Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   6/24/2021

Wow, that always catches me by surprise.

Good afternoon.

Welcome everyone to the Regional Transit Partnership meeting.

This is Thursday, June the 24th, and we're glad to see everybody here.

I will start the meeting with our notice of electronic meeting due to COVID-19 state of emergency.

The governor has declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the nature of this declared emergency makes it impractical

are unsafe for the Regional Transit Partnership to assemble in a single location.

This meeting and the required public hearings will be held utilizing electronic virtual communication with the Zoom software application and in accordance with virtual meeting procedures and policies, as outlined in item 4.0-2.

01 of the Virginia State Budget House Bill 29 as effective April 24, 2020.

The meeting will be recorded and made available to the public at the TJPDC website, djpdc.org.

And with that, our first order of business, Jessica is going to call the roll.

I feel like I'm in school again as a teacher, but she's gonna call the roll.

And if you will please unmute yourself and just say, I are present, let her know.

And Gretchen is following to try and make sure she has a list of everybody that's attending.

So that would be lovely.

Thank you, Diantha.

Lucas Ames, John Urban, Representative.

I think he was going to be missing this week.

I'm present.

I'm going to have to jump off and a few output in the chat at the time, but I'll be back.

Thanks, Mayor Walker.

Randy Parker, Jaunt Rural Representative.

Present.

Becca White, UVA, UTS.

I'm here.

Sally LeBeau, UVA Hospital.

No Sally.

We also have some non-members who are here to present.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's all right.

Neil, we don't want to leave you out.

Why don't we introduce the panelists as we go through the meeting?

Sounds great.

All right.

All right.

That's great.

That's all right.

Our first agenda item matters from the public and we will go forward with a public comment.

Jessica has a timer, so you have those that are here to speak, you have three minutes and Jessica will let you know when your three minutes is up.

Ethan, you can go ahead.

Last September, I was excited to hear my appointment to the CAT Advisory Board.

Unfortunately, since then, I haven't received any follow-up communication and I can only imagine the degree to which last year has stretched everyone's time and resources and can understand that other matters have taken priority.

But moving forward,

I'm hopeful and I respectfully request that we could find an opportunity to re-engage the CAT Advisory Board.

As I'm sure all of you are aware, the past year has been a highly disruptive time for many of us and I feel like this is disproportionately more so for those who rely on public transportation.

So in my opinion, I feel like now is the perfect time to re-engage the public and solicit advisement from members of our community as we move forward.

And I'm willing to offer my time in whatever way possible and happy to take suggestions.

And I'll also commend CAT and its staff for

Committing to fare free rides for the foreseeable future.

Thank you, Ethan.

Yes, we have a request from Kitano from C3.

OK.

Thank you.

Can you hear me well?

Yes.

Okay.

Dear Regional Transit Partnership Board members.

My name is Caetano de Campos Lopez.

I am a Charlotte Zoo resident.

I'm the Climate Policy Director of the Community Climate Collaborative, C3.

We all know that climate is changing.

In 2020, U.S. saw the worst fire season in modern history of the West.

And as a result of human caused climate change, Western U.S. is currently experiencing

what is called a mega drought, the second worst in 1200 years.

Fortunately, Charlotte City Council, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, and UVA recently set ambitious targets to strongly reduce climate pollution.

In Virginia, the largest share of climate pollution comes from the transportation sector.

Our community needs to allocate more resources for our transit systems so that it can be the climate solution it needs to be.

helping carbon pollution while promoting a just transition to a cleaner future.

The good news is that the Regional Transit Partnership is already set to lead the way.

C3 is incredibly grateful to their RTP's work towards its vision of providing all residents with access to employment opportunities and community services in a way that catalyzes active and sustainable redevelopment.

We are also particularly grateful to CAT's leadership in moving to a fare-free system and working towards improving its reliability and frequency in order to improve the service's quality and rebound historically low ridership levels.

In that direction, we also applied CAT's request to replace seven buses and add four more buses to its fleet.

and the agency's initiative to conduct a study to assess the best options for complement its current fleet with alternative field buses.

However, while the city's climate action plan is still under development, we must ensure that major decisions will not hinder us from reaching our climate goals by prolonging our reliance on fossil fuels.

For that reason, on behalf of 11 non-profits and for-profit organizations, C3 presented today a letter to recommend

a number of crucial elements that must be considered by CAT and other RTP members in order to ensure that major decisions about alternative fuel buses are based on all the necessary information and with sufficient community feedback.

We kindly hope that you will consider our recommendations.

Thank you.

All right.

It will become part of the minutes.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Next agenda item, approval of the meeting minutes that were in your packet.

And they are from May, of course, May of this year.

Were there any edits or corrections anyone had for the minutes?

I have one, Diantha.

In the statement of emergency note, the incorrect date is listed for when the meeting was made available on the website.

So we'll adjust that date to be the appropriate one.

It still says March.

Okay.

All right.

And I didn't catch that, I guess.

All right.

That makes sense.

Right.

So moved.

Randy, I think.

OK. And is there a second?

Second.

Second from Bea.

So we have a motion to approve the minutes.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Any opposed?

No, but I have to abstain.

I wasn't there.

So abstentions would be Becca.

And anyone else?

I abstain.

Right.

Stephen.

OK, great.

Thank you.

There's a little delay, and I apologize for talking over you.

But anyway, so we have three abstentions, so the minutes have passed.

And then the next item on the agenda is our member spotlight.

And Becca and Jim Foley, I believe it's your opportunity to shine.

You all volunteered.

Thank you very much.

And this is an opportunity to just get to know folks on the RTP and talk a little bit about your interest in transit, what you love doing.

Well, that's okay.

I'll go first.

It's great to see everybody and talk about my favorite subject, UTS and transit.

Those that have known me a while, but some haven't.

I entered the transit world in 1982.

I was a math major, so I can figure out that that was 39 years ago.

Some of the people on the call know that one of my best buddies in college, pre-bus driving, believe it or not, was Evan Kittredge.

who was a very major figure in regional transit and university transit at the time.

He had started being a student bus driver the year before I did.

And he said, Becca, you have got to become a bus driver.

It's the best job on grounds.

And he literally took me by the hand and I applied for that job and the rest is history.

My parents would have never thought I would spend my entire career

in this field, but I love it.

I love it just as much today as I did in 1982 when I got my, when I got what was then a chauffeur's license.

Like the record to show, I still hold my CDL and still drive and still do the in-services for training to keep myself proficient.

But I just, I love every, everything about it.

That was one of my questions.

And, you know, I just love the,

The role that transit plays on grounds, in events, in emergencies, in land use choices, in people's lifestyle choices, it's just a really interesting thing.

And in the future, I'm really looking forward to the continued relationship between CAT and Jaunt and RTP and UVA to really work through this transit vision plan and really find these ways that we can partner and collaborate.

So thank you so much for the opportunity

to do this.

And I salute Evan Kittredge for bringing me into this career.

That was really fun, Becca.

I didn't realize how you got started with your career.

Yeah.

So Evan and I went to elementary school together.

All right.

Jim, you're on.

That's going to be difficult.

I'm Jim Foley.

I'm a Director of Transportation for Albemarle County Public Schools.

I'm a chemical engineer by training and I parlayed that into a bus driving career.

So I spent 30 years in manufacturing management, mostly in California.

I was

I worked in Silicon Valley for a while.

I was a process engineer in a chocolate factory for a couple, three years.

I was a plant manager of Cargill salt.

So we made salt out of bay water from San Francisco Bay.

I did that for about 20 years.

And then my last two years out there, I was a VP of operations for a jellybean plant in South San Francisco.

So

Made lots of jellybeans.

You may not know this.

It takes two weeks to make a jellybean.

Anyway, I moved to Charlottesville in 2008 and guess what?

There's no manufacturing in Charlottesville.

So I started with Albemarle County Public Schools in 2010.

I became interested in transit mostly as a result of my job.

I enjoy making improvements and that might be for employees, wages, benefits, to try to improve retention and recruiting.

Operationally, I'm very data driven, but I enjoy making those kinds of improvements as well and equipment.

So, some of the equipment we put on our buses are cameras that see in between all the seats so the students can't say, I didn't do it.

Well, yeah, you did.

I'm working on stop arm cameras and today we submitted our application to

received grant funding for two electric school buses.

So we hope, we hope to get those.

And, you know, I'm excited about how, you know, RTP has been together for a few years.

