MPO Technical Committee Meeting   8/5/2025

All right, sounds good.

So without a quorum, you're not going to have any votes for the recommendations today.

Go ahead and fill in the topics, even though it's temporary.

It's still not up to court.

It's important to work very short.

Yeah, Ben Chambers.

Present.

Kellie Brown.

She is around yesterday.

Rory Stolzenberg.

Here.

Tonya Swartzendruber?

Here.

Alberic Karina-Plun?

Here.

Thank you.

Sara Simba?

Present.

Bill Palmer?

Mitch Huber?

Present online.

All right, that's it.

And then we can go into the remote participation.

Good morning.

I'm Peter Kreps from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I have a couple of quick minutes just for you to think about.

No, actually, it's needed.

Number one, I wanted to invite everybody to the Mobility Social, the Mobility Alliance that's hosting this Friday at 4 to 7 at

Dislike for a Brewing Company, which is over on Broadway Street.

I think this meeting is going to be more pleasure than business, folks.

We'll talk about matters of regional interest, like the Rabin River Corridor, Free Bridge News, Biscuit Run, and other exciting topics.

Speaking of Free Bridge Lane, I wanted to just make a quick note about that.

I've had quite a successful petition to the come to make Free Bridge Lane permanent

I'd just like to quickly just applaud the sort of inter-jurisdictional approach that got us there, inter-departmental, inter-organizational.

It built on work that you and many of your predecessors like Amanda or others who have done on the Belmont Bridge and on Fruit Bridge Lane is a hybrid space that's

Not only accessible to the public, but it really invites the public to make this space as well.

So that's awesome work.

And I know there are other similar ideas in the future.

There's just a really smart way to do new charts and to do interesting connectivity projects.

And then just the last thing I wanted to mention as I head south, I'm going to come back to the policy board and

I'm excited about the progress on the 5th Street Trails.

It's one of the first projects that I started when I got here and you know some of you were really instrumental on that and it looks like we might have ribbon cutting in 2027 which would be the 10-year anniversary.

That's exciting.

Some of you may know that PUC has a right-of-way

connecting to a property that we have adjacent to Biscuit Run Park that passes through the zone of the Trail Hub.

And we intend to continue to exercise that right of way to do public programs and tours of our property and hopefully eventually connect to Biscuit Run.

We understand there will be disruptions during construction, but also I think that's a good opportunity to think about

When VDOT does road projects that provides continuity of access for road users, there's an opportunity to provide continuity of trail access.

And this might be more of a Tim Padolino thing, but there's parkland adjacent to the trail hub.

That might be a way to sort of avoid the trail hub while still providing that access.

and then provide a future park opportunity like our rated trail network system.

Thank you.

Awesome.

I'd like to talk about that.

So, as you know, last year, the Charlottesville, Albemarle policy board, MPO policy board, conducted a remote participation policy.

What that means is based on the requirements, it has to be re-adapted as part of the particular year, which in this case, that would be the next CA-MPO policy board meeting this August.

This is only an informational item.

No action is required from the MPO Technical Committee.

Just wanted to inform you all about the policy where it's going to be voting on.

For the remote meeting policy, the MPO Technical Committee is allowed to have 50% of its meetings online, and they can choose two meetings in the fiscal year based on votes to hold them online.

To decide which one we want to give out.

So I just wanna recognize Mr. Bill Palmer for joining the meeting.

With Mr. Bill, we have forum now, we have seven voting members present in the meeting.

The persons that were attending online is Mr. Lonnie Murray.

Sure, conflicts with my work schedule.

Sandy's there representing VDOT.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have to be at the site on Jaunt today.

We're going through a DRPT compliance audit review and the auditors are here.

Thank you, Jason.

Thank you, Mitch.

All right.

I have a motion to accept the remote participation.

No problem.

All right.

I have a motion to accept remote participation from our colleagues.

So moved.

All right, all in favor of the remote participation, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right, welcome to the club, folks.

All right, the first thing we're going to vote on is the acceptance of our agenda.

So before we accept the agenda, we'd like to add one item for a TIP amendment for the MPO's TIP.

There's one project that we have to add in there.

I'm going to get a motion to accept the agenda as amended.

Second.

Do you want to hand out or?

All in favor of accepting the agenda.

Say aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Move on to the approval of the meeting minutes from June 17, 2025.

Any comments, questions, concerns with the meeting minutes?

All right.

I will take a motion to accept or approve the meeting.

All right.

All in favor of approving the meeting minutes, say aye.

Any opposed?

Aye.

Just as a part of the meeting policy, I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr.

Chair, but everybody online needs to be able to be heard during a vote.

All right.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right, we are re-electing our officers, so I would need a motion to re-elect myself as the chair and Alberic Karina-Plun as the vice chair.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor of re-electing the slate of officers, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Thank you.

Moving on to some new business.

All right.

Good morning.

Today, I will just quickly walk through a few of the key changes to the scope of work for the Transportation Demand Management Study.

that we are seeking NPO Policy Board approval for at their meeting later this month.

Just as a reminder, this project is included in the fiscal year 26 of the WP as a long-range activity for staff to complete.

The purpose of this study is to identify strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled or re-emptied, increase trips made by other modes, and show opportunities to enhance connections of our existing multimodal air-conditioning network.

So the first change that we made to the scope of work is that we broadened task one to instead be existing conditions rather than just the previous plan review.

We recognized that before we set goals for BMT reduction, we first have to establish that baseline of what we currently observe today.

So we broadened that task and following establishing that baseline, staff will continue by reviewing the relevant planning documents as noted in the first draft of the scope.

For the past two, the approach is more or less the same to identify trip generators and destinations that will inform the OD analysis.

The goal is to understand travel within the MPO area for those shorter trips and travel coming in and out and through for those smaller trip lengths.

We did receive a lot of really great feedback from MPO Tech on the needs of our data sources.

Originally, we intended to really anchor on streetlight data alone to provide orders and destination information, but we were advised by you all

to identify some other data sources that could supplement that and validate that.

So I'm happy to share that we did apply for and receive access to Strava Metro, so we have access to all of that active transportation data from 2020 to 2025 and for the entire TJPDC area.

They do have some pretty tight data sharing agreements, so we'll have to work pretty closely with their customers so forth to make sure we know what we can share publicly, but I did want to share with you all that we do have access to that data now.

Another piece of feedback that we also heard from you all at CTAC was to connect with local cycling and running clubs as well as UVA parking and transportation to help validate the data that we see.

MPO tech committee also encouraged us to look at other on-the-ground sources like MicroCat and the VEO dockless mobility program to request data from their activities.

For Task 3, the intent would still be to assess potential for shifting trips from auto to non-auto modes considering the characteristics and effectiveness of a potential switch.

We clarified in the final scope of work that potential strategies could also be policy related, such as employer parking programs, land use considerations, and overall parking policies for the jurisdictions.

And for task four, we added additional opportunities to collect public feedback from targeted groups as suggested by you all and CTAC.

These groups, as mentioned earlier, include the cycling and running clubs, and we'll work with you all to make sure we identify some of those, but also local school systems and housing focus groups.

And we also added a project schedule to the new scope of work just to show the tentative timeline for completion within this fiscal year.

You'll notice that outreach and engagement stretches across most of the months of the studies with the intention of conducting that targeted engagement at different points throughout.

