MPO Policy Board Meeting   5/21/2024

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm from Charlottesville, our Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board for our Tuesday, May 21st, 2024 Club meeting.

And we'll have to vote in some participation electronically here at the moment.

Supervisor Malek.

Councilor Offren.

I'm going to go through non-voting.

Excuse me.

Sorry.

Mr. Murphy.

Ms.

Mr. Williams.

Mr. Wagner.

Mr. Miner.

Mr. Condor.

Here.

Just a quick update.

Mr. Wagner at DRPT has taken a different position, and we have an interim at DRPT.

It's Wood Hudson, but he wasn't able to make today's meeting.

Great.

And we may have a second member joining us electronically, but now Mr. Nelson is joining us virtually.

Mr. Nelson, we have to vote you in.

I am currently in Busch Gardens right now, chaperoning an eighth grade field trip.

Does not allow me to be there with you all today, which I would rather be.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstentions?

All right, you are ahead.

No comments.

Thank you.

You can't see it.

All right, thank you.

That will take us to matters from the public.

Is there anyone in the room who wishes to get public comments?

And I can leave the comments for sure.

All right, please come up.

You have 20 minutes.

Good afternoon policy board.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Kiedmon Environmental Council.

I just have a couple of quick notes to share today.

First of all, I and the host of organizations that have put together Bike Month in Charlottesville and Albemarle would like to really thank the county, the city, and also the TVA PDC for really backboning Bike Month this time.

We've had just

really a full month of activities, more than one activity per day.

One of my favorite ones actually has been having a bike valet parking service at Fridays After Five.

And the racks are filling up, so it's pretty cool to see how bikes could be quite easily inserted into the transportation mix.

Another of my favorite events has been E-Bike Demetas, which have been both in the city and county and even at schools in both the city and Lee County.

Again, like E-Bikes, when I started working with PCs seven years ago, you know, I was hearing about like hills.

Charlottesville is not Amsterdam.

We got big hills.

It's hot as anything.

People will be sweating for work.

Back then, I don't think anybody really thought about how e-bikes could transform the options that people have for transportation.

And I, of course, part of my deal is never speak for any organizations that are not PC, but I believe Rideshare is still sponsoring a raffle for organizations that are logging their miles traveled with an e-bike.

So that's pretty cool.

Pivoting to the other half of what the Active Mobility Alliance promotes, walkability.

A number of organizations are also, including the city and the county and T3PBC and others, are working with AARP to sponsor a walk audit, which is really a full day workshop about promoting walkability in urban spaces.

And indeed, this

interactive mini conference is happening.

If you throw a dart and you're good at it, you do it right in the middle of the MBO, which is a hydraulic train line.

So it's going to take place at the Homewood Suites, which is behind the Whole Foods, I think.

So that's June 7, all day, Friday.

It's free.

I fly over by Gretchen for the walkability.

I am.

I just want to remind the Policy Board that

back when we were considering the improvements to the US 29 hydraulic road interchange and the VDOT proposal to eliminate left turns from hydraulic road and install roundabouts on hydraulic road at Hillsdale and District Avenue was approved that

Supervisor Malek also said that the flyover option should be included in the long-range transportation plan.

When I reviewed the draft, I didn't see it there, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to mention it because I think it should be there.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who wishes to get public comment?

All right, we will close matters from the public.

Thank you.

And we move to item three.

So we have, we have to review and accept the agenda.

Any changes to the agenda today?

Is there a motion to approve?

Move for approval of the agenda.

Thank you.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstentions?

Thank you.

and then we need to approve the minutes of April 24, 2014.

Any changes or edits to those minutes?

Alright, is there a motion to approve?

I move for approval of the April 2024, April 24th, 2024 meeting notes.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

Great.

I'll turn it over to Alan after a really quick bit of gratitude.

As you guys know, pulling up a plan together like this in 18 months is a large undertaking.

especially when we've had a major staff transition.

So I want to make sure just to publicly thank all of the focus groups that were involved, all of the MPO committees, CTAC, MPO Tech.

We received a lot of support on this project and a lot of feedback at different points all the way down to this final version and trying to refine it so it's the best plan that we can put out there.

So I just want to say a thank you to everybody who really spent the time to dig through it, to find edits, to make suggestions so that we can polish it.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I will second that.