I think I've been part of it for two.

And I'm excited to see how we can work together to make some regional improvements.

So, and lastly, I drive old Jaunt buses on the weekend for Hop-On.

So,

You know, if you want to do a wine tour, brewery tour, Hop-On's the way to go.

We're out there saving lives, actually.

Well, that's pretty cool.

I must admit, I see a pattern with candy and wine.

Oh, well.

Maybe you could open up a jellybean factory here, and then we could have some manufacturing, Jim.

Sure.

Yes, I just have a quick question for Jim.

I know you said you're putting cameras on the school buses, which I think is fantastic.

Well, that's Albemarle County Police area.

You'd have to ask them about that.

I know we have just tied in our school warning signs at the high schools that make them programmable.

So we can set that to the actual start of the school day.

It varies sometimes with weather.

and school schedule.

So we have that, but we don't do speed enforcement.

I work with ACPD and they've been very helpful if we need a certain area looked at more closely.

But I think in the next year or two, COVID kind of put a halt to it, but I want to put the stop arm cameras on our buses because

When I drive two out of three times, somebody runs my lights.

And that's the most dangerous part of the ride for students.

You get on that bus.

Overall, the bus is eight times safer than parent transportation and 40 times safer than teen transportation.

So yeah, I get it.

So I hope that-

Only the Albemarle County Police can set up speed cameras in a school zone.

Yes.

I don't know.

I should weigh in on that because I talked about this at the last Board of Supervisors meeting.

I've already called Bea the

The General Assembly has given us the ability to put speed cameras at school zones.

That's great.

I'm telling everybody that.

So it works and be rounded up so everybody can know.

So we do have that ability now.

And Albemarle County Police, at my request, because I'm very interested right now in one over at Albemarle High School because of hydraulic road and lots of issues over there.

So they are investigating what it would take manpower wise and the money it will cost and everything.

And then they're going to be coming back to the Board of Supervisors information and a recommendation.

And we have to get all that information before we can actually do it.

But just so you know, we do have

Yeah, I knew that.

I didn't know if we had already started, if the school has been working with the police department or whatever.

So the Baltimore County Police Department's working on it.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Well, I really liked the jelly beans.

Jelly beans were hard to beat.

All right.

Any, let's see, where else we're going now?

I have to look at my, oh, smart scale application assistance for transit.

And this is going to be presented to us by Chuck Proctor, who is one of the all time great famous VDOT folks.

And saw Chuck's name on the screen a few minutes ago.

Chuck, would you like to show your face?

Yeah, I don't have a camera, but I'm on the call.

Okay.

You know, technology, my computer hasn't been replaced since before COVID started, so it hasn't been upgraded with a camera yet.

But yeah, I will try to give you an update on this transit assistance.

SmartScale, what we do is we work with all the localities to help them put their applications together.

And in recent years, that's been extended out to the transit folks.

We have had a lot, but I know DRPT last round helped us out with a lot of their scoring and helping with some of the validation of some of the applications.

They've also put together

sheet that's part of the resource package that you can put in with your application.

But basically what we can do, what systems we provide is we can help you develop sketches for infrastructure improvements.

If you want to put out a bus pullout or you're going to be doing bus stops or something along those lines.

Even bike pedestrian facilities to and from a transit stop.

You can also look at park and ride lots.

I know we've submitted several of them over the years with bus turnarounds and those kinds of things.

And what we do is we develop the sketches and we can put together the cost estimates for you.

And then we can help you complete the application.

but I mean that's pretty much my stick on for what we can try to do for you all.

Once we identify the locations we can work with you on putting together that information so you'll have it for your application.

But like I said generally I know we've had in our district it's mainly been park and ride lots, mainly bike and pedestrian.

We put up some shelters but usually those are

in conjunction with other projects, but we can do those to stand alone.

I know in Northern Virginia, they have done a lot of stuff around rail and done platform extensions and parking lots for those facilities.

So those can be submitted to smart school applications also.

Any questions?

Great for Culpeper District and so let me just open it up.

We could hear you fairly well Chuck.

Does anybody have any questions?

I honestly didn't know that all of that was available.

So I'm sorry, this is Becca.

It sounds like then a multimodal passenger platform that multiple services could service could be a smart scale.

It would be subject to the same submission

limits that already exist for the municipalities and the MPO, correct?

I mean, the transit agencies have the ability to submit applications also.

Oh, and so it's additive.

The transit agency adds four more that could be considered.

Okay.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

I'm just thinking about it in terms of one of our future agenda items today, you know, the Union Station and opportunities there.

And it may be, maybe I'm all face, but it might be with our work around our transit grant work, you know, our regional, as well as our Albemarle County, we may very well want to think about this in the future as well through that lens.

Yeah.

Well, the other thing I was going to say, I know we're looking at a possible location for a park and ride lot out in Pantops since the one out there was closed a year or so ago.

We just got approval of a park for a park and ride lot out at exit 107 near Crozet.

It includes a bus pull around, a turnaround.

So when that's built, I know that they're running a route

transit route from over the valley, over the mountain in Charlottesville.

And once that lot's open, that will be another stop on that line.

So these are the kind of things we're trying to look at, and they will work with our transit providers to get those done.

But it doesn't have to be a project that the region does or the locality does.

And Bea, go ahead.

Yes, Charles, where's the one on Pan Tops or is there one on Pan Tops?

There's not one on Pan Tops right now and that's part of the one of the things we've got a study that's going to kick off next month to look at the portion of Pan Tops 250 from Hanson's Road down to the interchange and as part of that study we're going to explore

if there's any opportunities for a park and ride lot in the area to replace the one that was closed at the shopping center a year or two ago.

And why was that one closed?

Well, the owner of the shopping center didn't want the parking.

They had basically park and ride spaces available in their parking lot.

and they basically did away with those spaces in their parking lot.

So now the only one we have is out at Park just north.

Yeah, Darden Tow Park, there's a parking lot, but it's got problems because it closes at dark.

So, and there's very little utilization of it.

Great Eastern Management.

Yeah they had plenty of parking.

So this brings up something interesting that maybe this group would like to talk about at some point.

I have had transportation folks, experts, professionals say to me that you have to be very careful about park and rides because the studies show that they don't always work.

It depends on how they're built and the circumstances.

I know, for example, that the University of Virginia Park and Ride obviously works.

That's sort of a different scenario.

I would think it'd be interesting sometime, Chuck, can you do that for us to have, or maybe Jessica, but I would love to know more about park and rides because I know many have been closed over in the country because nobody utilizes them.

And I'd like to know more about how to build one properly.

Yeah, I would agree with that one.

Yeah, and the studies show that more of them are not used than are used.

It kind of depends on what you're doing with them and where they are and the use, for example, obviously UTS is parking ride,

is very successful, but that's a little different animal like I just said.

I'd love to have that at some point if there's interest as an agenda item for us to talk about the pros and cons and the studies around it.

I'd like to hear that too.

We have a tool that TMPD had one of their consultants put together that basically does sort of analysis and

I know we've looked at a couple out in that area.

Becca did you have something you wanted to say?

Well just now we'll wait for the

for that analysis, but it's not a park and ride for park and ride's sake.

It has to be the right amenities.

It has to be just lighted properly.

It has to have waiting areas.

It has to be linked to either transit or carpool trips.

So it can be very successful, but it's not a park and ride for park and ride's sake.

So I'm sure that there's some great sort of check sheets or analysis that you could

Chuck, did you have anything else or are there any other questions for Chuck?

So I'm sorry, I didn't want to cut across Chuck.

Did he have anything else he wanted to say?

No, I'm fine.

Go ahead.

OK.

So one of the key main consultants on the park and ride study at the state level has been Kimberly Horn, helping VDRPT.

We actually have them under contract.

They're working on our study when that kicks off.

So we have the group that's plugged into the park and ride study.

You know, as we look at the 29 corridor, yes, it can't be just for parking ride sake.

It has to be a coordinated effort.

What makes sense in kind of the activity you kind of build it in, whether it's specifically for, you know, like the, for example, making sure that there was additional parking to support the university that would help move

Their employees from our designated parking lot up on 29 down into the university would be a good use of a parking lot.

We'd also add a hub for transit where we'd have dedicated restrooms for our facilities and moving forward, whether it's CAT or Jaunt could be able to use that.

One thing we noticed during the pandemic was a need to have our own facilities because a lot of the facilities were closed where our people were going to use the restroom.

