforts.

And so those are some ways in which we think the university can be a strong partner for regional transit as we move forward.

So after looking at all of these, we also, like I mentioned, wanted to identify potential revenue sources.

To the left of the table you're looking at are examples of revenue sources we identified.

That fund, three of the transit

transportation authorities in Virginia currently.

They range from a sales tax to different types of taxes to other types of fees.

We had a lot of discussion with representatives from those entities, MVTA, HR TAC,

as well as VDOT and DRPT to try to identify what is feasible for the Charlottesville region considering existing conditions and also what the law would allow, current legislation would allow.

And so to the right is a short list of some of the revenue sources that could be explored for the Charlottesville region.

Now looking at these sources, definitely if other options come up, those can also be explored as the study next steps continue.

We also wanted to look at what a structure, an ideal structure could look like to govern this new funding that could be generated.

And so currently this existing legislation in the state law

That allows for Charlottesville, Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

However, the shortcoming of that legislation is it doesn't provide authority for funding.

And so it could be that legislation could either be modified or completely new legislation be presented to

The General Assembly, but we think that the current structure of that is a good example of what the ideal solution could look like.

And so the membership board participation could be with the urban areas, Albemarle and Charlottesville with the option for the surrounding localities to also participate if they choose to.

And have this entity be governed by a board of

elected officials.

The details of the other responsibilities and other powers granted to this entity are detailed in the final report for this study as well.

So in terms of the next steps for this work is for final reports to be reviewed by the localities to continue discussions and then

An important next step is definitely to set up a small volunteer group to champion the next steps and continued efforts for this work.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, I've read the report and it just seems like at this point we need to figure out what next steps are.

I think we're fortunate that we have the CARTA in place.

I know that there's some conversations happening with the adversity in terms of their ability to participate.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't know how you feel, Lloyd, but

Seems like a next step would simply be for a county attorney and a city attorney to figure out how we activate this CARTA and figure out some bylaws for it and at least get that going so that we can come back later on and let that be sort of a working group such that in a few months we maybe put something, ask our representatives to put something

I'm fine with that.

saying we're going to get these earnings together and try to figure out what it would look like.

I agree.

I think it's time to get off the dime.

I mean, we've seen a great study.

This is something that's been talked about for a long time.

We are fortunate that we do have that CARA.

There is an authority of some shape of hand that already exists.

So it seems to me, I guess follow up with the county executive and the state

and the city manager and say, hey, what would it look like to at least get the city and county on board?

I don't know in terms of the super bowl side of things.

I appreciate all the points that were made with the bowl side of things.

That seems to me like it's gonna take a while and I don't wanna wait.

And my sense of things is we know the essential pieces are Charlottesville, Albemarle.

We expect, I personally think that the university is also an essential piece.

Let's get that starting.

Let's get that going and start thinking about it.

And then we continue discussions with rural counties to see what their level of interest is, what form their level of interest might take, how it might dovetail.

that we could decide that our transit authority under certain circumstances might not have members, but might have a contract with them separately or something like that.

Okay, I feel like I'm having a groundhog fun here because what literally is required to

Activate to stand up the authority instead of what a partnership has been through.

Because we have the same funding ability we had in 2008 when we got the authority legislation.

I was there, I got yelled out of the room when they told us they were not going to give you the money because we didn't go away.

Because what?

Because if I'm on the bill to bypass the bill, you come back here to do that, so at least

The 29 Solutions Project put that issue to bed, actually.

And I think the university, over many years, has made it very clear that city and county need to figure things out, and then they will become a partner.

They're not going to get any level of it.

And I think that's many different leaders and administrators, and that's fine.

We just need to be grownups here and get this squared away.

So my original question is,

Is it the policy boards that each jurisdiction would need to say, yes, we're ready to go with this?

Okay, so we have the bylaws written in the partnership already.

And my eyes get crossed when I think about starting all the way to the beginning again, any of this.

We had the same taxing things in the transportation working group in 2005.

So I just don't want to go back there again and go through and spend another many years filling through all of that stuff.

So the members need to get it on their board's agendas to talk about this and figure out with our internal attorneys what's to be done.

That's how we understand it.

I mean, certainly it would come together.

I don't think the bylaws of the RTP would be sufficient for the authority.

It doesn't give them the same authorization that the RTA legislation gives them to be able to do regional transit planning, to be able to create service standards, like all of the different things within an authority.

You said the word are very different than what the RTP's bylaws would look like.

I don't know if we're not talking about a year's process.

I would not think so.

Considering what both county and city attorneys are already working on, I wouldn't worry about that.

But there are also other bylaw sets for transit authorities.

We have those.

We have drafts.

The blank pages are empty.

And this was very acceptable in the workforces to be able to just take the things that we're always having and change the things that we need to change when we're done.

What a next step we can get to ask the MPO staff to help coordinate the meetings with us and with the budget gallery and the executives and the attorneys.

The board needs to affirm that that's what they want to do, and then get together.

I mean, we're here as representatives of our board council, so we're not in a position to just go bell-banging off and do this on our own.

