MPO Policy Board Meeting   8/27/2025

All right, Chair Galloway, Councilor Oschrin?

Here.

Supervisor Malek?

Here.

Mr. Nelson?

Present.

Ms. Londrey?

Here.

Ms. Jacobs?

Present.

Mr. Steven Minor?

Mr. Daniel Koenig?

Mr. Koenig?

I'm here.

Mr. Wood Hudson?

I don't think I need to state the reason since we know they're not voting members right.

And then Ms. Monteith?

Mr. Murphy?

Ms. Medley?

Mr. Williams?

Thank you.

And then moving on to matters from the public.

Do we have anyone in person or online who would like to speak?

Okay, great.

Moving right along to general administration.

Any

Questions, concerns, adjustments to the agenda?

We would like to make you all aware.

There's one item that we did add to the agenda for a tip adjustment request from CAT.

Unfortunately, we didn't receive it in time to go into your packet, but we do have materials and a memo that we'll share with you further down later on in the meeting.

And then also, we moved an informational item.

Second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

OK, great.

And then approval of the meeting minutes.

Any concerns or questions about those?

All in favor?

Aye.

And then that brings us to the virtual meeting policy.

Taylor?

So according to the Code of Virginia, public bodies are able to host all virtual public meetings as well as allow their members to participate virtually as long as there is an adopted policy for that body.

And so every year, public bodies just have to adopt that policy again, just to reaffirm all of the things outlined in there.

And so that's what we have before you here today for a vote.

There were no changes from last year, but a few of the key things that are in there outlined in the memo is that if someone wants to participate from a remote location, we do have to have a physical forum at the meeting location to be able to vote them in.

The reasons for them to be able to participate remotely have to be stated and we have to know in advance.

And then finally, if the public body is holding an all virtual meeting, it has to be noticed that way in public notice.

Email and then however else we publish for our meetings.

Is there a Magic Bulletin board here in the office where one posts meeting things?

The weekly meetings for that week are posted publicly.

I would move the resolution adopting the remote electronic participation or virtual meeting policy that's in the packet.

Any opposed?

Okay, we are cruising.

And we do have someone online from AECOM working with the VDOT team on this, but I can give a quick

I can give a quick introduction of this item.

So the MPO is currently updating our regional travel demand model.

And in order for us to continue proceeding through the project, you all have to give approval at certain points of the process.

And today, what you'll receive a presentation on are the demographic inputs for population and employment for the model area.

They will share about their methodology for how they got to the values.

And once you give your approval, then they will proceed through the remainder of the project.

And we have a tentative completion date of April 26 for this.

Yeah, hey, good afternoon everyone.

I'm Roy.

I'm a modeler from VDOT.

So for this modeling updates, I serve as PM for this around the modeling updates.

And I coordinate closely with our consulting team, AECOM, who are also here today.

So I'm looking forward to collaborating with you all to ensure the project's success.

Thank you.

Now you can hear me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Hi, I'm Pat Coleman from AECOM in Arlington.

I'm the consultant project manager for VDOT for the model update project.

And next up is Nag Kishahi, who will give the actual presentation.

Hi, this is Nag Kashi.

I'm a travel demand modeler with AECOM.

I am working on this project to support the model update, change the scripts, update the model to the latest and the conditions, and then forecast a future year.

I'm glad to be part of the project.

As Taylor was mentioning just a little while ago, we are in the process of updating the regional travel demand model.

The previous base year was 2015 and now we are in the process of updating it to the 2022.

As a first step towards that, we have analyzed the traffic analysis zone and then updated the boundaries to match the current conditions.

And subsequently, we are also going through the demographic assumptions in the model and updating to reflect the 2022 year.

So based on the urbanized areas and the feedback from the TJPDC, we have updated the zone system.

And this is a map that shows the current TAC assumptions in the model.

This includes the city of Charlottesville and portions of Albemarle County.

And to the periphery, we have some portions from the green Louisa and Fluvanna counties.

Predominantly, the big sources that were used to update the demographics are the Weldon Cooper 2022 population estimates and Woodson Pool employment estimates and to get the proportions between the TACs, we have used the 2022 American Community Survey five-year estimates.

So this table shows the variables we are using in the model and the corresponding sources and how they have been updated.

So as I mentioned, mostly it's the Weldon Cooper estimates which are at the county level.

So in order for the county level targets to be distributed to the individual TACs which are smaller, we have used the 2022 ACS to get some proportions.

And for say things like the average household size and household income and average workers we have used the 2022 ACS estimates as is because they are not available at a county level unlike the Weldon Cooper data.

So this shows the different NACS categories of employment we have.

And as mentioned, we use the 2022 Woodson pool data to come up with the categories for category level estimates.

To look at a regional distribution, we have used a district definition in the model and this plot shows the district definition currently being used.

Just to break down the total population and household for the region by the district, this table shows a distribution.

We also looked at the woods and pool distribution for the 2015 and 2022 by employment category for the total as well as different areas.

So the general observation is that the distribution is kind of the similar between 2015 and 2022.

So this shows the percentage distribution for Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville.

Similarly, for the Flobano County area, the Green County area included in the model, and Louisa County.

Following are some plots that show the distribution of the population in the TSAs in the model area.

So the household distribution, employment,

In addition to the demographic data, we have also updated the network layer in the model, which now reflects the year 2022 scenarios.

Do you mind going back a couple of slides?

Sure.

Sorry, quick question.

For the total population and the total household slides,

And I apologize if you mentioned this, but the, a couple, sorry, the map ones with the brown and the green.

Yeah, that one and the next one.

Yeah, so the couple of slides here show the network by facility type

and number of lanes, a posted speed.

These are all some of the inputs the model uses.

So after the model update, the main aim of this exercise is to get a tool that can help us to estimate like the congestion by the vehicle hours of delay or the maps to create some maps that can give us a sense of how congested the area is or depending on the time of the day or to get a sense of where things might need improvements and stuff like that.

And it would also readily generate some statistics to analyze the performance better, such as the transit ridership, mode share, VMT per capita, and give us an average driving commute time between areas.

So these are some of the uses of the model.

So this is in short where we are in the process of updating the demographics and we have the demographics in, we are working through the process to validate and calibrate model.

Yes, I do when you get to me.

I don't have to go first.

So I guess one thing that helped to clarify a little bit from my homework, you mentioned just a few minutes ago that these, page 29 on our, we've jumped from jobs and people to traffic analysis zones.

Can you clarify if that is correct?

My hearing of that is correct or if it is supposed to be something else?

On page 17 of the packet?

Yeah, I'm referring you back to page 17 of the packet.

And who made the decision to?

And the way it was explained is that the more

areas that you have specifically identified in your model, the more accurate your model results would be.

Otherwise...

If you have origin destination studies, otherwise you don't have anything to say where those green kind of people are going.

I mean, that's right over the border from my house and I know how rural it is.

So the 2022 is the latest day that you were able to get?

I believe that was the latest data where it was comprehensive across all the services that they were looking at, but I'll let them jump in as well.

One of the important dataset we have used for the model is the National Household Travel Survey, the NSTS dataset.

And that is available for the 2022.

That's the latest dataset available.

And that is a big main source for all the calibration.

So that is why the base year is set to 2022.

Well, that makes sense.

You also mentioned proportion, so you're doing the proportion, I'm looking now at slide 22, the proportion of the population amongst the various jurisdictions or neighborhoods on this list and somehow extrapolating that forward to today.

Yeah, so the twin, the population is only the population for the area is only available at a county level.

But as we previously mentioned, the TACs are the smallest unit in the model that

have the demand in them.

So in order to come down from the county level to the TAC level, we use the census information, ACS information to split the county level data into TACs.

And as you already

are aware that not all of the county area is included in the model.

So we needed a basis to account for the proportion of the total county level population employment into the TAC.

