MPO Policy Board Meeting   8/28/2024

All right, good afternoon.

I call to order the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board.

When?

It was Tuesday.

Wednesday, August 28th at 4 PM.

And Councilor Oschrin will be joining.

She's just outside coming in.

Supervisor Mallet?

Here.

Councilor Pinkston?

Here.

Councilor Oschrin?

Mr. Nelson?

Non-voting members, I'm going to call next.

Mr. Murphy?

Ms. Monteith?

Mr. Williams?

Mr. Hudson?

Great.

Thank you, Mr. Huber.

Mr. Koenig?

And with that, we'll move us to staff update.

Yep.

I would just like to make sure I introduce, I know you guys have met Sarah Simba before.

Sarah will be the lead staff member for the MPO Policy Board.

And then I also wanted to introduce to you all Gorjan Gjorgjievski.

He has been with the PDC working under a different federal program, but is going to be moving into transportation planning.

And he will be the lead staff member for both the MPO technical committee and the CTAC committee.

So just wanted to do an introduction of them both.

That will take us to matters from the public.

Is there folks here wishing to come up to the podium to state your name?

I don't think I'll use three minutes.

My name is John Faltz, 1501 Lakeview Road.

It feels good to be back here again.

The only thing I wanted to say is I've been watching county development

south of the city building a new elementary school and a long thing of mine has been you gotta connect the two roads Avon Street and 5th Street extended and probably through Biscuit Run.

I know we are trying to avoid putting roads through parks but you really got to do it.

It's a five mile barrier between

The two most important roads south of this city.

I know, we've tried to avoid doing that.

We spent 10 years widening Route 29 so as not to build connecting roads.

I see that you're doing a lot of roundabouts.

This area is gonna look like a small pass, but anyway.

If you don't put that road through, you're not doing your duty.

That's my major.

The second thing is I just wanted to introduce myself to you, Ms. Oschrin and Mr. Pinkston, because I'm going to send you email about some ideas within the city.

And I want you to pay attention to it.

Anyway, thank you.

Is there anyone else here who wishes to give public comments?

Is there anyone online who wishes to give public comment?

All right.

We will move on from public comment.

So item number three, we have the review and acceptance of the agenda.

Are there any changes to the agenda that need to be made?

Seeing none, is there a motion to move without the agenda?

Second.

Motion to be made and seconded.

Opposed?

Abstentions?

Great.

And then this next item being as included in the back end of the draft, the May 21st, 24 meeting minutes.

Any changes, edits need to be made to the minutes.

Is there a motion to adopt the five 21.4 meeting minutes as 100?

Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

No extensions?

Thanks.

Yes.

So legislation that was adopted by the 2024 General Assembly under House Bill 894 and Senate Bill 734 necessitates several changes to the remote electronic participation and all virtual meeting policy.

In your packet is both a redlined edited version to the original policy that the MPO Policy Board adopted as well as a clean version.

The original was adopted September of 2022.

So changes include within the new policy the ability to hold all virtual public meetings,

Limited to two meetings per calendar year, or 50%, rounded up to the next poll number, whichever is greater.

So for instance, with the policy board, you all meet six times annually.

Up to three of those can be all virtual meetings if you so choose.

They do have to be posted publicly that the meeting is going to be held in an all virtual format.

You cannot hold two consecutive all virtual meetings.

You have to have an in-person meeting in between, and you have to provide public access to the all virtual meetings through electronic communication means.

There are expanded provisions within the new policy related to audio and visual technology.

So when a all virtual meeting is being held, audio,

and visual have to be available in order to establish the quorum.

So they have to be able to see and hear all of the voting members of the body.

At any point that a voting member turns off their camera or turns off their sound, the camera off indicates that they are not present in the meeting during that time.

So audio and visual have to be left intact anytime action is taken in order for that quorum to be in effect.

The other addition is that it does now require an annual adoption of the policy rather than only if changes are made to it.

So at the first meeting of the fiscal year, you'll see the policy come back on an annual basis.

So inside of your packet, you have copies of all of these.

The recommended staff motion would be to adopt the remote electronic participation and all virtual meeting policy as presented.

We'll be all in society virtually, as well as the policy that a person needs, a single person needs to meet, can't attend to me physically.

The policy that you have in your packet actually speaks to both of those.

So there are not changes related to when a person is remotely participating in an in-person forum meeting.

Those rules are still the same.

They have to state their reason.

They have to notify the chair in advance.

They have limits on the number of personal matter exemptions.

All of those stay the same within the existing policy.

The changes apply to

Any other questions?

I guess my only question is if, once internet fails, then calling in by phone can be established.

Yes.

If video fails, you are considered absent during that meeting and the vote will not count if you are only participating through audio.

There is also a provision in there that should the public lose access to the meeting, so for some reason if they should drop off, then you have to actually go into recess until that connection is reestablished because if it's an all virtual meeting and that is the only way that they can participate, you cannot continue the meeting without them having access to that meeting.

them as a group.

Well, collectively if it drops, not if an individual falls off the meeting.

We are required in the notice when you say that this is being held in an all virtual format, we are required to include a real time way to communicate.

In my understanding, in an all eligible meeting, in that scenario, if you were required to have a quorum and you drop out for whatever reason, the meeting does have to pause until you're re-established.