Thank you all so much for taking a look and sending in your comments.

I have a really brief presentation that I'm going to give just going over the revisions that we made since the last time we met.

And I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and go over that.

So should be coming up here.

And you all see the PowerPoint slide?

Yes.

OK, great.

All right, so quick presentation here.

So our agenda, we're going to talk about the revisions, what the final draft looks like, the next steps, and any questions if there are any.

So since the last time we met, we received and addressed over 80 suggested revisions to the plan from the technical committee, the citizens advisory committee, and the policy board.

And I'll kind of run through what the nature of those revisions.

I won't go through every single one, but

We included a more thorough discussion of the goals, objectives, lenses, the performance metrics, and the needs evaluation metrics we developed for the plan.

We made some minor revisions to the constrained and vision lists for improved readability and organization, and we added a few projects to the vision lists at the request of Albemarle County staff.

On page 58 of the version that you have in your packets, there was an error in the thresholds for the high, medium, and low need scores.

So

The method that we use was a seven point scale, but the highest score that we had in the process was 5.07.

So we simplified the scale into three categories, high, medium, and low, high being scores from three to 5.07, medium being scores from two to 2.9, and low being scores from zero to 1.9.

The version that you all have in your packet, I still had the information about the seven point scale in there, so that sentence was inaccurate.

I had forgotten that we had changed it at some point in the process, so my apologies there, but that language right there is what's in the plan now, and that's the scale that we actually use throughout the process.

We have finalized versions of all the appendices, so we included project review pages for each project, so that includes vicinity maps, detailed descriptions of each project,

The breakdown of the needs prioritization score for each project.

So that's a compliment to the constraint and vision lists, or just the constraint list, excuse me, and a record of all public comments we received.

We revised all the maps in the document, so there's new high-resolution versions of every single map.

I changed the base map to make it easier to read.

Most of the symbology was changed just to make it a little easier to look at.

You can zoom in now and see things in detail.

The previous version had some lower resolution maps.

Those should be easier to see.

In most cases, I also included a zoomed in map of Charlottesville, so you can see the location of, you can look more closely in detail to conditions in the city.

So those are compliments of the MPO maps.

High res versions of all the charts and graphs as well.

Those were all redone for this version.

Some updates to the acknowledgement section and some minor grammar and style edits throughout the document.

All told, about 80 revisions to the maps and the content of the document.

And then the final draft, which you have in your packets, incorporates all those previously mentioned revisions.

The layout's been fully overhauled, so the previous version was just a Word document, and now it's a more polished, hopefully visually appealing document.

It should be easier to read and navigate.

And next steps, so

MPO may decide to revise the plan at any time.

While it must be adopted this month, there are future opportunities to tweak the document if necessary.

And just thanks again for all your valuable feedback, your guidance and support throughout this process.

You all helped make this a much better plan than the version that I sent you last month, so we really appreciate it.

Well, I don't imagine.

Great.

All right.

Okay.

Sorry.

Asterix, I guess, of the one revision that Mr. Simpson chaired with the scaled score.

Motion's been made.

Seconded.

Councilor Pinkston.

Yes.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson.

and appreciate everyone's efforts.

Can I do a thank you to the EPR team?

They had a contracted role from the beginning to support with technical assistance and to support some of the community engagement and with staff transition, they took on a much more substantive role and have made themselves

very accessible.

They've been a pleasure to work with.

They've been very, you know, flexible and gracious and catching the team up that wasn't involved from the beginning.

And so just to thank you to you all for helping get us to the finish line in such a short period of time.

Thank you, Alan.

Happy to help.

Great.

All right, that will take us to number five, VDOT update on projects.

And the first is the I-64 Fifth Street Interchange Improvement, did I click 120?

and then the barracks were a pipeline, 29 U.S.

250 interchange and shared these back.

We was going at them.

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So good to be with you all today.

Chuck is not able to be here today.

I just want to first of all thank him in the meeting while the gratitude is flowing freely for helping to put together this presentation today.

But the first thing I want to do is just remind you all of what the projects are that we have been working on supporting.

For spread scale applications, there's going to be a resolution in the packet that you all will have the opportunity to vote on.

So we want to make sure we answer as many questions as we can up front about the projects and then also provide some additional information because we were doing some additional work with the Street 964 interchange project.