So just taking the little unincorporated town of Crozet, which is in my district as an example,

The county says 13.5, so that's just one of them.

And many, many years ago, there were 35,000 people who came to the university every day.

So that's something else.

Is maybe Crozet and Worcester and Albemarle have some overlap there?

Probably not.

One's a growth area and one's not.

So anyway, this is, I'll look at the map some more.

These are just concerns I have that perhaps need more explanation, but I'm sending a lot here, so.

And I've already, yeah.

So ten years ago or so, there was a huge debate about incorporating all the rural land along 250 between Brise and Doergeria beginning in Forest Head.

And that land was on purpose left out.

So this is somehow there's been an administrative decision to flip it the other way.

And I'm just concerned about that because of the implications it has outside of the plan.

On slide 33, when you say a one-lane road, are you talking about one-lane age direction?

Because all these little things on here are... Yeah, the one-lane age direction.

All right, thank you, Supervisor Malek.

Anyone else have any questions?

I've got a small question.

Sure.

So the group quarter, okay, let me do this.

So total population is a combination of the household population and the group quarters population.

So group quarters population are not the regular households like universities and army bases and stuff like that.

Got it, okay.

Do we need to do anything with this?

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, thank you.

Thanks folks, online.

I think we're still seeing another presentation.

What's the name of your computer?

Yes, it's a new computer.

I heard that I'm technically female.

For the folks at home, we're trying to log the PowerPoints.

And the person said, I don't know.

That's it.

It's good.

We have a question.

We have a question too.

I think we should be getting to one of them.

I love that now.

Can you print it out?

Can you print it out on the PDF?

We won't pull it out.

We won't find that.

Appreciate your patience, everybody.

They don't have to either for their PowerPoint or Microsoft.

That would be nice, right?

Well done.

How are you?

I'm sorry about that.

Hopefully that little.

Thanks everyone for your patience, we appreciate it.

Today I am quickly walking through just a few of the key changes to the Transportation Demand Management scope of work that you all saw at your June meeting and it is now in draft final form for your approval.

As a reminder, this project is included in the fiscal year 26.

CVWP is a long-range planning activity for staff to work on.

The purpose of this study is to identify strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled within the MPO area, increase trips made by other modes, and show opportunities where we can enhance connections of our existing multimodal transportation network.

This study will be completed by MPO staff, so it is not a consultant study.

The first change is that we broadened task one to instead be existing conditions rather than just a preview plan review.

We recognized that before we set goals for BMT reduction, we probably should have a baseline.

And so we added that into there.

VDOT also publishes a plethora of data, including traffic counts that we can use to get to that number for BMT before we set those goals.

And then following establishing that baseline, staff will continue this task by again, reviewing those relevant planning documents that were included in the draft slip report.

For task two, the approach is more or less the same as the original scope of work that you all saw at your previous meeting to identify those trip generators and destinations that will inform the OD analysis.

The goal of this task is to understand travel within the MPO area for those shorter trips and travel coming in, out, or throughout the MPO area for those longer ones.

On this task, we received a lot of really great feedback from MPO Tech Committee on the use of our data sources

Originally we intended to really anchor on streetlight data, but after their feedback, we were advised to identify some other ones that could help supplement and validate the streetlight data because we've heard that there have been some challenges with bike ped data specifically.

And so we're happy to share that we did apply and get access to Strava Metro data for the NPO area that is stretching from 2020 to 2025.

That's what they have available.

So we're really excited to have access to that.

and then as mentioned before, leading into all the data sources that VDOT also publishes for planners to use.

Another piece of feedback that we heard from MPO-TAC and CTAC was to connect with local cycling and running clubs, CVA parking and transportation, as well as MicroCAT just to make sure we have a really comprehensive look at data that's currently happening on the ground.

For Task 3, the intent is still to assess the potential for shifting trips from auto to non-auto modes, considering trip characteristics and attractiveness of the potential switch to another mode.

We clarified for this task in the final scope of work that our strategies didn't have to just be infrastructure related.

They would also be policy related.

Maybe that means we make recommendations to look at employer parking programs or other sort of policy changes that could lead to shifts in behavior.

For task four, we added additional opportunities to provide public feedback, specifically from targeted groups suggested by IPO Tech committee, CTAC, as well as EROLL at your last meeting.

These include the cycling and running club as mentioned earlier, but also local school systems to understand movement from them and housing focus groups.

We also added a project schedule to the new scope of work showing the tentative timeline for completion within the fiscal year.

You'll notice that outreach and engagement stretches across most of the months of the study to make sure we've got opportunities for multiple touchpoints to be able to validate our data, ask them for their feedback, and provide those deliverables for their review throughout the study as well.

And we will really work to align our deliverables with meeting dates as well so you all are getting consistent updates on the study.

So next steps, when we took this to the NPO Technical Committee earlier this month, they did recommend approval.

Today we're looking for your approval as well so that we can go ahead and begin the work.

I have kind of a question about what you mentioned about CTAC, but it might be more of a question for the CTAC discussion later.

So Taylor, how does this effort work with the effort we just heard from?

And so the travel demand model is really a forecasting tool.

And so it's looking 20 years out to forecast traffic, to forecast conditions.

What we're looking at in this study is how are people moving today?

What are people doing on the ground today?

Looking at recreation, looking at people biking to work, walking to work, just to understand more how they're moving.

Excellent.

I was glad to see your suggestion about employer diversion, because when the university, and I wish that somebody was here from the university, but when we started the Afton Express as a precursor to the computer from the Crose computer as well, the ticket

Ticket to Ride was paid for by the university, so those employees did not have to then have parking provided, and that was a win-win all the way around.

And we've asked the city to look into putting together some kind of incentive program for city staff.

Awesome.

Any other questions?

We need to move to approve the adjusted scope of work and staff memo.

All in favour?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Laughlin.

Hello, everybody.

My name is Gorjan Gjorgjievski.

I'm a regional planner here at the JPDC working on the TIP document.

We don't have a presentation today for the TIP amendment, but just wanted to mention that we're looking for action from the MPO Policy Board in your packet today.

We provided the staff memo, a resolution for adoption in the full TIP document.

So this amendment includes a new TIP block specifically for the autism sanctuary, which received the federal funding for their 5310 programs, specifically 159,000 in federal funding, 20,000 in state funding, 20,000 in local funding.

This request came from DRPT and we're looking to incorporate that into the PIP amendment.

This amendment will not eventually constrain the PIP document.

We also provided this update to the MPO policy, I mean MPO technical committee, which through their action, they recommend that the MPO policy board adopts the PIP amendment.

Just in the resolution, I think there's an extra nine that should be taken out because it looks like a million by.

Thank you for that.

The resolution that I printed to be signed has that extra number removed.

That'd be nice though.

So as follow up on page 61, it looks like there's an MPO map.

And I couldn't make it clear enough to be able to answer my own question.

So if someone could

Email out the PDF of that map so that then I can understand where it really goes.

That would be very, that I won't bother you with having the wrong information.

Okay.

Yes.

So as Taylor mentioned,

Yes, as Taylor mentioned in the meeting, the request came from Charlottesville Area Transit for some administrative modifications to their projects, specifically eight of their projects.

This request was not included originally in the packet due to the timing when this arrived.

However, to summarize, all of these adjustments to their projects are considered as

administrative modifications to the TIP.

Therefore, they do not require action from the MPO Policy Board, but the memo we provided just serves as a guideline to tell you that we are working on this directly with CAT and DRPT to make sure that all of these modifications are implemented into the TIP document as to meet their September 25th deadline

Specifically, all the modifications are referring to their 5339 program for various projects like replacement rolling block stock, passenger shelters, purchase of shop equipment, and so on.

So the Charlottesville Albemarle staff will continue to work with CAT and DRPT to meet the September 25th deadline.

We're also planning to

But the dollar total stays the same.