If the video fails, yes.

Did I misunderstand your question?

Yeah, I apologize.

But if you were to re-establish

All right.

All in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

I want to read that sentence to make sure that I haven't confused anybody.

Is that okay?

I apologize.

It actually says that when any member of the CA-MPO or any of its committee has audio visual technology available, an electronic communication is being used to establish a forum

That member shall be considered absent from any portion of a meeting during which visual communication with the member is voluntarily disconnected or otherwise fails during which audio communication and involuntary fails.

Every advisory board is briefed on the policy that was adopted by the board that they are advising.

Great.

And that will take us to item five, Ironway Systems, functional classification, permutation, and recommended action and assembly.

But I'm going to ask Christine to share the slides for me.

She did ask me that ahead of time.

This is the Federal Highway Functional Classification presentation by the Charlottesville, Albemarle, Metropolitan Planning Organization.

I mean, it's a dark curtain because it's just informational.

We're all in this together.

So this is just an introduction to the Ferrel Highway functional classification.

And if you looked into your packet, there is a comprehensive guide provided by VDOT.

And in that guide, which is in your packet, you would see why

Is functional classification important?

Why do we have to have it?

What is functional classification?

How does VDOT use its functional classification?

Do you see different programs and plans that are affected by federal functional classifications?

Yeah, that's great to speak about just a bit.

I will try to speak loud.

I hope I don't scream, but if I do, then.

Yeah, I was saying this is just an introduction to the topic, just a high level overview, just over the top general idea of what is functional classification,

Why do we have to have it?

How does VDOT use its functional classification?

What are the programs and plans that are affected by federal functional classification?

And you can find all this, the summary of all this in your packet that was provided by VDOT.

It's a comprehensive guide that VDOT provided.

So

Functional classification is a process by which streets, highways are grouped into different classes or systems according to different functions they are intended to serve.

Of the approximately 4 million miles of roads in the United States, all those roads need to be classified and some of these roads are considered more important than others.

So it's important to

Classify to determine which level of governments will be responsible for what.

Classification also influences design, it affects how roads are funded, and it also impacts federal aid.

Next slide.

That was the following slide.

So that one, this is an important slide that you're welcome to look into yourself in your free time.

It just summarizes the need to develop a new guide and it all came from VDOT.

Federal aid is not truly

The federal aid system is mature, classification is more comprehensive today than it used to be before, and we all know how technology is constantly changing.

Classification also, the coding has also been very simplified, meaning all functional classification categories now exist in both rural and urban areas.

Therefore, guidance needs to connect with

Census in order to meet the Federal Highway Administration's guidelines.

Next slide.

So there are different ways in which Federal Highway Administration identifies federal functional classification.

I think I'm going to say FFC instead of federal.

Federal Functional Classification.

I'm gonna refer to FFC so that there are, so FSWA sets guidelines to preserve consistency between all the states.

And in terms of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the last updates to the FFC occurred in 2014.

There are two sections.

on roadway functional classifications, which include roadway classifications and other information, which cannot be found in your guide.

So it'll be, I'm still on that slide.

So the Federal Highway Administration sets functional classification.

They set these guidelines to preserve consistency.

There are many reasons why FHWA must set these guidelines

some of them, uniformity, data collection and analysis, intersects connectivity, safety and efficiency.

So here are some examples.

Next slide.

So there are seven functional classifications for the HFWA, FHWA,

Interstates, other freeways and expressways, other principal arterials, minor arterials, major and minor collectors, and then local roads.

I do have an example of a tree that goes through different kinds of roads and where they're located within the FHWA systems.

But before I get to that, I wanted to, no, we skipped one slide.

Slide six.

Yeah, this is the most important slide here.

Oh, I didn't, yeah.

So what is the function of a road?

Like we saw, there are approximately 4 million miles throughout the US, and all of those need a functional classification.

Therefore, some of the roads that are considered important than others, however, they all serve different roles.

So some roads provide mobility, others provide land access, and the other classification of roads provide a balance between land access

and Mobility.

For roads that provide mobility, we have interstates and arterials.

Arterials provide the highest mobility and the lowest degree of land access.

And these include principal and minor arterials.

The second category is

is the categories of roads that provide land access, and these are local roads.

The last one, obviously, is a balance between the two.

They provide somewhat land access and some mobility.

So the Federal Highway Administration uses a decision tree to help determine

The functional classification of roads.

This decision tree helps in guiding planners through a series of questions and criteria to classify roads based on their function and usage.

There are some steps that are usually followed in putting this tree together.

First, it's important to identify the road's primary function.

Would this road be arterial?

local or interstate or minor or major.

Second, there's need to assess the traffic volume and different patterns for different roads.

There's need to evaluate connectivity between the roads.

They consider land use and development.

Then there comes a review process.

And all those steps need to fall within the FHWA guidelines.

And in the next slide, the FHWA includes other guidelines to follow the classification of different roads.

These are called other functional classification information and this is also in your comprehensive guide.

I wanted to give this example to show an example of a correct functional classification of a road and a difference between an incorrect way of classifying a road.

For instance, the new functional classification system addresses routes connectivity to ensure that

Any principal arterial maintain a route continuity in a very closed loop system.

