Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   9/23/2021

There we go.

All right.

Good afternoon.

With that, we will call to order the regional transit partnership meeting for Thursday, September the 23rd.

And our first order of business is for me to read the notice of electronic eating, which I'll do right now.

This meeting of the Regional Transit Partnership is being held pursuant to Code of Virginia 2.2-3708.2 which shows a public body to hold electronic meetings when the locality in which it is located has declared a local state of emergency and the catastrophic nature of the emergency makes it impractical or unsafe to assemble a quorum

in a single location.

And the purpose of the meeting is to provide for the discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities.

This meeting is being held via electronic video and audio meetings through Zoom, online meetings, and is accessible to the public with closed captioning.

And there will be opportunity for public comment during that portion of the agenda.

Notice has been provided to the public through notice at the TJPDC offices, to the media,

website posting and agenda.

Minutes will reflect the nature of the emergency.

The meeting was held by electronic communications means and the type of electronic communication means by which the meeting was held.

A recording of the meeting will be posted at the tjpdc.org website within 10 days of the meeting.

All right.

I think unless I hear anything otherwise, I think everybody can now see and hear.

We're good?

I see it looks like somebody's in the chat.

I just want to make sure.

Okay, so everybody's good then.

All right.

Our first agenda item are public speakers, our public comment.

Oh, I forgot.

You're right.

I'm distracted.

I'm sorry.

Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley, Albemarle County, the Rivanna District.

Present.

I'm here and I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing you.

As am I.

It sounds like a microphone problem, not a Zoom problem.

My microphone on my laptop is, I don't know, is that better?

Yes.

I think it was Karen Davis.

Karen, I see.

I'm here.

And that's pronounced LeBeau.

Ms. Pennington, RideShare.

Here.

OK, great.

Thank you, Lucinda.

And I'm happy now because I actually can see all of you instead of just one of you at a time.

And we do apologize for the technology glitch.

If you can hear something, then just raise your hand or let us know, please, if someone's speaking and you can't hear.

Lucinda, do we have anyone who signed up for matters from the public?

We do not.

Okay.

All right, then we'll move on.

Our next agenda item, approval of our draft meeting minutes.

But before we approve the minutes, I just want to let you know

that we are gonna add something to the agenda.

It's not been the practice of this board to approve an agenda, which I think for some of us is a little different, but I just wanted to let you know that under the MPO update, Sandy is going to be asking for someone to volunteer

to be our representative on the Rivanna River Bike Ped Crossing Smart Scale Project.

I think they're developing a stakeholder advisory committee.

We will be doing that.

I'm gonna ask Sandy if she can talk about that appointment when she does the MPO update.

And I'm mentioning it because I don't wanna forget it.

So with that, then we have draft minutes

Now, minutes from August the 26th.

Are there any edits or changes anyone would like to make?

I don't see any.

I have one.

At the very top of the minutes, it says these are the minutes from August the 28th, and they're really the minutes from August the 26th.

So,

Anyone want to second?

I think I was there part.

All right, so Bea is second.

Aye.

All right, so we're super, super nice to make you at the risk of interrupting you, I apologize.

It looks like we do have one member from the public that was requesting to speak under public matters.

All right, that's fine.

Let me just say then that I believe Lucinda, we've just approved the minutes, just to make sure we've done that.

So they're approved and we are having some technical difficulty and we all apologize.

So we'll slip back then and Lucinda, if you can let the public speak or bring them in, work your magic.

Right, it's me, Kaitlyn de Campos Lopez.

I'm with the Community Climate Collaborative, C3.

This week we launched a report talking about transit inequity, moving to a cleaner and more equitable future.

And we decided to talk about transit being a climate organization because transportation is increasingly being the biggest share of climate emissions, so the climate issues, right?

As we electrify our buildings and our grid gets more clean and more energy efficient appliances appear, the components from building energy emissions reduce and transportation increases in relevance.

A recent greenhouse gas inventory from the Albemarle County showed that transportation accounts for 52% of the county's emissions.

And the county has a goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.

I've been reading some reports and they said that as transportation increases in relevance in the next few decades,

Reducing emissions from transportation are going to rely both in electrification but also in consumers behavior changes and public transit can play an important role in reducing emissions from transportation accounting for 40% of the expected reductions by 2050.

But for us to achieve it we must increase the usage of public transit but increase it by increasing occupancy level of the buses.

If in a

Hypothetical world.

We achieve ridership levels that are beautiful but require one bus per person.

We're not solving the issue.

We need more people on each bus every time.

And the buses need to be cleaner.

So it's important for us to aim to do increase ridership at a very fast pace, but increase it in a way that buses have more people on board so that they are more climate friendly than cars.

And if we cannot do that as fast as possible, we must plan for electrifying buses as soon as possible.

And our part of the fleet and our report also indicates that according to our study that we did, the cost, the lifetime cost of acquiring and operating battery electric buses are 22% cheaper

Then because of acquiring outbreaks in diesel buses, for example, we didn't want to compare with CNG because that's something that CAT's doing right now.

But when comparing with diesel buses, that means that when you buy four diesel buses over the lifespan of the bus, that's equivalent to buy five battery electric buses and operate them through 12 years.

So I just want to say solutions are right there.

We must think about cleaner fleet, increasing ridership by increasing bus occupancy levels as well.

Please close up your comments.

Our report is online and I just share it with all of you.

Thank you very much.

Next item on our agenda is our member spotlight, which is an opportunity for us to get to know each other.

and for anyone in the public who's watching to get to know us.

So today, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, so Bea and Karen Davis, John's Chief Operating Officer are in the spotlight and I don't know who's going first.

I'll go ahead and go first.

That way when I'm upstaged, I won't feel so bad.

So I'm just supposed to say my background.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

Well, that's an easy one.

My background, I've been here 14 years now.

I'm from Los Angeles County.

I was on my local school or on my local city.

Council for 20 years.

I got involved in LA County, which has a population now of 10 million people.

Got involved in issues of police and fire.

I was the president of the California Contract Cities Association, which has about 83

City Members by dealing with fire and police.

I was also an alternate on the Metropolitan Transit Authority Board of Directors for Los Angeles and that's when we went into different types of transit and

We had the bus service unite with the Metropolitan Transit Authority into one large organization with one very costly overpriced building, but that's okay.

We're having better service now throughout Los Angeles.

They had something called the Red Line back in the fifties.

It was fantastic.

You could get from the mountains down to the sea and like, you know,

30 minutes.

All that was taken out and replaced with cars.

So we're now rebuilding that at an extremely huge price as they are now.

But light rail has come into Los Angeles.

So

experience there.

Also I was on the board member for the South Coast Air Quality Management District covering four counties which dealt with 14 million people cleaning up the air.

Our big push was at that time CNG LNG vehicles and of course then moving into electric vehicles.

So professionally I was an educator.

teacher, principal, and director in charge of 24 elementary schools when I retired.

That's about it.