There are some increases to their projects.

So we don't have to vote on this per se.

So what we're planning to do is incorporate all of these changes once we have reached a verdict of if all of these numbers are correct to make sure that everything is in line with federal requirements.

We really just wanted to make sure that you all were aware that we were making these changes to the tip.

They have to be done by September 25th and so you all wouldn't have another meeting before we would have to make the updates posted online and share back with CAT to share with FTIS.

Thank you for this information.

Any additional questions?

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

Moving on to staff updates.

Thank you.

So I'm happy to announce that the plane has been adopted by all six jurisdictions.

Move Safe to the Glory was sent to AFHWA for their review.

We received some positive feedback.

However, they have not officially approved the plane yet.

I believe that's going to be

done after the closeout process.

So our performance period ends on September 30th of this year.

And after that, we're going to enter the closeout period, which could take up to 120 days, which will require final report and final invoice in the question year provided by FHWA.

That's kind of the biggest update.

We're also working with all of our jurisdictions to

Trying to see if they're interested in seeking that implementation funding for next round because as we all know, there is only one final round of next year funding with about $1 billion.

We're certain that that's going to be, the funding is going to be allocated perhaps 70% for implementation projects and then maybe 30% from planning and development projects.

We're super excited about the plan, but we really hope that the jurisdictions are interested in applying for those fundings.

On another note, if they are not, or if they don't have the capacity to do so, then TJPDC would take on that on behalf of the jurisdictions.

The other update I'd like to share is from the Charlottesville Albemarle application that we submitted for the supplemental planning for a comprehensive safety action plan.

That would be great.

Thank you.

And then Taylor with the joint meeting.

I sent out a save the date last week for our joint NPO meeting with the Santa Augusta Waynesboro NPO.

That will be held on September 30th at the North Fork Meeting Center off of 29.

And so we're really excited about that.

The tentative agenda right now has transit, rail, and some bike ped things on it.

So for transit, we've been thinking about maybe having an update on the active express, updates on the work that the transit authority have been doing in the region.

And then for rail, getting an update on the statewide rail plan and having someone from DRPT some to speed and talk about rail in the two regions.

And then also having an update on the three notch trail so far.

And then the raised bill grant application update.

Yeah.

So we received notification last month that we unfortunately did not receive the raised grant that we have invited for the Rivanna River Pedestrian Bridge.

They didn't give us any other information, but they do typically schedule debriefs with anyone who wasn't selected, and so we're just waiting on standby for them to reach out to schedule that.

How long do they usually wait to reach out?

Six weeks at least.

They already sent out a blanket message to everybody saying if you would like to request a debrief, fill out this form.

We filled out that form and said it could be six weeks or more before you near back for schedule.

I'd also say it's interesting to note that there were no projects funded in the state of Virginia.

They usually, at least from a just observational standpoint, they usually try to spread out geographically within a state, but also the types of projects within a state.

So it's not entirely surprising that it wasn't funded since there was a RAISE grant awarded to Albemarle for bike-ped planning work.

You know, you wouldn't normally see those happen back to back.

It might go rail to port to bike-ped to, and then they try to spread it out geographically as well.

But this time there was none in the state of Virginia.

What's nice about that project?

We don't have an answer to that, but I mean, that's a, that was a,

What, $4 million, 30% design?

I mean, I don't know of a local source for sure that would support that, but we will obviously continue looking for discretionary grant programs, you know, see what's coming down the pike that is still existing.

Any other questions or discussion for that?

And then just to note that the next meeting date for this Policy Board will be October 22nd at 4.30pm.

As you all know, we have been working on a couple of SARS studies on the US-29 corridor.

So we are wrapping up the existing conditions phase right now, and I'm going to go over some of the findings based on what we have been doing, and then we'll talk about what our next steps are.

So just a brief reminder of what STARS is.

STARS is a planning program that is managed by Central Office of Transportation, Mobility and Planning Division to develop mobility, multi-modal transportation solutions specifically targeted at locations where there are high needs related to congestion and safety.

And so our goal is to identify solutions that can be implemented through any number of funding programs, including SMART SCALE, but not limited to SMART SCALE.

There's a lot of flexibility within the STARS program, but all projects follow a multidisciplinary approach from the identification of locations that need to be studied to the strategies for advancing projects towards funding.

There's a lot of support and coordination that's built into STARS, starting with central office programming staff, which oversees the program as a whole, and every project is assigned a consultant team with subject matter experts.

VDOT district and residency staff are involved in developing the solutions and identifying the problems.

And then, of course, there's a strong collaboration with our regional and local stakeholders.

We've been talking about this whole area from the Ferricks and Emmett Street intersection up to Woodbrook Road as one project, but technically it's divided up into two separate study efforts.

They're gonna be grouped into a northern project area and a southern project area.

So the northern project area is going to be from hydraulic road up the corridor to Woodbrook Drive.

And this slide shows where we are collecting data.

We're focusing mostly on the intersections along the US-29 mainline, but there are some adjacent intersections.

You'll see the dots off to the side where we're collecting additional traffic data

And that's because sometimes when you have a solution for the mainline intersection, it might have an impact of the adjacent intersection.

So we want to have all that data available and come from a consistent source.

The first step is to make sure that we have agreement on what the needs are for the corridor.

So we started with a public survey and this survey that we conducted was a combined survey for both project areas.

So you'll see this graph once and maybe you just go back to it when we get to the next project area.

We had more than 2,300 participants take the survey, and as you can see, the biggest need that the participants identified was reducing traffic congestion, but there were also a lot of responses identifying needs to improve safety along the corridor, to improve bicycle safety and accessibility, to improve things like signage and pavement markings, and to address speeding and aggressive driving, as well as

And then we also looked at what the other needs have been identified through other statewide, regional, local planning efforts that have been developed that includes this area.

Hopefully one cannot see the screen.

All right.

So statewide, the statewide forwarding needs are listed under the 2023 midterm needs.

And then PB-SAT is the pedestrian bicycle safety action plan.

That's also a statewide plan that identifies specifically where there are pedestrian and bicycle needs.

PSI is potential for safety improvements.

So those are, the needs are identified statewide.

And then we also,

have realized through a lot of the local planning efforts that there's a need for additional pedestrian connectivity, specifically connecting the two sides of US 29 and enhancing transit service along this study area.

So when we reviewed the existing conditions, what we looked at was the operations of the corridor, safety and pedestrian and bicycle accessibility,

I'm going to talk about transit at the end because we did scope in some work for transit considerations as well.

So starting with the operations, the public survey showed that congestion mitigation was a major concern among the respondents.

The data that showed when they did the operational analysis is that the 29 is actually, the tropical on 29 is actually being processed pretty efficiently along the main line.

There is some queuing, most heavily impacting the side street movements and the minor street movements.

And while the movement along the 29 Main Line is fairly effective, there are some places that are experiencing higher delays than others.

Looking at safety, there are several intersections along this corridor that are identified as potential for safety improvement intersections, meaning that they're experiencing a higher number of crashes than would be expected based on the characteristics.

Quick question, sorry to interrupt.

There was a chat that just came through.

One thing I want to mention is that in all of these you'll see that there's a dark spot on Hydraulic Road.

This data was all

taken before the improvements went into effect at the hydraulic intersection.

I mean, we can pull it for the next recent year.

I mean, it gets updated.

It's just that we won't have like that five year to really be able to know when

Looking at fatal crashes along the corridor, there were four fatal crashes during that five-year time period that the data was pulled, including two pedestrian fatalities.

Both of those occurred at mid-block locations during the evening hours.

Can you talk about what those acronyms mean?

Yeah, northbound left and southbound through.

Lots of times when I've actually seen these things happen, it's because somebody on the main line is running light and they're just blasting right through and creating it to the person who has the green to go.

And maybe that's what that ran through.