So I think an early January meeting that gets that square to a wedding, maybe a shoulder distinction would be the first thing for them.

We have this study and I think we could probably put together a very high level next step if this is what we want to work on.

Well, we're not sure.

To me, sooner or later we're going to have to get the attorneys and the executives together.

Correct.

Okay.

Resolution would be something along the lines of affirming that amendment to CARTA and the desire to work out by a policy.

Okay.

Okay.

And you should take a vote on that here if you know today.

Yeah.

Then, Lloyd, we can talk with, I guess, our team and not the other team no matter.

Wow.

Now, one caution, if we want this to be a public meeting versus not necessarily a public meeting with due notice and all that, we want to have it be a non-public meeting

There probably should be one counselor and one supervisor and whoever else as non-voting, people who are not voting in that position as part of it.

I mean, you can send a draft to the Chair and Vice Chair who are going to convey it to their

All right, thank you.

Good evening.

Sure.

Well, after months and months of considering what might happen, we finally have a decision from the CTB now.

So the Commonwealth Transportation Board met on December 4th last week, and they made some formal votes on what the changes are going to be to the SMART SCALE program in the summer coming around.

So I'm going to review some of those.

This is a summary of what happened, and then we're going to go through a couple of these points in a little bit more detail.

So the first item for consideration was a change regarding how the congestion factor benefits were going to be calculated for SMART SCALE scores.

So currently, based on what happened in round five, the projects were evaluated using a present year congestion factor.

So looking at

What delays were related to congestion currently?

Historically, this has gone back and forth between using present-day congestion factors and 10-year future congestion factor projections.

So this was a debate that again resurfaced during the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting.

What they ended up voting on was approving the use of a seven-year future congestion factor.

I think part of this was based on trying to reach a compromise because there wasn't clear consensus one way or the other but I think they landed on seven years basically because you have a year to get your project approved once you submit it through SMART SCALE and then it gets added to the end of the six-year improvement program six years out so you're using basically the projected future year that the project would begin being funded.

And of course, we have lots of members from VDOT here today, so feel free to jump in and add anything or correct me if I misspeak.

The second update that was under consideration was changing the way that the economic development measures were used to calculate the project scores.

So if you recall,

Currently what we have been doing is staff uploads a lot of site plans that have been submitted in the vicinity of projects that are part of the applications.

And what was being proposed was to move to uploading all of that information through a statewide database called Virginia Scans and pulling information from that database.

And so that change was approved.

So your staff, both your transportation planning staff and your economic development staff should all be aware of this at this point and will be working to make sure that any sites that need to be considered for entry into the Virginia Scans database, if they're not doing so already, are prepared and aware that that's something that they need to be having those discussions about.

It's a database that's maintained through the VEDP, Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

The third change was regarding the definition of the high-priority program eligibility and elimination of the second step in how funding is awarded.

So I'm going to talk about that in a little bit more detail in a separate slide because there were changes that were approved, but those modifications that were approved were not what we had previously seen, so there were some last-minute changes, and I'll go through that in a little bit more detail.

And then you all recall that there was discussion around reducing the number of applications that each entity would have.

They were talking about originally reducing it to two, and then they developed this three-tier application limit.

All of the changes to changes in the application limit, that was all voted down.

So the application limits that were previously held for the

But during that discussion, it was really pointed that we have to abide by the agreement.

All right, probably the most complex of all of these is the land use factor weighting adjustment.

So you recall that there was concern over the weightiness of the land use factor.

It was termed a single factor majority.

There were a lot of projects that were being funded based on their land use score, and there were some

What ended up happening at the CTB is that the CTB members voted to eliminate consideration for land use completely.

There's a little asterisk beside that because there was strong concern from staff on multiple different levels that this violated the regulatory language in the state code.

So it's possible that this may be revisited, but for right now at least land use is not a factor at all in the scoring process for smart scale projects.

There was, yes.

So that could be captured through the economic development score or through the accessibility score.

Accessibility is measuring the ability of our project to improve access to jobs.

What land use is trying to capture is, I think how it was referred to in the technical guide was transportation efficient land use, supporting transportation efficient land use.

Meaning if you have a place that has like a high residential population and has like a high number of, what do they call them, community destinations or attraction centers or something like that.

So there's a lot of places that people will want to go to.

from the old days in this circumstance was either Courthouse or Ballston in Arlington, which were transit demands, so they'd jilify and bury them, and nobody could park, and they'd get on widely.

Not that would have happened if there were not some way available, or it couldn't.

Well, it might have happened, but it could have been a mitigated accident, as opposed to having a very designated, very active area, and people are used to them being able

So how does that type of model get impacted by this change?

Yeah, so a couple of examples of projects that got really high LAND-G scores were, for example, the Avon Street multimodal improvements that the MPO had submitted in the previous round.

So that was basically improving the bicycle and pedestrian connection from

The city boundary where the bike lane stops to you know getting I think it didn't quite go to Wegmans but getting to further down the road I think it stopped across from where the transit center is or where the storage units are on Avon Road.

A little past the bridge.

So that was an example.