And my love of transit comes with also hand in hand with clean air, which is my big push for electric vehicles.

Thank you.

You were a busy lady.

Yeah.

All right, Karen, I think it's your turn.

Yeah, well, I think I was just upstaged.

That was great, Bea.

So let's see, a couple of quick facts.

I have a bachelor's from Hobart Lane Smith Colleges and a master's from Syracuse University, both upstate New York.

Talk about snow.

I've been with Jaunt for over 12 years and my first position focused on customer concerns and outreach to all the localities that Jaunt serves.

I have very boring hobbies as opposed to Lucinda, so I'm not going to talk about those.

Last week, that was pretty amazing.

So my love of transit starts with people.

My older brother Neil had Down syndrome and was first generation of kids with disabilities growing up at home and not institutionalized.

From the beginning, I was a sister and mentor, coach and caretaker.

So it's not surprising that as a result, my early career days were spent in the nonprofit world, working with people with disabilities.

My brother and many of the people I met through the years relied on good public transportation to get to work, to socialize and to access valued public resources.

The customer experience matters to me and that's why I'm particularly pleased that Stephen is presenting on that topic today.

My personal experience with transit has been informed by growing up in a rural, isolated area of Connecticut.

The after-school bus was all I had.

So needless to say, I got my driver's license in a sleet storm using a stick the day I turned 16.

I have been fortunate to live abroad several times.

I studied in Sri Lanka my senior year of college and used the bus and train system there to attend university and to conduct research into the women's labor movement.

Many years later, I accepted a teaching position with the UN and taught at a university in Nanjing, China for a year.

I biked everywhere.

The school year ended with my students out on strike with banners written in English catching a lift home on a Canadian charter plane brought in to airlift its citizens out of China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

I have lots of stories to talk about both of those experiences.

But in closing, what excites me most about the future of transit is that we are re-examining the traditional models, thinking differently, and really thinking about the needs of the customer.

For example, Jaunt is eager to bring on demand to its localities, anticipating many positive outcomes.

Yes, actually I forgot to bring out one important thing and that's a conference I did on nanoparticles and that's because in Los Angeles if you realize back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s you could be

live at the base of the mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, and could not see the mountains.

That's how thick the smog was.

So fast forward, what, 20, 30 years later, and we've gotten rid of most of that, however, at a cost, and I'll tell you why, because you have basically three sizes of particles, large, medium, and small air particles that are produced by the combustion engine.

We have carbon, ash, and metal,

The engine's cars produce carbon, metal, and ash.

That produces the smog along with the heat and everything.

But think about this.

What we did is we cleaned up the smaller and middle-sized particles, would attach themselves to the larger particles.

When you inhale that, you also exhale that.

So that was good.

But what we did unknowingly is we cleaned up the larger particles and the ones that were visible, we cleaned those up.

The smaller ones now have nothing to attach to.

Those are the nanoparticles and they go into your system, into your bloodstream, into your brain and you do not exhale them.

So in many ways those are actually, in fact they are, they're more dangerous to the human body

than what we used to have before.

Well, that's fascinating.

That's fascinating.

And we'll have to have an agenda item around transit in China and transit in LA.

Okay, all right.

And as you all know, we switched around our agendas a little bit now.

So we're doing our transit provider updates early in the meeting.

So I'm going to roll into that right now.

And Karen, you're first with Jaunt.

And I think it says news release.

I don't know either, but all right, we'll just ignore you.

Yeah, so that's already happened, actually, but thank you for sharing that, Lucinda.

Yeah, in our battles, in our desire to get more and more employees vaccinated, we had two mandatory

Information Sessions with the Blue Ridge Health District for all non-vaccinated employees, which was obviously well attended and well received.

And then we had the mobile unit come to Jaunt to offer up free vaccines for whoever wanted to receive them.

That was marginally successful, but our next round will be to move into mandatory weekly testing.

We're still trying to put together that program and to figure out how that reporting will occur and the costs, et cetera.

So other updates, the driver shortage continues.

John's going to move to match UTS and CAT's recruiting and re-changing

bonus programs to try to entice more people on the door.

We continue to have drivers coming in, but they're very tiny, small training, but it's okay.

Even if it's one or two, we're glad to have them.

The Discover Transit Month is a cooperative effort by UTS

CAT, Jaunt, and RideShare.

And perhaps, Sara, you're going to talk more about that.

But Jody's on this and they've been filming and planning and creating posters and campaigns that's going to go all month long.

And so that's very exciting.

They did some filming today, which was great.

We had the opportunity to welcome Lloyd to Jaunt this past month.

And that was terrific.

It was great.

Always happy to talk about Jaunt and to show

Anyone around and talk about the service we provide, what we're looking forward to doing in the future, and of course our buses.

We had a successful bus rodeo last Saturday at Almora High School.

We did it in a very, very quick sort of limited way due to COVID.

So we had smaller groups showing up, going through obstacles, getting some coaching.

Scoring Competition.

It was fun to get everyone reconnected again.

I think it felt good.

We had a lot of new hires and management through COVID that the drivers had not really had a chance to get to know, including Jody, who's here.

So it was fun to bounce around and connect with everyone.

And the last update is some of us are attending the Virginia Transit Association Conference next week.

And of particular,

Importance is our very own Debbie Taylor, who is recently retired, is being honored after 40 plus years of service to transit.

And that's wonderful and exciting.

That's great.

And congratulations after 40 years, 40?

They weren't like 42.

Yeah.

That's great.

That's great.

He's driving a school bus.

I was afraid that's where he might be.

Hey, good afternoon.

Of course, our biggest issue will be right in everybody's bread basket tomorrow, and that is a Friday night football game at Scott Stadium.

So it is going to impact the entire region.

The parking lots around the stadium will start vacating around 3.30 in the afternoon, causing an outflow of heavy traffic.

And then the influx will start around five, we hope to hold it off till five, such that that flow will reverse and it'll be even heavier coming in.

There are the typical road closures that are associated with that.

So if you do not need to be in Charlottesville tomorrow afternoon, work from home.

Number two, we mentioned last time, we deployed a study, a quick survey, you know, 10, 12 questions to the UVA Tenants of North Fork Research and Discovery Park.

The analysis, it was opened and closed since the last we met and our analysis is underway.

So perhaps by next meeting, we'll be able to convey some of that, but I do want you to know that was deployed.

We are five weeks into our academic fixed routes.

We are getting lots of feedback from our constituencies on our reduced frequency and our need to serve weekday class change from

an alternative corridor.

We are not serving McCormick Road weekdays before 6 p.m. and we have had to reduce time between buses pretty significantly almost throughout our whole system.

The two exceptions are employee shuttles never change ever.

If the clinics are open, our employee routes are running on their normal schedule

and number two, since we had to make some hard decisions, our weeknight, 6 p.m. to midnight, which is a very busy time for students studying and doing their social programming and all kinds of things that they do during those hours, 6 p.m. to midnight, that headway was restored to pre-COVID.