We will work to align our deliverables and milestones with committee meetings so that we can have some consistent updates as the meetings progress this fiscal year and targeting a wrap-up of the final deliverable by June of next year.

So our next steps are to take this final scope of work to the policy board to seek their approval to officially begin the work.

Questions, concerns, thoughts on this?

I'm very excited about this.

It's pretty ambitious in scope of what you're trying to do over the next year.

So I'm really excited to see what happens with it.

It looks like Lonnie has his hand raised.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the only thing I would say is that I noticed they talked about including past bike and pedestrian plans in there.

I'm not seeing anybody get a vote.

I'm going to take on the motion to recommend the scope to the Inuktitut policy board.

So moved.

Second.

First and second.

All right.

All in favor of recommending the scope to the Inuktutut policy board, say aye.

Aye.

And any opposed?

Any abstaining?

All right.

Thank you, Taylor.

We've got a recommendation.

So today we have Nag Pashayi from AECOM coming to speak on where we are and the process for updating our travel demand model.

The model has to be updated every five to ten years.

Every five years I believe it's a minor update.

Every ten years it's a major update.

And we're currently going through a major update of our model.

So we're working with VDOT and their consultants, AECOM, to help us through that process.

And right now we're at a key milestone for approving the baseline information for population demographics and employment.

Yeah.

Okay, thanks Taylor.

Good morning, everyone.

So I am Nakashay, travel demand modeler with AECOM and we are working with VDOT and TJPDC to update the regional travel demand model.

Next slide.

Yeah, so as Taylor mentioned, we have started the work of updating the existing travel demand model.

So the existing travel demand model has a base year of 2015.

So we are in the process to update both the base year and the future year.

So the base year will be updated to the 2022 demographics and the network and everything.

As part of this, TJPDC has looked at the TAC boundaries and have, based on the urbanized areas allocation, they have updated the TAC boundaries.

And we, as I mentioned, we are in the process of updating the demographics, which is the primary, our first step towards the model update.

Next slide, please.

Yeah, so this slide kind of represents the proposed TAC boundaries.

This system has about like 307 internal TACs, which includes City of Charlottesville and portions of Albemarle County.

It also includes some portions from the Greene, Louisa, and Fluhanna Counties.

Next slide, please.

As part of the demographic data update, we are looking at primarily three data sources, the Weldon Cooper 2022 population estimates and Woods and Poole 2022 employment estimates.

And because we need some kind of proportion to disaggregate the county level estimates we have to the TACs, we are using the block group level data from the 2022 ACS five-year estimates.

Next slide, please.

So this and the next slide briefly talks about the variables which we are looking at and what are the sources we are considered, which is the three sources we mentioned and how we are going to assign.

For example, for the total population, we are using the Weldon Cooper data.

which gives us a county level area because as I mentioned it doesn't include all of the area so we are using the underlying block group data to get a proportion of that which is within the model area and assigning from the total population to the model area and once we have known what's the total for the model area we are using the TAC boundaries to further distribute it

to the individual TACs.

Next slide, please.

Yeah, so this slide talks about the employment and as mentioned earlier, we are using the 2022 Woodson pool estimates and based on the proportion from the 2015, we are splitting the new totals to the individual TACs.

I would like at this point to mention that this is we just got started to distribute this and what comes next is we put this into the model and then run it through the model and at each step of the model like trip generation and the trip distribution we'll compare that with the observed data such as street light and the NSDS data and then take a look at it and see how it compares and if we find any discrepancies then we'll go back and

revisit the assumptions and make changes as necessary and the subsequent step to that is also that assignment which is the step where we look at what the model thinks the volumes are and then compare that with the VDOT counts which tell us more the ground truth and then compare that and then this is a kind of like iterative process we come back and adjust the parameters and look at the

Observe data and if there is any problem with it, then we revisit and everything.

Next slide, please.

Yeah, also to have a look at what the statistics and the distributions are, looking at a TAC level is a little bit too detailed.

So we are using the model, sorry, the district definitions in the existing model.

So this is a kind of a plot which shows the district definitions assumed in the model.

Next slide, please.

Yeah, so this slide kind of gives an overview of the proposed 2022 demographics by district.

Yeah.

This and the subsequent plots show maps more like color density for the different demographics.

This is a plot of the population.

Next slide, please.

This is a distribution of the households in the model area.

This talks about the employment.

Yeah.

So this is a

plot shows showing the current model network that's being used for the 2022.

So with the help of the VDOT, we have received this roadway network plot.

And this forms our basis for the model network.

As I mentioned, we'll revisit as we go through the different pieces of the model, the generation distribution and how it compares to the counts and stuff.

Then we'll come back and check if there are any discrepancies and adjust that as necessary.

Next slide, please.

Yeah, so this plot shows the different facility types in the model and the distribution in the area.

This is a plot of the number of lanes.

Most of them are one lane.

And this is a plot of the posted speed.

Obviously the highways have more speed.

What we intend to get out of the model is once the model is updated, calibrated, this could serve as a good tool to analyze the congestion in the area and look at which segments of the areas are more congested and which have good bandwidth.

Look at what the transit ridership is and look at what the model thinks is the distribution between the different modes and what's the VMT per capita.

This gives us also what's the average travel time between places.

And this can also help for analyzing situation, I mean, scenarios like what if this bridge is broken or this is under construction, how the traffic distributes to the other areas.

and all that good stuff.

Yeah, so as I mentioned, we are getting started and we are in the process of updating.

But yeah, obviously more to come.

But this is where we are.

Yeah, so today we're talking about the face your demographics.

So you can talk more about

I can chime in.

When we were first starting this project, VDOT did request from us a list of key locations, so like school systems, parking decks, parking lots, like places that would generate travel.

Is that when, that's not necessarily captured in your demographic data, though, that might be captured in Albemarle.

Yeah, so the model does take into consideration some of the areas where which is not typically represented by the standard rates and the model can be adjusted to accommodate places which do not fall under the typical trip generation rates.

Yeah, I think more on this topic of sort of trip generation and place type or land use type.

I mean, we know that there's particularly places that have higher levels of internal capture if the factors such as density, diversity, design, and destination, which we're talking about, are included.

Yeah, so as I mentioned previously, so the model does use a set of equations to generate what the trips are.

And then the next step to distribution is where it distributes to the different other TACs.

And we are using big data like the streetlight data and others to reflect, to get an account of what's happening on the ground.

What is the like the distribution that's going is happening.

We will compare that with the model and then as I briefly talked about we will revisit and adjust the equations and rates to account for any discrepancies like you mentioned if there are some zones which are if the model is under representing the internal travel

or over-representing the external travel, we will revisit that and adjust the equations accordingly.

So yeah, I mean, that's part of our checks and balances too.

So I think my question is more process related because it sounds like we're sort of interested in maybe the nuts and bolts of how the model itself works and the algorithm behind that.

What's the next step after we do looking at demographic data?

So as far as procedural next steps, after this, they will develop the forecast of the same things, the same demographics for population employment out to 2050, since that's our forecast year.

That's been told to how we make the assumptions.

Yeah, so this forms our initial input to the model.

And then the next step is we are in the process of using the NHD as the national household survey data to come up with the trip rates to input in the model.

So once we have that, we'll input into the model and run through the different steps where the model takes these assumptions as number of people and employment happening.