So we are in good shape as far as meeting all the milestones or the gates or what they're calling it's more smart scale to make sure that the projects are on track to be ready for the final applications which will need to be submitted on August 1st.

The three kind of, three kind of war projects that the MPO is working on developing is the Fifth Street guy 64 interchange improvements.

the Pam Tops corridor slate of projects that was developed as part of the round five application development process and then two projects for the barracks certified pipeline.

We're not going to spend a lot of time today going over the U.S.

250 Pam Tops corridor pipeline.

If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer those, but I want to make sure we have time to answer any questions related to this.

That's great.

I have 64 interchange improvements in barracks groups.

So to start with the 5th Street interchange, this slide just shows the conditions.

This is what is there right now, a traditional pipeline.

The purpose of the project that we are, so the needs that we're trying to address as far as what improvements we want to see at this location is that there are high crash volumes both on 5th Street and on the eastbound ramp coming off of 64 heading onto 5th Street.

There are multiple V-trans needs related to safety, both for general safety as well as pedestrian safety, bicycle and pedestrian and transit connections, congestion mitigation, and our goals are to address both of the interchange operations and safety as well as enhance multi-vital accessibility.

We have undergone a more recent public engagement process to get feedback on what the preferred alternative would be on this location, but this improvement really was identified initially as part of a good street corridor study that was completed a couple years ago with substantive stakeholder engagement where the DDI was identified tentatively as the preferred solution for this area.

So this is

and it did come to that initial work that had been done to confirm that this would be the preferred solution in terms of developing the application.

So this first slide right here shows the location of crashes and the types of crashes that are being experienced at the interchange currently.

There are a number of therein crashes that are occurring on this eastbound ramp as well as between the on and off ramps

along Fifth Street.

What's the time frame for this data collection?

It's a five-year window.

They use that five-year crash history.

Yeah.

There was one pedestrian-involved crash on Fifth Street during the time period that the data was collected.

There were four alternatives that were developed and put out for public feedback in terms of the public survey.

So this graphic there just showed an analytical comparison of the different options based on what the anticipated outcomes would be if each of these alternatives were implemented.

So the first column right here is the existing conditions.

There's an optimized item, the DDI, this buoy that is a single point, urban, and rearranged.

And then this platform holding concept is basically the existing conditions and adding a site.

And we can go through what each of those alternatives are.

But the first thing that we looked at was running each of these

alternatives through an analytical tool to determine what the operational output outcomes would be over each of these alternatives.

So this first row shows the volume to capacity improvements or outcomes that would be anticipated.

Existing conditions show the volume is fairly thin in capacity.

And then the volume to capacity is reduced through these different treatments.

The stable point urban interchange has the highest improvement, so it has the highest reduction in volume to capacity.

The optimized diamond has the most minimal impact, and the DDI is invisible.

And then we looked at the crash modification factor, and so this is a factor that tells us how much we could anticipate the crashes could be reduced under each of these alternatives.

So the way you would use this crash mode appreciation factor is you would multiply this basically against the number of crashes that you're seeing now.

And that would be the anticipated number of crashes that you would see if any of these alternative improvements were put into place.

So the lower the number, the higher the reduction in crashes you would be compared to the existing conditions.

The one thing that I want to make sure is clear is that this 0.12 right here for the sidewalk holding concept

would only show that crash modification factor, this only applies to pedestrian related crashes.

So there's one pedestrian related crashes, this does not apply to crashes that don't involve pedestrian.

And then this relative cost shows how much each of the interventions or alternatives would cost or listen to each other to get kind of a

idea of the Walmart cost ratio.

Can you explain a little bit more about how the sidewalk does it, the math does it factor in, how that would affect RFR factors?

Yeah, so this is only a crash modification factor.

The only crashes that this would demonstrate an impact to would be pedestrian-related crashes.

So the sidewalk would reduce pedestrian-related crashes by basically

80%.

Right.

But there's no map on what the sidewalk would be used for to diminish car and park that was done, or it's not known how that would be done, or how come that's not something that we're able to include in that, because there wouldn't be an impact based on the analysis table that's there.

The sidewalk that it would be in here would have an impact even though theoretically it would be making the lane smaller and

I can't specifically tell you how it applies in this specific context, but this is basically just looking at a table of how much each of these alternatives would have an impact on the crash rates.