Actually, the Fontaine interchange project got a really high percentage of its points.

I think it was something like 8 out of 10 of its overall benefit points came from land use because there was a shared use path that was part of that interchange improvement.

So that's where some of the projects are getting their funding right now.

Even the District Avenue roundabout got a high number or high percentage of its points from land use because that was in a high development area.

Now that's a high priority program.

This doesn't really limit what is eligible to receive funding through the district grant program, but the MPO is not eligible to submit projects through the district grant program.

So this is the final definition that are the final set of projects that were considered for or that are going to be eligible for

The high priority program through SMART SCALE.

And so the first thing that I want to mention is that the final definition, if you recall, the materials that we have reviewed previously had new bridges listed as a separate category.

And there was not specification that this would only be highway bridges.

And the new and the final information that was presented for the Commonwealth Transportation Board that was

That they voted affirmatively to approve new bridge is included under new capacity highway projects.

And there was clarification at that meeting that the intention was that these would be bridges that had a highway component with them.

So not a bicycle and pedestrian bridge.

So the implication of that, of course, is that for the Ravenna River Bridge, that is likely not going to be a project that is eligible through the high priority program.

And then the definition of projects for new or improved interchanges did not change significantly.

There was some additional discussion about transit and freight improvements.

And so one of the things that was specified is that this would include new or improved passenger rail stations or corridor improvements basically related to freight and rail improvements.

So a transit bridge, for example, or something like a

Something like a dedicated lane for rapid bus transit could potentially be an eligible project through this transit and freight improvements definition.

And then the last one that was added based on feedback that had been receiving is this last bullet right here that is entire corridor improvements that are identified as the preferred alternative in a STAR study, a pipeline study, or an MPO study that was completed in coordination with the state.

So this is intended to take projects that come out of some of the VDOT supported

project development processes, but maybe the hydraulic bundle would be a good example of this because there's not one of those components that necessarily meets the definition otherwise, but there's a preferred alternative of a series of projects that would work together to improve operations.

So submitting all of those projects bundled together as one application could be eligible under this definition.

We have been working to get some clarification on how the MPO study and coordination with the state would be defined to determine if the Ravana Bridge might qualify under that definition.

It is unlikely at that point.

I think all signs are mostly pointing towards no, but until we see the final language, I think it will be hard to have a definitive answer.

Well, there's currently the final study for two-fifteen buildings without.

So that would be what we're talking about.

Well, I mean, I think that's the program.

I think it would have to be the entire set of recommendations as one project.

Any other questions or comments on this one?

So, oh, go ahead.

And those are separate pipeline studies?

Those are done, initiated by VDOT.

Those are the first one, and then there's Bill 254, so there's two.

Are they clumped under a larger effort, or are they two separate, two separate set up?

So if there's a total corridor study, what they don't want us to do is to submit individual components or individual projects out of those corridor studies that isn't a new capacity highway or a new or improved interchange.

We wouldn't be eligible to submit those.

But if there's a series of projects that are identified out of that plan as a preferred alternative, so the preferred alternative that comes out of one of those pipeline studies is to do maybe three different things.

And none of those meet the definition individually, but there are three things that are recommended that would work together that come out as a preferred alternative in those pipeline studies.

Okay, so the factor weighting modifications, this was also a pretty interesting discussion at the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

So as you recall, what happened is that when there was a recommendation to remove land use as a standalone scoring factor, there is a question about where should the points that were previously going towards land use be allocated?

So this table shows what was

Finally approved by the CTB.

What was interesting about this is that there was the recommendation that was developed by the OIP staff during the meeting.

There was a question asked to the commissioner directly of what his recommendation was going to be.

And then in some places there was a recommendation that was developed by CTB members themselves.

And a little bit of all of that ended up getting approved as part of this process.

So for area types C and D, the staff recommended scenario was approved.

So whatever points were currently coming from land use got reallocated to a combination of safety and congestion.

For area type A, this was a recommendation from a CTB member.

And then the MPO, so the urbanized areas are in type B.

This was actually the recommendation from the commissioner.

So the points that were going to land use were reallocated to a combination of congestion and accessibility.

We did not get additional points added to safety in our region.

There was some discussion about why that was from the commissioner, but this is going to be the final weighting scenario that we're assuming will be for our area.

And then for the non-urbanized areas of Albemarle County, you would fall under type C.

Alright, so that's where our scores for SMART SCALE are going to be coming from in Bronson.

Any other questions on this one?

Okay.

So with all that said, now that we better understand what the eligibility criteria is going to be for high priority projects, this is to the best of my knowledge, and after some consultation with Chuck, this is what we think the final list of projects that we could consider as the MPO for submission.

could be.

So we are looking at the, as we discussed at the last meeting, the diverging diamond interchange or another interchange improvement at I-64 and Fifth Street.

We could go back and reconsider a southern extension of Hillsdale that would connect from basically the Hillsdale roundabout near, not Wegmans,

Whole Foods down to 250.

And then we did complete two pipeline studies on round five that we submitted these as four individual applications, but we could bundle these together and submit them as one application each.