And then based on the rates, it would start generating

The next step would be to assign it into the model and then we have in this model also has the transit so it would also do a distribution between autos and the transit

and assign it through a transit assignment as well as a highway assignment.

Then we'll compare that with the ground truth like street light data and counts to compare the highway.

And we also look at what's the ridership on the transit and compare what the model says.

Based on that, we'll go back and adjust all the different parameters.

This is a kind of iterative and this is where the most of the model calibration happens and once we go through that and then

keep the iterative process and once we are satisfied, VDOT has a set of guidelines to make sure that the model is in compliance with the other regional model.

So once we are with that process, we'll obviously we have a monthly meeting with VDOT and the TJPDC.

So we'll go through all the process.

Once everybody's happy, then we can say that, yeah, this model is ready.

And once we have the base calibration done,

We will incorporate the 2050 future year land use into the model and we will do further checks to make sure that the model is not acting funny like too many trips are happening in a future year which is nothing in the present year or something so we will go through all of those checks and once VDOT and everybody is satisfied with that we'll have a good tool to analyze both the base year and the future year.

Sort of.

So something that I think we've run into in the past with some of our larger projects that we've been looking at to do SMART SCALE is when we put in these pedestrian and bicycle improvements, they don't really show up when you run the model very much.

So I don't know how that is really going to be taken into account that we could have some mode shift happening because we have

Sure.

Yeah, the model is sensitive to changes in travel time or access.

So once those are updated, the model will reflect, for example, like you have better transit then

The model does put more relatively transit trips than the auto trips so that you can see a shift in the vehicles from the autos to the transit.

Similarly, any access changes would also, the model is sensitive to that.

Again, like we go through a comparison to the observed data and make changes as necessary.

How does the model take into account increases in work from home share since 2020?

It looks like you're mostly pulling from the 2022 ACS.

But I don't see transformation from work, which would include work from home in the demographic data we're talking about polling.

Yes, because we are using the NSTS data from the 2022 to compare the trends observed in the flow and then adjust the model necessary.

So the 2022 data does reflect the work from home share increases due to the pandemic.

And in addition to that, we are comparing the model assignment volumes to the observed counts from 2022, which are also post-pandemic.

Okay.

This may have been answered.

In terms of the demographic data, is your team reviewing, you'll get a review of that.

I do have a really quick question.

On slide 12, you showed the distribution of the different industries.

and the TADs, was there just a high level review since you're pulling that, since you're making the same assumptions of the like distribution from 2015, was there just a high level review to make sure that that's generally still within the same like range for all those different industries?

Yeah, slide six, you showed the distribution of the industries and how you're assigning that industry data.

But it says that you're using the same distribution as was used in 2015.

Was there just a general review from 2022 against the data that was developed in 2015 to make sure that the general distribution is still fairly consistent, that there were major shifts?

Right.

So based on the information we have, we only have the Woodson pool data estimates at a county and regional level.

But for the further distribution, we did use the 2015 distribution.

But on top of that, TJPDC is helping us review that because they know more ground roots.

OK, and this is just used for the existing.

And so when you do the future conditions, is that assuming that the distribution, like the demographic distributions, don't change necessarily, or you're going to assume that there's going to be

Right.

So we'll start with the assumption that the trends are not going to be a lot different than the 2022.

But on top of that, we will add any proposed changes or proposed developments that have been planned and approved.

So yeah, they all will be included.

And same with the highway network too.

On top of the existing network, we are incorporating any proposed

Sure.

Any other questions?

Yeah, and this is more just about how the data is used and maybe more on a philosophical level, but how do you avoid a bias of induced demand?

We know that as you add additional lanes of traffic, that actually over time, that actually increases the traffic versus if you'd never added that lane in the first place.

So when we look at alternatives to increasing lanes or

encouraging greater ridership from mass transit or pedestrian traffic.

Right, so usually adding a lane or so in smaller areas from our experience do not usually add a whole lot of induced demand that changes the whole patterns but having said that the model does have ability to

Adjust the trip rates if necessary.

If there is enough demand, I mean, enough need to make changes, if we know that, you know, this usually adding a lane in this area is going to add more of a new demand.

I mean specifically I think like in you know in our area the 29 North corridor is a great example of the impact like the feedback loop of an induced demand that we've just added more and more lanes to 29 and the traffic hasn't actually gotten better so you know I think if we had gone back in time we could have looked at other alternatives besides just adding more lanes

But as we add more lanes, it adds more traffic, that increases the demand, which encourages people to add more lanes and it just builds on itself.

Sure.

Any other questions?

Not seeing anybody else on the line?

Okay.

No, I lowered my hand.

All right.

Thank you.

I guess we're at a point where I can entertain a motion to recommend the PPO Policy Board approve the 2022 demographic data as presented.

So moved.

Any opposed?

Any abstaining?

Alright, thank you.

Any more motions with that?

Our next

No problem.

So just wanted to start off by saying thank you to everyone who was involved in the safety bridge project.

I want to announce that the plan has been adopted by all six of our jurisdictions.

has been sent to FHWA for review.

Even though we have received some positive feedback from them, it has not been officially approved yet as there are some other small processes that need to take place before that takes into effect.

Another update is the City of Charlottesville safety demonstration projects.

We have received the updated plans from our consultants

That went developing discussion with the City of Charlottesville last week, so soon we're hoping to move that into the implementation by now, see how it works out.

They're not public yet.

The current thing that we're looking at is right at the end of us adopting this as an alternative that we want to move forward with one of our counselors added on to the resolution saying

It's not going to be just 60 days if we decide it works, which means we can't just, you know, put something out that we think is going to be a 60-day project today.

So our temporary has to be a little less temporary than we were originally anticipating.

Yeah, so once we work that out, mostly that's trying to figure out what we do with the traffic signals, what kind of temporary traffic signals that we need to use, and what kind of agreements that we need to make with proper users on where we would put the traffic signals.

Oh, sorry, yeah.

The brand application for the FY 2005 CA-MPO, CA-MPO, Safe Streets and All For All application was successfully submitted.

We have not received any feedback from the personnel or the staffs on that.

Great.

So the first update that I have is that the joint meeting planning is underway.

Every other year we have a joint meeting with the Stanton Augusta-Wainsboro MPO.

Just to make sure we stay connected with our neighbors over in the west.

And this year it is our turn to host.

And so tentative date is looking like September 30th.

We have not signed a contract yet for a meeting location, but that's the date that works best for both groups policy boards.

So we're going to go ahead and kind of say that's a tentative, save the date that we have.

And the two locations that we're looking at are the Hillsdale Conference Center or the North Fork Meeting Center.

And a few of the agenda items that we have tentatively confirmed are a transit update, so that would be CARTA for our area and the Afton Express for their area, the DRPT statewide rail plan, a presentation from their rail planning team, and then also the Three Notch Trail, having an update on that as well.

Taylor, can you repeat the date, please?

Yeah, I was just going to mention the Afton situation, since there's going to be a potential for redevelopment there, that seems like a big opportunity for discussion about what kind of collaboration could happen there, you know, with everything going on at Afton.

Yeah, so there for many years, there's been derelict structures up there at the top of Afton Mountain.

The property owner that used to own all those structures has passed away.

And now there's a lot of discussion with the city of Waynesboro to talk about redevelopment of that site.

And I think that that has a lot of implications since that's a big hub for you to travel from across the mountain.