So we'll bring this back for further discussion.

It sounds like you may have some help with that agenda item, Garland.

That's great.

All right.

Trying to keep us moving here.

Does anybody else have any questions for Chuck?

Are we ready to move on?

Chuck, thank you very much for coming.

We really appreciate it.

Well, I can go in and get an upgrade.

I just need to go into the office and do it.

Well, that makes me feel better.

Sure, thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, for those that don't know you, I'm David Blount.

I'm the Deputy Director at TJPDC.

I'm also the Director of Legislative Services, and I serve as the Commission's FOIA Officer as well.

The item before you is for you to consider adopting a policy to allow remote electronic participation by members of the RTP.

And this is actually something that's been in the code for a number of years.

In fact, you know, the commission, TJPDC commission just adopted this earlier this month, which had not

had not adopted the policy yet but I think it's certainly pertinent as we look to some time in the in the future going back to in-person meetings it does afford some flexibility for participation by the members of the public body to participate remotely under certain conditions and those are for personal personal matters and for certain

temporary or permanent medical condition or taking care of a family member who has a medical condition.

Following the memo is the actual policy, which really lays out the process that would have to be undertaken for an individual to notify the chairman of the desire to participate.

And then this policy that actually sets out the process that the public body, the RTP, would follow in either approving or disapproving that member's participation at any given meeting.

So I think it's pretty straightforward what the policy is.

I'll give credit to Albemarle County in that this was largely adopted from provisions that you all include, I believe that are in your operations procedures, operating procedures for the board.

I would offer a very small amendment, just I think it would be clarifying in the very last section of the policy, section E.

where it says electronic participation by the absent board member as provided in this policy for personal matters would be an addition because there was a change in the legislation this past year that takes effect July 1 to add the 25% provision.

So you have more than one, help me with those changes again.

So we're talking about run through those changes again.

Yeah, so there are two different reasons I think that are most applicable for this body to allow remote participation.

One is for a personal matter and the other is for those medical conditions or disability related provisions.

The new language that was adopted that will take effect July 1st

Right now, you can utilize this remote participation for up to two meetings per year.

The additional language was 25% of the meetings routed up to the next whole number, but that is only applicable to the personal matters part.

Okay, I see.

I'm understanding now what you're saying.

All right.

Okay.

I see now.

Thank you.

Yep.

Absolutely.

You know, I certainly know that there's benefits to meeting in person.

Doesn't meeting remotely reduce carbon?

Yes, thank you for that.

And as you can imagine, with the last 15 months and what we've seen with meetings at all levels being conducted electronically, there has been a lot of discussion at the state level and ongoing.

In fact, I was listening in on a FOIA Advisory Council meeting earlier today.

A lot of discussion among stakeholders about what electronic meetings and participation both by members of the public body as well as continued participation or enhanced participation by members of the public, what that all looks like post-COVID and whatever our next normal will be.

But this policy that is before you is based on the law as it's currently written and it's reflective of members of a public body being able to participate remotely under the conditions that are included in the policy.

Diana, I'm sure Charlottesville also, I mean, you have, I know on the school side, we have lobbyists that go and lobby the General Assembly.

Yeah, I think Bea, if I remember correctly, and I'll make sure Bea corrects me if I'm wrong, but we've asked Greg Kamner to put that on our legislative agenda for our packet already.

Yeah.

Even this, you have your principal residence has to be 60 miles.

Yeah, I didn't mention that one, Madam Chair.

I didn't know that that, for this particular group, would come into play.

And even for the PDC, you know, with a kind of a broader cast of the net, probably wouldn't come into play until you get to maybe a Go Virginia region where you're encompassing maybe two different PDCs and you have, you know, a meeting at one, you know, at the very end of one region and a member, you know, from the very other end.

Does Greg do the actual lobbying or is there someone on staff that does it?

will bring back to us, and probably towards the end of the summer, our legislative packet for approval and what we will be requesting.

Okay, great.

Yeah, so, but I know like on our side, Helen Dunn does a lot of the actual lobbying.

Jim, my role as director of legislative services is to advocate on behalf of the localities in the region.

Great, thanks David.

Bea?

Okay, because I think we need to really be forceful on this because we're getting a lot more participation, at least for the committees and commissions, because we're getting a lot more participation via Zoom than in person.

That I think has been the rule in many parts of the state.

And I know that the open government advocates have been very complimentary of what local governments in particular have been able to do in affording accessibility by members of the public during COVID in order to increase participation.

I'm not sure, I have not seen, there will be an operating resolution that governs the upcoming General Assembly session.

And depending on the language of that, I'm not sure if a bill of this, bills related to FOIA and amending FOIA would be something that would be allowed because the purposes of which they're being called are really for appropriating the federal stimulus funds and for approving judges.

But certainly if there's an opportunity

I just had one other question.

I thought that as of July 1 that we would have an additional year.

I understand we have six months after the emergency is declared over.

I believe that the provisions under which a lot of folks operate with regard to electronic meetings

are tied to the governor's state of emergency, which will be expiring June 30th.

However, I believe in Albemarle County's situation, as well as the city of Charlottesville and maybe others, there is a provision in the code that allows for a local emergency to be declared and for

and even another section of code that allows for the adoption of an ordinance that you all have done and amended on occasion to allow for continuity of your operations.

And I think that's what extends for that six months period presently.

Okay.

Thank you.

It's very complicated, I know.

In fact, this meeting this afternoon of the FOIA Advisory Council, they were talking about the many different sections in the FOIA law that really speaks to different aspects of the conduct of electronic meetings, whether it's a state body or a local body or a regional body.

Any other comments or questions for David on this topic?

Becca, did you have something?

Well, Stephen had his hand up as well.

Oh, I didn't see Stephen's.

I'm sorry.

I had a quick question about the language at the end of section A.

It says, the member must identify with specificity the nature of the personal matter.

And I was curious how that balances against members' rights to privacy.

Would somebody have to share with the chair

You know, I'm not an attorney and I don't play one on TV either, so I would probably, that's a great question, and I would probably have to defer that to legal counsel as to, you know, how they might interpret that.

I'm not aware of any situations as this language has been in the code for some time and where this has been invoked.

that there's been any challenge to that or there's been any case law or court decisions on that.

But great question that I will ask when I'm in communication with Mr. Campner and others.

Becca.

Yeah, so Stephen asked my two questions.

So we could take no action

and continue to meet by Zoom for another year or would there need to be some sort of action taken to allow us to continue as the RTP specifically to continue to meet by Zoom for another year?

So the provisions that we were discussing early with regard to the six months and the 12 months, that's applicable for the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County because they have declared a local state of emergency and they have adopted an ordinance

That governs their continuity of operations during that state of emergency.

That is not applicable.

So either we, so on June 30th, we have to meet in person.

And if a member, a voting member wants to be counted, wants to be included and counted, we have to pass this policy.

Is that right?

All of what you said is correct.

Because it is a little

I mean, reading the words, I'm like, wow, on the specificity and all that stuff.

So, but it doesn't sound like, and I just also want to be clear about what it really means.

And there may be another option that I would offer up because there is additional legislation that is taking effect and I'm trying to find it on my computer.

I don't think I have it pulled up.

There's some additional legislation that was approved during the General Assembly session that, as I said earlier, provided for electronic meetings in situations where the governor has declared a state of emergency.

That provision was amended to also speak to local declarations of states of emergency, which, you know, I've said we have in Charlottesville and in Albemarle County.

So there is a provision, again, that takes effect July 1 that says that a public body that is in a locality in which the public body, a locality in which the public body is located has declared a state of emergency.

So it could be conceivable that City of Charlottesville has declared a state of emergency.

Yes, ma'am.

So if we take no action, we're gonna start meeting in person.

And if you can't come, you just don't get counted.

If we do take action in accordance with this, we start meeting in person and you could ask via this policy to be counted in the quorum or in the participation.

But I'm really confused now because it sounds like, David, that because DJPDC is located in the city, we could continue by Zoom using that.

If this public body were to utilize that provision of code.

But what this policy is that's before you just relates to times when the public body is meeting and there is a quorum that is physically assembled.

So let's say it's normal times and this body has a meeting, there's a quorum present, but you have one member who wants to utilize the provision in the code because they have a personal matter or they're sick and wants to participate remotely.

Right, I mean, otherwise they'd just be absent and there'd be a quorum at the meeting.

That's right.

Correct.