For example, as you can see in this figure, a principal arterial may not end into a lower functional classification.

So a principal arterial must always connect with another principal arterial rather than connect with any other minor arterial.

I will try.

Good, thank you.

So when classifying roadways, care must be taken to ensure that this rule is followed and that all principal arterials maintain the closed loop system.

And more information can be found online.

I wanted to emphasize the importance of the National Highway System because the National Highway System is a network of strategic highways in the US designed to serve the country's economy, defense, and military needs.

And this is also important to the functional classification system.

The National Highway System includes interstate highway systems,

other arterials, strategic highway network, major connectors, and intermodal systems.

For the purposes of this presentation, I think one slide after that, before that.

Yes, this is one example for the process to

So the process for making functional classification changes on existing roads for local governments in MPO regions.

So that would be our region, for example.

What would be the process?

to make a change to an existing road for this region, for instance.

So the first step would be in case a town, a city, or a county wanted to request a change, then they would request a change by filling out a VDOT functional classification form request.

After that, the local governments will submit that request to the MPO or the PDC director for approval, and the PDO

The PDC or the MPO will give a recommendation for approval.

No, you're OK. We just got noticed that somebody was trying to get into the meeting, but it's not popping up on my screen as I'm in the waiting room.

So I apologize for the disruption.

So this is an example for making functional classification changes on existing roads coming from a local government in an MPO region.

The first step would be for the city, the county to formally request VDOT by filling out a form.

The second step would be for the local government to submit the request to the MPO committee and for the director of the MPO to approve

and give a recommendation for approval.

After that, the third step would be for the VDOT District Planner to provide approval to the VDOT Central Office, which is the Virginia Transportation and Mobility Planning Office for approval or denial.

And from there,

The TMPD, which is the central office in Richmond, will send that request to the Federal Highway Administration for review, which will then approve or deny that request.

And the second example was, should the request come from VDOT, it would be the same, coming from VDOT back to the city and the MPO, they would recommend it to the TMPD, which will send it to the FHWA for review.

and after that FXWA will recommend or deny the request and the change will occur.

And my final slide was to talk about classification for future roads and why these are important.

So classifying future roads is very important for several reasons.

Some of them being planning and development, funding allocations, safety and efficiency, consistency, and so on and so forth.

But we know that while functional classification is based on the current roadway use, it is also very important to focus on classifying future roadways early in the planning process.

And like

We all know functional classification helps determine eligibility for funding for many federal funding sources.

And this helps in maximizing potential for future funding as well.

So like we saw from this presentation, these guidelines from FHWA allow VDOT to assign a functional classification for roads that are scheduled to be constructed within four years.

And for this reason, it is recommended that VDOT include

Any new roadways that are included in the six-year statewide transportation improvement plan for construction for functional classification.

And that should conclude my high-level overview.

I hope it was not too confusing, but it's a very complex topic.

And I will pass it over to Ms. Jacobs to

Thank you.

So VDOT is conducting this statewide because of the decennial census.

And so the last update that occurred in 2014 was following the 2010

And so it triggers another review at the 10-year mark, which is why we are where we are.

VDOT staff has to coordinate that along with its MPOs to make sure that local staff are reviewing the classifications as they are in the proposed update.

We presented this at the May meeting to MPO technical committee.

We then sent all of the information that we needed to to all of the local staff so that they could do a deep dive and do their review.

They sent revisions to us as MPO staff to look at.

We sent them on to VDOT.

We were given the timeline that this all need to be completed by September, which is why it is on this agenda, because we don't meet again until October.

However, we just received the feedback from VDOT central office staff yesterday.

And so what staff would like to do is staff would like to make a recommendation that you all defer any action

On this until a final proposed map can be put before you.

And so that all of the differences between staff recommendations and VDOT's approvals are in final form before you take any action.

So in your packet, you'll see that there is a memo of both types recommending and not recommending.

Correct.

You would just make a motion to defer action until your October meeting when we can bring to you the map in its final form, a spreadsheet that shows here were the requested revisions.

These were the ones that were adopted.

These are the ones that were declined.

So for example, on this chart, they

Local staff in the city of Charlottesville for that one put in the request based on the roadway characteristics, all that, that that actually should be reclassified from local to minor collector.

And so then VDOT's TMPD office reviews that entire spreadsheet and does their analysis to say, do they agree or disagree with those changes?

And then they provide feedback of the ones that they will move forward and the ones that they will not.

We are told that that is okay because it is not on our team that made it delayed.

We also connected with other MPO and TPO staff and they are also deferring.

They're not putting it before their policy board until they have the final as well.

So we are aligned with our peers on this one and have been in close communication with VDOT through this entire process.

We were trying to move it as quickly as we could through the timeline and it is where it is.

So I'm looking at some of the adjustments both on the map and in the chart and some of them are becoming kind of larger scale roads and some of them are turning into smaller scale roads, right?

Correct.

So for example, 9th Street Southwest, Charlottesville staff, right now its current classification is a minor collector.

The recommendation was made that that be a local road in its classification.

Questions?

I don't know who's best to answer, but

Obviously there's a criteria because there are local staff, VDOT, everybody's, you know, analyzing it to make sure that it fits.