Everything else has been reduced and we are hearing about it.

from our constituencies.

So we're in the same boat as everybody else with our shortage of both full-time and part-time and wage drivers.

We are up to about 8,000 riders a day on our system.

So Becca, let me just interrupt.

Can you put that into perspective?

What do those numbers mean?

You said we're up.

Yeah, pre-COVID, it was about 12 to 15,000 passengers a day.

During COVID, it was about three to 4,000, or during the height of COVID, it was three to 4,000 passengers a day.

And now it's about 8,000 passengers a day.

But we have also made it so that a very popular transit trip that students would take along McCormick Road during class change weekdays before six o'clock, we have literally eliminated that trip.

And so it's more representative of a transit dependent trip on grounds than the convenience trip up and down McCormick Road.

That trip, which Garland knows well because the trolley is back onto McCormick Road, drives up your passenger counts quite high.

but it's not, you know, that is a trip.

Yeah, he's like, yay.

And we're like, you can have them because we need to concentrate our transit trips from the end points in given the limited resources that we have.

We have no plan to return to McCormick Road this semester and we potentially have no plan to return to McCormick Road this academic year.

As we add drivers, our plan is to increase frequency on the existing routes.

It sounds like we need to buy you some armor, Becca.

I'm getting to meet all kinds of people.

It's fantastic.

All right.

So next is Garland for CAT and the City of Charlottesville Schools.

Thank you.

So I'll do CAT first.

TJPDC came over for a site visit on September the 3rd.

I think it was very well received.

Well, I'll ask them.

I think it was very well received.

Shared a lot of information with them, shown them the majority of our capital projects that we are potentially undertaking.

Went through different scenarios.

They showed them how our budget is developed

So they got a better understanding of how CAT operates.

One of the highlights of that, we shared information with them prior to us actually submitting, we showed them the draft copy of our TRIPS grant.

And we actually applied for the TRIPS grant program with the state to keep CAT zero fare for additional three years.

That was actually on Friday.

We have until October 4th.

to add supplemental information if necessary.

Our report looks really good because we actually, you know, have the luxury of having a consultant that was already looking at fair free for us.

So that hopefully bodes well for our chances of getting the grant.

Hopefully I'll see Neil smiling, hopefully that helps us.

But so we are hopeful that that money will

augment what we've already been getting from CARES and the park money allow CAT to continue that model for more than three, probably four or five years if we were able to get that money.

So that will be a wonderful thing for the region here.

Our issues on CAT side for drivers, we're starting to feel the pitch like everybody else.

We're technically 17 drivers down on CAT side and we're 18, 19 drivers down on pupil side.

But we are actively recruiting.

Recruiting on for schools is actually going really well for in the first class, have potential of four to five in the next class.

As soon as we can get through the security background checks, we'll start that one.

So it's one of those things that the bonus is helping, but as UTS and everybody else continues to go just above us, we'll potentially have to look at and potentially go on another little bump to at least match them so we don't lose our advantage of keeping what we got.

But I like what Rebecca and the team

Let's buy a hundred bucks, I get it.

So regionally, we're working on our final edits to hopefully implementing new service, the service adjustments that we've been all going through to the public in January now.

And that's because of the driver shortage.

And I've gotten a number of emails and I just want to kind of make sure that the region is aware of this.

If we were to make the adjustment to the center now, prior to making all of the adjustments, we run the risk of individuals who are using the 11 missing their connections, because it does take longer to go to the center and get back.

That's the problem of why we can't make the adjustment today.

So once we're able and we're making the adjustments on all of the schedules, then the timing is correct.

So no one misses their connections.

What we don't want to have to do is sacrifice

existing riders for an extension that we know is coming.

So I know everybody has a little patience and we thank the region for their patience on this, but as soon as we get more drivers in the queue and are able to do so, we're gonna implement those service adjustments.

So the timeline is January now, so we'll get more activity and hopefully launch the service in the first couple of weeks of January.

I'm so appreciative of that update.

That's great.

And you know, it really is great to hear that you all are getting together and touring facilities, each other's facilities.

I think that's really, really wonderful.

Any questions for anybody?

Thanks, Mr. Williams, for the update.

And, Diantha, more maybe just a comment.

The Center at Belvedere is in the middle of strategic planning, and I also attended a focus group with the YMCA, who's also doing strategic planning today, and it won't come as a surprise to this group, but accessibility to both the Center and the YMCA, which is everything from financial to racial and socioeconomic diversity,

but also very much transit.

It's amazing how prominent it is on the minds of community members who are doing surveys for the Y and focus groups for the center that the need to improve public transit to resources for recreation and wellness and social engagement is very prominently on our citizens' minds.

Great.

Thank you, Peter, for that info.

Anyone have any questions for any of the providers?

All right.

Our first real presentation is from Stephen Johnson from Jaunt, and it's growing transit ridership through customer experiences.

Let's see if I can share my screen.

Looks like it's loading.

Don't we see your desktop?

There you go.

We've got it.

Great.

All right.

Thanks everybody for being here tonight.

My name is Stephen Johnson.

I'm the director of planning and process at Jaunt.

And today I'll be talking to you about customer experience design.

It's something I'm really passionate about.

And hopefully by the end of the presentation, you will be too.

I'm gonna try to knock this out in about 15 minutes, which should leave five minutes at the end for Q&A.

So please, if you do have any questions, hold them until the end.

Let's dive right in.

Maybe, there we go.

So my presentation today relies on a couple of assumptions.

Number one, transit offers benefits to our community.

Things like congestion mitigation, carbon reduction, equity, those kinds of things.

So hopefully everybody here would agree.

Assumption two is that we reap some of those benefits every time somebody chooses to take transit instead of driving their own car.

And number three, that the better transit is compared to driving, the more people are going to make that choice and the more benefit we're going to reap.

With the understanding that we may never replace all automobile trips.

So I think this is all pretty logical, but my presentation is really going to focus on this third assumption.

How do we make transit better?

How do we know where to focus our energy?

How do we know how good or bad transit is today?

And I'd like to do that through the lens of customer experience design.

So if you haven't heard of that before, customer experience is the sum of all the interactions that a customer has with an organization over the life of the relationship with that company or with that brand.

So when you think about any of the companies you interact with,

You're thinking about the design of their products, how they market, what kind of customer support they offer.

All of those things influence your perception of that company and influence your decision about whether you want to remain a loyal customer of that company or if you want to go to one of their competitors and try them instead.

So I learned all about this in my past career as a software developer, but today I'd like to use this

and use it to look at mode choice.

So how can we use customer experience design to think about how somebody is choosing to take transit or not?

So to help us get started, I've put forward a framework with three pillars.

This is a really simple way to approach customer experience design.

The first is gonna be education.

So the customer can't use their product if they don't know how, or if they don't know that it exists.

So in the world of transit, we've got to make sure our customers know about the transit options and that they know how to use transit.