It's a connection to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We missed the thing that we were supposed to include in our agenda.

Thank you.

So per request by DRPT, we're including a TIP amendment number 13 to our FY2427 TIP document.

This one refers to the autism sanctuary incorporated specifically about receiving 5,310 funds for purchase of paratransit vehicles.

Yep.

So this would be a new addition to the TIP.

This grant recipient through DRPT, I believe this is their first time receiving federal funds.

And so initially, we didn't think it needed to be in the TIP.

The communication was because it was outside of our MPO area.

But because of the specific type of funding that they're receiving from FTA, which is small urban funds, they do have to be in the TIP document.

All right.

Second.

All right.

All in favor of recommending this Tip Amendment to the MPO Policy Board, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Thank you.

We will move back into our regularly scheduled program.

Thank you.

So the RAISE application that the PDC submitted for the Rivanna River pedestrian bridge, we received notification on July 16th that we were not selected.

Only 30 projects were selected this round and none of them were in Virginia.

So we wanted to let you all know, give you that update that we received that communication.

And they indicated that this month they would be reaching out to schedule debrief meetings.

Any other questions on our unsuccessful raise presentation?

So when the next meeting looks like it's October 7th, 10 o'clock here.

I hope we'll all be in attendance and maybe have a few additional people join us.

Next up, we're moving on to VDOT.

I can.

Yes, I do.

All right, so thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

We do have a presentation to give you an update on the existing conditions for the US 29 combined STAR report.

So we're just wrapping up the existing conditions analysis for the combined US 29 STAR study, and we'll go over the findings.

There are a lot of slides.

I'm going to, they'll go pretty quickly, but it looks like we have time for discussion.

One of the things we want to do or what we're working on doing as part of existing conditions review is finalizing the priority locations where we need to focus on developing solutions.

So just keep that in mind as we're going through so you can provide feedback if this seems consistent with what you all experienced.

All right, so that was a really brief overview.

STARS is a planning program.

It's managed by Central Office's Transportation Ability and Planning Division.

And the goal is to develop multi-middle transportation solutions, specifically focusing on locations where there is a high level of congestion and safety concerns.

And the goal is to identify good projects that can be funded either through the six-year improvement program, through one of the construction programs like HSEP or SMART SCALE, or to use other

There's a lot of flexibility within the SARS program, but projects do follow generally a similar process that takes a multiple disciplinary approach.

There's a lot of collaboration that occurs both from

The initial steps of identifying and agreeing to locations to study and then also incorporating overall the differences of the project.

There's a lot of support that's provided by VDOT central office, by consultant teams that are retained to do the technical work throughout the project and then from the VDOT residency and district planning as well as central office when needed.

And then, of course, there's a strong effort to engage the local and regional stakeholders that have the local knowledge of the areas.

So, you all know that we've been talking about doing the SARS studies on the US 29 corridor, and typically we've been treating everything from the Barracks Road intersection up to the Woodbrook intersection as one study, but this is technically divided up into two separate pieces.

So I'm going to talk about the northern portion of the corridor from hydraulic to Woodbrooke first and then we'll go through some of the information for the interchange which is a little bit obviously adjacent to the south.

We divided it up into two projects because the interchange itself is a big undertaking and we wanted to give ourselves some flexibility if we can move forward with one section versus the other.

This slide, in addition to showing the project area for the corridor portion of the project, also shows where we collected different data counts.

We're focusing primarily on the intersection along US 29 mainline, but we also identified some of these adjacent intersections where we wanted to collect traffic count data, understanding that some of the improvements we recommend may have impacts on some of those adjacent intersections.

We wrapped up the initial public survey a few months ago.

We had more than 2,300 participants.

As you can see, based on this chart right here, that the most consistent feedback we got about the needs for the 29th World War was reducing traffic congestion.

But there were also concerns related to the overall safety of the corridor and the different intersections within the corridor, bicycle and pedestrian safety, aggressive driving, pavement marking from signage, and public transit.

We also looked at the broader needs that were identified in the statewide, regional, and local plans.

So we looked at VTRANS, the statewide bicycle and pedestrian safety action plan,

identified where the potential for safety improvement locations were and then did an analysis of pedestrian connectivity and reviewed the transit goals for the corridor.

And so this existing conditions report is going to cover the operation safety and pedestrian and cyclist accessibility as well as transit.

All right, so what we found when we looked at operations is that while the public survey showed that there was a lot of concern about congestion along the corridor, the corridor itself actually seems to be operating pretty efficiently.

There's a lot of volume, so there are a lot of cars and it gets backed up, but people are typically able to process through pretty efficiently within one cycle.

So a lot of the concerns about congestion are probably related to

through this corridor at least are related to people having to wait at some of those adjacent intersections.

With the corridor at length 29, the main line is prioritized.

So if you're traveling out the corridor, you're not going to have to wait as long as if you're turning on to or trying to make a free movement out of the corridor.

As you can see there, probably you all have experienced this at some points, there is heavier congestion experience at right or high down road intersections, as well as Woodbrook.

All right, so when we looked at safety, we did a couple of different things.

We looked at the potential for safety of urban intersections.

So there are four of those within this corridor, Woodbrook, Greenbrier, Seminole, and the hydraulic road.

And some of the big picture trends that they saw when the consultants reviewed the crashes that were occurring throughout the corridor is that speed differentials are contributing to the high density of access points, largely from the private commercial entrances.

Just a high number of vehicles, so significant congestion.

And then they saw more rear ends of the northbound direction and more angle crashes that were involved in this direction.

And then this slide shows a summary of the different kinds of crashes that are occurring throughout the corridor.

So if you look on the image on the far left, all crashes total on the far right.

Those are the injury crashes that are the most severe and that there are pinpoints where the fatal crashes have occurred.

And this is showing where the concentration of the different kinds of crashes are at different intersections.

So we are seeing, one thing I do want to point out is that there's a high concentration of crashes at the hydraulic road intersection.

This data was collected from 2019 to 2023, so it doesn't reflect the improvement that have been implemented at the hydraulic road.

And then looking at the fan crashes, there were four within the fatality.

Two of them were pedestrian fatalities, and both of those occurred during the evening hours.

One of the things I just want to mention, I'm sure all of you are aware, is that the fatal crashes do tend to be anomalies.

So looking just at these, it is difficult to really understand completely what may be contributing to the risks, but the visibility seems to at least partially contributed in part to these.

All right, and if we look at injury crashes, this slide just shows a, sorry, this slide shows the overlay of where the operational concerns are against the concentration of the injury crashes.

And this is the first thing I started doing when we got this data back, and it shows whether there are consistently problems at the same intersections.

I do want to mention that the operation data is a little bit more recent than the crash data.

So these are not necessarily based on the same points in time.

You can see that there is somewhat of a correlation along the corridor of where there are high levels of delay and a high concentration of crashes.

And so looking at the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure throughout the area,

There was pretty consistent sidewalk along those sides in the US of 29, but the crosswalks, as I'm sure you all are aware, are pretty limited to get from one side to the other.

Yes, correct.

Yeah, last year or so, but yeah, very, very recently.

Even during the field visit, though, we observed pedestrians crossing at unmarked locations.

So that is a concern that we are aware that you all are very interested in trying to address.

There's also no dedicated bicycle facilities north of Angers Road along the corridor itself.