So can I clarify, that means just adding a sidewalk, not what adding a sidewalk would do to the width of the lane.

If you did all of this, then it could definitely have that much.

Any other questions?

Okay.

So there were four different alternatives that were included in the survey for the public feedback.

The first one is the DDI.

We can talk about this in more detail because this was identified as the preferred solution.

That, spoiler alert, was confirmed out of the public feedback.

So we can talk about this a little bit more at the end.

But basically there would be a shared use cop that starts in the north on this end.

So this would be the northeast quadrant that would connect to the Straight House and Trail project that's granted under development.

So there would be a connection to the multi-modal facilities.

The shared-use path runs along the east side of the street.

It would cross at this leg of the interchange ramps.

This would be a softly rolled location for the crossing.

So there's a signal that would support the pedestrian advance through the ramp.

The shared-use path would go down the middle of the diverging diamond.

It would be a 10-foot shared-use path with either a one or two foot

barrier on this side and then with your concrete barrier that is supposed to place to provide a physical barrier between multimodal movements and the particular traffic and then the crossing would be on the southwest side also at a signalized crossing.

and then the connection, the shared-use path would continue to this first generated variant where there's a next to the same cycle.

So that was the first alternative that the public has passed away in.

The second alternative is an optimized diamond, which would live a lot like what's there right now.

The addition would be that there would be a right turn slip from 5th Street onto 64 in both directions.

That's added.

and then there would also be a eastbound left turn, like an additional eastbound left turn thing that's added.

And there would be sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.

The Single Point Urban interchange would basically have a centralized traffic signal in the

at the midpoint of the intersection that would control the direction of all of these.

And then it would provide a shared-use path on the west side of the street.

The challenge with the single-point urban interchange is that you would need a much wider bridge.

And so if you go back to that first chart, it shows this was being very expensive because you would have to rebuild the bridge in order to

And then the last alternative that was considered is basically the existing diamond as was there now and the improvement would be that sign off on the bottom side of the group.

So because this is all for public comment, we got the comments back on Friday.

So we did try to do some analysis on the survey responses, but it is pretty limited at this point.

And you can see out of all of the alternatives, we had 160,000 survey respondents overall.

And on average, the highest score was for the diverging time out of all of the alternatives.

Just curious, is that like a lot of respondents from the studies that we know, or is that average or low?

I don't know how to, I mean, I would say like the being pretty high, but I think we've seen an uptick in the number of responses recently, but more recently there's been more responses, higher response rates on some of these better rates, but I think, um, I think we can feel like, well, yeah, to get people to take the survey.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, so there were,

there are 967 total survey purchase events.

Of those 967 survey purchase events, 868 of them scored, provided a score for the diverging diamond interchange and then of those 868, 286 respondents provided comments.

So what we wanted to do was to understand what kind of comments people had on the DDI in order to understand what the concerns were.

But I also want to make sure that I'm bringing this appropriately to say that a very small number of folks who scored the DDI made comments.

So the comments are not necessarily reflective of general opinion.

So one of the things we did was we coded the comments just for the DDI, positive, neutral, or negative, and then assessed what percentage of each of these types of comments came based on the numerical score that they gave the DDI and their comment built.

So we broke this up into quadrants and they gave it a score of 0 to 25, 26 to 50, there's 175, 76 to 100,

and as you would probably expect, the people who rated both DDI lower had a higher percentage of negative feedback that they could.

So the feedback that we received through the comments largely was by people who, for the most part, rated the DDI fairly low, but there was a fairly, but that was closely followed by people who rated DDI.

So that's just to help understand the context in which to take

the general things that were heard in the process.

So the last thing that we did is basically took all of the comments that were given for each of the concepts or anybody who provided a comment on any of those concepts put those through basically an AI processor to say like what is the general concern or what is the general sentiment for each of these concepts.

and what we found is that the diverging diet was more mixed whereas the other ones weren't.

So the concerns are largely still about the safety and comfort level for pedestrians and cyclists.

I think this makes sense because a lot of the feedback was based on people's experience with the other DDI's in the area and there are other DDI's in the area that have pedestrian and bicycle accommodations through them so this would be a different type of facility that people don't have experience with so it's understandable that there would be some questions but there was still a lot of feedback that said that out of all the designs this seems to be the one that

would be the safest, even if there were still some questions about how many people.