That's the first barrier that you've got to overcome.

Then you get to the cost benefits analysis.

So this is really the meat and potatoes of customer experience design.

So what is influencing somebody's decision about whether to take transit or not?

This could include money.

It could include time, comfort, convenience.

There's a lot of different factors that people weigh when they're trying to make this decision.

And then the last pillar plays a little bit of a supporting role, but that's the emotional component.

So how does the customer feel and what are their values?

So somebody might choose to ride transit, even though it's inconvenient, if it aligns with their values and they want to make that choice.

Or somebody might choose not to ride transit because they perceive a stigma around people who ride transit and they don't want to be one of those people.

So we've got to take that emotional side into account as well when we're thinking about customer experience design.

Now, this may all seem pretty intuitive, maybe even obvious.

So why are we talking about this?

And that brings me to my first key takeaway is that customer experience is the ultimate determinant of transit ridership.

And it's really important.

People are not going to ride transit just because we hire a consultant to do a study.

They're not going to ride just because we redesign our service.

They're not going to ride just because we double investment in transit.

They're not going to ride just because we're all really passionate about transit.

All of those things can help.

but only in so far as they improve the customer experience because that at the end of the day is what will influence whether a customer rides or not, whether they stay loyal to transit or they decide they're gonna go back to driving.

So it's really important that we keep our focus on the customer experience and we understand it really well.

So let's take a stab at that.

Let's look at the customer experience for transit trips.

So I think the most obvious thing that comes to mind first is riding the bus.

So when a customer is riding the bus, they might be wondering, how am I going to pay?

When am I going to know to get off the bus so I don't miss my stop?

Is the bus going to be comfortable?

Am I going to feel safe while I'm riding the bus?

These are just a couple of examples of the kinds of questions going through a customer's mind that's influencing the experience they have taking transit.

But it's important to remember that a transit trip is more than just riding the bus.

Gotta think about getting to the bus.

How is the customer going to find the bus stop?

While they're waiting, is there going to be shelter from the elements?

Are they going to be standing in 95 degree heat or rain or snow?

Will there be a place to sit while they're waiting for the bus?

Are they going to feel safe?

Is it going to be well lit at night?

If their transit trip involves a transfer, is that transfer going to be on time?

Are they going to spend half their commute waiting for their transfer?

Are they gonna have to run to catch their transfer and they've got their bags and that's gonna be uncomfortable as everything's jostling about.

And then lastly, when they do get to their final stop, how far are they gonna have to walk to get to work or to shopping?

If they're gonna break a sweat on the way, is there gonna be a shower for them to use at work so they can take transit and still appear professional?

If they're going shopping, are they gonna be able to transport that shopping back home with them on the bus?

So these are just a couple examples and we could come up with dozens more about all the different factors that influence the customer experience during a transit trip.

But the takeaway that I want you to remember is that the transit customer experience involves more than just riding the bus.

Riding a bus is a big part of it, but it's more than that.

So we've started to look at the customer experience of transit.

And one of the cool things you can do with this customer experience tool is that now we can look at the customer experience of a different mode and we can start to see how they compare.

So let's compare transit to driving your own car.

And spoilers, the competition is pretty steep.

So when we think about this question, where is the vehicle?

We've got to know where the vehicle is if we're going to use it for our transportation.

Well, in the case of transit, we've got to choose what service are we going to ride.

We've got to figure out, okay, what stop are we going to get picked up at?

We've got to learn how to read a bus schedule to know when is the bus going to get there?

Maybe the service has an app like Jaunt and CAT and UTS have, well, I've got to go find that app and download it.

and then figure out which bus is mine, hopefully the GPS is accurate, and then I can know exactly where my vehicle is.

So there's a lot of steps.

It's pretty complex.

And when we compare that to driving, well, where's my car?

It's in the driveway, exactly where I left it.

It's a pretty stark comparison.

So from a customer experience perspective, when you think about this question, where is the vehicle?

I'd say the car offers a much better customer experience than transit in this regard.

Well, let's look at another example.

When can I leave?

Well, in transit, the bus only arrives at certain times.

It doesn't run all night.

So often the rider will have to adapt their schedule to work with the bus.

And again, when we compare that to driving, when can you leave in your car?

Whenever you want.

So again, it's a pretty stark comparison and we can start to see why people are choosing to drive and more people are not choosing to take transit.

Let's look at one more.

How much will it cost?

Okay, here I think transit's gotta win.

Jaunt and CAT and UTS were all free to ride right now.

But even before we went free to ride fare-free, a CAT annual pass was I think under $200.

And when you compare that to the cost of buying a car, fueling a car, repairing a car, insuring a car, parking a car, you are gonna be saving so much money by taking transit.

So that element to the customer experience is way better for transit usage than it is for a personal automobile.

And maybe that helps us see that we should use that in more of our marketing to try to communicate that benefit to get people to ride.

So I've come up with a couple more examples here.

I'm not going to go through them all today, but this could be a really fun thing to do with a follow-up workshop with the RTP at some other time.

So I'd love to hear people's thoughts on that.

But when we start to compare these side by side, we can see the areas of the customer experience where transit is really struggling compared to driving.

And we can see the areas where transit is doing a much better job than driving.

And this helps point us in the direction of where we should put our time and our energy and our money to improve the customer experience of transit.

And that brings me to my third key takeaway

If we are really serious about promoting mode shift in our community and getting more people out of their cars and onto transit, it's not enough to just improve transit.

We have to improve transit such that the customer experience of transit is comparable to driving.

That's the only way we're going to get that kind of mode shift.

And I'm not here to tell you that that's easy because it's not.

This is a real challenge, but I think it's important that we're honest with ourselves about the goals we're setting as a community.

We have a lot of smart, hardworking, passionate people working in transit in our community.

And I think that if we set our minds to it, we could make a lot of progress improving the transit customer experience.

And I think we could bring these a lot closer.

Now, before we dive into that and start talking about, okay, well, what kind of next steps could we do to start looking at that?

There's one more barrier that I want to talk about.

and that is this barrier of split responsibility.

So when you think about a traditional business selling widgets or iPads or anything else, the company is really in control of the whole customer experience end to end.

They're designing the product, they're sourcing their materials, they're doing their marketing, they're selling it, they're doing customer support.

Everything for the most part is in their control.

So they have a lot of control over the customer experience.

And when you think about that for transit, it's not really the case that we have everything kind of under one roof.

Sure, we've got the transit providers.

They play a really important role in shaping the transit customer experience.

We're maintaining buses, setting the schedules, training drivers, doing payment, communicating with our riders.

These are all very central parts of the transit customer experience, but this is not all.

We've also got to look at local government.

Local government plays a huge role in the transit customer experience.

You're defining land use geography.

You're deciding where the house is gonna be, where are the jobs gonna be, the shopping, the churches, all the other locations that we're trying to connect people to.

Where are they?

You're regulating urban design.

You're influencing things like setbacks and density.