I presume that's the protection against just legislatively trying to change something because you want it to be, you know, change something from higher to lower or reverse.

I'll give you an example.

If I could change something from higher to lower, Rio Road East after a parkway goes down,

I think that's a minor material.

I think the tree, the middle of this tree is the first time that I broke out arterial and non-arterial that way.

I've always seen them as one straight chunk.

So that's actually helpful because then it looks like you hit non-arterial and then if it continues to escalate and jumps over into the other tree, would that be the right interpretation about that?

So you're a minor, you're a local road, and you jump to a collector.

You go from minor to major, major to non-arterial, and then you jump over to somewhere in the arterial if it continues to go up, and then it's saying back down.

That's actually an helpful one.

I've never understood that one.

I have a philosophical question.

So how does all of this integrate with VDOT's

explanation that they're trying to be more context-sensitive for roadways in places where you have very high-identity residential and pedestrians versus the vehicles throughput products.

So my example that I would use when I'm trying to get a slower speed and improvements in the 250 West in Crozet is, well, 250 is 25 all the way through Stan.

Why can't it be 35?

So I've never got an answer to help me with that, but is this related at all or is this strictly mathematics?

I should get over thinking about context-sensitive events and I don't think that anymore.

Maybe that's what led up my life.

I appreciate the administration.

Or the reverse, because when things have escalated dramatically over time, here's what used to be a very much sensitive environment that was safe to drive on and to walk on.

It's now a throughput.

and not say of course any other of any issues, even though I think they're just a few years ago.

That helps me to get to know them.

Chuck, that's just the reclassification in this context.

But except this is the existing federal standard and that's what they're going to state.

But changes can be requested between the 10-year descending.

Sorry.

I skipped one slide actually, cause I didn't see anything.

It gives examples, like some example of a reason of why a roads function could change.

So all of those, all these are not the only examples to be considered that slide.

I think that's at slide 12.

So I think before that, it says requesting changed that slide.

So VDOT will assign all public roads within the Commonwealth, as we know, based on criteria and guidance by FHWA, and the functional classification is signed to a particular roadway is based on its function.

Eventually over time the function of a particular road may change and thus will require that its functional classification should also change.

So VDOT received many requests and the basis of some requests was not on the road's function but for other reasons.

So the channel to request the functional classification change

Those differ based on the nature of the request and the person or the entity making that request.

That's the two examples.

And some of those examples include, let's say there is a new parallel facility

being built that better serves through the region like traffic while the old facility now predominantly serves local traffic will be resulting in needing the lower functional classification on the old road.

For instance, over time, if a road widens and traffic volumes significantly increases on the road, that would be another reason to request functional change.

The regional significance of a roadway might increase

which would then result in the need to increase the functional classification of the road.

For instance, regional activity centers that are developed along a particular road

Increasing the importance of a road for a regional mobility resulting in a need to increase the functional classification on the road could also be another example.

Another example could be when a road is extended and connected to a higher functional classification road, this would require that the existing road to be upgraded to a higher functional classification.

Or a road could be disconnected by development from a higher functional classification roads, which would then require that existing roads be downgraded to a lower functional classification.

And that's where I think in the examples that were submitted by locality, some roads are being upgraded and other roads are being downgraded.

And I think one example that I thought of was going down 29 North,

South, no, North, coming South, there was a chicken place there, and traffic always backs up there.

I think that's the only example I've heard people give, and that would be an example here.

Christine is lying, but I told her I'd say this.

And I said, don't bring up the chicken.

Don't bring up chicken roe.

There you go.

And this would be, you cannot request to change a functional classification.

You cannot request to upgrade a ROADS functional classification.

For adding finding sources, for instance, that cannot be accepted.

An example to upgrade a road function of classification cannot be accepted.

If it's to increase its priority in receiving improvements, like somebody was giving an example, so that is not an acceptable example, or a road cannot be downgraded to relax design for access management and so on and so forth.

So I have a question about stats.

So let's say we are talking about the stretch of 250 that goes through Crozet and we wanted to turn that into a boulevard and trees and have it be a place where people slow down, but it's classified as a minor arterial.

If the point is to traffic calming, that you need to reclassify in order to do a traffic calming project.

Probably not.

Well, I don't know.

So, I mean, you would have to have a Jewish public project based on the characteristics of the road that exists here, whether or not the department would support that.

And if you wanted to try to build it with

I was just going to say we have a hand raised.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm Mitch, I'm with the Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

We currently have our multi-modal design guidelines on our website and that's using VDOT's existing process under their urban road manual.

And so you can do a street plan, and it's through a VDOT approval process, but it's a little more comprehensive, and you can do things like changing the design of a road or roadways or network without reclassification per se.

Well, I think that I need to send it out.

Yeah, my experience is that the functional classification really doesn't change.

People have to do traffic.

There's a traffic problem with the process.

I don't think any of our states own because it's a small community of 3 to 3 people.

I mean, we're based on somebody who's a volunteer or we're not going to go get a traffic problem, period.

And traffic calming is going to be different than pedestrian infrastructures or other types of roads.

I guess the genesis of my line of questioning is does increasing the

Climbing that chart to a bigger and bigger road, does that constrain redevelopment in any way where something was a minor arterial and it has the ability to become these different things and now it's a principal arterial.