And there were a couple of places where we finally see an image down there that there were bicycles riding in the travel lines with the vehicles.

and there were nine total pedestrian crashes during the analysis period for those that they've lost locations.

Let me just mention that there were two fatalities.

All right, then moving on to the interchange.

This was a similar graphic to the previous one.

It shows the locations where we were taking all of the traffic counts.

I also want to point out that we

are incorporating information from the Barricade project that was previously completed.

This is just the existing conditions at this point, so those will be incorporated into the model when they start modeling any of the proposals.

This is the same survey you saw before, just a reminder of what the concerns are expressed.

And then again, we have the statewide of locally up and by needs.

One thing I want to point out here, just because I want to acknowledge maybe the potential concern is that we are still focusing on the pedestrian and bicycle multi-modal improvements through this area.

It's just that symptoms of interchange.

It's a slightly different process with a slightly different emphasis in what the reporting group.

All right, and so going through what the existing conditions are, this is the operational delays.

So again, I think if you're looking along the corridor itself, it's operating pretty well, but you do start to see heavier or more significant delays moving into this study.

The most significant delay is at the Barracks and Emmett Road intersection itself, and then along Barracks Road, and then we're also seeing high

A higher level of delays at the hydraulic and Pillsdale intersection right there.

And this shows, this is an output from the bottle that shows the queuing.

So how far the cars are backing up and what you can, if you go back to the other one and you kind of submit in your head where these locations are, where there are some operational, some higher levels of delay.

And you're reflected back, you can see that what's happening is that the storage lanes are not long enough to hold all of the vehicles that are waiting to make this chart to move it.

Yeah.

Yes, I'm not 100% sure about this.

I think it's number of lanes on the road.

So like you can see, if you look, it's hard to see up there, but if you look at 29 Orlando Barracks, eastbound, as it backs up onto 29, it highlights all the lanes on 29.

Most of the ramp is one lane.

Yeah, it's basically

If there's multi-lane road, the wider line is basically saying there's queuing in both lanes versus where it's narrow and it's multi-lane road, it's in one lane.

Like on Barracks Road, eastbound at the interchange with Emmett Street, it's double

right at the intersection and it goes to single barracks at Emmett Street down here at the bottom middle of the screen if you're going in the in the south or eastbound direction it's double when you're approaching the intersection but when you get back behind that it's single because there's more people wanting to make that right-hand turn versus wanting to stay make the left or go into the city on Ridge Street

Does that make sense?

So in the interchange area of the study, there are two PSI intersections, hydraulic roads, that's an overlap from that dust breaking parts that are collapsed, and then at the 29-50 southbound ramp at the underserved.

And there are also several PSI sets.

And then the factors that are contributing to the high level of crashes are congested throughout the day, the geometry of the interchange ramp, and then, of course, being more off-road, like the nurtured crashes in this area.

So again, we have the hotspot map of the crashes.

So at the top, we have all crashes.

And then down here at the bottom, we have the injury crashes.

And you can also see that there's a higher number of the length of hard shared crashes that occur around the inner chamber.

And lots of re-arrangements along the 29th Amendment.

All right.

So the fatal crash review, there were three fatal crashes that were all along Emmett Street.

One of them was a pedestrian crash at Mork Drive.

And then, like we said, there are a high number of very crashes near the Audenoff Ranch, St. Peter's Child, as well as Potomac.

And this is a similar diagram as the other one, which shows the operational

And while there is some overlap, again, where the operational and safety concerns are, it's a little bit more different in this area comparatively.

And that could mean that there's a higher number of lower injuries.

And again, looking at the bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure throughout the interchange area, there's a five-walk network that's clearly well established.

There are crosswalks present at all the signalized intersections.

There's a shared use path.

There were three pedestrian crashes.

Two of those were near Angers Road and one fatality at 4th and 5th.

All right, so one of the things that we knew were really important to this video was that we were

Comprehensively including my concern to Pittsburgh's multi-modal travel transit area, given some of the goals for those areas.

So we worked on the consultant team to scope in this bicycle and pedestrian ride plan analysis.

And what this does is that it allows us to consider the risks that are present to bicyclists and pedestrians as part of

Considering the different intersection improvements that we might want to consider at some of these situations.

Conflicts are assigned either yellow or red flag based on the severity of the potential conflict.

And then the goal is not necessarily to eliminate all of the identified flags, but to increase awareness of the flags and support to prioritize the flags to mitigate or eliminate.

So it gives us like a quantitative way to

So the consultants basically reviewed each of the intersections identified throughout the project area.

And they reviewed each line of the intersections against 20 design flags that have been developed as part of this methodology.

And so this first slide right here shows at the top the number of red and yellow flags that were identified totally to the intersections that were being reviewed.

And then at the bottom it shows which flags, what the occurrences of each of these flags.

And so just to give you all a feel for how this process works, we're going to, I'll show you the examples of these flags that are indicated based on what circle here.

And then this is the interchange area.

Yes, so the Meadow Creek Trail goes through that area too across Barracks Road.

Have you looked about that segment where the trail crosses the road at Barracks Road or where it crosses Emmett Street?

We did that explicitly at that.

We are aware of that generally, but that is not something, we looked at that in much more detail in the barracks or corridor study that we did the previous round.

So it's not really part of this study, but it is something that we call a lot of conversations about previously.

OK.

So the design flags, the examples of the design flags, so what presents risks to pedestrians, first of all, are things like motor vehicle right turn or pedestrians being asked to cross yield or uncontrolled vehicle pass.

So these are examples from the study that the consultants identified.

And I just want to point out that it's not realistic to say that you can't have a right turning vehicle at an intersection.

That's kind of when intersections are forced to help mitigate this movement.

But there are countermeasures that have been identified as part of this methodology that can say if we see that there are right turning or pedestrians crossing wheeled controlled or uncontrolled vehicle paths, there are countermeasures that we can consider that would start reducing those risk.

Yeah.

I had sort of one sort of aesthetic, maybe a suggestion, if you're going to use this chart, the previous chart in the future, like it's really difficult, I think, to see like pedestrian flight four and then like go down and then like reference what that is and then scroll back up and see how many there were.

If there's some way to say like, you know, PF4 or slip plane on that chart so each of them get a short what they are and then go down the whole description, really it would be a lot more usable.

So maybe that's not trivial.

Well, we probably won't get into this much detail.

You guys get the jimmy gritty.

I thought it was interesting.

I've never done this process before.

I thought it was interesting.

And so the other examples, and we're not going to go through all of them, but our multi-lane crossings and motor vehicle left turns are two of the other designs that I'm going to identify.

So again, we identified them.

We have countermeasures that we consider.

This will be integrated into part of our selection of alternatives.

All right, so we did the same thing for the bicycle analysis.

So the first slides were pedestrian flags.

This section has bicycle flags for both the corridor at the top, or the first slide, and then the interchange area.

And then so two of the most common ones were executing unusual movements for bicyclists.

And some of the countermeasures for that are things like improving local knowledge and having good pavement markings and signage to help people know what they should be expecting.

Executing unusual movements would be like, so the description I give is long crossings with multiple lanes in both directions.

Yeah, potentially.

And so some of the things you need to do is make sure that you make it really clear to pedestrians or bicyclists that they should be doing something different.

Like, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know if you guys have gone to any, well, I don't know

Yeah, you're correct.