You're shaping the public road network.

How tightly or loosely connected is it?

Are there a lot of alternate routes or are there a lot of cul-de-sacs?

And certainly not least of all, you're providing the local match for funding public transit, which is very important for keeping it operating.

Then we've got to look at land developers.

Land developers have a huge role to play in shaping the transit customer experience.

They're responsible for site development.

They're determining where is the building going to be situated on this site?

Where is the bus stop going to go?

How are the private roads going to be laid out?

And how is site access going to connect private and public space?

They're determining the placement of trees and awnings and sidewalks and all of these other things that shape the pedestrian component of every transit trip.

So that's a really important role.

And lastly, we've got business owners.

When you think about the Crozet Connect stop at Old Trail, it's right across the street from Grit Coffee.

So people who are gonna take their Connect route in the morning, they love to pop into Grit, get a cup of coffee while they're waiting for their bus,

And that's an example of how business owners can contribute towards placemaking at transit stops so that these can be places where life is happening and where our citizens want to be.

They're not just for transit.

And I think that will help attract more people.

I've already talked about the importance of having showers at work and truck rentals.

This is a really good example.

When you think about a business like Lowe's,

If you take a transit trip to Lowe's, how are you going to take your table saw or your lumber or your refrigerator back home with you on the bus?

You can't.

But Lowe's provides a truck rental service so that you can rent a truck there to transport things back to your home.

And it's services like that that make Lowe's accessible by transit.

So that's another example of how the business owner is contributing to the transit customer experience.

It's not just the transit providers that are making good transit.

We've got to rely on all of these partners to have ownership.

And that's my fourth key takeaway, that if we want to improve the transit customer experience, we've got to make sure all of these stakeholders feel ownership over the customer experience and that we're all coordinating, working towards common goals.

So before I go to Q&A, I just wanted to pitch a couple of next steps.

I think it's really important that we have some action that we can take to move forward.

My first one here is that we can start assessing transit customer experience today.

No special training is necessary.

I love this about customer experience.

We are all professionals in making decisions based on our own preferences.

We've been doing it our entire lives.

We could all go out on a bus tomorrow

and write down the things that we like and the things that we don't like.

And what we like and don't like is gonna be true of a lot of other people.

So customer experience is really, really accessible.

You don't need a master's degree or anything to start thinking about this.

So we could follow this up with having a workshop in the future, coming up with more examples of different facets of the transit customer experience and start thinking about ways we could improve it in our community.

My second action item is that

It's important that we're measuring customer experience.

If we don't find a way to measure it, we're not making it visible.

We don't know where we stand today.

We don't know if we're improving over time.

We can't tie it to any of our regional objectives.

So measuring customer experience is going to be really important.

We've got to make sure we have a way to do that.

And finally, we've got to find some opportunities to bring those diverse stakeholders I mentioned together.

to make sure that landowners and business owners are feeling as much ownership over the transit customer experience as we are in the public sector.

And I'm not sure that's something that's happening in a big way right now.

So could we find a place to do that?

We can make sure that happens, sure.

Or be a party packet or something like that for next time.

Anyway, because sometimes it's good to like ponder it and think about the questions and stuff.

Well, that was really, really interesting and food for thought.

So I'll open it up.

I don't necessarily have a question.

Comments.

So the state is doing something similar.

So they're looking at it from a different lens though.

They're looking at it from equity, inclusion, and diversity.

And they're asking stakeholders around the state.

I'm actually sitting on two different panels and included in the state's discussions.

One with the VTA and then one actually with the state that's being, this is,

Delegate McQuinn's efforts to look at the greater issues around transit and equity and inclusion and diversity.

But many of the things that you've asked are subsets of that.

So what is the customer experience?

What is equitable transit?

What does it mean to different transit providers of small, medium, and large providers

So many of the things that you're asking have caught the attention of the General Assembly.

And hopefully, some of these larger discussions that are happening with the transit directors will be food for thought for the General Assembly as they look at potentially

how to codify some of the improvements that are needed.

Because in certain cases, first, it's going to be hard to kind of get a standard for what equity means, but the transit experience is one I think that everybody could probably wrap their head around.

If you're in a smaller transit agency that's limited funds and you're trying to

You're competing with larger transit agencies for a similar amount of money.

But the experience for the folks is still the same.

Everybody's riding a bus.

But if we get frequent service, regardless of where you are, is a very equalizing component.

So there are discussions that are already happening.

I'm not sure.

I don't know, Stephen, whether you were aware of them or not, but you hit on many of the

That's great.

And I'll just add the same thing that this obviously is one of our major studies that we've done in probably the last 10 years.

And so we certainly are involving and will be continuous.

It's not a small study.

We are doing something to get to General Assembly this fall, but we have other pieces, larger pieces to do.

And I think of the themes of the topics of this meeting, it does

Access to the bus service, not just bus stops, is a piece of this and either, as Garland has said, it is a different world from urban to rural and even smaller urban, but also the modernization and what we've talked about of electric buses and things like that.

It is sort of a two-folded study in many ways to try to be, but as Garland says, this came from the General Assembly.

So we know there is an interest of the General Assembly taking a look at this and seeing where we're going to go.

So there will be some presentations next week at VTA.

There is a lot on our website about it.

And we're very excited that we have a lot of our transit systems.

Actually, all of our transit systems are pretty much involved somewhere along the line.

We have numerous committees.

And we are doing, you know, getting other organizations involved and participating.

And so it's, like I said, this is not a short process, but it will be something that'll be going on for months.

Yeah.

That would be great.

I'd be particularly interested in seeing how land use and land developers are included in those initiatives.

You go through urban planning school and everybody tells you that land use and transportation are connected at the hip, two sides of the coin, inseparable.

And then you go out into practice and there's very little or no coordination between land use and transportation.

I think that's the single biggest obstacle hurting the transit customer experience and

I don't want to talk for Garland, but Garland can make an accessible bus stop tomorrow, but that person could go 10 feet from that bus stop and be an inaccessible.

So your point is well taken, Stephen.

I don't want to belabor this, but Stephen, I think you've done a work job.

I think part of

I mean, there's subsets of what you're talking about.

So we're also looking at, you know, the pandemic ushered in, in many cases for small urban, a need to, you know, go fare-free and look at that as a potential model because, you know, CAT in particular, our farebox recovery ratio has been declining over the last three or four years.

We're in the single digits that is kind of unheard of, where if you really looked at all the money, time, energy, and resources we're spending to collect a small amount of fares, it's probably cost prohibitive for us to do it, but that's kind of what we've been doing in the past, because that was the model.

Looking at removing a barrier

for people to try transit is the cost.

So this may be a way for us to entice folks once we get frequencies up to use the service.

There is a direct correlation between usage and frequency.

Absolutely.

The more frequent it is, the more people are potentially going to try to use transit once or twice.

And if the experience on the bus means it's good, I mean, it's clean, it's reliable, and there's no issues on the bus itself during their experience, they're more apt to try it again.