And the characteristics of the road in the future.

So one would think the higher the classification, the more private.

So if development were to come in,

In order to accommodate the additional traffic that they're going to have to throw on that road, they're going to have to go get additional upgrades.

Well, so I'm still stuck on your example of 250 and I was there recently and stopped at the stoplight and it was just when school was getting out.

And so there was a huge

A number of students were crossing this road to get back to the, like, town side of Brozay.

And do you know where?

Yes.

Do you know where we're going?

Yeah.

And so it's this barren stretch of roadway that also is a high pedestrian traffic area.

We can add a median to 250 through Crozet.

You're just going to have to wind the road to do it.

because right now it's a two lane road with turn lanes.

There's no place to put a lane in Island.

I mean, it's like 29 North through Northern Albemarle County.

They've got a wide meeting with street trees in the middle of it.

We can do that on any road.

It's just, you gotta meet the criteria.

250 through Crozet, it's also, if there's a major incident on 81 on 64, we're gonna route traffic along that corridor

to still allow the traffic to flow through the corridor.

So you're going to, that could be an issue that we're going to have to deal with.

The example Ann was talking about, about west of Peru 250 through Stanton District, that doesn't parallel an interstate.

So it is a lower functional classification of roads.

So it gives you a little bit more flexibility with that corridor.

So some of these are

We do have a lot of flexibility with what you can do from a design standard, the width of the lanes, and some of the features that would have to be maintained.

And we typically don't increase too many to principal arterial.

Minor arterial is typically what we have.

To go to principal arterial, it would have to become an NHS route, and we don't have too many increases to that system.

So the highest level for most of the roads is minor arterial.

And to go back to another question you asked about doing something in the middle, we did process some changes for Albemarle County to upgrade 250 East from a major collector to a minor arterial, because in their comprehensive plan, they basically, their entry corridors have to be

minor arterial facilities.

So we actually got that one upgraded all the way to the 15 in Fluvanna in the interim cycle.

So we can change these periodically.

There's a process to go through to do that.

Thanks, Chuck.

Okay, any other comments or questions on this one?

Second.

Any further discussion?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstentions?

Great.

Down for review.

That will take us to item 6, Transportation Improvement Program.

These are just informational information that needs to be taken from the board.

And the nature of all three of these adjustments are to put in the actual amount as opposed to the budgetary amount.

So CAT in table 101, CAT 0001, that table

for operating systems, they added in the fiscal year 2025 amounts.

So it went from almost 3 million to 5.5 million.

And so it just was like a clerical change.

And then the next change is CAT 0009, which they just added in

And then the last one is TJPDC 1 and that was for the community management program and they added in the money for fiscal year 2025.

We put it into fiscal year 2024.

We added those two together because

It's a federal program, and because of the calendar year, it's like, we have to apply to the state, and then the state has to apply to the federal, so it just kind of goes into 2020.

Great.

Thank you.

Any questions for the chair?

All right.

Thank you.

That'll take us to number seven, VDOT, update on projects.

I can do it.

I was trying to find the share button.

Great.

Let me get to the right screen.

Okay.

Can you see my screen?

I want to give you an update on the SMART SCALE applications.

All were submitted in August and we've been going through the validation period.

All of the ones except for 5th Street in this area have been validated.

We're still waiting on the 5th Street final estimate before we can actually finalize that application.

Basically, these are the three MPO projects and the four county projects.

I'll go through them quickly and give you the cost estimates that we've got in the system right now that were done by the district L&D staff.

Like I said, we're finishing validation and most of these are validated except for Fifth Street.

from the district perspective.

Here's the DDI concept at 5th Street.

Like I said, we're still waiting on a cost estimate, so I don't have that value, but nothing's really changed from the last presentation where we updated you guys with that information.

It does provide the shared use path connection to the trail system, as well as connection to the sidewalk on the west end or the south end.

Next is the Pantops.

This one has the sidewalk and pedestrian improvements at Rolkin Road and then at Peter Jefferson Parkway we're actually doing some intersection improvements.

We're closing the crossover at the Hampton or the Hilton Inn and then we're adding the park and ride lot on the north side with bus circulation lane.

Hopefully we can

Route the bus through there once this gets funded and try to alleviate some of the traffic going into the city since we lost the other park and ride lot at the shopping center there by the free bridge.

The cost of this project is $36 million for the combination of the two applications.

There was a park and ride lot in the parking lot to the shopping center on the south side of 250 Stony Point and the bridge, but they basically didn't want the park and ride parking spots there anymore, so we didn't have a location for a while.

There is a park and ride lot up at the

The times I went through there, it was full most of the time.

We just had spaces identified in the parking lot, but they were always full.

And they were at the back, so it wasn't that they were shopping, but there were out parcels there that could have been going to in addition to that.

Right away?

We're having to buy this big parcel up here to the north.

You can see the right of way cost on this one's $8 million and then $11 million for construction.

So there's potentially

Possibly, it's just utility of it.

We don't necessarily have control on those spots as much as we do with a lot itself.

And like I said, for this one, we're actually building the bus circulating lane with the bus shelter and so the bus can circulate through, pick up people and leave.

I guess I'm going to ask the first one, just out here.