So we really have to separate in our brain what we're doing here from the state of emergency and the, yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So, are there any other questions now?

There may be.

Jessica has this on the agenda as an action item.

It doesn't seem like, David, and just to be clear, if we pass this today, this doesn't preclude anything that we would want to do as far as Zoom that might come up in the future.

I mean, it doesn't preclude.

This policy was adopted by the commission at its June meeting.

Similar provisions are already in place for Albemarle County.

So it really boils down to, do we wanna go on and pass the policy that would allow a board member an occasional ability to, if they were really caught with a personal issue or something, right?

It's for any member of the public body.

It doesn't distinguish between voting versus non-voting.

And that's the way the code is written.

And that member would just subject themselves to this.

OK. Yeah.

And it would be nice to have that option, I would think, for those rare occasions where this might kick in.

So any other questions?

If we would like, I mean, I can entertain a motion

I'll move that.

All right.

I have a motion by Becca.

And is there a second?

Second.

Second by Bea.

So all of those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any no's, nays, and any abstentions.

So I think, David, we have passed the remote electronic participation as amended.

That was in our packet.

Sounds great.

Thank you.

And we'll look forward to more discussion about the ability to Zoom.

I'm sure there will be much more.

And we would love it if you keep us informed.

All right.

Thanks.

All right.

Yes, I asked Jessica just for a few moments today to kind of start the discussion or to get this on everyone's minds.

I know we're all so busy and coming out of the pandemic and there's so much going on, but Tri-Transit Week is usually in September every year, so there is still some time.

Last year with COVID, DRPT declared it Tri-Transit Month and focused a lot on safety.

I presume this year they will probably go back somewhat to business as normal of doing the week celebration.

I thought it might be

A nice way for some of our transit providers, RideShare included, since vanpooling is part of the public transportation portion of this, to maybe look at doing some promotion or some things together for this.

For Transit Week has been going on for about 12 years.

I think this will be year 13.

and just wanted to get it on everyone's radar to start thinking about ideas of maybe how we might be able to partner together as the agencies and as the RTP to lend some additional promotion and voice to the importance of trying transit in our region.

So I welcome any discussions, any ideas, thoughts, again,

Mostly just wanted to put it on the radar since I haven't seen the exact dates in the past.

So I'll throw it open for comments or thoughts.

Right.

Well, you know, another brilliant opportunity to maybe really get the word out even more about that particular facet of transit that's going on.

So Sarah, if you have some thoughts or ways that we could help, please come back to us before

September, the date, and let us know.

Absolutely.

Okay.

All right.

The next item- Sorry, I have one more idea on that.

And that's the Afton Express, you know, because it should go

operational by that time.

Yes, we have already been in discussion with CSPDC about I'm on the steering committee for all of that.

So we, we have been thinking about that as well.

But yeah, you know, could be a good time to talk about transit connections between those services and the other services in the area.

Absolutely.

Great.

Any other comments or thoughts?

All right, next item on our agenda is Sam Pittman from TJPDC.

Yeah, thank you, Supervisor McKeel.

Give me a second here to see if I can share my screen.

We can see it, but you might want to go into the full screen mode.

You're in your notes mode, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

So I've had a chance to speak with a couple of you, but not most of you.

So I'll give a brief introduction.

My name is Sam Pittman.

I'm a summer intern at the TJPDC this summer under Jessica, working on transit issues, mostly related to equitable driver appreciation, which we're about to talk about.

Just a little about me, I'm going to be a second year Master of Public Policy student at the Batten School at UVA.

And since we're on the fare-free theme today, I am from the Kansas City area, which back in 2019 became the largest American city to go fare-free public transportation on our buses, as well as our streetcar.

So that's something I'm very passionate about.

If anyone ever wants to talk about that or Kansas City, I'd love to talk about it.

But today I'm here to talk about equitable driver appreciation, which has been something in the works for a while now, but that's really my key project to tackle this summer.

Before we go forward talking about that, I want to go back a few weeks.

I know a few of your agencies were in the meeting, but a few weeks ago there was a Virginia Transit Association forum, which was specifically about driver appreciation and how do we keep recruitment or retention efforts going.

Some of the topics discussed in there, which I haven't discussed in some of my one-on-one meetings that I want to cover.

The first, there's about 15 to 20 minutes dedicated to talking about more junior operators, seeing where that's where a lot of the turnover is at.

I know the last year there has been a lot more turnover than normal among senior operators because of retirement due to COVID, but junior operators is normally where you see people leaving or maybe leaving for better opportunities.

So we talked about different strategies relating to how you can better incentivize people who've been around for you know maybe just a few years to stay on things like referral bonuses or maybe even like little workplace benefits here or there but also trying to balance that to ensure that your senior operators are also happy and that they're not complaining that you know the junior operators are receiving benefits that they never did.

We also discussed how operators, while many do leave for pay, many also leave because of the culture of the workplace.

I know that a lot of your agencies have pretty strict budgets, and so pay can't be increased a lot here or there, but I think culture is something that can always be improved.

So again, it's some of the little things like drivers, maybe talking about how certain bus stops at a dangerous intersection, maybe trying to move it down the street a little bit, or even on cold winter days, just putting out coffee to ensure they feel happy and cared about.

Another thing we talked about is how government jobs can be intimidating.

And it's also something I found in a project I did in my academic program relating to Virginia CPS, how government's scary.

People don't always want to interact with it or go looking for jobs at it.

They sometimes feel that the bureaucracy is too complicated.

And so we talked about different strategies to personalize the agency, open up new lines of communications with operators or mechanics to ensure that they feel like they're being heard.

And then finally, we talked about potential for exit interviews when people do decide to leave the agency.

This is something that I kind of touched on with Jim Foley during our meeting, and he actually shared a really helpful spreadsheet as to the last five years, every operator or even mechanic that has left Albemarle County Schools, here's why they left, here's where they're headed, here are some of their concerns.

So it's something we talked about in the meeting, but it's also something I think that Albemarle Schools is leading the way on.

There are also a few things discussed in the VTA Roundtable that I've heard in the meetings I've held so far.

And so far, I've had the chance to meet with Rep Juwhan at CAT, and I was able to meet with Kendall and Allison at UTS, and like I said, Jim at Albemarle County Schools.

And something that came up in each of those meetings is obviously delays in DMV testing.

Again, I know Albemarle County is able to do the written test on site, but I think UTS and CAT are not.

This is something that's obviously been going on for a long time, and I know that Delegate Hudson is trying to make some headway in working with the DMV commissioner to try and alleviate or at least lessen some of those time spans.

That's still ongoing, so we'll hopefully hope for the future in that that lessens.

Another thing that's happening is a lot of drivers, once they do get that CDL,

They sometimes are attracted to or recruited by other places to go work there.

They can keep their Class B and go work for, say, a beer distributor in town and drive a truck around for maybe a little bit more pay.

Or sometimes they'll go for that Class A CDL and then drive a tractor trailer around the country.

So that's definitely one of the concerns I heard from most agencies.

And then when I was talking to Juwhan, he brought up something that I hadn't thought about before.

And that's how certain government agencies, but also a lot of large employers are starting to move to $15 an hour, which isn't a lot less than some of the agencies pay.

Obviously with the agencies, the backlog with the DMV and how it takes a long time, sometimes people want to start making money the next day or the next week.

They don't want to wait the three months to try and get their CDL.

So it's another thing I want to work on, talking with the agencies in my continuing meetings.

How do we try and advocate that?

And so again, my long-term project for the summer is the Equitable Driver Appreciation Project.

I still need a follow-up with Jaunt about meeting, and I was able to get a meeting scheduled with Sherry Eubanks, Charlottesville schools, early next week to talk about what they're experiencing and some of their concerns.

I'm also waiting, Jim, I'll follow up on you about some data on Albemarle schools I was waiting to be approved.

But essentially the long term goal is to collect a lot of data, which I'll get to in a minute, about the specifics from each of your agencies relating to a bunch of different areas and put that into a master spreadsheet.

And if you're willing to share it with each of you on the collective list.

And then using that, so at the end of the summer, when the time comes, we can create a public document detailing all the findings, seeing where the agencies are at and what they're struggling with, but also some strategies possibly to go forward.

Of course, this document would have to be approved with each of you with your edits, make sure that you're confirmed and good to go.

And I also want to clarify that when I say public, this isn't something that we plan on posting all over the internet or anything like that.

But say that you have a potential driver coming in, a recruit,

And they want to see how you stack up maybe against different people and what you can offer and also your culture.