It's the same idea, but for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Halfway through, I saw this wall of cars going down.

I was just gonna say one of the big challenges on 29 as you you called out earlier all the different access points to 29 and I don't know what discussions have had about the idea of taking some of those lanes and making them local access only roads you're like separating them out so that

All that traffic is not combined.

Yeah, I don't know if there have been.

I think that general idea has been discussed, maybe not specifically when those are from State Lanes.

Chuck probably knows that that had come up previously before or not.

Yes.

When we did Solutions 29, we looked at several different versions of the corridor.

We looked at a high, which is basically an express lane down the middle of 29.

We looked at a medium, which is basically

Something like what you're talking about with our local lanes on the outside.

The problem is you get situations like we've sort of got at Riot Road where the local lanes and the

and from the ramps and the through lanes and the mainline combined, you get a lot of conflicts and weaving issues there because people are weaving in and out of wanting to get in the middle lanes to go through versus in the local lanes to go to the local.

So that causes a lot of congestion and crashes.

So we're gonna consider that, but I don't know

If we're going to end up with something like that, we'll just have to see.

But yeah, that is something that we've looked at before and we'll probably consider it as part of this round of study.

But it's not as easy as just saying, yeah, we'll just make these local lanes because you've got to separate the lanes, you've got to put some sort of

barrier between them double stripe the lines put delineators or something down there to separate them otherwise it just there's no stopping people from changing lanes in and out of those lanes anyway so that's something we'll just have to review and evaluate the biggest thing is and what we found out was a recent study from that um

Research Council did, they looked at intersection spacing and well even entrance spacing and we have a lot of situations on the corridor where we don't meet any kind of entrance spacing and that causes a lot of friction and causes a lot of crashes, an increase in crashes and

And we don't have a good way to deal with that because if we want to consolidate entrances, which we try to work with the locality on doing, it's really expensive because you've got to pay damages to all the local, all the businesses that are going to be impacted by making some of those changes.

So those are some of the things we're going to look at, but it's just cost.

Some of it's cost.

How do we deal with that part of it?

Hopefully that answers your question.

Yes, it does.

Thank you, Chuck.

All right, the last piece that I'll talk about briefly is that there are some longer-term goals around high-frequency transit along 29.

And one of the things we wanted to make sure that we were doing as part of this study was accounting for what that would potentially look like.

We didn't want to necessarily move forward with intersection improvements or roadway corridor improvements that potentially percolated any sort of transit goals throughout the external area.

So this was scripted as part of the study and this is going to provide kind of like a narrowed down version of some of the recommendations that came out of the transit vision plan.

So it's not going to play on transit service, it's not going to play on transit stops, but it's going to help focus that in a little bit more so that if and when there is interest in moving forward towards higher frequency transit along 29, there's a narrower scope to start with.

So we start, and you all are familiar with what the transit service looks like around the area.

So those have been identified and communicated.

And the next step that the consultants are conducting as part of the existing conditions review is to basically look at what the existing and future land use is likely to look like as part of this area.

So they are looking at, you can see this map right here at the bottom, this is a residential and commercial activity density map, so I forget which color is which, residential is pink and the employment density is blue and then the mixed areas are purple, and this basically shows where there is likely to be a high activity, either origin, destiny,

One of the things that's a little bit tricky about this corridor is that some of the origins and explanations are not all going to be within just the section of the corridor that we're looking at, so it accounts for that, but it's helping to figure out how do you navigate what are the most likely needed places where there would need to be access throughout the corridor area knowing that people are moving beyond.

So they are looking at the density of the activity.

They're looking at redevelopment potential.

So this is what they're doing with the parcelization.

They're looking at where there are larger lots that are more likely to be able to be developed in the higher intensity uses versus a lot smaller lots, which would be lower density and like residential types of uses or have lots of owners.

And then also looking at the existing multi-middle accessibility.

And so they're going to use this information to identify things like

Is it going to be preferable, most likely, for high frequency transit to operate along the U.S. 29 Main Line or along one of the parallel routes?

And maybe what type of staff frequency would this be able to support?

Again, not planning operations or services, not necessarily telling you where the stops are, but just to sort of break down what's likely to be supported.

So our next steps are to take all this information and to start narrowing down what our goals are and looking at what the different alternatives might be at some of these higher priority intersections.

And then based on our schedule, we'll be moving into developing and starting to discuss and create preliminary alternatives.

Yes.

One thing I'm curious about, and I don't know if this will come in later steps, is origin destination information along between that?

That is part of the scope of the project.

I know it's something we discussed and they were going to do it as part of it, but I'm not sure exactly where it's going to fall in this study.

It's probably going to come in, in the next step, the next phase of the study, which is phase two.

They do the forecasting, they'll do the distribute, I mean the OD study.

as well as develop a forecast.

So I guess we're still in phase one.

So phase two will be most of that stuff.

They'll also do some preliminary alternatives and they'll start to develop

Oh, the schedule slide.

Sorry, I'm getting confused because we do two different studies and then they do two different things.

So we are right in the forecasting existing conditions memorandum in May through August.

So it's, they call it phase two in the stars, but it's, so it's going to be phase three in stars roughly, or somewhere in that ballpark.

It's just, they combine stuff in stars that they don't do in pipeline, which is another study format we use.

Sorry about that.

It's split up in this one differently.

So yeah, we're an alternative.

So they'll be doing it as part of the traffic forecast memo, which is underway.

So I see that we have the SMART SCALE application process towards the bottom here, which is also the exact same timing as the final report, draft and final report.

Are we aiming to make it for the SMART SCALE round?

And how tight is that schedule in reality?

I was gonna say, yeah, it depends.

We did two things with this study.

We separated into two different studies because we have the interchange as one study and we have the corridor as another study because we're not sure if we're gonna be able to get to results in time enough for SMART SCALE if we kept them together.

So if they get out of sync a little bit, we don't have to hold the whole study up for

with the interchange or vice versa.

The other thing is, is depending on how the public involvement goes and the comments we get back, it could take longer.

I know Ivy Road study from last round didn't make the pipeline, didn't make SMART SCALE because it got extended due to public input.

So we'll just have to see how it goes.

We're shooting for SMART SCALE this round, possibly, if we can get to that.

get a solution, but it's with new board members coming on board in January, or the council members coming on January, getting buy-in from them and getting them up to speed on this process.

In time enough to get your application in, because the application deadline, you've got to have your projects into the portal by, pre-applications are due by the end of March.

So between January and March, you've got to get them up to speed on those solutions and the study and everything else.

So depending on how it goes, they may or may not be submitted this round.

We'll just have to play that by ear.

We're hoping to try to get some solutions identified

OK. Yeah, I think it's only one new counselor and one new, well, I guess there's a hydraulic for the Dachau district.

Hopefully, Fred can keep her up to speed on it.

And then there's Fred Missel, who's the chair of the planning commission.

So hopefully, he's up to speed on it anywhere.

We want to keep him updated.

And Chuck, is it still the case like in previous rounds where they allow kind of like placeholder applications for these pipeline and STAR studies, or is that no longer the case?

Well, that's where the rub comes in.

With these, they do give us a little leeway if it's a current study going on.

but one of the drawbacks is of why we're trying to get these started earlier is so that we can get to that preferred alternative because typically what's been happening in previous rounds is we're going out for public comment on the alternatives analysis in January we don't get

So hopefully what we're trying to do this round is get that in earlier so that we can basically know what the preferred alternatives are by November.