So I think with all of that said, it seems like there's still the public support, as well as the initial assessment, looking at the cash modification factors, operational amendments, and the cost over of what still support the DDI as a proper alternative for research.

Before you move on to the next one, can I interrupt that notification that he's saying is coming from here?

And I would like to get rid of that really quickly.

Sorry about that.

There you go.

That's fine.

Just as a reminder for pan tops,

It includes the at grade crossings at Rolkin Road and 250 at the end top.

So there will be these pedestrian crossings related on three legs of this intersection.

It would include a modification of the signal there, and it would include a sidewalk between Rolkin Road and

Well, in fact, I'm going to repeat the intersection right here.

And then the next part of this is just a little bit farther east.

There would be the medium crossing at the hotel.

And then there would be an extension of the insulation on the left runway going from Peter Deverson Parkway

or going from 250 on to, this is Glenorchy Drive.

And then there would be a through cut onto Peter Juckerson Parkway, which basically would allow traffic coming from Peter Juckerson Parkway to turn right or left, but not get through the intersection streets.

And then there would also be this 50 vehicle park in there, I thought, with a bus loop that buses would be able to come through here and talk about our pick up passengers and then continue through.

And then the Barricade corridor improvement, as you'll recall, there are two applications that are being submitted by the MPO.

So this will include converting Georgetown Road or this intersection into a roundabout with pedestrian crossing that all four legs.

There will be some access management improvements, so crossing the crossovers, the medium crossovers throughout along the corridor on Barricades Road between Georgetown Road and the other changes.

There would be concrete paths for two transit facilities, one at Surry Road and one up here on Georgetown Road.

The concrete path at Georgetown Road would be able to accommodate a transit shelter that would be installed separately from this application, but it would be designed to accommodate that.

And then there would be a shared-use path that is being planned along the west side of Barracks Road through the entire length of the corridor.

At the interchanges, there would be these two roundabouts that are being installed.

We're in different phases of updating them, but there would be two crosswalks or crossings that would also be added.

on Barracks Road on either side of the interchange roundabout.

So one of them would be approximately right there.

The other one would be approximately about right there.

And then there would be pedestrian crossings on all four of the entrance and exit ramps with the appropriate pedestrian safety devices, either rapid flashing beacons or hot signals, whatever is

Those are stormwater management facilities.

And then the shared-use path would continue on the flat-sided barracks road down to the project term at 7th Street.

Can you remind us all why that shared-use path is

Um, it's either, I think it's going to be either eight feet or ten feet.

I'm not sure we're aware of that.

Questions?

They're all part of that full corridor.

The second application would basically just be two and three.

submitting slide one.

So the MPO is looking at the full project and the interchange through 29 with Albemarle submitting the Georgetown to the interchange along with that project.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

I would first like to share with you the MPO technical committee's feedback and I'm going to read to you their motion because I want to make sure that I get it correct and there's memories here so correct me if I get something wrong.

There was a motion made in MPO Tech to recommend adoption of the resolution with the added comment that the Barracks Road project should have serious consideration for crossings at Cedar

I would be happy to make a motion, Mr. Chair, if you're ready for that.

CA MBO smart scale applications around six, as those were presented, along with the other information just mentioned in terms of recommendations from the MBO tech committee.

Okay, that's me.

Supervisor Mallet?

Councillor Ostrom.

No, the next one is if you would like to see a presentation on Albemarle counties, she has those available, but a requirement for the localities smart scale applications is that the MPO have a resolution of support for any projects within the urbanized area.

So if you'd like further information on those projects, Sandy has it.

basically.

Any further questions about the album?

Can I put in MPO Tech's comment as well, just in case you want to make it as a part of yours?

Sorry to interrupt you.

MPO Tech made a motion to recommend adopting the resolution endorsing the Albemarle counties.

applications and for the Barracks Road project specifically.

Okay, I would move for resolution endorsing the submission of smart scale HV2 applications requesting transportation by localities, in this case specifically Albemarle County,

along with in rooms that were just made in terms of recommendations from the NGO tech.

Supervisor Galloway.

Yes.

Councilor Ochsner.

Okay, so I put a memo about this in your packet.

This is an informational item only.