It's something you can show to them and say, hey, here's where we are.

Here's what we offer.

We think we stack up this way.

And then also provides an opportunity for the different agencies to work together and try and balance each other out.

So on that first part I talked about, which is the master spreadsheet, we're actually using about 60 different metrics to compare all the different transit agencies.

It covers very basic topics like pay, but also different recruitment strategies and reasons for people leaving, how long before someone can get behind the wheel by themselves.

These fit

kind of neatly into seven different categories, which do cover most of the agencies.

I will say that one of them is related to student drivers, which just applies to UTS.

I don't know, and I kind of don't hope that Charlottesville and Albemarle schools doesn't have any plans to let any middle schoolers or potentially high schoolers start driving buses around.

But of course, we'll consider all options.

Again, it addresses measurable figures like driver outcomes and hiring practices.

And I also want to stress that this is a living document.

In each meeting I've taken so far with the different agencies, I've always learned something new.

I've learned how mechanics and recruiting them is also facing issues.

So maybe that's something for the future to cover.

And also just different concerns among drivers and things like that.

So kind of the bulk of presentation I want to talk about is peer cities and how Charlottesville stacks up against other places around the country, how we can learn from them and maybe take their best practices, but also using those to create strategies that maybe in the long run they take from us.

And so I took a look at all these different metrics for how Charlottesville stacks up against other cities, such as metro population, whether or not they're a university town.

Here, obviously, we have to deal with Charlottesville and Albemarle.

I know John's also interacting with the different counties around there.

So look at places like Duluth, Minnesota, which covers Minnesota and Wisconsin and how they interact with both state governments.

The weather, which I'll get to in a minute, and then finally the scope of the transit system.

I wanted to ensure that we had a little diversity in different transit systems, but I didn't want to pick cities that just had a shuttle on one street going back and forth, but I also didn't want to include places like Boston, which has a subway and light rail.

And so in doing that, I was able to come up with a list of about 10 cities that I feel like Charlottesville stacks up against best.

They are places like Lynchburg, which is right down the road, but also places that are similar in climate, places that have very different climates, places that do have large universities and places that don't.

Places where I feel like, from my research, the transit agencies experienced many of the same problems.

And of course, one of those same problems that is experienced not just here in the area or in the state is the driver shortage.

This isn't just a Virginia thing.

It's happening in the Ann Arbor area, in Urbana-Champaign, in Duluth.

It's something that everybody's dealing with kind of in different ways.

And so again, if we can learn from those best practices and see who's really succeeding at recruiting new drivers and also retaining their current ones, maybe their strategies that we can move here.

And then also, like I said, coming up with our own strategies that when other places are looking for their best practices, they look to Charlottesville and Albemarle.

And then finally, why are we collecting these pure cities?

Again, like I said, they're for best practices, but also for the potential for a spring speaker series.

I think it'd be really interesting to bring in people from, like I said, Duluth and understand why they got a bunch of electric buses back in 2015 and they've been experiencing a lot of problems with them in the weather and then the terrain and all that.

So learn some of the strategies that they're utilizing to fix some of those issues.

Again, if anybody here has been interacting or knows people in different local or county governments or in transit around the country, and you think they're doing really cool things, I would love to know about that.

I'd love to include that in the list.

Again, seeing what strategies they're using that works, I'm open to any recommendations.

And so that's all I have.

I'd love to try and answer any questions, but of course, if I can't, I'd invite Jessica to try and answer them.

And if not, we can definitely follow up with you.

Sam, I think you're off to a great start.

I look forward to seeing what you're gonna come up with, but great job so far.

Kim, this is Becca.

Yeah, I should have clarified.

So they're the five local transit agencies I have, which is CAT, UTS, John, Charlottesville schools and Albemarle schools.

I know Juwhan provided me with some information about how Charlottesville stacks up against some of the other state transit agencies or local transit agencies in Virginia, like Lynchburg and Richmond and a few other places.

And I'd be happy to share that with you.

And since culture is such a big thing, I imagine, can you give a few examples of the data elements that are trying to get at that culture, the work culture thing?

And by the way, the $15 an hour thing, almost every single one of our bus drivers got a raise to $15 when it went to that.

Yeah, so I think a few of the data points are related to like why people leave specifically or reason for leaving, but also a lot of it is more database, such as like numbers, like in performance incentives, recruitment bonuses, all of that.

So I think that is kind of a big part of the culture.

If people feel like they're bringing new drivers in and filling that shortage, but they're not being compensated for that, I think they can kind of feel

A little put off by that, I have friends that have recruited other friends to their companies outside of the transit sphere.

They didn't get compensated for that and they felt like they weren't cared about.

Some of them eventually left their places of work.

Any other comments or questions from anyone?

I will make a suggestion, Sam, something that I've talked about off and on for the last year or so.

And it involves our two public schools, Charlottesville and Albemarle.

We have in the urban ring, in the five miles around Albemarle, and in the city, we have neighborhoods because of where our schools are located.

and how our neighborhoods are divided between city and county.

We have Albemarle and Charlottesville school buses passing in the same neighborhood and passing on the roads.

I think it would be very interesting to look at a study that said if Charlottesville and Albemarle public school bus systems

combined, for example, to let Albemarle also run the Charlottesville public school bus.

That's all I'm talking about is public school buses.

What would it look like in savings?

What would it look like in the number of drivers needed and the buses needed?

That

plays into reducing our carbon footprint.

You'd have one less bus system driving around.

I can tell you in Willoughby, for example, the Willoughby neighborhood, Chip Boyles said to me one time, in my neighborhood, Charlottesville and Albemarle buses pass each other all the time.

We have a school at Burley where Albemarle buses are passing Charlottesville buses.

And I just, I think it behooves us when we're looking at climate change, reducing our footprint, trying to save money, you could all of a sudden have one system.

And the reason I pick Albemarle is because Albemarle is the largest and Albemarle delivers in the rural area, which should not, would not want, we couldn't change that.

But you'd have one system with drivers with one pay,

There would be a lot of advantages to that and I would be very interested in investigating that.

Yeah, I agree.

Obviously, I'd love to invite Jim or Garland or Sherry Eubanks to that conversation.

But I do remember there was an RTP subcommittee meeting last June where actually the idea of a master spreadsheet of all the actual driver ideas came up.

In that same meeting, there's the idea for a master map of all the different bus routes between the different agencies in the Charlottesville area.

So I think something like that could be interesting, again, to see where they constantly pass each other and how you could overlap.

And obviously they would have to agree, but before we can even talk about it, or they could talk about it, I think we need some data, right, to see.

I think it would be worthy of at least investigating.

I think the, certainly the environmental community would be supportive.

I don't know, so.

Whispers?

Yeah, I'd be interested in exploring that.

And I actually talked to Chip about this, and Chip said I could talk about it publicly.

And he said he thought it would be very interesting to explore.

It may be that we find it wouldn't save a bit, and it is what it is.

But if you could save a number of buses,

and have all the drivers at the same pay, right?

And then you might have some money left over to do some other things that would be equitable for the drivers and for the system.

And I don't have to belabor it, but I really do think it was worthy of it.

So I'd like to.

Bea.

Yes, I also think you could have a savings regarding maintenance yards with a combination of maintenance yards.

And with the combination of maintenance yards, maybe a reduction in some buses, you could probably even increase the driver's pay, which would be very

which would be a very good incentive and I think we'd get more bus drivers that way and be able to hold on to them so I mean I think they're combining the two could actually usually you you get significant say well significant you get a lot of savings and even morale because one agency is not trying to steal from the other agency and I think that

What we're doing right now is what I call whack-a-mole between the two public school systems as far as salary.

The other thing I would put on the table is that Albemarle County right now is participating from the school side as in we'll be starting from the county side and looking at proffered land and part of that study would be

possibly moving our old bus depot, school bus depot up to some proffered land.

I'm just saying, there's no decision, nothing's happened about it, but we maybe would be building a brand new bus facility and the timing for that could be very nice if we were looking at something like this.

I would add one thing.

Maybe Sam could also look at technician pay because that's an issue.

As you might know, Diantha, you know, when we look at salaries, we look at competitive markets and right now our HR model is to look at

Other school districts, but that's not our competition for technicians.

And it's the same in building services.

So, you know, if we're going to combine maintenance efforts, I think that needs to be studied too.

That's a great idea.

And Sam's the right guy for that job.