So one for Peter Jefferson Parkway and Rolkin Road, which actually scored pretty well in the previous SMART SCALE application cycle.

And then there was another one that was a bundle of projects from Louisa Road and Milton Road a little bit further east into Shadwell.

And then we have the two pipeline projects that are currently underway.

Keeping in mind that the MPO could potentially submit four projects we don't have to submit four and that the TJPDC will also have four application slots.

So we do have a little bit of time on the agenda today.

We don't necessarily need to discuss these in detail, but we can if you all would like to

Understanding that the pre-applications are going to need to be submitted in March.

I hope that the jurisdictions will gather together individually just to make sure that we get where they need to be in the county first.

But one thing I think I would hope both jurisdictions would make sure of is that before we put an obligation in, there are no impediments, business right-of-way, willingness, or whatever to go back to something that has been sitting for ten years.

That's a real concern.

And the second part is, are we better off having one sensational project for two or three nights much?

I don't know either.

Ben, do you have anything to add?

need to make sure that they can support the development of any materials that will need to be updated for these applications.

The other thing I'll just mention briefly is obviously the Ravana River Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge is most likely not going to be something that the MPO can submit.

It could still be an eligible project.

Unfortunately, I don't know if this is good news or bad news.

If Albemarle had submitted, you mean?

During the CTB meeting, it came out that the bridges were specifically for vehicular traffic, not just pedestrian roads.

So everything that gets seen prior to, in the scenario that we're on, this project was being changed to be funded in this scenario.

So if we had played by the rules that were just staff-recommended rules, where the bridge potentially had been a pedestrian bridge with a high quality bridge,

Right.

It's just not eligible for high priority.

What's that last sentence?

That's for the bridge specifically.

So they would have to be the applicant under the DDB.

I guess.

We need to have a process or a timeline or something we need to do to help drive these.

Yeah, the pre-applications will need to be developed in March.

So we'll need, I mean, I think at this point it's going to be a time crunch regardless because normally what we had tried to do in the last round was make these selections like by September or October.

So we had to wait until we knew what the new rules were going to be.

Is that coming through the MPO tech committee?

So that's the whole sort of managing a list.

Yeah, we're reviewing all of this.

We can ask them to make some recommendations at their next meeting to forward up to you all for consideration.

OK, well, it seems to me like there's a lot of stuff

And all the localities have already been engaged since it started engaging months ago regarding SMART SCALE for round six, so that falls off pretty well.

okay i'm just concerned about what we're going to end up doing in january recognizing what seems to be a rather tight timeline and i'm wondering why for example what council as council is going to be called upon to decide before next steps happen because our

We have both of our meetings in January on Tuesdays, the first and the third Tuesdays.

Well, I think the third Tuesday was the NPO Tech Committee.

MPO tech might happen the same day as the council meeting but the policy board will meet the next week so if there's additional information that comes out of that discussion at council we could consider that.

Maybe it would help to walk back a little bit though.

In March, we are submitting our pre-applications, which means basically we're saying this is what we are intending to submit full applications for.

We don't necessarily need resolutions of support from the localities at that point.

We won't submit final applications till August.

So that's when we would need to have everything finalized in place.

So how do we get that?

What form do we get?

What information?

I think on our side, Mr.

Chambers, we'll be working with Steven Hicks and Sam Sanders to figure out what our transfer project is and seeing if something similar would happen on the county side.

It sounds like they already won the case.

No, VDOT can just wait until we get

I think that in the presentation that Jeff made to the board last fall, that was super hard.

Yeah.

In all directions.

The third bullet point, TJPDC will also be able to submit four eligible projects.

Typically, we will do a call out to all of the localities to determine who might have projects that they would like to have us submit on behalf of the TJPDC.

That said, with these changes to the high priority program definition, there's probably going to be a very limited number of those applications that we're not already aware of.

So I got confused a few minutes ago about who carries the pipeline projects through the application process.

Is that something VDOT does because you've identified this solution?

Or is it one of the jurisdictions that has to be... VDOT cannot apply.

We're also in a unique situation because so many projects were previously funded that our list is not extensive anymore.

And so when we say we have an additional four slots for the PDC, we may not have four projects that are ready to be submitted because of how many were previously funded.

Alright, is there any other questions on this particular topic about SMART SCALE?

Yeah, I'm online.

I can give that presentation.

I had a meeting with a consultant that's doing those projects this morning.

We're starting the alternative development phase.

I actually reviewed the project forecast for each project and have given them approval on those.

And they are moving forward with developing alternatives for the Barracks Road study.

We're looking to have the stakeholders group meeting in early January and possibly go out for public comment on the alternatives, various alternatives later in January.

And so we can basically get feedback from them and then select a final preferred alternative in February.

Because it's got a lot more pieces to it, it's going to take a little bit longer.

We're looking at those meetings probably late January, early February, and then going out to public comment in February.

And then hopefully we'll know something before March.

And that's basically where we're at with those projects.

I wanted to chime in on the other stuff that you guys were talking about previously.