Southbound ran through the lightning.

Yes, and we're trying to keep it at a high level for those purposes, but we will have the existing conditions report that we'll put on the website.

So if you want to go back and look specifically at what are part of any of these intersections, that information will be available.

And then we also looked at the existing pedestrian accommodations throughout the study area.

So this map right here just shows where there are pedestrian crossings at signalized intersections.

So where there are the red X's on this map, that means that there's a signalized intersection without a existing pedestrian crossing currently.

Based on the review of the existing pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, there's consistent infrastructure in terms of sidewalks throughout the study area.

Then there's also the shared use path that started with Angus going southbound through the area of the interchange.

But there are very few crosswalks across US 29.

One of the things that we observed during our field visit was pedestrians crossing at unmarked locations.

And then there were non-pedestrian crashes during the analysis period, total four occurring at mid-block locations.

So that's the first study area.

So now we'll get into the southern study area.

And again, this is where we collected the data.

And we are also looking at the barracks road on and off-ramps, again, because we need to make sure that we are considering impacts of the adjoining interchange.

And these are the needs that have been identified.

Remember, if we go back to the public survey, it's the same survey for both of those.

So congestion, mitigation, safety, bicycle and pedestrian, accessibility, aggressive driving, those same things that the public identified.

and then these are the statewide needs and similar regional and local needs about enhancing transit and improving bicycle and pedestrian safety.

Getting into the operations.

The overall congestion is light to moderate heavy.

You can see that there are intersections in here that you are probably familiar with that are experiencing heavier relay and heavier

Yeah, I said that, let's see, I'm going to get married.

Yeah, barracks road and Emmett is both in the morning and on the afternoon.

What, I mean, I know that it's like, you know, what do you feel like, what is there like a technical delay definition?

It's like X number of times you're late or X number of minutes waiting or

And then the delay is based on, Chuck, is it the total seconds that

It includes the slowdown, the stoppage, and the acceleration back to travel speed.

So it changes depending on the type of intersection.

Well that's capacity driven, right?

So it evens out.

Thank you.

And somewhere in there,

You're talking about, what jumps into my mind looking at this map is the eastbound bypass at Hydraulic Road where five car lengths were added, but we needed 50.

And so it's still every single day is backing up over the bridge or fewer cars.

Well, sure, but if you want people to come and go to work or go to the restaurant, they have to be able to get around.

So anyway, that,

Well, it is moderate to heavy and where, I mean, so it is, it is one of the, I would also probably say too, that if that is, that data is probably collected pre-improvement.

If the data that at hydraulic,

was pretty improvement.

Okay.

Yeah, we can go back.

We can go back and double check when the data was collected, but this was also validated in the field.

So the consultants were out in the field checking where the cues were.

So they kind of, they're putting all this in their model.

Yeah, they were out in the field looking at that between 3 and 6 p.m. Yeah.

That's a start.

And the other question on this map, back up to Leonard Sanders.

It's something we've talked about over many years here, because that's still also people waiting to get on the barracks are waiting on the storage level of that two lane exit.

So the northbound ramps, that barracks road, that still is backing up to the west and south board letter sandwich exit.

And I know one of the things discussed many years ago was just extending the turn lane as it's done in so many other places to be able to give people a chance to get off the road sooner.

All right.

So then, again, looking at the safety needs along this section, again, we have two PSI intersections at Hydraulic and then at the 29-250 southbound ramp at Berwick Road.

And then there were, I forget how many fatal and injury crashes, I'll be on another slide, but some of the factors that were contributing to some of the crashes that we're seeing are just, again, the congestion throughout the day,

The interchange ramp geometry, and then we're seeing offered and then departure crashes.

These are the crash hotspots.

There are crash patterns.

We already talked about some of the contributing factors are the access management.

So again, the density of commercial entrances in close proximity to the interchange ramps.

There were three fatal crashes in the review period where the crashes were considered.

One angle, one rear end, and one pedestrian crash.

The pedestrian crash occurred at Morton Drive and the marked crosswalk.

And again, looking at the pedestrian and bicycle improvements already in place throughout the study area.

Again, this map shows where there are pedestrian crossings at signalized intersections with the exception of that green X near the southern portion of that map that is at the Federal Executive Institute or the former Federal Executive Institute.

That's not a signalized intersection.

And then there is the shared use path

that goes down the center median, basically providing access through the area of the interchange rooms.

Again, there's a good basis for a sidewalk network throughout the corridor, no missing segments, there are crosswalks present at all signalized intersections, and there were three pedestrian crashes total, two occurred near Angus Road, and then we already mentioned the fatality that occurred.

So one of the things that was really important to the study work group when we were scoping the study was to make sure that we were considering the multimodal transportation needs throughout the study area.

So as part of the scope, we included a bicycle and pedestrian flag analysis to make sure that we were including consideration for the bicycle and pedestrian movement as part of the study.

The flag assessment is used to identify conflicts between vehicular movements and bicycle and pedestrian movements.

Conflicts are assigned either a yellow flag or a red flag, depending on how severe those conflicts are and what risks they pose to the pedestrians.

And then the goal is not necessarily to eliminate all of the red and yellow flags, but to be aware of them, to determine what mitigation strategies might be available to reduce some of the risks that they pose to bicyclists and pedestrians moving through the different sections of the corridor.

or to prioritize which flags are more important to mitigate or eliminate.

The way it works is that each leg of the intersection for each intersection is remuted as 20 bicycle and pedestrian flags.

13 of the flags are for both bicyclists and pedestrians, and then there are seven flags that are just for bicyclists.

And this is done for every intersection throughout the corridor.

It was a pretty comprehensive process.

So what we found is that the list of the most commonly occurring bicycle and pedestrian flags is shown here on your screen.

So you can see some of these are motor vehicle right turns, motor vehicle left turns.

Those are things that are just going to exist at an intersection, but by flagging them and becoming aware of it, we can make sure that we're considering how to reduce the risk associated with some of those conflicts as we go through the sagging.

Any questions on that?

All right.

And then considering the transit needs along the corridor, we did want to make sure that we had in mind that you all have identified some goals for increasing the frequency of transit through the 29 corridor.

And so we scoped in consideration for what future transit needs might look like as well.

This map right here shows the existing transit services that currently serve the area.

And then what we are going to be doing as part of this study is that we are going to be looking at what the land use patterns that we're currently seeing might indicate for how demand for high transit service is likely to play out in the future.

So they're looking at things like activity density currently within the corridor,

They're doing what they call like this partialization review to look at where there is potential for higher intensity development in the future.

And then also looking at multi-modal accommodations.

And what we expect to come out of this is a narrower scope for recommendations on how far apart stocks should be, whether this should be on 29 or on a parallel route, like kind of higher level ideas

For what high frequency transit would look like, that could be moved into a more detailed study when the region is ready to consider actually paying for high frequency transit.

So we wouldn't expect necessarily any high frequency transit recommendations to be ready for application, but we want to make sure that we are keeping an eye towards what the future of this corridor is going to look like and making sure that

This study won't preclude any of those rules in the future.

So that's what we've done so far.

This red flag thing from yesterday and Saturday was a really good idea.

Just yesterday, I was at the light going west, right up here on water.

And someone was barreling up the right lane on McIntyre.

And just, I mean, the woman jumped about three feet because she would have taken off her shins right there in front of him.

This person was not even looking and was just getting around that corner,

We're running white, basically.

And I thought, boop, boop.

So this, I don't know if there's a sign there that says, lunch for pedestrians or something.

Not that anybody would probably care or anything.

But it was really scary.

And it's a good thing that the pedestrian was so agile with this.

I've never seen anybody jump so far.

So she had her bandana on.

I know that the car, I mean, that's how close it was.

We hope that this will help us.

Fine.

Do you have Loaves and Fishes on Land's Road on your list as per slide 164 or page 164?