He just fits the bill, doesn't he?

Any other comments or questions?

I would just say that I actually have talked to Chip about this.

He mentioned to me that you mentioned to him, Diantha.

So I am not opposed to this whatsoever.

I think we do need to get the data, so get the process started.

Taking a hard look at it, if we're going to do it, we need to go ahead and look at everything, all of the functions.

So I think that'll be a good project.

to kind of take on and really dive into the numbers.

Well, I think it even marries with both of our communities' environmental plans, right?

Our carbon footprint and our environmental plans.

It meets very nicely.

And I couldn't agree more that Sam is the right person for this.

I also want to manage expectations that his internship is six weeks, and he's on week two.

So I also want to make sure that everybody understands this is not something that he's just going to be able to jump right into.

We'll work internally to see what that means for next steps, though.

Sure, but at least we could get started, right?

If there is an interest, and if he can get us started, then... Go down.

I'm definitely not saying you...

We'll see.

Thank you so much for being willing to listen to my spiel.

Great, thank you.

All right, hearing no more questions for Sam or comments, I guess we'll move on to, where are we here?

Thank you.

I'm going to share my screen.

All right.

So the first update I'm going to give you is about the Regional Transit Vision Plan.

And just because we have so many transit studies going on, as well as other projects going on in some of the similar areas, I'm just going to reorient you guys with the purpose of the study and some of the details on this slide.

So the purpose of the vision plan is for local leaders, transit agencies, and a wide variety of stakeholders to collaboratively develop a clear vision for the future of transit in our region.

The early work for this project is going to gather data from a variety of sources to identify the types of transit service that can be supported on travel corridors throughout our region.

And the final work product, there's going to be many intermediate work products, but the final work product will be a document that identifies actions the community must take to support the community's vision for high quality transit.

We have a budget of $350,000 for this project, half of that is coming from DRPT as grant funding, a quarter of that is coming from Albemarle County, and a quarter of that is coming from City of Charlottesville.

The project has begun, we have our consultants chosen, they have their notice to proceed, and this project will continue through the end of next fiscal year, so June 30th of 2022.

So the update I want to give you all is that we have our consultants on board.

So an invitation for proposals was sent out in April.

We received three proposals.

They were all excellent proposals.

We had many great choices to choose from.

The selection committee was appointed by the RTP.

That selection committee reviewed the proposals.

They interviewed the two strongest teams and they selected the AECOM-led team

as best able to meet the project's needs.

And there's a memo in your packet that goes into all sorts of details about this whole process, but these are the highlights.

The selection committee felt it was a really strong team composed of AECOM, Jarrett Walker and Associates, and the local firm EPR.

This team had strong experience with similar plans with other vision plans, strong experience with the kinds of technical analyses that we wanted as part of this project, and they have great experience with public engagement, especially the selection committee was very impressed by Jarrett Walker and Associates.

The selection committee also really liked AECOM's philosophy and I think this pull quote really summarizes that for me.

So, the plan must fuse excellent analysis with clear thinking about the community's goals and aspirations.

It must show clearly how widely shared goals lead to specific recommendations and performance measures

and it must think broadly about all the reasons transit can matter to a community and to the lives of its citizens.

So as you can see from that quote this team blends some really strong technical skills with knowledge that you know this should be community-led, community-driven and the community needs to be on board by the end of the product.

Since we're running a little short on time I'm going to give my other update as well and then take questions at the very end.

So the other update is about the Albemarle County Transit Expansion Study.

And again, just to refresh your memories, the purpose of this study, it's a feasibility study and an implementation plan for expanded transit service to population and employment centers within Albemarle County.

particularly the Pantops area, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and along Route 29 North between the city limits and as far North as Engic and innovative transit options that emphasize accessibility and responsiveness to customer needs are going to be investigated alongside traditional fixed route options.

This project has a budget of just over $100,000 with half of it coming from DRPT and the other half coming from Albemarle County.

The project began back in April and it will continue through February of next year.

So some upcoming highlights for this project.

In late July or early August, the consultants are going to hold their first round of stakeholder focus groups and public engagement.

Those focus groups and engagement sessions will give an introduction to the study, will give an overview of existing conditions, review their market and service analyses,

and solicit feedback from attendees so it'll be a two-way conversation sharing info and gathering info from the public and from the stakeholders.

You will hear about these stakeholder groups and public engagement soon so I will send out all that information through

through the RTP email list.

You'll also be able to find this information on the project website.

The project website should go live very, very soon, and I will share that with you guys through the email list.

The project website includes information about the project announcements, such as announcements about upcoming engagement sessions or focus groups.

a study area map breaking it down so you can see exactly what each of those three study areas looks like it'll include all the project documents so as some of those deliverables are produced they'll be posted onto this website so the public can review and there will be a survey link which leads us to the other highlight the MetroQuest survey so the consultants are working on a survey that will supplement the public engagement that they'll be doing likely virtually

So that's just another exciting thing to look for as this project keeps moving forward.

So I'll open it up for questions.

Questions on either of the studies.

I don't see any.

Jessica, I just had one question.

That's a good question.

I was curious.

I didn't see it in the report.

And I can sometimes remember these alphabet soup, you know, better if I know what they actually stand for, but it might not.

I mean, anyway.

All right.

Any other questions on either of the studies?

All right.

Moving on then.

We, I guess our 530, we are maybe running a little bit.

No, actually we're not too far behind.

That's good.

Nominating committee for 21 election of officers.

So in July, we'll need to deal with our election of officers.

And the bylaws say that the chair can name names and nominating committee.

I was really happy that Bea helped me with this because when she read the agenda, she called me and said, I will volunteer like I did last year to be on the nominating committee, which gave me at least 50%.

So Bea volunteered.

I'm opening it up for any other volunteers that would like to serve with Bea.

Oh, and Nikuyah is back.

She's just not on the screen to let everybody know.

She just came into the chat.

So any, not hearing any other or seeing any other volunteers, Lloyd, you worked really well with Bea last year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Have I nominated committee.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

There you go.

You make a beautiful team.

Okay.

Thank you.

Moving on Dan for the MPO update.

Sandy, this is your sweetheart.

Yeah, thanks.

I might catch us back up to our agenda schedule.

So just a couple of things that I want to share.

First of all, the CTB, the Commonwealth Transportation Board, met earlier this week.

And one of the things that they did was approve the 2022 to 2027 six-year improvement program.

And the reason why that's important to you all is that that included approval for the projects that were recommended for funding in round four of SmartScale.

So starting in 2027, some of those projects should start coming on board.

Since Chuck's still on their call, he can provide any information if anybody has additional questions.

But because there was this additional infusion of funding due to the newly implemented wholesale fuels tax, that funding starts coming on board, has already started coming on board.

but it hasn't been programmed out yet.

So six years of funding was basically allocated to fund the projects that were approved starting six years from now.

What that means is that there could be an opportunity that some of the projects could be escalated and come on board faster than what was originally planned, but they're gonna start with the current projects in the list.

They're gonna work through the projects that were approved first, but it's possible that

We might not have to wait until 2027 to see some of these projects started.

It could be a little bit early.

Yeah, that's correct.

What we're doing is focusing on the current projects that are already under design and we're going to fast track those and then we're going to accelerate the schedules on some of the other ones.

We're not sure which ones, but

I'll put in my plug for the pedestrian bike overpass over 29 that also has a transit stop, which would be lovely.

I think that will be a group project and we'll probably do all those projects together, but we'll see.

sort of like what we did with the, we did a package of projects for a number of projects in the Albemarle Charlottesville area that we put together that's under construction and include the DVI at conversion at exit 124.

But there were a number of roundabouts like the 151 roundabout, the roundabout up at route, profit road in route 20,

All those were grouped together into one group of projects that a design-build team is working on.

So we'll probably look at the hydraulic package as a similar type of concept.

You were kind, Chuck, to stay.

We really appreciate you staying for this portion.

Nikuyah, you just jumped on.

Okay, sounds good.

Any other comments or questions about the smart scale approvals?

Sounds good.

All right.

I'm going to go ahead and share my screen just to let you know about a couple of resolutions of support that the MPO reviewed.

Let me see where did my screen go.

The first one, so there are a couple of grant programs that we use.

SmartScale is one of the most important ones because that is what funds big transportation projects and there's not

A match requirement, even though often localities like Albemarle and Charlottesville will contribute a local match, but there are some other grant programs that are pursued.