As Sandy pointed out, we're looking at, we're doing the Fifth Street Interchange Study for the MPO.

I've got a consultant that's working on that, and I've given them the go-ahead and the task orders, so they are actually collecting data and doing the initial alternatives analysis on existing conditions, collection that data and processing that, and then we will be bringing that to

The group, probably the policy board and the different MPO committees, possibly in January for their evaluation and they will be coordinating going out to the public probably into January, early February for the various alternatives.

That's going to include coordination with the central office and FHWA because it is on the interstate.

Great.

Thank you very much.

we don't have those we just came up with some various

Alternatives that they're going to start to look at, but I don't have anything other than a list.

And I don't have to check to see if it's even posted on the website.

It was part of the task order that we issued for the consultant to actually start to look at these alternatives.

We will have a meeting with the internal meeting and it will be meeting with the stakeholders group, like I said, early January.

And then we'll also have to be meeting with the

The county's got the citizens group that they're coordinating with.

We will be taking it out to them too, as well as the public survey in January.

But probably not, we probably won't have anything definite for you guys to look at until early January on Barracks Road.

Without prejudging anything, I know that there will be pressure from certain stakeholders

Like I said, it's probably going to be on a longer timeframe than the other study at Barrett Road.

And that's why I said it's probably going to be February timeframe for that one and March for the public outreach.

or end of February, early March for the public outreach and the citizens meetings.

We're trying to get that one in January.

And then once we go through that process, we'll see the feedback we get and then we can make a determination at that point, what the preferred alternatives are and then do we want to

Or can we decide on a preferred alternative without having some additional meetings?

You're welcome.

For your consultants who were working on the EDI at 5th Street and 64, are they out there on the ground

They're getting counts.

Probably they might be getting counts right now.

When we got the task order issued,

I want to say in November, it's just whether they were able to get the counts before Thanksgiving or not.

I'd have to ask to see for sure when they got counts.

But yes, we will be getting data from the peak hours, time of the day.

Probably, I think they're getting 12-hour counts to do that corridor.

So we will have a lot of information so we can look at the various alternatives.

And then see how they're going to work and which would function the best.

And then we'll be bringing those various alternatives to the committees to review.

And I don't know how sophisticated your wires on the road for counting are, but I think that what is alarming

to people is the fact that all the people turning left across north-south traffic to get on 64 in the direction stack up in the travel lane in all directions.

And so that is a really scary thing when you're sitting in traffic and somebody races up behind you at 55 and has to screech on the brakes because they don't know that you're standing.

And the same thing at the pipeline at Ivy Road when that Ivy Road exit traffic

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Proctor.

So just want to let you know that we are still moving along on everything with our long-range transportation plan.

So there are a couple of things that I'm going to bring to your attention, and there are links to the full maps that were included, and it's included in the memo.

The links are included on the memos.

But we were able to complete our first runs of the travel demand model outputs, and so I'm going to go through those outputs originally.

So just to remind you all, the travel demand model takes input on it breaks the entire region up into these smaller geographic areas called travel analysis zones or TAZs.

And basically we are able to

to program in different socioeconomic data related to populations, numbers of jobs, numbers of school-aged children, numbers of households without vehicles, those kinds of things.

And it helps us understand what the impact is over our transportation network.

The purpose of this is to help us understand what the current volume over capacity of our current network looks like now using baseline data and then projecting out to a future year.

So we're using 2050 for this plan to help us understand that based on the current

growth projections, what the network would look like if we didn't build any new infrastructure.

So right now we are only comparing our baseline conditions and our future no-build conditions.

What will happen is that once we have identified preferred projects that we would like to move forward with, we can again model our future no-build or our future network

taking into account what the selected projects would be to see if there is an impact on the volume member capacity for the network.

So we don't have preferred projects, we're just looking at what the network looks like now and what it would look like in 2050 if there was no change.

So in order to make sure that we are comparing apples to apples, what I did was we got the volume over capacity outputs from the modeling team with VDOT and I converted these to use basically the level of service ranges.

So you'll see there's A, B, C, D, E, and F. What I did on the maps was I combined E and F for no other reason other than I had five ranges and adding a sixth range was a little bit beyond my technical capacity.

So if something is bright red, it's ERF, which means that the network is either at capacity or is projected to be over capacity.

So I thought those were the ones that we would want to pay attention to anyway.

All right, so I'll just go through a couple of areas to highlight a little bit more detail, but again, all the maps, the full detailed maps and higher resolution thanks to Ruth's GIF capabilities are available if you want to take a closer look.

So the first one is looking at the Garth Road, Ivy Road area on the right-hand side.

At the right-hand side is the current baseline conditions, and then on the left-hand side, these are the future

No build conditions.

You can see that the Scarth Road area goes from yellow basically to red and orange.

So yellow is kind of that middle range.

The level of service is CRD.

That's when you kind of start looking like maybe there could be some issues in the future.

And it turns out in 2050, if there are no improvements there based on the growth projections, it would

Start to reach, the roadway would start to reach its capacity.

You can also see a little bit right here.