It doesn't show an extension of anything there, but it's something we've talked about off and on for several years to be able to get to the food pantry, which was on Greenbrier and had a bus right there to it.

And then it moved to a far better location.

But right now it's relying on short term

All right.

So what we are doing next is we're going to start looking at what are the alternatives?

What can we do to address some of the needs that have been identified along the border?

So starting with the northern section, we have a toolbox of solutions that includes innovative intersections.

Traditional improvements like turn lane extension, signal timing, bicycle, pedestrian, and transit improvements, and then low cost improvements.

What our solutions are targeted for, at least to start off with, is reducing delays for side street movements without compromising the U.S. 29-3 movement to support our statewide significance.

We needed to keep the traffic moving.

We want to mitigate the risks of angle or reordering collisions.

improve travel time reliability, and then provide pedestrian accommodations across US 29 at targeted locations.

So we'll be working with our study work group to help identify which alternatives might be viable to support those goals for that section.

And then for the interchange areas, a similar toolbox of solutions looking at interchange modifications include innovative interchange designs, traditional improvements like ramp extensions, adding

turn lanes to ramps potentially, bicycle and pedestrian improvements throughout the study area, and low-cost improvements.

And again, our goals are to alleviate congestion, mitigate the most significant safety risks associated with angle, rear end crashes, and preserve the capacity of the interchange while reviewing operations.

I don't have an updated study schedule.

I think our next step is going to be to start reviewing alternatives with the study work group.

and start narrowing down the list of projects to consider moving forward with for more advanced levels of design considerations.

The project is currently on track and on schedule.

And after we get through the study work group meeting, we'll revisit that schedule and see if we are comfortable moving forward as scoped or if we need to make any revisions in the schedule as originally developed.

It's not a question and it's not something you can do anything about.

But everyone, please, please write to your General Assembly people and ask them to pass again for the fourth year in row, the voter speed bill that allows all the penalties to ticket because in the one location where Albemarle County has had the authority to do it, it has made dramatic changes in behavior.

And if you can get people to go and then the speed bill, the bypass can actually be brought down instead of people going 60,

at the weave there to get off the barracks road.

If they're truly going 35 or 40, all of these crashes would not happen because people would have the chance to avoid the stupidity and that would be great.

Yeah.

I got one more question.

Would you want us to?

The only reason I think that that's, if we're looking at potentially something, we are too light.

Or we are too light, if everyone wants to look at it.

Usually the ridership is a weighted average in the determination of whether we're going to need that federal funding.

Okay.

And I think we have some, I think Zoe's on the study work group,

I throw out a question, but I do have a couple of comments.

One, in the toolbox of solutions, I'm happy to see that widening the roads is not listed, which is great, because we know that doesn't fix anything.

What?

There's no way what?

Yeah.

But I'm glad that we're not going to try to do anything expensive and land grabby to do that because we know that just induces demand.

And what I said, we need to come up with one of the other alternatives is getting people out of their cars.

I'm not kidding.

That is a big, serious thing.

And so having the potential for light rail being on the corridor would help.

The fact that the bike ped and the bike ped improvements were listed separately from congestion mitigation kind of add those together.

Those are the same thing.

Bike ped improvements help with congestion mitigation.

You know, the kind of last difficult place to bike to easily in the area is basically the Trader Joe's corner and the bridge is going to help with that.

So now,

Instead of me having to drive there, I can bike there, which is great.

So it's not going to be the solution for everybody, but that's on the point.

The point is making a solution for enough people that it means the people left who do have to drive because they live out of service area or whatever are not facing the same congestion and safety issues that they would have if everybody who is now not driving is driving.

So it's not a fun thing to add.

It is the point.

So I just wanted to kind of emphasize that, and I'm glad that it was mentioned so often in the presentation.

Would you like me to turn it over?

I think we should just continue to go.

We're getting close to the end, so I'm glad you were able to join.

And I hope that the ribbon hanging went well.

So now we move on to our CTAC conversation.

I can jump in on that.

We're putting together material to roll out SMART SCALE for next round seven to try to identify locations for different localities or they want to submit applications for, so we're putting that together.

We should be sending it out next week, and we'll be setting up meetings with the various localities, including the MPO, to discuss potential locations for next round, and then

basically so we can start to work on those with the localities.

But we're going to look at projects that are identified as a priority need in the V-Trans state highway plan that are priority one or two, because that was one of the items that was a takeaway from last round that most of the projects that were funded were priority one or two from the V-Trans plan.

So we're going to look at those as well as

projects that weren't submitted last round that were identified in studies.

I know we had several that were in the Barracks Road pipeline study.

We're going to look at some alternatives that are less expensive to try to get those submitted as well as Ivy Road, which wasn't submitted at all last round.

and then resubmission of the interchange at Fifth Street possibly and then we'll be coming back in definitely October meeting to present that information.

Chuck, would you be able to send a link to the V-Trans recommendations for our area?

I'll link it on the website because that would be a head start for homework that would help out.

We can send that.

Thank you.

All right.

So my presentation today is all about MPO administration and CTAC, CTAC history, CTAC activities, and where there can be some alignment with the things that the MPO is charged with.

So a quick agenda for today.

We will talk about how we got here to this meeting, some recent meeting summaries of what led us to this point.

We will talk about the source regulations for MPOs and what an MPO is supposed to do, what they were federally charged with,

We will talk about the history and past activities of CTAC and also what we have seen around the state for citizen bodies.

So beginning in March, following the recent election of their officers, CTAC members had a discussion on expiring committee membership, the appointment process, and they also requested a discussion of their bylaws within next meeting to make sure everyone was aware of what CTAC's charge was supposed to be.

At their main meeting,

The members did review their bylaws, and they started discussions on the committee's purpose and also brainstormed potential activities.

And the way the bylaws are written, there was confusion among committee members, because they are a little bit open to interpretation.

It doesn't say, here are the bloated items that you're charged with.

It really just says, you are an advisory to the MPO policy board, and you give feedback on the recommendations.

At the June IDBO Policy Board meeting, spurred by an agenda item addressing those CTAC vacancies, policy board members started leading into a broader discussion about what is CTAC forage, and maybe we should pause on the appointment process until we can have a little bit more of that discussion.

So at that meeting in June, it was decided one of our action items was to set up a meeting between the chairs and the vice chairs of both bodies to again talk about CTAC, the purpose, and the activities.

And that meeting happened on July 18th, and it focused around all the things that we've been talking about so far.

And then there was also the request for information about what the MPO does so that we could have more structured conversation around where CTAC might fit into that.

So after that July meeting, staff zoomed all the way out, and we went back to the source regulations.

We said, let's see what it says in all of these so that we know kind of what our starting basis is.

So that is the 23 CFR Part 450 that you see on your screen.

Subpart B is specific to state responsibilities, so that's where a lot of VDOT's responding.

Subpart C is specific to MPOs, and that sets forth the policy that the MPO is to carry out a continuing cooperative and comprehensive transportation planning process, so the three B's, we'll go back to that, including the development of a metropolitan transportation plan, that's our LRTP, and also a TIP document.

So as a federally mandated body, first and foremost, we have to satisfy all the things that are laid out in that legislation.

So we will go into detail about each of these things later with some definitions and frequency, but at a high level, those responsibilities include the LRTP and the TIP as mentioned, establishing performance targets, developing a public participation plan for our activities, and to document our activities in a UPWP, the Unified Planning Work Program.

So committee structure for MPOs is actually not specified in the federal requirements.

We get our committee structure from the 3C Agreement, which is an MOU that we have between the MPO, between our member jurisdictions, the state and transit agencies in the region.

And that specific agreement identifies a policy board and a technical committee.

Those are the two that we are required to have that it outlines.

Additional committees that we have, of course, is CTAC, and then we also have Regional Transit Partnership, which began in 2017.