Action from you all every 10 years and updates to the federal functional classification is done following the 2010 census.

There were approved changes in 2014.

Now with the release of the 2020 census, VDOT is reviewing the functional classifications.

For those of you that are not aware, although most of you in the room are, the functional classification is the process by which the streets and the highways are grouped into classes.

or systems according to the character of service that they're intended to provide.

VDOT's Transportation and Mobility Planning Division, TMPD, is who maintains the Federal Functional Classification System and the TMPD determines the functional classification of the road by types of trips.

the expected volume, what systems the roadway connects, and whether the proposed functional classification falls within the mileage percentage thresholds established by the FHWA.

And so this is a process that is beginning now.

It needs to be finalized by FHWA in September of 2024.

backwards mapping that making sure that we have enough time for the locality staff who has received everything that was in your packet to go do a deep dive into the data the GIS map and make sure that the recommended changes to the classification are being reviewed at the local level first it'll then come back to MPO tech and the MPO policy board for their recommendation and then subsequent approval in the

August, I believe August meeting.

I'm hesitating on that only because I will let you guys know in the Virginia Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, the VAMPO, there has been some discussion amongst MPOs at the speed at which this review is being required to be conducted.

And so there has been

some discussion about potentially reaching out to VDOT to say can we get an extension so that we have ample time to be looking at every single roadway and reviewing the requirements for how it's classified.

And so what I have in your memo is the timeline as it exists.

If for some reason there is an extension I would just bring back to you all to let you know what the new timeline would be.

As of right now, I would need any feedback from locality staff or really anyone if you want to take a deep dive into this.

I would need any feedback by mid-June in order to be able to get it on a July agenda for you all.

Questions?

I don't think we can get into it today.

It sounds like this will be counting the recommendations, but I always have to really

on VDOT's site, what connectors are, what materials are, et cetera.

Then when I look at the map, it tackles me sometimes, which ones are what they say they are.

Yeah, the most significant one that I am aware of is related to eligibility for federal funding depending on what the classification of the road is.

So some programs will only fund specific classifications of road improvements.

That is the one that I'm the most aware of.

There may be others that I'm not aware of.

you did not that's within the like 80 well it was attached to the agenda as a link but it's like an 89 page technical document

For the most part, looking at Albemarle, I don't think there would be a lot of disagreement with most of the classifications.

But there are some where it's a little less.

I don't know about that.

But not knowing what the consequence is, as well as the conversation worth the effort, if the consequence isn't doing that.

I think the more important thing for locality staff that they're aware of is making sure there's not errors that are like mistakes rather than like should we do one or the other but rather it is this but it's classified the recommended change is the wrong classification so for example in the recommended changes were already made aware of one error that's in there that that was in the memo as well

and that is the 250 corridor from Shadwell to Zion crossroads should be classified as a minor arterial, but it is incorrect in the proposed changes.

I mean, the two that I would call well and maybe check it out.

Park Street 250 to the interchange.

It's different than from 6018 to Park Street.

It's a different classification.

Yes.

I didn't understand that because it's 250.

Especially with two interchanges.

And then East Rider Road.

Um from from basically to will be up to where it means that it's over front of K-10.

Those are two that I'm looking at.

I'm just hoping for further

Jessica, did you get those?

And I know she'll have them.

Like, for example, there's minor and major connectors, connectors, connectors.

If minor and major connectors, if neither one of those qualifies for something, then it doesn't really matter if it's a minor or a major.

You know, it's just, it's not worth the effort of going, oh, it shouldn't be a major when the outcome's the same.

Maybe it means down the road and it jumps from major to minor arterial or something.

So maybe it still has to take that step, but I don't know enough about those classifications to know what the pragmatic impact is from a funding standpoint or project scoring and things like that.

and for 250, that's even a different, like why all of a sudden does it change classification just because it goes under Park Street.

And there, you know, it was linked in here, but there's a guide for how to classify these.

It's not just like this, this feels like it should be this versus that.

Wasn't that an old expression that work is the computer?

It's actually quite good.

It explains all the things and gets them to what the rationales are for each one.

I mean, without having to do the deep dive, you can pretty much get it without it just being, oh, this feels like it should be real.

But

I'm really thinking more about the next step.

What's the consequence if it's mislabeled?