This is like the, I guess where 250 and 29 come together right here, starts to get a little bit more red in that area.

We can look at downtown Charlottesville.

You can see that this 250 bypass gets a lot darker.

Again, the 2021 conditions are on the top.

2050 conditions are on the bottom.

You can see that there's already some capacity issues at the top here in the top scenario, and then it gets redder as we move into 2050.

And then this area along 250, kind of not actually related to Free Bridge as much, but on both sides of Free Bridge, it continues to experience some volume over capacity issues.

And there's also, I thought it was interesting to look at these networks downtown that are starting to, more of the smaller road systems in downtown are starting to light up.

And then along North 29, one interesting thing that I noticed along North 29 is the section of North 29, north of pillow grounds road in the current scenario is showing these red and orange spots and then

If you move to 2050, those look like they're moving to playgrounds drive.

So again, this basically gives us an opportunity to understand the congestion considerations and the demand on the roadway networks.

But these will come out a little bit later once we have some preferred projects that we would like to move forward with.

But just wanted to pass those along to you, give you an opportunity to look at those in case it's something that's of interest and give you an opportunity to ask any questions that you might have at this point.

Otherwise, if you're ready to move on, I can keep going.

Okay.

All right, the needs prioritization, as you recall, we've been working through starting with looking at what the overall network needs are, and then once we get to complete this analysis, we will be able to move forward to start matching our needs against projects, and that will help us narrow down our project priority list.

We are hoping to have a first screening of those to you in January, but so far we have worked through two of our

Two of our sets of metrics and then we should be able to finish the last sets of metrics this month.

We started with the hardest ones and so the other ones should be a little bit easier and more efficient to get through.

So completed to date, we have the bicycle and pedestrian safety needs prioritization completed.

We have the multimodal accessibility for our form measures completed.

We're very close to finishing the roadway safety.

And then we have started to look at the efficiency and economic development measures and the land use coordination.

So again, there is data that is, there were maps that were included as a link.

So you're welcome to go through and look at any of these in more detail.

A couple of caveats is that I'm going to go through and demonstrate the data that we have developed to date showing basically what each of these metrics looks like individually.

I do want to caution though that our intention is not to consider these as individual metrics, but to consider the cumulative impact.

So I think it's helpful to look at the metrics because they help us understand the data and make sure that it makes sense.

But I don't want to put too much emphasis on looking at any one particular metric by itself.

So the first metric that you'll recall is looking at the bicycle and pedestrian safety.

This is basically taking the top 5%.

We ended up using regional corridors versus statewide corridors because the way that data, the information that was

developed for the network was different in regional versus statewide.

And if we use the top one percent of the regional corridors versus the top five percent of statewide corridors that were actually links that were missing.

So to make sure we are capturing all of the geographic area that had been identified as wanting to be considered by the policy board,

We included the top 5% of regional corridors.

So this is looking at the darker segments are showing that this is where there is, these are the highest bicycle and pedestrian safety needs based on using that network as our starting point to determine the needs.

So this is the 29 corridor.

This is 250 and Pancabs near Free Bridge and then along Fifth Street.

Okay.

Then moving into our access to jobs, if you'll recall, what this is measuring is it's measuring where people are coming from and where there are opportunities to improve the number of jobs that people can access.

So what is being sort of captured right here is the origin of where people are coming from, where there's an opportunity to improve access to jobs.

So these are the census blocks, basically, where we can improve access to jobs for these people.

It's not capturing where people are going.

So if we're looking at bicycle access to jobs, you'll see there's a lot of potential for improving access maybe outside of the city center.

So you look at the urban center, there's good access to jobs by bicycle right now.

The biggest opportunities for improving access are for people that are living a little bit further out.

If you're looking at auto access to jobs, this is measuring the difference between

How long it takes people basically, it's measuring the number of jobs people could access within a specified period of time, comparing the difference between how many jobs people can access now versus how many they could access if

If the network was operating at off-peak hour conditions.

So you'll see that the biggest, if we use a threshold of 25 minutes, this is measuring, this is how many jobs people can access now by car versus how many they could access if they were able to reach the entire, the same number, or yeah, versus off-peak conditions.

So you can see again that the biggest opportunities are out here in Crozet and this northwestern portion of Albemarle County.

We tried a couple of different times.

Evaluations right here.

We started with 45 minutes, and I'll show you that as well.

But I think what we realized is that our MPA region is pretty small, that 45 minutes may be too high of a number.

And so we tried this alternative using 25 minutes, which felt a little bit more reasonable.

And one of the justifications for using 25 minutes is this is actually the statewide average commute time.

So we felt like that probably gave us a better indication of

What the reasonable opportunity to improve access to jobs was using vehicles.

And then we looked at the accessibility improvements for transit access to jobs.

So what this is measuring is how long it takes people who are currently using transit to get to jobs and how many more jobs they would be able to access if transit ran as efficiently as automobiles.

So this also includes trip chaining events.

So if somebody is getting into a car and driving to a transit station and then getting onto a bus stop and then getting onto a bus, it includes that full range of all of those activities associated with taking the bus.