And there's a star next to that one because it will inevitably sunset in December of 2020.

The 3C agreement identifies the policy board as the chief regional authority, so the decision maker for this transportation planning process for the region.

The technical committee provides the technical review, the supervision of that technical work, and then of course provides recommendations to you all.

And before we jump into sort of all of our activities, were there any questions about those few slides that we just covered about federal regulations or anything like that?

Okay.

So the first document that we have is the Long-Range Transportation Plan.

That is updated every five years and then it can be amended as needed.

So if there are projects that need to be added to the LRTP to become eligible for funding or regional priority shift,

We can update that anytime and bring it to you all for an amendment.

That has a 20-year forecast period, and it is a multi-level plan.

The Transportation Improvement Program, or the TIP, is more of a financial document.

So it is a prioritized list of projects that are receiving federal funding, and they are regionally significant.

That is coordinated with the state.

And so by federal law, we have to update that every four years.

Here in Virginia, because they update the STIP every three years, we tend to follow their update process.

So we update ours about every three years.

The UPWP is the document that identifies our transportation planning activities that we will be completing the upcoming school year.

We complete that every year.

Establishing safety performance targets, we also do that every year.

And then there are also other performance targets related to infrastructure, bridges, distant performance, and that varies based on the performance period.

And we also do those in coordination with the state.

Our RACI agreement, spoke a little bit about that a couple of slides ago.

That's an agreement between the MPO, member jurisdictions, the state and transit agencies for really who's going to do what in this metropolitan transportation planning process.

We have on these slides that it's done every 10 years, but we received new information yesterday that that's typically done following transportation reauthorization at the federal level, just in case there are changes in responsibilities, changes in federal regulations for who is supposed to be doing that.

The annual obligation report is something that is completed annually.

That is an annual list of projects, basically looking back to understand what projects had federal funds that were obligated during that year.

So it provides an accounting of those federal funds, essentially.

MPO boundary maintenance, that is completed every 10 years following a decennial census year.

And so when that comes up, we take a look at the population again to understand, did the urbanized area grow?

Did it shrink?

Are there any adjustments that need to be made to our boundaries?

The public participation plan defines our process for providing interested parties with an opportunity to be involved with the activities that we do, and that does not have a defined update period.

It just says periodically in the federal regulation, so as needed, we update that plan.

And then the Title VI plan needs to be updated every three years, and that documents our program and our process for making sure that we're confined with the Title VI, the Civil Rights Act.

We have our travel demand model.

So I feel like you all have gotten a look at a lot of our processes, just seeing this meeting today, all at the same time.

So we have our model that we update every five years.

So it's at least a minor update or a major update every 10 years where they completely look back at all of the data and start to track it all of it.

So that's our analytical tool that we use for the LRS&P, but we can also use it for other purposes.

So we have other planning

Things that are going on when VDOT is doing their pipeline and STAR studies, they reach out to us to get to the model to be able to complete their forecasting for that.

Functional classification is done every 10 years more as requested.

So that's one that can go in either direction.

And that is a federal process where we route each of the streets and the highways and the classes according to what type of service they provide.

And so when there's a review for that, we'd be looking at, does this still act as a local street or is this acting more like an arterial or more like a different kind

So we can request those updates or the state can coordinate an update or coordinate an update for that.

SMART SCALE is not identified in the federal regulations, of course, since that's Virginia's process, but that happens every two years.

And as the MPO, we're not only an eligible applicant, but we're also responsible for providing resolutions that support all the projects need to be in our LRTB.

And if it's not, we have to provide a resolution saying that we support this project for our

for our jurisdictions to apply for them.

And then we participate in any state-led plans or studies, the STARS, Project Pipeline, the MPO is involved in those, and then other discretionary grants.

So like Safe Streets and Roads for All or VDOT's discretionary grant opportunities, we participate in those.

So I know that wasn't a lot.

Yeah, I have.

So the Fed regs don't mention CTAC.

Do they mention, besides the public, wait, the public participation plan is a federal?

Yes.

So they just say we have to give interested parties a reasonable opportunity to be engaged with the public participation plan.

So engagement is just the public participation plan?

Yeah.

It doesn't say what has to be in our public participation plan.

It doesn't say how we have to engage the public, right?

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

So shifting gears into the CTAC history.

So we went all the way into the archives for this one.

It was very fascinating.

So starting back at the beginning in 1982, the IPO was established.

The CTAC committee was first called S.H.A.R.T.

because our long-range transportation plan used to be called S.H.A.R.T.

as well.

So they were somewhat of the S.H.A.R.T.

committee.

So they were established in 2001.

There were no bylaws in 2001, but there was a document that was circulated for here's what CTAC is supposed to do.

And here is their membership.

And so these bullets that you see on the screen are pulled directly from that document from 2001 when chart was established.

And so it says develop and recommend updates to the long range Charlottesville, Albemarle regional transportation plans, meet frequently as needed during land updates,

Meet no less than annually during interim years to evaluate plan progress, recommend amendments and updates, host community forums to solicit public input, and then present plan update and recommendations for amendments to the tech committee for endorsement and approval by the NBA policy board.

And that last one I thought was very interesting since right now, or in the bylaws, CTAC is advisory to the NBA policy board.

And a lot of what I found when I was back doing the research was that

And we were very bossy, and that is a family member, and sent our things to both, because Tech Committee was often doing their own thing.

But this was, you have to sort of do a time warp here, and put yourself back into the time of incredible transportation turmoil, and slow down the dealing, the fighting with itself, as well as how it was going to deal with the state,

The Southside communities who were telling us to do XYZ.

So there was a lot that was put on the chart to collect public information.

And it was a lot easier than that because everybody's here.

So when there was a meeting, people actually came.

You didn't have to go beat the bushes to find people, although you did often go out to meet with them at schools and stuff like that to try to lead people to live where they live.

But we met monthly.

that were envisioned to be on the chart for me.

And so I will read all of these on the screen.

They include citizens at large.

They include very specific interest groups.

This is Bobby.

And then in 2013, there was a restructure of the committee and the name change.

So that's when it went from charter to CTAC.

Membership reduced from 18 to 13.

This is when we saw our first set of bylaws and that identified, those are the bylaws that we have today.

Essentially, they haven't changed since then.

They removed the specific membership types from there.

So all those that you saw on the list previously, because they're

We saw memos and meeting minutes that spoke to the difficulty of filling those positions because they were so specific.

So they took those out in 2013 with the publishing of their first bylaws.

Emphasis was also placed on CTAC being advisory to the NPO Policy Board, not other outside bodies.

That's something else that we saw in meeting minutes and memos from previous staff.

And then in 2019, there was another purpose discussion that centered around a few topics during the meetings.

What will CTAC do outside of an LRTP update?

Will the policy board provide them with direction and specific tasks, or should they develop their own things to work on?

Should CTAC members be appointed by one central body to better manage the equipment processing of interest groups and to ensure the diversity of membership?

Right now, we have our CTAC members appointed by the MPO, Albemarle, and Charlottesville.

And is CTAC a requirement?

Many peer MPOs don't have a citizen committee,

should they only meet during an LRT feedback phase.

So some of the same things that were wrapped up to get to the thing.

We also looked around to other MPOs in the state to see which had citizen committees and which did not.

So out of 15 in the state, six have a transportation-specific citizen committee, and the only four active ones are in the largest urban areas, and we wanted to share that with you all.

Fredericksburg, Hampton Roads,

National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, so that's up in the DC area, the Richmond TPO, and then we did see in the bylaws for Winchester Frederick that they had a citizen committee, but there was no evidence online of any meetings that had happened, nothing on the calendar, we couldn't find any evidence of them being.

Other local citizen advisory committees that we have in our region, Albemarle County has the CACs, the community advisory committees,

who work with the board.