So that gives us a lot more time to get everybody up to speed on what we're going to go after for SmartScale.

That makes sense.

And this schedule sort of dictates that.

I do want to say that the bike pet analysis, and this is pretty good.

How the transit analysis is going.

When it comes to your preliminary solutions, got four listed of things you need to tackle.

And I would say, I would encourage you not to focus on the reduced congestion one and maybe focus more on the mitigating fatal injury crashes.

with that goal of the first one reducing in condition.

Yeah, and that's what we typically try to do.

We can't expand roadways.

I know we talked about adding lanes and stuff like that with some of the earlier conversations, but that's not the intent of this study because we just can't afford to do that.

So we typically look at that, but there may be some alternatives for intersection reconfigurations that we can get improve the mobility on the corridor, as well as providing

That's why we included transit with this and that's why we're looking at this pedestrian and bicyclist where we might have gaps and we may need to make those kind of improvements to try to capture this because that's the only way we're going to be able to balance the network and try to change some of the shift, some of the people out of their single occupancy vehicle.

Yeah, one of the transit options that I didn't see pop up in this, and maybe this is just not something that you'd have to tackle, so you'd have to keep coordinating with VPA and DRPT on this.

Rail on time performance is listed as one of the big needs and having

Good rail up and down on Longy 9 would probably help with some of that ingestion issue.

So if there's any way of incorporating our intercity rail needs as part of that transit analysis, that might be the presentation.

But I also don't know where your boundaries are and where they might touch the RAs and what projects they're moving toward that could improve our services.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

We'll say it's been talked about before.

I've been coordinating with the MPO for a long time.

And we used to have light rail conversations at some of the MPO meetings, so back in the early 2000s.

So it's something that's been out there on the horizon and discussions for a long time.

But yeah, I don't necessarily think that's why we're looking at express bus or high capacity bus as a first step to get to something that might be more

I was not indicating to

Support for light rail or any specific alternative that would be transit within our region.

Yeah, supporting that kind of connection that

With the Solutions 29 group of projects, we actually set aside money out of the big block of money that we got for that study and that project for buying another train set and which they are in the process of, I think it's already been done and it's ready to go.

The other thing is, I think it was

Round 3 or 4 SMART SCALE.

They funded a major rail improvement project that went from Christiansburg all the way to Northern Virginia, and it included improvements along the corridor to allow for more passenger rail along the corridor, which goes through Charlottesville.

So there are improvements that are in the works that are sort of

Reflected in that on-time scenario that are underway.

I know up in the northern part of the district, they're making a lot of rail improvements on the corridor to accommodate double tracking and some of those things which are lacking so that they can actually run more passenger rail service on the corridor.

So there is projects that are already in the works for that.

Yeah.

Not to belabor the subject too much, but it does seem like there is also a specific heavy rail on-time performance issue that's kind of specific to the Charlottesville area where, you know, basically the way the schedules work, the southbound and northbound trains during the morning, northeast regional, and I think the present kind of meet at the same time.

And so if one gets like 10 minutes out of slot,

Then you're waiting for one to clear the station.

You don't have to go far north of the city to get to single track.

And the OD data may help us understand to what extent travel could be mitigated by that.

And then you guys are, I think this might come up earlier, but like the very extent it

You guys are going to include that in your models of current state, right?

There's a lot of the congestion that you see is at that intersection, and we have an intersection widening project already.

Any other questions?

Mr. Lonnie Murray has his favorite.

Yeah, it's just another comment on sort of limited access.

I know there's the 29, in many ways, the ship has sailed in terms of what's happened on 29 North, although we can certainly, we should focus on making improvements, but I'm also concerned about Berkmar and some of these roads that we did do as part of Solutions 29.

You know, what are we doing to make sure that we don't repeat those mistakes that we made on 29 in terms of, you know, I see a lot of properties for sale up and down.

I mean, we have,

Access Management Standards, which they weren't adopted until 2013.

So prior to that, there was, I mean, there was a lot of, you could get entrances more readily on the corridor.

And most of the stuff on the 29 corridor predates the 2013 guidance that was adopted by the state.

So,

That's what we use now.

And so those would be guidance along the corridor.

We don't have limited access facilities along that area.

And so we have to use the standards that we have.

But most of that's going to come into land use decisions that the locality is going to make because they control land use.

We just basically can say, yeah, you can't have your entrance there because it doesn't meet space and standards.

Any other questions on this?

I see none online and none in person.

Do we have any updates on SMART SCALE?

Well, we are starting to schedule meetings, so we are starting to just talk about what projects may be likely to come up and how our district is going to be supporting projects for our SMART SCALE round seven.

So that is something that we've met with Albemarle already for a preliminary conversation.

You know, Charlotte's fellow had a preliminary meeting, so we'll be following up in the next month or two.

Again, we're going to try to start having those conversations early, and then there are still some questions about how we're going to manage improvements that are identified as part of these ongoing studies.

The other thing I mentioned, Ben, unless it's part of your update, is the Rich McIntyre meeting on August 14th for that STAR study.

There will be a community input meeting.

And that's at the Carver Breck Center, about 6 o'clock, 530, I think is when we have that.

So yeah, it's our central intersection right by downtown.

Lots of interesting alternatives that our consultant team has come up with for that one.

So, all right.

We are on to roundtable updates.

I'll go ahead and kick us off for the city of Charlottesville.

We are working through what we identified earlier this year as our urban transportation improvements that ended up with a list of 34 projects that were quick builds that we were going to spend about a half a million dollars to put out on the street to improve things for pedestrians and bicyclists and also to test some traffic calming devices that we hadn't

We are about 75% of the way through deploying those quick builds.

Our goal is to get everything on the ground within this calendar year.

And we're pretty sure we're going to hit that.

We also have some projects that we identified separately as part of Safe Routes to School, Neighborhood Transportation Improvements, and our bike improvements fund.

Those are also rolling out.

They're kind of

We're starting to build a new Safe Routes to School list for the school year.

So our Safe Routes to School coordinator, Kyle Ragland, has seen them out on the streets, looking for places to do more quick build improvements, but also to do some permanent concrete improvements, because this is our first year of having a capital fund specific for Safe Routes to School.

We've got $200K dedicated to that program right now.

So Kyle will be looking for

about that much worth of project to put out on the street this year.

Moving on to other stuff we've got cooking.

We're finalizing the preferred alternative designs for the Pitt Street Bikeway and Road Diet with VDOT and their consultant support, hoping to go to council this fall to get an adoption of that.

East High Street, we talked about a little bit earlier, the demo project for Move Safely to the Ridge.

We're finalizing the

engineering design drawings for that.

The debate right now is what kind of signal do we get and where do we get it from and how do we make sure that we put it in the right place.

So those discussions are ongoing, but we're hoping to get that out this fall as well.

I will give a couple updates for, since Garland wasn't able to join us.

We are working through some scenario planning to inform City Council and Board of Supervisors decisions about budget declines in FY 27 forecast services and what sort of expansions we would want to look at for FY 27.

So things like whatever that nine service, Sunday service, group frequencies on daytime lines.

Getting lots of different options to council and board of supervisors so that they can start that conversation early on in their board, in their budget discussions.