So you'll see that in some places there are trips that are originating where we know that there's not a bus stop.

But it includes any other activity that goes into getting onto a bus.

And so again, you'll see that a lot of the opportunities tend to be outside of the Urban Center and are more on the further away portions of the MPOA area.

Then the last one is looking at the transit access to jobs by disadvantaged populations.

And so this is looking at the equity emphasis areas, which is a composite score that is determined in the statewide transportation plan, looking at where there are

This is looking at

If there's an equity emphasis area that already has transit access, what's going to light up is where there is an opportunity to improve their access to jobs.

So it's taking a much smaller starting demographic compared to the other one.

So again, each of these individually tells part of a story, but when we put them together, and I think the transit access to jobs is pretty interesting, is if you're looking at the region as a whole and the population generally, there's a lot of opportunity to increase transit access for people on the outside parts of the MPO versus if you're looking specifically at disadvantaged populations, the opportunity is much more focused on improvements to the urban centers.

So

Again, the data is available for your review if you'd like to look at it more closely.

The need is the tie as opposed to the availability.

Yes.

Just look at this diversity.

Fantastic.

I will kick this off real briefly.

We did receive the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the next round of RAISE grants.

The application portal is currently open.

Those are due at the same time next year, February 28, 2024.

We are prepared, it sounded like there was general interest in continuing to pursue a RAISE grant for the Ravenna River Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge.

We are certainly prepared to resubmit that scope, maybe with some modifications to the application itself.

It did, if you recall, it did score very well and it was considered to be a competitive project through the RAISE grant.

This is federal money?

The application we submitted was to complete the preliminary engineering phase of the project.

The goal of doing that would be that we would have a better estimate for the construction cost at that point.

There are a couple of different options that we could move forward with if we were successful in getting that RAISE grant.

The first one is that we could apply for another RAISE grant to do the construction of the bridge once we have a cost estimate.

The second option is that if one of the localities wanted to submit the application through SMART SCALE for the RAISE grant and that was successful, we could leverage the funding that we received through the RAISE grant against that application.

So we could pay for the PE phase of that application or of the SMART SCALE project through the RAISE grant.

Which would reduce the cost that we would have to submit as the SMART SCALE application overall.

The third scenario is that maybe it's not successful through SMART SCALE or an applicant doesn't want to move forward with SMART SCALE.

I agree.

Okay, great.

I'll start working on it now.

Hopefully, it won't be nearly as much of a lift as it was previously.

To update that, we'll coordinate with VDOT on updating all of our CAS estimates.

But I'll probably come back in January to ask you for a more formal resolution support.

The applications will be due February 28th.

It'll also go before the TJPDC commission in February, because technically the PDC will be the applicant.

So you guys would be making a recommendation to the PDC to apply.

OK. All right.

As you probably heard, the TJPDC was awarded a safety requirements for all grant to develop a safety action plan for the region and its jurisdictions.

And this plan will identify opportunities to eliminate the penalties and reduce serious injuries on the roadway network.

So we retained a consultant to assist in this process and we are just now getting things really underway.

We have the first working group session with special staff from all of the jurisdictions this Thursday.

So what do you think will be sort of the output from this?

So one important thing to keep in mind with this is once we do this planning, we will have specific projects for each jurisdiction that we would then be eligible to get additional funding for.

But if you don't have a plan, you can't even, you're not eligible to apply.

Any other questions on that?

Yeah, I just want to put on your radar now that I will be coming to you all in January with some substantive changes to our TIP document.

One of the things that we've realized when looking at this TIP document just recently is that since 2015, at least, we have included Jaunt's expenditures, scheduled smithing, and we just realized that Jaunt is not a direct recipient of federal funding, so they actually do not

need to be considered and included in our TIP.

Their funding is captured through the state and through CATS basically operating expenses since the funding that Jaunt receives to operate in the city is providing the paratransit services.

And so we are going to be updating the document to be consistent with basically the state spending schedule and removing all of those references.

There are also some other small changes related to additional funding that was provided to CAT for some of their additional studies that we'll be making, but we'll wait until January to update all of those at one time.

A significant number of modifications that you all will see in January for the Transportation Improvement Program.

So it is that schedule.

It is the expenditure.

Correct.

Do both the transit agencies you just mentioned report to somebody about all of these studies that they're doing, the things that you're taking out of our reporting system?

So you would have all the things that CAT can show up on it.

And all of CAT's scheduled spending will stay in our tip because they're within the urbanized area.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, well that's been showing up somewhere.

Yes.

Good, thank you.

Okay, any other questions on that?

Yes, this is included in your document.

So the tip tells us what funding is going to be scheduled.

The annual obligations report tells us what funding was actually spent on in the previous year.

So that one has been prepared and has been provided to you all for review.

There's no vote.

This is basically keeping the ledger of all various expenses.

Most of it is VDOT's decisions on how to use the federal allocations we have to pay for the projects that we're doing throughout the year.

And there's a report like this that's for each MPO statewide.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we're at our last item here, round table updates.

We'll start with our friends at VDOT.

Who can you group?