They have board liaisons that attend all third meetings and they do a lot of work with the community to go out, share information and solicit public feedback.

Charlottesville has a bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee whose purpose is to provide feedback on bicycle and pedestrian facility design and safety for all road users.

Charlottesville in the past has had a place design task force, which acted as an advisory board to the planning commission and city staff.

That was last active in 2021.

And then Charlottesville Area Transit also has had an advisory board in the past that was established by a revolution, but it's not currently active from a week of time.

So past activities of CTAC, what we were able to find digging through a lot of the files that we have.

So previous, most of it surrounds the LRTP updates.

And so previously we have gotten evidence of public workshop planning, facilitating those workshops, lift the public during an LRTP update.

There was a public participation database.

So what you see on your screen, there was also a public input survey that they created.

That's the first one that's kind of in the back end landscape that they developed a path out to people and to solicit their input.

That LRTP, they collected 57 public input surveys to be able to help inform that process and share that with staff.

They also created a chart card with resources where citizens could find information about regional transportation.

So that had websites,

Links to things that they could read to understand the planning process a little bit better.

And then in 2009, we found a resolution of endorsement for new Amtrak passenger rail service for the region.

A few of the challenges of CTAC activities over the years, so desire to advise bodies other than the NPO Policy Board.

So whenever there are things happening in the region, CTAC members often want to write letters or they want to show up on behalf of CTAC to provide comments.

to these other bodies other than just the policy board.

We found a memo that was written to Albemarle County recommending specific concepts be incorporated in the community site plans.

And I mentioned in the letter about the temporary crosswalk installment that they wanted to write that happened earlier this year surrounding that incident.

There's also the desire to perform a lot of advocacy related work, which is a hard position to be in as one of these committees.

They want to develop staff subcommittees and have more frequent meetings, which also would be, that would have an impact on staff capacity as well if we were to host these every single month, and also have things for them to discuss on the agenda, because typically we bring them things that we bring you all as well.

And so if we're not having monthly meetings with you all, it would be kind of hard to fill that time additionally if they wanted to go to monthly meetings.

Challenges differentiating between CTAC's role and MPO tech committee's role.

We often have folks on CTAC wanting to provide actual drawings

engineering drawings, they want to influence the process that we might not necessarily have control over.

So VDOT studies for things that are happening that MPO policy board does not directly have the ability to influence that process.

It's challenging for staff to orient new members without a clear understanding on our end of what CTAC is supposed to be doing.

So what are we supposed to bring to CTAC?

Do we bring them everything that we bring you all?

Are there certain technical things that they should not be weighing in on?

So there is also an ask then uncertainty with staff onboarding as well for new CTAC members.

Unclear chain of communications.

So does the policy board assign tasks or do they set their own direction?

Do they get to choose the activities that they work on?

Does the policy board value the feedback from CTAC members differently than feedback from the general public?

Whether do we go to CTAC to cover the public engagement for a plan or an activity that we might be doing and how is that different from going out to the public?

And we've also had instances where folks want to be added to agendas to present ideas for solutions outside of an established process that might already be going on for that point in our study.

Current interests that CTAC has articulated, so they do want to be more active.

We do have folks on there who are saying, what is our charge because we want to be here, we're showing up to these meetings, what are the things that we're supposed to be

working on, they just don't know how to influence the existing planning process and where the MPO actually has influence over those.

They would like to inform planning processes, again, that are controlled by MPO staff.

So a lot of those state-led studies are things that are going on outside of our control that aren't our study.

We don't get to set whether the scope of work is this, when those touch points are with the public.

We can't change those.

They would like to propose technical solutions to solve transportation issues, once again, outside of those structured processes, and then the desire to advise on local transportation initiatives outside the policy board's authority.

And we also included in here just a couple of bullets on how public engagement has generally changed since chart was first established in present day.

So back in the 2000s, outreach, of course, strongly relied on mailed notices, printed newspaper ads, televised media,

in-person staff capacity.

Access to information was often limited by public attendance.

We had less opportunities for those virtual opportunities for engagement.

Information was shared much more door-to-door working liaisons and word of mouth.

And of course, that's not to say that that is not so valuable today.

We still need a lot of it that we're doing.

It's just not the only mechanism that we have now to collect public feedback.

And then again, fewer opportunities for virtual outreach and engagement.

So today we have staff who are still performing that in-person outreach.

We do pop-up events, we do tabling, we do paper surveys, we do the translation.

We also have virtual and hybrid meeting opportunities to allow more flexible attendance options and increase access to that information.

We have email lists, social media, other digital communications that go reach more people faster.

And then we also have online surveys in addition to the paper ones, interactive data platforms to be able to gather more feedback from a broader audience with fewer staff resources.

So next steps after today is really just to kickstart the discussion with you all, where if a citizen advisory committee is still necessary or desired by the NPO policy board, what do you all want to be advised on and what is a specific role and what are the activities that CTAC should be advising you all on?

To go back to the slide just before this,

Are we, is the plan to chat about this right now?

To take this home and marinate on it and come back?

And so I think today definitely begins the discussion, like for you all to have an opportunity to kind of weigh in on what you just heard and start that, but we're certainly not looking for a decision today from you all.

Okay.

Something that I noticed is in the public engagement part, which is kind of the initial reason for the season, why CTAC was there.

You know, they were doing that outreach.

Now a lot of that is on the staff side.

So that's just something to note.

And then we also had someone right into the tour bus saying,

I've been on this interview for almost three and a half years, almost four years.

I guess this had one person from CTAC in that time come, drawing a blank on his name, but he had a really great idea for how to build a bridge.

Beyond that,

I mean, I've never, I was really surprised to read all this even.

I heard of the CACs that you all do in accounting.

And I guess I got those two acronyms in general.

But I've seen most no like insistent input and I can, I can,

Totally imagine how folks on some of these committees are out there acting like I need to do this and I need to do that because I'm a member of CTAC or whatever.

CTAC is supposed to, I guess, work for us.

Supposed to be out getting information that we helped put together.

So I particularly given the staff constraints that y'all mentioned, I think we should think very carefully about

I'll just add, when we met with Natalie and I met with the chair and vice chairman of CTAC, we said, well, first, there's no contention or animosity from the members of CTAC.

They're all incredibly reasonable, but they're also valued their time and they're just going, we're not, what's our purpose here?

And they don't want to just be a sounding board for something that they don't really live on.

So, Natalie can honestly speak for the folks she's talked to on the city side, but three members of CTAC that are county appointees, one is resigning, one is moving to a different committee in the county, and the other is my planning commissioner.

So it wasn't like he was taking on something just to take something on, but what they thought they were signing up for just isn't coming to fruition, and they're not bad about it.

But they are asking for clear direction, like what the policy board has to own that and decide to do something.

So I don't want it to sound like CTAC's like, you know, going to be coming after with pitchforks and torches or anything.

I think they all understand how to have influence and engagement if CTAC didn't exist.

But if CTAC does exist, we have to clean up.

We have to do some cleanup work, both on directions, schedules, all of that.

Yeah, I think it collects people who are interested in transportation and want to make a difference, but then it doesn't give them any avenues to do that.

It sounds good, the Citizen Transportation Advisory.

You know, like that sounds like a place where, oh, I want to, you know, ensure that a bike lane is built here.

I want to make sure that we've got a bridge connection there.

But then that's not the avenue of

I think the question that we talked about during that meeting were do we want it to become something where they do more outreach?

Do they want it to be a focus group?

Do they want it to be nothing?

And is it something, this is a different question, but is it something that the

The TJPDC might have needs that they can give to this group that we haven't talked about.

The way that in the BPAC committee, the city staff was able to kind of outsource the subcommittee to come up with areas to do the vent build projects.

Is there something that the TJPDC maybe needs help with that this body could undertake?

But also I would add just from the back financial end that the funding for the staff time and the investment is MPO funding.