No, I like the idea.

And I will say that this project would have been funded last round, because it was recommended for funding, but the District Avenue Roundabout Project had a higher priority, so it was swapped out with this one for funding.

I mean, I'm just reacting, but I'm used to seeing what these projects cost.

Well, I mean, there's downsides to going up

All right, thank you.

Right, Barracks Road.

This is the corridor-wide project, which includes the roundabout at Georgetown, the interchange roundabouts, as well as the shared use path along the entire length of the project.

This is a shocker for the cost estimate.

This is $129 million.

Very expensive project.

It's too late to do that right now.

The next slide is the other application that the MPO has, which is one of the pieces of this project.

This is the other MPO application, which is just the interchange and then the shared use path going into the city.

But it's still a $92 million project.

Part of this is there are some total takes and right-of-way on the west side.

There's like two or three parcels on the west side on the northeast quadrant and one parcel or two on the south quadrant.

There's one property owner, but they own multiple parcels.

So these inflated prices, so the inflated totals are

If you were to build it today, guess what that would be?

Essentially you're thinking we're going to have close to 45%, 50% inflation?

Everybody's planning about that same inflation.

Well, fingers crossed that it's not higher.

I mean, we're experiencing this across the state.

This is just not us.

I mean, last year, months ago, we were awarding $8 million sidewalk projects.

Yeah, I guess we can all hope for better days with inflation.

I guess that's like mid-point of construction.

I mean, you all have to realize, too,

We submit this project at $65 million without being played at all.

We say our estimate is $65 million.

You get awarded for $65 million.

That's your budget.

No, I appreciate that.

That's it.

There's no more money to get.

If the project comes in, we go through advertising and develop it, and we find something throughout the development process plus that estimate, or you go to advertisement and the industry bids on it,

And it's $15 million or $20 million more.

You either come to the table with money, or the price is gone.

So I mean, I did the sticker shop, but when I was looking at these estimates, I'm thinking about, is this the project that needs to happen?

You know, living up to my job as well,

I guess there's not really built into the SMART SCALE process.

I think that's unfortunate because what happens is people have got

And after you go through these part of the development, the goal would be to buy down some of the risks that are put on the front side of it.

Well, that's it for the MPO projects.

Now for the Albemarle County projects, we've got the Old Trail, Rio Road, Hillsdale intersection, the other Barracks Road, the county portion, and then Plank Road down south.

To get back to the question you were talking about, about functional class and traffic calming, we're looking at a roundabout here on 250 at Old Trail and Albemarle High School.

This will definitely help with flow of traffic and calming traffic because everybody's going to have to slow down and go through it.

When a signal changes, once the queue clears, you can travel whatever the speed is that

You can travel on that road.

So this basically makes that lower speed happen all the time.

So it also accommodates a shared use path, some sidewalk connections to Old Trail, as well as future connections over to a sidewalk that

High schools planning to build along the west side of their entrance road.

So we're going to provide that future connection so they can, once they build it, they can have the crosswalks and all that stuff built as part of the roundabout.

This project comes in at like $16 million.

So this is a good, really good candidate.

Can I ask you a question about that?

We didn't

What does active pedestrian control mean?

Well, it just means we don't know what the controls are going to be.

It's going to be either a rapid flashing beacon or a hawk signal, but we weren't.

I'm sorry, skipped a slide.

Any other questions about this one?

This is one of a series of three roundabouts that the county wants to pursue on this corridor.

They've got one at the middle school entrance and also one at Crozet Avenue.

And in the past, they did submit one to the east at, I can't remember the name of the road, but it was a shopping center to the east of Crozet Avenue.

It wasn't successful though, but could be something that could be pursued in the future.

All right, this is the Rio Road roundabout concept with the double roundabouts.

You've got Old Brook Road coming in.

on one side, and then you've got the northwest, northeast, I forget what the name of the road is, on the south side, and Hillsdale on the north side.

Basically, we're gonna connect them with a double roundabout.

We are providing shared use path around the roundabout and ramps to tie into the existing bike lanes that are on many of the roads, as well as the sidewalks that are

on many of the roads also.

This one has a really $445 million for this one.

Not as competitive as Old Trail.

The safety needs aren't as great.

There are some crashes there.

So we'll see how this one plays out.

Where is this located again?

What is that?

To the left of the right of Westland VA.

Okay.

This was an application from a study that the county did and they asked us to actually help them develop the application.

The next one is the Rio Barracks Road corridor with the roundabout at Georgetown.

It's just the county's portion of the total one.

The difference with this one is at the interchange, we're adding a right turn lane and crosswalks, which would allow it to function adequately and address the future impacts as a standalone project.

Correct.

Like I said, we can break it up in a couple of different pieces.

This is one of the pieces you sort of have to build around about.

You could do that as a standalone, but to do the median work, you have to make some of the other improvements on the corridor.

I don't think you could do the, you could probably do the median as a standalone project.

I'd have to look at how we didn't analyze it as a standalone project, but could be something we can look at in the future.

The biggest thing is by closing in the median, you got to place, got to provide a place for those business, those access points on the North side to U-turn, which doesn't allow for that in this scenario.

I mean, in a different scenario.