And so these were a couple that are being applied for this round by the city of Charlottesville.

This is through the transportation alternatives program, which is basically to support bike and pedestrian infrastructure, as well as there are some other

ways that this can be used like for historic preservation of historic transportation sites like depots or the Afton Tunnel if you're familiar with that.

That was a transportation alternatives funded project.

But the City of Charlottesville is applying for two and I'm just going to run through these briefly.

The first one is that they had requested transportation alternatives funding successfully previously for the construction of a bridge near Meadow Creek at this point right here.

And so what they are doing this round is they are asking for additional funding to build some

Some multi-use paths from some of the

points along the existing transportation network to provide better connectivity to this bridge.

So you can see these points A, D, and E are the points that they're trying to connect to.

So the bridge will provide a shared use path access to points across the bridge from Greenbrier Drive to Brandywine Drive to McGee Drive.

So at their meeting last night, this was one of the projects that the MPO voted to support through a resolution.

And then the second one that

That is requested as a slightly different type of transportation alternatives grant.

And that's the non-infrastructure grant for Safe Routes to School programming.

It's new that the Safe Routes to School funding is going through the transportation alternatives program.

It was a funding source before it was just categorized a little bit differently.

But the city of Charlottesville is asking for funding to support a staff person to be their Safe Routes to School coordinator.

And so this person is going to

do some of the program implementation around the safe routes to school and it's funded for a full-time position through this grant.

And then there's a third grant that the policy board voted on to support through a resolution of support that's from a different source, which Jessica will talk about in a second.

But this is the RAISE grant through Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity.

So this is one that the PDC is applying for.

Thanks, Sandy.

Can I actually share my screen?

Yes.

Alright everyone, so TJPDC staff are seeking the Regional Transit Partnership support for a grant application for RAISE.

RAISE stands for Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity.

It was previously billed and before that, TIGER.

The purpose of this fund is to make capital investments in surface transportation that will have a significant local or regional impact and

You can apply for two different types of RAISE grants.

You can apply for a construction grant to actually construct one of these projects, or you can apply for planning funding to plan a project like this.

And we are applying for a planning grant, just to clarify.

There is no match needed for rural areas, and the Charlottesville area counts as a rural area for the purposes of this grant program.

And that's just based on population.

So we don't need a match for this project.

In fiscal year 20, the TJPDC requested just over $700,000 to create a Charlottesville Regional Multimodal Transportation Station master plan.

And the purpose of that master plan would have been to meet the capacity, accessibility, and safety demands of Charlottesville Union Station and improve the surrounding area.

And Charlottesville Union Station is the Amtrak station in downtown Charlottesville.

Unfortunately, that application was unsuccessful at the time, but in our debrief for that application, we were encouraged to reapply.

They said it had scored really well, just didn't work out this time, and they just wanted us to come back next time.

So that's what we're trying to do.

So in my next slide, I have a picture of a map of the area.

So in the very center of the screen here or close to the center, this is the Amtrak station.

It has a now defunct

There's this large parking lot here.

This is Main Street.

This is heading towards UVA and this is heading towards downtown Charlottesville to the east.

The capacity issues that we mentioned are such that

The Amtrak station doesn't currently meet the size suggestions that Amtrak sets out for the number of boardings and the lightings that it sees every year.

And with continued investment in passenger rail,

We expect them to continue to not be able to meet those size suggestions.

So we need a bigger station in order to serve all the people using passenger rail there.

There are some accessibility issues where the only ADA accessible entrance to the station itself is along the platform here.

which isn't an ideal way for people to get in.

And there are some safety issues like lighting, cooling water and some other concerns.

So these issues remain.

We want to plan for a future where this Amtrak station can meet our community's needs and encourage the rail travel.

I have just a question about the conversations with the owner that was going on with that property.

Great question.

So for anyone who doesn't know that 3.3 acre site that I showed on the map is actually privately owned.

The building is also privately owned and leased to Amtrak.

I don't know where those conversations stand right now.

I know that they are ongoing and they will continue to be ongoing.

However, the fact that the property is in private ownership does not prevent us from applying for a planning grant.

And Mayor Walker, I can also add that Mr. Boyles has recently been in contact with that property owner and sent him a letter letting him know that we intended to apply and offering him the availability to give us any feedback

Great question, Nikuyah.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Comments, questions?

I'm certainly in favor of this.

We all know that that station is not adequate for, or at least most of us know it than abused it, let's put it that way.

Chair McKeel, are you looking for a motion?

I am.

If everyone feels comfortable in there, no more comments or questions.

I am, yes.

So moved.

Second.

So I heard Lloyd, I think, pop up with a quick second.

Again, teamwork from these two.

That's pretty good.

All right, so we have a motion on the table to approve the resolution that was in your packet to fund Charlottesville Regional Multimodal Transportation Station Master Plan.

Aye.

Any nos?

Any abstentions?

So Jessica, you have it.

There you go.

Thank you everyone.

Yes, absolutely.

We're running pretty close to time, although I have a couple of things I need to talk to you about at the very end of the meeting.

So if we could get the transit providers updates going and we'll get through those and then I'll put a couple of things on the table.

Just one.

As we're working through the final adjustments for the launch of our changes coming out of COVID, we were informed by the Ryle Hill Shopping Center that they want us to remove the bus stop that goes through the parking lot.

So we've been informed that they want us to do it no later than the end of September.

So we're going to incorporate that into the changes and we will make the adjustments.

Their reasoning was the shopping center will be undergoing a renovation.

We're already working on something.

It's not going to be in the shopping center.

Right.

Yep.

Right.

That's good.

Yep.

All right.

Was that it, Garland?

I'm sorry.

That's it.

Okay.

So summer session is virtual.

All of the student orientations are virtual this summer.

UVA is planning on going back to essentially normal, both for academic programming and athletics.

So you'll see a lot of increased activity toward the third week of August.

We are still working on our service packages.

We reported last week we have till mid-July to announce it.

So watching

advice from federal agencies, state agencies about bus boarding capacities and such, but until then we continue to require masks, back door boarding.

We have gone to a 30 passenger loading limit based on the advice of our epidemiologist team at UVA hospital.

And that factors in the masks, the vaccines, the length of the trip.

So if anybody has any questions, let me know.

Great.

John, Karen Davis is not with us today.

I'll speak for Karen.

Oh, Stephen, I'm sorry.

That makes sense.

I saw Randy's name first.

No problem.

So for the past couple of months, our ridership has been creeping back ever so slightly.

So we're going in the right direction, but it remains to be seen.

how new remote working policies are going to affect different parts of our ridership, particularly our connect routes.

But we're going in the right direction.

And our current capacity is a little constrained.

So we're in a position that we're still operating at 50% capacity on our buses.

So we're trying to strike a balance between hiring enough drivers to meet capacity, but also anticipating when we'll go back to 100% capacity in our vehicles, which will also help alleviate some of that demand.

Our offices are going to be reopening on July 6th.

We just adopted new COVID policies to allow for that following CDC guidelines.

We also have a new remote work policy that will be going into effect.

So our staff will have the opportunity to continue doing that when appropriate.

I don't know how many of you have met Jody Saunders.

She's been with us for about a year in our director of marketing position.

But she recently led an initiative to redo Jaunt's mission and vision statement.

So we're pretty excited about that.

She's also doing a project looking at our bus stop signage and redesigning that.

And that kind of prompted some issues that I'd like to bring to this group.

And one is whether there are any existing relationships between CAT and UTS coordinating on

names of bus stops so that in our literature everybody is referring to the same stop by the same name.

I think that would be a good thing for users of our systems.

I'll contact you and Garland separate from here.

We had an initiative going about the bus stops and shared bus stops that kind of went on hold for very many different reasons.

So we just need to reconstitute that conversation.

And I'll take that on because if you guys don't mind, I mean, just to prompt us to move forward.

Yeah.

And a related issue is making sure that we all have an understanding of how Google Maps handles our

Three separate GTFS feeds so that when somebody's using Google Maps, they see all of the relevant routes at a stop, no matter which system provides that route.

Exactly.

We really have to get there.

I'll include that and it was a big struggle for us to get on Googles because we go by building names so often and there isn't a cross street and such so I'll just include that in the reconstitution of this discussion.

And I'll turn the plug in like I always do and Garland's gonna laugh but if somehow or another we could figure out some names besides 123456789 and 10

I would love to figure out a way to get named the routes, at least have a combination name or something that we know what we're talking about when we talk about routes.