If we can get them two to three times, we potentially can get a user for life.

That is facts.

So I'm very aware of that as a part of what we're trying to get done.

And as we're continuing to work with the state in this model, one of the panels that I'm speaking on at VTA is the zero sum fair model.

And what does that look like for a small urban?

So we will experience some of the questions from my counterparts that are running systems, but it also will let them see that

In the grand scheme of things for a small-urban, it may not make sense for us to continue to try to collect fares.

Small-urbans, a larger system like GRTC, which brings in $15, $20 million, it's hard for them to go to fare-free.

But a system like ours that was only collecting $400,000, $500,000 a year, well, there's room there for if we get our ridership up, that kind of goes to potentially zero.

Yeah, and cost, monetary cost is one important element of the customer experience.

But if you make your system fare free and still nobody's riding, then it must be all the other elements of the customer experience that are not good enough.

That even when it's free, people still don't want to ride because they're paying in time, they're paying in convenience, and they're paying in comfort.

But if you can make those other elements good enough, then maybe you bring back an argument

that people are willing to pay a fare to ride because the experience is good enough.

So maybe having a good customer experience is one of the necessary steps for mobility as a service to work, which could allow people to feel more comfortable transitioning the very large amount of private investment in cars and fuel and insurance and all that.

If MAS is compelling, then maybe we can get some of that private money to come back to transit.

No, it's interesting because one of the most popular events that we had for the RTP members was years ago when we did an interactive meeting on how you balance time

and frequency and distance.

And we received the RTP members at that time really, really appreciated it.

I'm sure some of you all at the table remember that.

Maybe that's something that it would be interesting to go back and repeat at some point since we have so many new members, RTP members.

Because it really helps bring home to people that how difficult it can be and how you can't have it all.

And the committee members really appreciated it.

And just to bring it home a little bit when we're talking about the community or the customer experience, Garland, I hate to catch you by surprise, but could you just speak a little bit to where we are with your work with DDOT on trying to improve the Albemarle County customer experience, meaning more than just a pole in the ground, but

Yes.

So we are doing our due diligence with VDOT.

We actually had a charrette that they participated in.

So I think part of the education process for the Charlottesville region

was allowing the VDOT representatives here to see that the model that we're trying to potentially institute is readily available in other locations like Alexandria, Fairfax, right down the street in Richmond.

And that they're granting the site in the public right away was a thing that they have to do to allow transit to do its part.

We can identify the location.

We can work with their engineers to say that this is a good location.

We can put a ballers to make it protective, all sorts of things.

But if we don't get their sign off, there's nothing transit CAT can do.

I can't even put up a sign unless VDOT allows me to do so in Albemarle County right away.

So I'm hopeful that over the next

A couple of weeks where we had some stops and starts, but I thought we were making good momentum and we're going to double back.

So it's been a couple of weeks since we've had the charrette, but we do need to get a document created that will be specific to Charlottesville that is based off of maybe Fairfax or Alexandria that can move this process to the next level.

Because we are starting to identify locations along each bus route.

Now these are preliminary because the larger system design that's going on right now will potentially show us what the permanent looks like.

So we don't want to do anything before that happens.

But if there's locations where we know we're going to have service on like, you know, along Rider Road, let's say for example,

We're going to have some surveys on RideRoad, so it would be okay for us to potentially go ahead and put bus stops along RideRoad.

But VDOT has to allow us to do that.

This is important for Albemarle County because Albemarle County roads are VDOT roads.

And Elmar County is really out of this process.

It's really a matter of VDOT and CAT coming to some sort of MOU.

Chuck, I know you're on from VDOT.

Do you have any comments about it?

And Beck, I'm going to get to you in just a minute.

I just finally saw your hand going up.

I saw it.

Yeah.

The only thing I would say is that, I mean, we're looking at this really closely.

We're trying to help the localities and the PDC promote transit

and including it in our studies more so that we can come up with locations where we might be able to put in bus stops, pull-offs, where we can stage park and ride lots so that might be future connections for transit and those kinds of things.

I know that's music to Bea's ears as well as mine because we desperately need it in Albemarle County, which it's just very different from the city who have control of their roads.

So, but thank you.

Yeah, so I want to kind of bring it back to a customer experience because it seemed like the conversation really kind of started down, you know, the VDOT and you know, what

All of the normal things that all of us transit people think about, but I think the strength of the presentation was really around looking at it from the customer's point of view.

And that's the power of this presentation and clearly a lot of energy behind that.

And so, I would just like to say as a member of the RTP that I would be interested in scheduling a workshop around this and potentially starting with how the agencies

Assess, which I'm sure means survey or Stephen can clarify otherwise, but to try to start aligning those customer-centric assessments that we all are doing and tie them right to the regional objectives and at least get those two things

developed through this RTP.

And I think Stephen's presentation of having it be from the customer's point of view, that was kind of the gist.

And so I would just like to put my support behind that and in advance of it being workshopped with RTP, we could all compare our instruments and make sure that they tie back.

So thank you, Stephen.

And he couldn't be more right about

Becca, I appreciate you bringing us back to the customer experience.

But for those of us in Albemarle County, our customer experience is really about no shelters, no pads, standing in the mud, not having bus stops.

And so it all ties in together for us in Albemarle County.

It is part of our customer experience.

And maybe that could be a part of our presentation as well.

Stephen, this was really great.

So we'll be getting with you for something else on the agenda, right?

Sure.

I think Bea has a hand raised.

Yes, thank you very much and I definitely agree with Supervisor McKeel that bus stops with a shelter and a bench are a big huge priority for in Albemarle County because that is customer service.

My other statement goes to Garland and to Charles Proctor.

I wanted to let you both know that we, the Board of Supervisors, recently approved a development, it's called RST development on 29 and Ashwood, and they have proffered a bus stop.

So a bus stop on 29 or inside the development, but that would be something you both need to be aware of.

Because they have proffered that and they will, of course, pay for that.

So there's a bus stop right there on 29 near Ashwood on 29.

Thank you, Bea.

So I guess I don't see everybody right now.

But oh, there we are.

Are there any other comments or questions?

All right, then we can move on to what we're hoping is kind of a fun part of our meeting today, a little bit more interactive perhaps, but we have a peer city prioritization discussion, and I'm not sure who's leading this.

That would probably be me.

Okay, so we just need to make sure we can hear you, Lucinda.

I'm propping myself up again.

So I shared my screen.

In your packet, you have the report of the peer cities update, and then also the list of the peer cities that are in turn found or identified during his project.

So let me, I'm going to put up the list of the peer cities.

And what we wanted to do was have you participate in a poll so that we can rank the peer cities

by their character so that we can decide which ones we want to pursue first for presentations to the RTP.

So the characteristics are the weather, whether they have a university in the town as well, the population size compared to the Charlottesville MPO area, if they have multiple governments, and then there's like a little highlight

On your screen now, you can see of each city that were identified as peer cities for the RTP project.