Just wanting to understand that.

All right, that's a pair of offers.

There's no action there.

One of them is I'd like to introduce new staff member of ours behind you all in the blue suit.

That is Sarah Simba.

Sarah Simba is coming to us as a regional transportation planner.

She will be working, supporting all the transportation planning as well as the MPO.

She'll primarily be working through MPO Tech and CTAC, but will be at many of the policy board meetings, so you will get to interact with her.

So welcome to Sarah.

The second update that I have for you, as many of you were following bills in the General Assembly, there was a bill that was passed that allowed for remote participation in meetings to increase from, instead of up to 25% of the meetings, up to 50% of the meetings.

Also within that legislation, there was a requirement that the remote or electronic participation policy of any public body be reviewed and reapproved annually.

And so coming to you all in the first meeting after the change of the fiscal year will be a revised policy allowing for the greater number of electronic meetings that we'll be asking you to consider for adoption and then that will then come back in.

For MPO Policy Board, you guys would have your own.

Any of our advisory, you guys as a decision-making body, we would want you to pass your own policy.

Any of the advisory boards up to the Commission, we can do through the Commission's policy.

Yes, thank you.

Oh, yeah, that's next Meeting schedule typically the policy board and MPO tech and C tech when it is not a long-range transportation Year, they meet every other month.

So you all up until this past year meet every other month And so I just wanted to propose or ask of you all are you interested in going back to the every other month meetings now that the long-range transportation plan has been adopted and

With that said, if you do, I would recommend just staff recommendation to leave the June meeting on our calendars.

Should there be any substantive changes that require coming back to you all for smart scale since the applications are due July 15th?

Well, your meeting schedule, actually, your policy board normally means July, September, November, January, March.

So you're actually on and off every other month.

I think you can change that fiscal year.

I would have to review the bylaws to make sure it's not written anywhere in the bylaws, like when your meetings are.

At this point, I'm going to leave the June meeting on your calendar.

If there's not significant items on the agenda, then we'll, we'll cancel it.

Say that again.

Yes.

Yes, exactly.

Awesome.

So that brings us to our round table updates.

and we will go online first.

So I'm going to go around the table.

No, actually we didn't meet since the last time your meeting was.

Great.

Thank you, sir.

Only thing is, we've gone through the gate two of the smart 3L3 applications, so that is moving forward.

The next step will be the gate three.

So looking forward to progressing with these applications and hoping we have some successful projects in Route 6.

Thanks.

Great.

Sandy, any additional items?

No.

Mr. Askew?

No, sir.

I don't know you.

I'm sorry, I'm open.

Well, Peter already gave remarks.

Anything, grants, I can do too.

I'm just going to sit here, but I'm very, very excited to be here.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, and note that our funding staff would be bringing the SmartScale applications and the resolution to the MRK board on June 12th.

So you get more presentations from us with the newest and most updated sketches and hopefully the process that's the best on June 12th.

That's that's really my update.

Charles, we closed our public comment for drafts sidewalk priorities at the beginning of this month.

So now we're sorting through all those, figuring out how they inform the final priorities before coming out in June.

We're also working with our bike-peded advisory committee to come up with some critical ideas.

They've come up with about a dozen.

So now our city staff are reviewing them, trying to determine the feasibility of putting them on the ground.

So we sort of developed an open source way of getting ideas from the community and to the city government onto the street.

We are wrapping up the CATCH transit strategic plan right now.

We had our second of two public meetings earlier this afternoon.

We will be coming before city council, I think the third, to present on that and ask for it.

Often, we have to send that to GRPD very often by June, so that's where we're headed.

I'll re-emphasize bike month activities are an ongoing thing.

Please go to bikemonthcedale.org and find the calendar of activities and join us.

There's plenty more to do this month.

There's another activity that Peter mentioned earlier.

Oh, the walk audit.

We'll be doing actually three different public events out sort of by that hydraulic intersection in the first week of June.

The first is VDOT's citizen information meeting for the District Avenue roundabout that will be on the board.

We also have the walk audit.

Well, we are done with the roundtable.

Or in the room?

I just looked them up.

It's up to you all to establish a regular date and place for your meetings, is all it says.

Got it.

Sweet.

All right.

Well, if there are no objections, then we will adjourn until potentially the June meeting.

Great.