Just throwing that out there, names and routes.

Garland knows how I feel.

I have to have the chart in front of me.

Anyway, any other comments or thoughts?

That sounds like really good work though, Stephen.

and Jim Foley, Albemarle County Public Schools Bus Transportation.

Thank goodness it's summer, although we're still transporting SPED students to private schools.

Our summer school runs from July 6th to the 30th.

You know, we kind of based it on available drivers because a lot of our drivers are burnt out and not everyone signed up for summer school.

Becca, I appreciate you considering helping us

But I think we ended up at a good solution.

Like I said before, we applied for two electric school buses.

I'm not sure we'll get them, but we gave it a try.

So we did go visit Louisa County who did get two of the electric buses and they love them.

Plus Dominion came out with a program to reimburse schools for fast chargers, which

would save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So that's good news from Dominion.

So Jim, what did they say about the way the electric buses performed for them?

They start easily.

Oh, they drive very soon.

I drove one in Richmond about a year ago.

And I drove one when we went to Louisa.

It's very smooth, powerful.

I drove a gasoline powered bus about a year ago too, and it doesn't have near enough power to get up Afton Mountain with a football team.

That would be difficult.

But diesel and electric have enough power.

They're very quiet.

Once you buy them, the maintenance costs are very low.

I shouldn't probably say this, but there's a state contract coming out soon.

And part of that will have a 15 year warranty on the battery.

So there's no concern with battery life because it's backed up by a warranty.

And I know their battery recycling technology is improving.

So that's an area of concern down the road, but I think it's coming along where, I don't know if you know this, like your AA batteries that you recycle, almost all of it is reused.

That recycling process is very mature, but

For lithium batteries, it's not.

I would think so.

Good news.

Sounds good.

I'm interested in your experience driving them.

Any other comments for any of the operators that just gave reports?

All right.

I have under business, the next item is other business.

Does anybody have anything they want to bring forward under other business?

I have one.

Well, I actually have two things.

But the first thing I wanted to ask about is, when we began the RTP, we always had an update from the CAT advisory board.

And the last time we had someone here from the CAT advisory board, they were talking about how they were working on their bylaws and the city attorney had approved, I thought approved the bylaws.

Well, I can tell you when I started on council a year and a half ago, it was thought of as being something that council would appoint and so on.

And we didn't have enough members.

And for a lot of other reasons, things got sort of reconsidered.

And we had a meeting last fall where we were looking at all kinds of different issues with boards, commissions.

And we basically decided at that point that there really wasn't a lot of reason why the CAT advisory board should be sort of a council level appointment.

It ought to be something that worked directly with Garland and

and the transportation piece more directly rather than having us involved.

So at this point, I think council has sort of stepped back a little bit and I don't know, Garland, is that your sense of where we stand procedurally with all of this?

I'm not trying to throw you under the bus.

I thought it was a little bit more nuanced than that.

So council asked whether,

They thought the CAT advisory board was still viable and you were contemplating even removing it.

I told them, no, I thought it was a good board to continue to have.

I think it needed to be looked at.

And I asked for your authorization to hire a consultant to look at what the CAT advisory board does and then bring back a recommendation to council sometime late this year or early next year.

Nikuyah, you look like you had taken your mute off.

Yeah, I was just going to say what Garland just said.

I wish we were just waiting on recommendations.

There was a discussion around wanting to increase

Like the business community participation and the board.

And so we just hadn't had a new proposal in front.

And then you had talked about making sure there was an Albemarle County representative on the board.

Yeah.

With the pandemic, I haven't been able to get a consultant.

So we're going to get the consultant.

We're going to get them started on board.

Okay.

And that's great.

And then if you could just keep this particular body informed about what's going on with it as well, that would be great with that group.

Once you get it going and you know, that would be lovely.

I'd appreciate it.

All right.

The other thing I'd like to just discuss briefly, and I know we're running shy on time.

One of the speakers this afternoon spoke to

the representative from C3 spoke to the possibility of getting a group together or maybe a round table group to look at what transit options we might have for our buses, what would be the right mix for buses in our community.

And I, Christine, do you wanna speak to this?

Yeah, one of the things that we talked about is in the next couple of months potentially bringing together a workshop or a roundtable to just fit everybody at the table so we can all share all of the information we have, results from studies that are being done, data on the different types of buses.

I think it's something that there's a real momentum and a craving for us all to share information and make sure that we're all on the same page.

Any thoughts or concerns or objections or comments about that?

So the concern I do have,

is that we need to, if we're gonna do this, we need to make sure that the folks, one, I mean, it is unusual for community members to be involved in the selection of a bus.

I mean, it's weird.

The community doesn't get involved when you're talking about selection of fire truck or a police vehicle or any of the other vehicles associated with the county.

So it is a little interesting that there's a lot of concern about selection

with individuals who have not ever run a transit system and don't have any information about running and what it takes to make sure that I'm going to be reliable.

So from that aspect, I think it is best left to the professionals to make that decision.

We can bring the information back and we will.

There's a study that will be completed and we will have that information before everybody.

But the FTA is requiring me to sign off on the purchases.

I'm not going to be subject to a committee telling me to buy an electric bus when I have no confidence that it's going to work.

The FTA is not going to allow me to just dip my toe in, which is why we're doing this study so I can make sure we have a plan.

The plan will basically spell out what infrastructure we need and then we'll move forward so I can insert it into my TDP and then get that moved forward into

the state's plans.

That's the process I would love for us to follow.

Well, and Adam, I don't think we're disagreeing with you.

It's not a matter of the public telling you what buses to buy.

It was really an effort to educate and talk about the different options and educate.

That's all.

And you have a study going on right now.

The study has not started.

We've said this three or four times.

We're at this point trying to get through the scope.

The scope will be finished hopefully in another week or so.

I've told C3 that I would share the information with them.

I haven't even shared it with the city manager yet.

I need to share it with the state.

There's a lot of people who need to see this component.

So nothing CAT does or nothing that I do is ever done in a vacuum.

I'll just add can I add one thing on what Garland said is again I think it's you know the community wants to see or community partners want to see what type of vehicles are available and you know and things of that sort and things that but I will let you know what Garland's talking about whether it's electric buses or CNG buses or something else we're art is he's he's doing some of this for us as a as a plan because we we've turned down

We're really promoting electric buses, but we turn down the grants when groups, areas just want to get one to see what it's like.

You know, we want the investment to see that the planning has gone through and whether again, CNG or clean diesel or just changing fleet types.

We really want to see this over time, what that looks like.

Now, again, a lot of this is going to be public information at certain times because of the plans and things of this sort, but we really do,

Press that as being a part.

And, and, and, you know, Garland tell you, we require a lot of six, six year plans to see, you know, and so I will tell you, there were some who applied for certain vehicles to us this past year and we went into their plans that they weren't there.

They were, they were.

They were denied those grants.

I think it's important though that some of this is going on to take a look because it is a changing environment.

Garland and I talked a lot about this on Tuesday at a meeting, so there are things to be.

There are, he is under being an urban system.

He has FTA and then getting state money from us.

Before I can insert it into my TDP, I have to have a plan, which is why I need to do the study before we have a conversation about making any changes.

So if I do not do the study and I go make a selection for EVs, they are gonna get rejected.

So we are doing what we're supposed to do.

We're following the process.

We're gonna do the study.

And then if it comes out that it's whatever the number suggests,

Then we can move forward.

A lot of us want to rush, but there's a plan and a process that I have to follow.

And if I skip any of those steps, we're going to get rejected.

I would love for us to follow so that we can move forward and then make the investment, whatever that turns out to be,

And I think it's important to have had this discussion so everybody in the community is aware.

So it's all good.

So we'll be hearing back further as you can share it with us.

I just wanted to say thank you to Garland and Neil.

You know, certainly I don't think anybody's asking for this conversation to occur quickly.

We want to make sure that we have everything that we need to be able to talk through this.

So I just appreciate your input on that and putting it on the radar for something that we would like to do in the future.

Thanks.

And thank you, Christine.

And thank you, Garland and Neil.

Appreciate it.

All right.

It is 606.

I apologize for being a little bit late.

I think we are set.

Jessica, when is our next meeting?

I don't have the date in front of me.

So we're going to adjourn until

July 22.

July 22.

So hearing no objections, I will adjourn this till July 22.

Thank you.

And y'all have a lovely evening.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.

Bye, all.