In this scenario they can, but if you wanted to do just the access management piece, you'd have to figure out how you could deal with those U-turn movements.

On the south side, there's a connecting road to get you all the way to the intersection, so they could actually go back and not have to make the U-turn maneuver.

And the last project in the county is the Plank Road.

This is just putting Splitter Islands in the

So can I ask a question here for just, I'm having a little trouble reading what all these

Correct.

And we were actually adding

A wider area on the outside so larger vehicles can make that maneuver.

I mean, the larger vehicles could.

That's what we designed it for.

So they can make those maneuvers within that paved area.

Hey Chuck, it's Jason here, John, non-loading member.

Just a question about the proposed estimates, just bugging me.

I was looking at the percent contingency.

It seems to be different in every project.

Can you explain how you come up with those percentages?

That's not horrible.

Yeah, I'd have to defer to L&D because I'm not sure they look at what the risks are associated with the different parts of it.

And they assign a percentage for that contingency to the risk that's involved.

And I don't know for sure.

I'd have to go look, dig into the estimate to find out what the criteria is.

There's a document that's attached to the application that goes into great detail on all of that.

I just don't have that information available right now for the presentation.

But if you want, I can, we can get you that information.

That's all I've got for this one.

I will say that we did just get the estimate sent out for, let's see if I can find it, for Fifth Street.

I just received it a few minutes ago.

We did send out the detailed cost estimates to the MPO Tech Committee.

Just received it.

So we'll be posting it to the application and validating it.

And that's what provides it across the Commonwealth.

All right.

Thank you Chuck.

Yep, just wanted to notify you that in their past meeting the MPO tech voted, the chair of MPO tech has now been Chambers of the Charlottesville staff, and the vice chair is now Albert Corina Plante of Albemarle County staff.

I'll start with a little bit of background about the project.

So it's called Move Safely Blue Ridge.

It is the region's plan to reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries for all road users.

no matter their choice of transportation.

This is a regional project that covers the counties within the TJPD, Albemarle, Louvain, Green, Louisa, Nelson, as well as the city of Charlottesville.

The grant comes from the Safe Streets and Roads for All Federal Program, which supports the United States Department of Transportation National Roadway Safety Strategy.

The long term of this initiative is to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries by zero using a safe system approach.

I'll mention that the project's process is divided into four steps because it covers the activities that we have completed to date and what we're going to be working on in the next steps.

So during the month of June, we completed the first step of the project where we identified issues and opportunities through extensive public engagement.

We conducted a survey that allowed residents of the jurisdictions to share their safety transportation concerns for the roads that they travel.

We held six in-person public meetings.

One in each jurisdiction, one virtual meeting for all jurisdictions, and 21 pop-up events that included farmers markets, food pantries, festivals, and other events.

Step two is currently in progress.

Over the past two weeks, we have been actively working with the stakeholders from the jurisdictions to discuss the high injury network.

and coordinate site visits.

These visits are now being scheduled and will take place over the next three weeks.

We will be gathering data and reviewing it in collaboration with jurisdictions to identify the safety priorities.

Step three will be focused on developing strategies, which will serve as the lead to the final step

which is the development of the safety action plan.

I can take some questions if we have time.

Awesome.

This is our Vision Zero platform.

I'm sorry.

In looking ahead at a couple of dates, our October Policy Board meeting actually falls during the Governor's Transportation Conference.

And so I wanted to check of the five voting members, if any of you all intended to be at the conference and not here so that we can check if we have quorum.

Okay, so only one will be out.

So we'll hold the meeting as is.

And Sean, it's up to you whether you attend virtually or alternate or whatever.

Thank you.

August 23rd.

Yes, we'll keep it as it's scheduled.

The other one is the December meeting.

The policy board meeting would fall during Christmas holiday.

And so we would like to propose a change of date and wanted to put that out to you all before sending out widely to the public.

MPO tech falling on December 10th.

Policy board meeting Wednesday, December 18th.

from 4 to 6.

We worked around the revised Board of Supervisors schedule, so we believe that that date is open, but want to confirm that with you all before advertising it.

So that would be 4 to 6 p.m. on December 18th.

That you know of right now, at least.

Okay, very good.

And then Chair Galloway, if it's okay, there's another update.

This actually just came in today.

I probably in hindsight should have mentioned it during the acceptance of the agenda, but another staff update.

VDOT is starting the next round of their STARS study.

STARS stands for the General Knowledge Strategically Targeted Affordable Roadway Solutions.

And so they went through a process, a methodology to locate areas that ranked the highest for safety and operational needs.

Those three locations staff reviewed and made sure that it aligned with the long-range transportation plan priorities, which it does.

Those three locations are US 29 between Hydraulic Road and Woodbrooke Road, US 29 between Teal Lane,

and hydraulic road bypass, and Ridge McIntyre South Water Street intersection in the city of Charlottesville.

They're just reaching out to all stakeholders, city, county, and MPO to make sure there's concurrence and moving forward.

Next steps would be to then detail a scope of work for those studies.

There are STARR studies.

Is this in-house staff or is this a consultant?

It's a consultant.

We don't believe it.

All right, we'll continue our round table updates and go online first.

Yes.