We provided that information to the council.

Can you hear me?

Are there going to be more options than they were presented?

I don't know.

I think we can ask that, but I don't know if that's going to be the case.

The other thing we're working on is bus stop inventory and bus stop amenities.

We're looking at realigning the route to, hopefully in early 2026.

Currently the route to does a big loop, starts downtown, goes down to 5th street, goes into 5th street station, and then comes back into downtown via Marktown and Avon street.

It'll be realigned to only travel up and down Avon street.

And then once it gets to 5th street station, we actually have two different movements.

One,

Part of it will go into this re-station like it does, but sort of backwards to what it does right now.

The other line of the route too will continue going south down to Mill Street and Pianicella High School and to DVCC and then come back via Agar Street.

That requires us to put

So we are working with officials in the cities and counties to locate where we could put those, both in the temporary bad thing, because we're going to be able to roll out these services quickly, but also what does it look like to put permanent improvements along those routes as well.

So lots of fun bus stop work happening.

Yeah, so they actually were able to test the school zone speed cameras at Summit, Charlottesville Middle School, and Johnson Elementary at the very end of last school year for a couple weeks.

It was sort of in a test mode where we would send you a warning if you were speeding.

You didn't feel like that was a long enough test period.

So the first month of school was going to include another test period.

So the speed cameras will be fine, or how long will it be?

Will it be enforcement?

Yeah, it's fine.

It's just like the speed cameras y'all have in the county.

Hopefully we don't have as much speeding as El Bronco does.

We also have crossing guards and folks out there that are managing traffic.

So there is a little bit of like, how many fines are we actually going to get?

Because there are people out there actively calming the traffic down to make sure the kids are safe.

How much speeding are we actually going to see?

So we're going to keep an eye on that over the fall.

And hopefully it's not as much as people are saying.

I'll pass it to y'all.

My big thing is tomorrow I'm going to the board to do Free Bridge Lane presentation, basically talking about the last year, how the pilot product that we had, closing the road, how it's looked.

and ask the board for their feedback to see if they want to pursue permanent discontinuance for that road or if they want to reopen it back to vehicles.

So that's tomorrow.

We will see what they say.

If they do go for the discontinuance, then that process starts with VDOT.

We won't have a resolution immediately.

I guess two things also just mentioning that we're refining cost estimates for our revenue sharing project on I guess landslaying hydraulic around the high school so we'll be ready to submit that final application later this later this month right yes okay

And then the other thing is, of course, AC44, most of you know, we're working on our comp plan.

We will have a final draft to publish, fingers crossed, end of this week, if not early next week.

So we'll be going to the PC Council.

And the reason I bring it up is there is the transportation chapter as well as land use chapter in that document.

might be interesting to us folks.

And we're also working on our running and sharing application.

We're doing Cedar Hill Drive.

So not far from where y'all are going to have, hopefully some improvements on land size.

RideShare, Sarah's not with us today.

VDOT, if y'all have any other updates, I think they'll come to the point of it today.

Yeah, just a few here.

Some of you may already know we had our post-award webinar back in July 23rd.

So if anyone who is receiving a grant from us hasn't tuned into that, we have a link to that on our website.

We have some NTI course offerings that we were selected to host.

The next one is the State and Metropolitan Transportation Programming.

That'll be September 15th and 16th here at Plan RVA just on the south side of Richmond.

For SMART SCALE ROUND 7, if you have a transit primary focused and that includes rail project for the next round, you do need to schedule a review with us prior to October 31st.

So if that sounds like what's relevant to y'all, you can email one of our planners, Paige Lazar, for that.

Mitch, I've always got to ask you about the I-64, Virginia Breeze.

No, we did get bids.

As it was communicated to me, they're just rebidding because there are some botches on the private side about how they bid.

So we did re-solicit, yes.

OK, cool.

Thanks, Susan.

All right.

Thank you, Mitch.

I don't know that we have anybody from FHWA.

I believe we have someone from FTF.

We did, but they disconnected.

I've covered John.

Just a couple of brief ones.

Currently it's audit season, it seems, because we have tons of audits, different ones coming in.

I suspect it's because we're coming out of the pandemic and these are things that just haven't happened.

but we're talking finance, FTA compliance, DRPT data policies, all that stuff.

That's why I'm here at Jaunt today.

August 13th, we have a board meeting coming up.

So at that board meeting, we're gonna present several things, but one of the findings of this community survey, which we did, which was really, we were quite pleased with about a 775 responses and I'll be,

Hopefully reporting on that in August and thereafter, we can start to share that on websites and around.

And I want to thank everyone here who helped get the word out for that.

And many of you and other committees as well did that.

So stay tuned for that.

And the other things we're working on is we're still working on our RFP procurement measures for the micro transit or mobility on demand ADA, and as well as our full scheduling and dispatch software upgrade.

Last but not least, UVA Bill, do you have any questions?

Yeah, let's see.

Summers, I see mine down.

I think that's mostly the fact there might be still some side ones that are going on there.

Our VSA should be done with the Herelker Drive up on River Hill that have been closed most of the summer.

That's one of our main employee lines for getting to the hospital

Way, getting between the corner of Brandon Avenue is reopened, Shunway Hall is opened, and there's ADA access to the 12-5 channel.

There's there to, you know, it's not only vehicles anymore, but that just opened recently.

There's another ADA ramp over by Hall that, you know, has been, you know, B-degree 78, you'd probably be navigating that

Cool.

Are we going to be getting more of those in the year starts, or are we getting any more of those?

And I think they're still figuring out.

I think they're using the summer to kind of put them on some of the routes just to kind of test them out

Are they full electric, or?

Full electric.

Sorry, yeah.

The size of electric would be a lot of money.

I think bigger could be the spring.

So, creation.

I don't know.

I don't know if that would, yeah, I'm not sure what the future of that would be.

Once students come back, a lot of these buses are passing like they're on stage and running along.

Find a way to use them.

The other thing that probably, I don't know,

Maybe by the next time the blockchain garage should maybe be open.

I don't have an exact date on that at this point.

Let's say somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200

A little news from the ball games to shuttle people back and forth.

I have one other update.

I wanted to share with the group that the TJPDC is considering a change in our SMART SCALE area type.

Right now we are area type C and based on some analysis that was done by VDOT looking at previously funded SMART SCALE rounds and looking at the last two rounds specifically, it seems almost universally that all of the projects would have done better if they were scored under area type D instead of C. And so right now the commission is going to receive a

presentation on this information on Thursday, and then they would tentatively look to take a vote on that at their September meeting.

And we've been, this has gone to our Rural Transportation Advisory Committee, and they voted to recommend that the commission make the request for that change.

We've also sent out a memo to all of the local jurisdictions, because if the PDC changes their area type, it impacts all of the rural areas and not just our applications.

We wanna make sure that's being communicated broadly

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Taylor.

There's a little delay on my end.

Just a point of clarification.

This is not the area type for the MPO.

That would still remain B.

That's not being looked at.

All right.

Thank you, Christine.

Yeah, so the Commonwealth Transportation Board assigns area types based on sort of an urban to rural kind of spectrum.

And so A is the most urban and D is the most rural.

And then D, the heaviest weighted factors for your projects are safety and economic development.

All right, any more updates?

I would just add, if it's OK, sorry to interrupt again, Chair.

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks, y'all.