And so we wouldn't necessarily be able to fund a citizen engagement advisory committee that is advising outside of the MPO, like whether it's

So some of my just kind of thoughts, but in thinking about this, since Natalie and I had the lecture meeting with those folks and having a little extended conversation, this was phenomenal.

So very much appreciate that.

And I think is something that I'll be collecting because sometimes people ask me, like, what is the MPN?

This is a great summary.

But here are some just like reactionary thoughts.

We have to recognize, to Anna's point earlier, how we engage the public has changed dramatically.

And there's most individual projects called for public engagement that have their own public engagement pieces.

So to try to expand CTAC and add to something that's already built into a project, to me, seems a redundancy that's not needed, especially if it's going to cost us more money.

To inform planning processes, you know, outside of the NPO is not something I'm going to be interested in endorsing as a policy board member.

That to me just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Especially since as a sitting supervisor, I don't necessarily have specific paths to inform policies outside of my jurisdiction.

So what's afforded to me?

Well, I can go to a CTB board just like any citizen.

I can go to a city council meeting, I guess, if it's a city transportation thing, and have my influence there.

So I'm not interested in trying to expand them outside of the policy footprint.

And then local issues, like I think heavily about our citizen advisory committees at Albemarle, they really are the starting point for a lot of applications that come through, including transportation projects or transportation priorities.

But it's more development applications, like that's the first stop.

So if there's a rezoning, our citizen advisory committee is typically where they're satisfying the need to have a community meeting.

And the beauty of it is, as you know, you're going to have at least the members of the advisory committee who are engaged to people giving you feedback.

Now the public will often show up for resentful things in addition to the advisory committee, but it gives the applicant a really well defined place to go, schedule.

They know they're going to have people there, et cetera, et cetera.

So that's the only way I can think about it.

Like if CTAC is going to work for us,

I'm not in agreement outside of the transportation plan that they should be doing all of that.

I think it should exist for the transportation plan piece for the long-term transportation plan.

But we have to recognize, well, we can't include them at the 11th hour.

It has to be right up our lane so that they're there.

They understand what the engagement piece is for the plan.

How could they help?

They can be part of it.

They can get feedback.

We take it seriously, et cetera.

because it's fascinating to see in the CAC world how development applications change from the community meeting to the Planning Commission, then to the Board of Supervisors.

So now the Planning Commission becomes the second time public input's added.

So it can be incredibly impactful and helpful, but I'm just not, I'm not looking to grow.

I probably would feel differently if the individual projects didn't have public engagement requirements as part of them, but that's,

It's out there too, right?

Like, the public engagement has changed the way we do it, but so has the way projects are brought about.

Like, the localities are the applicants for projects, whereas before, you had your lobby down on the list.

Yeah.

It's a totally different ballgame in the waiting list.

I mean, because CTAC perhaps comes to me with ideas, and I'm like,

Okay, I can tell you what this is going to cause.

You need to talk to the county.

Well, I'm right.

It's not necessarily that this is the right place to come critique Albemarle or Charlottesville.

And ultimately, it's the NPO maybe takes on submitting certain applications with the nuts and works with those staff.

So if each

County or city, each jurisdiction wanted to have a transportation advisory committee, then by offer, we already had it, because that's what our citizen advisory committees do.

And the cities don't want specifically the bike and ped, but I mean, if there are city citizens, residents looking for bigger advocacy paths or influence in an advisory role, same statement, take Charlottesville, Albemarle,

And I think that's up to each jurisdiction.

I just don't think that the policy board wants to get into, yeah, you guys should go lobby the city.

By the way, why don't you say this?

So I mean, I don't have the policy board doing it.

That should stay here with the department.

And if I may, I can echo that from a staff perspective.

I can do it as an individual.

They want to represent the committee and that does it.

What I had written down was on the present day list of tasks.

You all need to really decide whether any of those roles that CTAC approved could help rather than duplicate or get in the, you know, sort of flooding the waters.

It's just, it is so different that, so my la la land memory is there was no step.

And the MPO said, please go and get information.

I mean, so we were doing all that stuff.

And that's why I think everybody gets so engaged, always stays with me, jumped up and down.

And with Sean's predecessor, Mr. Zola, having tormented him so badly, I would sit next to him at the end of the meetings and he would get mad and get all over the face.

And so that was just part of life back then.

But so that's the number one question.

If they're going to be gathered for the LRTP, regarding what Ned said about being at the beginning,

Perhaps they should come to those meetings and sit and hear.

I don't think it's necessary for you to duplicate a meeting with them, but they could be right here after work and come and do that.

I mean, I hope that they would be sitting in those chairs over there and coming up and talking to us because they shouldn't have to sit at the corner and not say anything.

But as part of the public, I think that might be an effective way.

Albemarle's thing is that

We have, many of our transportation issues are rural.

And so we'll have to figure out a way to deal with that separately from, in addition to what the CACs do, which is fill the areas up, because the people who are jumping up and down at me, their transportation things, speeding, rally roads, hiking, walking, and then bridge road, things like that.

Those are rural area things.

That was just not something that you all can

That will be helpful.

That's all I have to offer.

You're good to go.

It's very comprehensive.

Yeah, that was helpful.

Make sure I have that on the first table.

Beyond orientation.

It actually said a separate file.

That would help me because it's hard for me to pull things out of the packet.

Would it be helpful, not to make more work, but would it be helpful for us to isolate some of these things out of this PowerPoint and create a one or two pager on just the part of the MBO?

You've got new, just thinking of elections and the turnout that we'll have on our board.

Goodness.

I mean, both jurisdictions have a new staff government.

Well, in all of those, they haven't served on the NPO.

Yeah.

Because we're keeping them a day.

Oh, yeah, that'd be great.

Should we work with a roundtable?

Should we give you guys a repeat?

We can all for sure.

Any additional matters from the public?

Speakers online or in?

We've got a three minute timer.

My name is Paul Gray.

I'm just outside of Crozet.

Over the years, I made 10 transportation presentations for the charge committee.

I have one right here I'd like to make to CTAC.

I only get three minutes to present to you.

And you can't say it.

I've asked them for 20 minutes.

They said, okay.

So I'd like for the community to be ongoing.

It doesn't happen every month.

Every other month is fine.

You know, when you have the update, you want to give it a month later.

That's fine too, but don't give away.

Good afternoon, I'm Peter Krebs from Piedmont Environmental.

I'm cognizant of everybody's time.

I'm missing another obligation too right now.

This is a great, important topic.

So I was hired seven years ago, almost eight years ago, for a grant that was joint with the Piedmont Environmental Council and the TJPDC.

with the explicit goal of improving citizen participation and transportation decision making.

This was a really great discussion and I'll just reflect that on my role doing this work.

I work so closely with TJPDC and the locality staffs and it's great and very well aligned.

The reality

of the work is that as I get people excited about transportation, there are specific processes that we go through.

There are projects that were named that have community engagement, and I try to steer people to those with minimal editorialization, but of course I do some.

But the really big one, I think, is the LRTP.

In that domain, I feel like I'm the only cheerleader out there.

Not that many people are as engaged with the LRTP as they ought to be, given the importance of what's discussed there.

And I have no answer for you this evening.

But what I will say is that it might be a good idea to go back to the roots of chart

and be thinking about being connected to things that are actually happening, right?

Like the LRTP.

And it does have a life cycle.

It's not due, you know, we don't have another one due tomorrow, but it's okay to be thinking about it.

And so maybe the CTAC's charge can be about certain things and the way they're engaged with it can change over time.

So maybe thinking like imagining they only work on the LRTP

Today, they could be thinking ahead about engagement and new ways of connecting with the community.

And then when it's closer work on more substantive stuff.

So anyway, again, no answers, but thank you for your work and thank you for them who do the good work.

Thanks.

All right.