We had a discussion at our last meeting and if it were possible, the CTAC would like to be able to get involved in some of these projects at an earlier stage while the concepts are still being developed

At this point, we basically end up reviewing things that are complete.

I mean, there's no possibility of changes already set in stone.

There's considerable expertise on the CTAC and we feel that we could be more useful if we could get involved earlier.

All right.

Thank you.

I guess that's one we'll have to think about.

All right.

All right.

And the others.

Just the presentation.

Great.

Mr. Espy?

Yeah, just a quick note.

Jaunt is finishing up three different studies, one on microtransit, one on bus electric transportation, and the Rural Transit Needs Assessment Study is paper-included, presented to the Jaunt Board, trying to figure out what would be the same and what would be the percentage of rural use of transit partnership.

Some of you may have already seen the presentation from North Cajun State University.

Just briefly give it a minute.

Yeah.

Yes, it was presented to the stakeholders.

and then presented to John Ford.

So we're trying to figure out how to roll it out in different groups.

Great.

Thank you.

I'll mention one item.

We are getting started with coordination with localities and POCs on applications for the revenue sharing and transportation alternatives program.

The application

The pre-application period doesn't begin until May of next year, but these, just like SMART SCALE, require some study and advanced work and to be able to give them their view.

And these programs, revenue sharing is more flexible, transportation alternatives is pretty specific, not only in what types of projects are eligible, but also the cost limitations, which is really, it makes them pretty challenging.

We did this the last cycle but did not get started quite as early and that was one big lesson learned.

So communication has already gone out to localities.

I think that was last week and for this area there's a meeting scheduled on September 20th for the Charlottesville residency where our local assistant staff, planning,

Staff and programming, which is our funding experts and others will be there to explain the program, to answer questions.

And then as there are specific requests for help on projects, we can either respect them or schedule a time to do that separately with each locality.

Do you have anything to add, Lance?

Yeah, so hydrological improvement in our project is moving along.

We have a non-viral connector being closed.

They had a schedule.

Yes, we did close the left front off with hydraulic going 29 North and South on Sunday.

We watched it today for five and a half, two hours, a lot of people made it to left.

which is very concerning that people are not obeying the big signs.

And I wrote all the words to make sure the signs are clear and that it's blaring.

You do not make the left.

Really?

Yeah.

But the one thing I did notice, the people that were making the left, I was sitting there watching them, they were all on their phones.

And when they look up to go through, they were like, oh, there's cars coming at me.

So they would literally stop in the lane to wait for a break to make a building.

So we reached out to VSP and the folks

A mask on.

A mask on?

Yeah, Superman.

It almost looks like if you're going 29 southbound, it almost looks like you can't make a left sign.

So I took a picture of that.

I'm going to give you a picture of that and move the sign so you can see the point.

I did not see anybody making the left to go 29 northbound.

All going after all those 29 steps.

And that is the more cumbersome, right?

Yeah.

So there's a message board.

I don't

I did not come from that side of 250, so I need to check that.

Trying to do today will shock you because it was backed up to the firehouse the other day with people trying to go all the way to people's homes.

Unfortunately, as you all are aware, that is the center of the universe right there.

I will share one thing with you.

Several people have contacted me about the Hillsdale Roundabout, and if one obeys the rules, it's perfectly fine.

But numerous people, including I, watching carefully, the person in front of me going east on hydraulic

decided to just cut off the person who was coming west on hydraulic in the proper right turn only lane to go onto Pillsdale.

And was like, this bar!

But they missed not having a crutch.

So they drove across the red brick thing.

So please consider some structural things to make that not possibly an eight inch curb or something.

That's just an accident.

This didn't happen on the first two or three days, but people just want to know where they want to go.

It's probably that way.

So trucks, if they need to navigate it based on, because we've reduced the foot

The thing is we're working with the city and the university with the Spontane Avenue project.

You have to change the name of it because it's no longer going to be a Spontane model because of the district avenues.

With this also to be done as a design build at one time,

We have also worked with the city to take their Fontaine project to add to this.

So all of Fontaine will hopefully be under construction at one time with one contractor.

We'll work through some issues with that based on the amount of money we've got for the city's Fontaine project to do that.

So that is coming.

The goal is for hopefully all the stuff to come together and we'll start procurement beginning of next year with a report sometime in 2026.

On the 10th of September, you've got the Pantops Improvement Project, which is the addition of the additional current landings at 250 and 20 intersection with the median going back up the hill in front of all the car dealerships.

Yes.

But at least in one element, it's worked out hard as a development.

That's approved.

Oh, if we went to procurement, but if not, then we just have one project.

This is a change in delivery of this postponement for District Avenue, which is supposed to be starting sooner.

No, no, no.

Still advancing that crawlway through District Avenue.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that's good to know.

because then everything is way back and I draw it forward much better.

It's why I write my teeth when things go by now to make them smaller and then we're told it doesn't work and so then you have to roll it out the other hand and then we're back to the great separation of a change which is why in 2010 we could all be done.

I will stop writing now, sorry.

OK. We will go to item 10, additional matters from the public.

All right.

Seeing none, we will close that.

And that will take us right to our adjournment.

Is there any objection to adjourn today?

We will see the materials come out for the cost estimates.

I heard that.

Yes.

And then whatever was put into the chat.

Sweet.

All right.