So I don't mean to interrupt, but are you saying, is there a possibility of us actually going there in visit?

We talked about that going somewhere at one point, but that was always on the East Coast pretty close.

I think we've moved to Zoom and electronic right now.

So my notes here say hosted panelists cannot vote.

All the tricks of the technology world, right?

So we've not done this before, so we'll figure this out.

So you wanted us in real time to go in and vote.

And I think only for one.

The most important factor for a peer city presentation.

Someone said a Google poll.

Well, I guess we don't have a... Did you say Google or doodle?

and we do it later.

Okay, so I believe that the people... That's everybody.

Okay, so hopefully they are voting.

Everybody's voted.

I just had this one.

Oh, that's good.

Okay.

Yep, everybody voted.

And almost everybody is back in.

Sometimes it takes a little while for it to go through.

So we should have almost everybody.

I'm going to end the poll because they all voted.

Oh.

as a university.

So, oh, and I see the percentages to the right.

So we weren't worried about being in Virginia and we weren't worried about a transit authority or weather.

It was, let me just see here what we are.

38% of us said multiple governments and localities, similar size population and has a university and multiple transit providers.

Hey Lucinda, it might've been better to do like three choices.

Oh yeah, next time we can do that.

This was, we were trying something Chuck to see if we could get this to work and have a little interaction here, which is, but that's a good idea.

So the idea was that we pick

Yeah, so now I have your answers and I will go through the list and then prioritize the communities and start contacting them too so that they can join an RTP meeting in the future and share information with us.

I will also add Blacksburg to the list because that was identified as a priority.

So you'll be able to give us an update at the next meeting on where will you stand with this?

Yes, yep.

I'm gonna try to get them going as soon as I can, just so that we can,

I'm excited to hear about Blacksburg.

Oh, sure.

That's great.

As long as that works for everybody else hearing no objections.

Okay.

That's cool.

All right.

Then moving on, I'm trying to look at my watch here.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

I was just wondering with all those questions and the information on each locality, some of those are really fascinating and I think would be a benefit

And for example, the one where I think it's in Vermont where they use, they combine the transit and the school buses, especially for the high school.

That might be something we want to explore.

I mean, I think each one, the different localities has something they could

benefit us.

So I wouldn't want to just pick one.

I mean, I'd want to hear from a number of them and frankly pick the best ideas that are out there.

I don't even care if they're in Europe.

It doesn't matter.

I think that's a great point.

And perhaps what we can do is bring back to you all next month a proposal of, you know, perhaps Blacksburg is a workshop in and of itself working with them.

But maybe we have a panel of several together that are discussing some of these large topics and we can benefit from each of those areas rather than focusing in on one.

That's great, good idea.

And thank you Bea, I agree with you.

Some of these are really, have some really interesting structures that we really want to think about, right?

All right, any other comments, questions?

All right, then we'll move on then to the staff updates.

And I think, Sara, you're first, RideShare.

So, just have a couple of quick things to keep you guys updated on.

One is a quick briefing on the Afton Express.

That service has been running since September 1st, so almost a month getting close.

and they have been seeing folks have been utilizing every one of the stops on the Charlottesville, Albemarle side so that's been really interesting.

They are averaging about between 11 to 22 rides per day so we're still looking to creep those numbers up but it is nice and early.

RideShare in conjunction with the Afton Express has been running a contest this month

that anyone who commits to using Acton Express at least two times per week as their commute, which qualifies them for the Guaranteed Ride Home program.

If they sign up for Guaranteed Ride Home, we're going to draw for fare cards and some RideShare swag.

So we have that running throughout all of this month.

There will be continued promotions that you'll see

Starting in October, we'll have some radio ads and then we're also looking to do some employer outreach to some of the employers that are around the main stops on this end.

So stay tuned for information about that.

If you have any suggestions, we are open to employers

Obviously most of those are taking place around that corridor from West Main to the downtown area and UVA is handling some promotions with their employees as well.

So I think that's all for Act and Express.

And then just real quick, Karen mentioned Tri-Transit or Discover Transit, which was a program that DRPT was doing.

They have decided to

stopped the statewide initiative due to a lot of the driver shortages, but have left it up to the individual transit agencies and programs if they would still like to do something.

So in conjunction with UTS, Jaunt, and CAT, we have been working pretty diligently through all of August and into September, so we have decided to continue on with our promotions

Since most of it is addressing how you would go about riding, so talking about those barriers, the things that keep folks from trying it.

So we will have more of that information out for you guys in October.

We'll be doing videos each week with additional social media promotions, and then we're also sending out information to some of our community partners.

Hopefully this week or the beginning of next week to get them on board to let them know what we're doing and how they can share the information to their folks as well.

Does anybody have any questions?

Becca, did you have a question?

Okay.

All right.

Anybody else?

Yeah, I asked, I thought that the 18 per day on Afton Express were people, not boardings.

So the 18 to 22 rides per day, I thought that was people per day, not boardings, but I might've been mixed up.

Yeah, I can go back and look at what Nancy sent to me.

Which was just kind of like a general overview of this is what's happening.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Sure.

I thought I saw a question pop up that you had.

Okay, anybody else?

Yes, thank you.

Also, I neglected to put it on the agenda.

I forgot.

I'd like to make an announcement.

That would be the new executive director for TJPDC.

Yes, yeah, sorry.

Congratulations, sweetheart.

We're all through.

All right.

Okay, so the Albemarle County Transit Expansion Study, it now has the market and service analysis report up on the website.

And that is in

I couldn't email it to you guys, but it's in the packet on the website.

There's a link to that report if you would like to see it.

There will also be, but it is also on the website for the study.

And we will be having a stakeholder meeting on October 22nd from 9.30 to 11.30.

We will be sending out invitations for that shortly.

There also will be a public meeting on October 21st from 6pm to 7.30pm.

And those will be going over

The new alternatives or the draft alternatives that they are working on for each of the three study areas.

So that'll be really exciting.

I'm hoping that people will participate in those and I'll be sending out announcements and getting the word out.

So you should hear from me in a little bit.

The transit vision study is moving

Along, we are also going to have a stakeholder meeting on October 7th, and that's going to be asking people for trying to identify community goals around transit and what the community values and what they want to see their vision for transit in the future.

And along with that, I sent out a save the date notice to the stakeholders.

It's by invite only.

The meeting will be open to the public via live streaming.

And the stakeholders will be participating in the meeting because we'll have interactive opportunities for the stakeholders.

More meeting information about that will come out soon and also we hope to have the website up soon which will have a

Two different types of surveys on it and existing conditions maps with reports to go with those maps as well.

And then I just, it's not on the agenda, but I just wanted to make a note that the 29 North Corridor Study, it's not a transit study, it's for the roads from Airport Road to

Deerfield Drive up in Rutgersville.

They have finished their existing conditions report as well.

It's on the on the website, the project website, and they had a public meeting on September 9th.