Sure.

We've got a public hearing scheduled for December 12th, which is tomorrow for the 5th Street Station Prep, which is an MPO-submitted project.

So it's going to be at the Albemarle County 5th Street Office Building.

That project right now is currently scheduled to start construction from 2025.

I would also like to give this board an update regarding the Fontaine Avenue project.

Over the last few months, we started to hear concerns regarding the project that was submitted by the NPO around the floor, which is in 2020.

Those conversations revolved around concerns that the part of the project fixes the northbound

There were concerns about that movement, so the department took heed to those concerns of the various stakeholders and we looked at various alternatives

to address their concerns.

So my goal is to come back to this board in January to go over what those concerns are, look at the various options that we've come up with to address those concerns,

Could you, Sean, send out some preliminary information?

I hear what you're saying, Jim, what you're talking about, but if there's anything you can send out prior to Christmas, let's start.

Yes, we can send them.

We can send them.

Is this type of university right in the middle?

So we're going to make sure you all have a chance.

Yeah.

OK. All right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

The only thing I'll add is we've had some staffing changes.

Michael Barnes is leaving us, has left us, and is moving over to a position with the county.

So we're excited for him and glad that we're going to be able to continue to work with him.

Chuck and I, with his position, they can, and then also we have another position in planning that we're actually going to be interviewing for this week.

So hopefully we will have a more junior level planner joining us and then be able to fill Michael's seat,

So if you don't mind about it, go for it.

Thank you.

Just to assure you all, we are working on thinking about smart scale projects.

We're in the next round.

We've been having internal discussions, keeping the city, the NPL, and VDOT in the loop.

And we'll have an initial list of projects in our transportation quarter that are reported to the Board of Supervisors in the gangway.

We've also been working on our budget process for the next fiscal year.

And we're kind of in the boring middle of a lot of different projects.

We'll be coming back to the Board of Supervisors in spring of next year to talk about the Amarillo County Transportation Priorities document.

We're in the middle of the Pre-Bridge Loma Frana pilot program, planning for that.

And we found out for our three notch trail PRAISE grant award, we finally cast the overview for federal government.

So we have some minor changes that make to the grant agreement.

Once we've resubmitted, it will be six to eight weeks before we will have access to funding and can finally officially start our project.

Wow.

Yeah, so as part of our work in the last facility year, we had some small studies

And one of those studies was looking at free bridge lane, which is kind of an underutilized roadway that connects our hotel part to free bridge or 215 just east of the big line.

There is a shared use path that is not super well kept on the west side of that roadway.

And in our penthouse master plan that had been completed a couple of years ago, there was a vision of transforming that into a green street, so making it kind of a linear park.

And what we're going to be doing with the board's support, and if we can find funding to do it, is to make that transformation happen.

Great.

Mr.

Chambers?

Sure.

both of those programs are on pause right now because it's bleach season.

So once we get past bleach season we'll be heading back out there to put more paint and plastic on the ground.

We are largely in between with our bike parking inventory.

Tommy is now looking for places to put new bike parking throughout the city and working with vendors to purchase racks and corrals to put all over the city, largely on West Main and downtown for the time being, but we're also going to be looking to branch out from there.

I'm working to wrap up some scopes to work to get started at the beginning of next year.

That'll include our

as well as a re-striping plan for West Main Street and a potential new alternative for a road diet on 5th Street, Southwest.

CAT is currently working through this kind of strategic plan.

We're about halfway through that right now.

We've got some draft recommendations pulled together, but then we need to work with our capital plan and our operating plan and make sure that those are feasible recommendations.

Once we have those numbers pulled together, there will be another round of public engagement to make sure that those recommendations are palatable to the public.

Alongside of that, CAT is working on its alternative fuel study.

We're hoping to get that wrapped up in January.

We have a visit that is being planned to another transit provider that has already gone through a similar study to see sort of what the outcomes of their study were and what their decision-making process was in that study.

So excited to see

that come together in January as well.

The city is finishing up its ADA transition plan.

We have done an assessment of all of the sidewalks and right-of-way throughout the city at this point, so we know exactly what's broken.

The next step is putting a dollar figure to all of those broken pieces and then figuring out what the prioritizations will be for that.

We'll be working through that in January.

Julia, anything from the University?

Okay, thank you.

Nothing more to add.

Okay.

Hello, this is Steven, can you hear me?

Yep.

No, we didn't have any updates or anything.

We do have a new person that started with us last week.

I think she's still on the on the call page.

She's a community planner as well.

She's part of our

Professional Development Program.

She just started so if she's still on the line I'll let her introduce herself.

Yes, hi.

I'm Paige DeBold.

It's great to be here.

And I previously worked at a regional planning council in Florida.

So I have some familiarity with the work that you're doing.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Mr. Proctor, anything else for the group?

Mr. Kondor?

We still don't have sound from you, Lee.

Thank you very much Sandy and staff for pulling all this together and helping us get through the other meeting.

We have another chance for members of the public to speak.

Is there anyone who wants to

Okay, I think then that we can determine it.

I think formally, you usually do.