It was attended by about 60 people from the public and I think some of you are aware there was a little outcry about people on Frees Mill Road at that intersection.

wanting to keep the stoplight at that intersection.

So there's been a request to the study to consider alternatives for that.

Sorry, looking to see if anybody has any questions.

It was something we've got requests to relook at it as part of the study.

It may not change the results, but we're going to look at it to see what the most, the best solution is for that area.

If we're submitting it for smart scale, it's almost like 10 years out.

Some of the recommendations were more short-term type of solutions, not necessarily long-term solutions.

All right.

Thank you.

And then let's see, we're moving on to Sandy, MPO.

and I now have an appointment to make.

Yes, I'll do a couple of shorter updates first and then I'll go over what we are asking somebody to commit to in that appointment.

But just a couple other sort of things that I'll mention at that other meeting last night, the MPO policy board did approve for us to move forward with an RFP to retain a consultant to a strategic plan.

For the MPO, so the last one that was completed was I believe in 2016 or 2017, it was a three-year plan.

So we're going to be looking at some of the organizational structures, what the planning priorities are regarding transportation for the MPO area, things like that.

So we're really excited to get that undertaken and to get that RFP out.

We also are going to be preparing an application for a technical assistance grant through the Office of Intermodal Planning and Investments to help us prepare a methodology for project prioritization.

Getting ready for the five-year update to the one-range transportation plan that we'll start undertaking next year.

So we have a plan to start scoping that out this year.

This would be an opportunity to potentially get some support to develop the methodology, so not the actual plan scope, but develop a process to

to assess project priorities and create some performance-based measurements to use when we do go through the plan updates.

So I'll keep you updated on that as we know more information as well.

The last thing I'm going to go ahead and share my screen real briefly.

And again, I know that

For the sake of people who serve on multiple committees, I'll try to keep those pretty high level, but we are asking for the appointment of someone from the RTP to serve on the stakeholder committee.

For the Ravana River Bike and Pedestrian Crossing Smart Scale project, just as a very brief overview, if you recall, one of the projects that the MPO Policy Board voted on to move forward with for Smart Scale was developing some sort of bike and pedestrian access to facilitate crossing across the Ravana River, generally from the pay-on-tops

This is the State Farm property, so generally from the Pantops area over to the more general Woolen Mills area.

So these lines are the current alignments that have been developed through a feasibility study and with some additional feedback from the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee.

So what we'll be doing is we'll be developing a stakeholder advisory committee, and it's going to consist of a broad range of stakeholders.

This will be a very public process, so we want to make sure that we are being very transparent into how we are determining which of these project alignments and how to refine the project moving forward into an application.

So there will be public comments at each of these meetings that we hold with the Stakeholder Advisory Committee and they'll help us also develop some additional public engagement opportunities as needed.

I anticipate that they'll meet monthly.

I'm hoping that we can get the committee underway starting in October.

We'll have to see about appointments for all of the positions.

And what we'll be asking is for the committee to look at a number of different types of factors and help us really prioritize how they consider each of these factors and how much weight to give each of these factors as we determine the final alignment and also just refine the different aspects of the projects that we've moved forward.

So this is the final list with a lot of feedback that everything that's not crossed out is who is going to be on the stakeholder committee.

And so you can see right here over on the right-hand side that one of the appointments that the MPA policy board would like to make is somebody to represent the transit agencies or the RTP on the committee.

So really we're looking for someone who can speak to the connectivity and the multimodal aspects of connecting these bicycle and pedestrian facilities with transit operations and access.

Yeah, they left it kind of either or.

So it could be somebody on the committee who is represented, or it could be somebody who's a transit agency that is also represented, that organization's represented on the committee.

So for example, if you wanted it to be someone from John, I don't know that it would have to necessarily be Ms. Davis or Mr. Williams.

They could probably delegate that, but they would be the formal,

So it's really not necessarily, I was trying to figure out if they really wanted a transit provider at the table, if that was what the need was, or if it was someone to represent obviously the original transit partnership and transit access and multimodal one.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's just somebody who can speak to transit interconnectivity.

Okay, that's great.

So we'll throw it out.

Who has an interest?

I see Bea's hand going up.

Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it's right in my backyard and I don't think I really have a choice.

Bea has already established her superiority.

All right.

Is there anyone else who wants to fight Bea for this position or this assignment?

All right, I don't think we need to take a formal vote.

I think we have consensus that we're moving forward and I'm assuming you'll be able to give some updates as you go through and we'll be all good.

And I'm really impressed and pleased that they asked for some representation from the RTP.

I think that's great.

Yep.

Yes.

Thank you.

Lloyd, Sandy, you have your representative to go forth with then.

All right, that brings us, I think, to other business updates and reminders.

Does anyone have anything that they want to put forward as other business?

And I don't see anybody jumping here, raising their hand.

I have one thing I wanna just mention briefly.

Karen Davis, I'm trying to find your,

Karen mentioned at the last meeting that Jaunt was having some trouble getting access parking, good parking space at the university, at the medical center.

And know that Becca indicated that there had been a meeting that went on.

Well, Carrie, I hope we can take most of it.

But really, you know, as Diantha mentioned to us on the phone that it's

It is not a university transit thing, but they are partners.

The health system are known partners to us.

We work with them every day.

So we were able to set up a onsite meeting between the team at the medical center that manages the front door, as they call it, the front door team.

And then they're the ones that engage with all the other teams that get clients down to Lee Street.

And we just talked about the staging positions and the needs of the hospital, the needs of John and a few potential short-term fixes and long-term fixes.

And I'm not assuming that in one meeting it's all perfectly solved.

Yeah.

So I guess this came up when Becca and her team come over to John.

We identified it as one of the issues for our staff.

So I think this is a starting point.

We are going to investigate a couple of different options

surface level to see if it helps improve the experience and then perhaps go deeper.

We are going to meet again in 30 days, so we're not going to just once and done and forget about it, so we'll stay in touch.

If these surface solutions work, great, and if they don't, then we'll keep brainstorming to try to improve it overall.

It's just a very congested area.

And, you know, while we were meeting, we brought a Jaunt bus so we could visually see, you know, the size, but UTS buses, CAT buses, other university, smaller buses were going by.

It's kind of, yeah, I can see where it's a challenge.

But in the end, I think we all agreed that back to customer service, right?

We're trying to deliver patients to the hospital that need care.

and we care about their experience and the team that Becca brought us together with stated that they care too.

So we're gonna try these baby steps and see if it fixes it.

All right, we'll maybe get an update in the near future at some point.

Anything else that anyone wants to bring up?

And I appreciate the update, thank you.

Anyone else?

My experience has been that you all don't mind if we get out a little early.

So our next meeting is scheduled for October the 28th.

And unless anyone has anything else, then I am happy to adjourn us until October the 28th.

And you all stay safe and have a lovely couple of weeks, month.

All right, bye-bye.

Thanks.