Regional Transit Partnership (2017-2025) Meeting   11/18/2025

Regional Transit Authority to order, and I would like to call Regional Transit Partnership to order.

And by the way, I'm an environmentalist.

I think like it has the patience to designate this.

We have two separate boards and a joint meeting, so there are some things we're going to have to do.

One board is going to have to vote on some things, and another board is going to have to vote on the same thing, but we have to go separately.

So it's going to be a little bit different than anything this afternoon, but it's fun and lovely to see everybody together.

So thank you very much.

By way of introductions, let's just introduce, go around the table in interviews, and if you'll

My name is Kendall Howell.

I'm from the University of Virginia Department of Parks and Transportation representing the University of Trades and Service as an alternate.

Good evening.

I'm just some of my companions.

Hi Patty.

I am Diana McKeel.

Brian Pinkston, the City Council of Charlottesville.

Mike Prewitt, Albemarle Board of Supervisors.

I am on RTP and NCARDA.

Um, and I'm a non-voting member of... Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

And my name is Keith Smith.

I am the current chair of the Piedmont community land trust.

I get my land trust and my, and my commission.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.

I got it out.

There you go.

We have some guests online.

OK, I'm just going to go back to Gretchen.

OK, there you go.

I'm Christine.

Christine.

All right, and then I'll swing back and go ahead.

What's over here?

We'll just go this side.

Sandy Shackelford.

Jen Fletcher, Blue Ridge Health District.

Tanya Swartzendruber, Albemarle County

I appreciate your indulgence for that.

Our first item on the agenda is to accept the agenda and I'll lead on it.

First, let's have a motion from the someone on the part of it.

Thank you for adoption of the agenda.

Second.

Brian's made the motion.

Natalie's made the second.

Brian made the motion.

Natalie's made the second.

Councillor O'Shaughnessy.

Yes.

Supervisor McKeel.

Yes.

Supervisor Pruitt.

Aye.

Ms. Miller.

Yes.

Director Parker.

That's Kendall Howell as an alternate for Scott Silsdorf.

That's all.

All right.

So we have an agenda.

The next item on the agenda

is to approve the Cardo board draft minutes from September the 25th.

Does anyone have any comments or comments about those minutes?

And if not, I've never made a motion from a Cardo board meeting.

Move for adoption against Cardo meeting minutes September 25th.

All right, so rise back in motion.

I saw something.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, you're on the card again.

No, I'm sorry.

Sorry.

So we have a motion and a second.

Counselor Ochren?

Yes.

Supervisor McHale?

Yes.

Supervisor Pruitt?

Aye.

Minutes approved.

The next set has RTP draft minutes from October the 23rd.

And I'll turn it over.

Sorry.

Jumped down a little bit.

So, I just want to make sure I'm spelling this correct.

So, it says, it's Gilead.

It's I-G. And then the award itself is one of the low and no drinks.

Wait, what is the Gillick?

And it's the no end, love, rant.

Yes.

And I just had one quick on page three.

It's not Mrs. Saunders, it was Mr. Fox.

And those are all the edits.

Right above that, the motion to action.

My last name has a C in it.

O-S-E. Oh, right here.

Motion to action.

You're good.

Yeah.

And here's the one with the, all right.

I will.

Thank you.

Okay.

Natalie made the motion and my second.

All right.

Abstain.

Counselor O'Shren.

Supervisor McKeel.

Yes.

Ms. Miller.

Yes.

And alternate for Scott Silsdorf.

If there's anybody in the room who would like to speak, raise your hand.

If there is anybody online who would like to speak, raise your hand at the bottom of your screen.

Yeah.

They put Chip on the screen.

Chair, if I may have a minute just to speak.

I hear this is someone's last meeting.

and I wanted to join just to say what a pleasure, what a leader you all have had Miss Diana McKeel and what a pleasure it was working with her.

From the depths of the transit world, I don't even want to say how many years ago now, but you all have just gone far beyond what I think I would have ever imagined.

Thank you, Chip.

OK. All right, with that, the next item will name Jenna.

There were a couple people still weren't here and I wanted to make sure they didn't walk in to like, what do I do?

So I was leaving a vacancy near the door.

Just to begin, if you guys will forgive me, I have my remarks on paper on purpose.

I've been under the weather and I want to make sure not to forget to say all the things that I spent time thinking to make sure that I said so I have them in front of me.

So forgive me if I read from some of them.

Chair McKeel, members of the Regional Transit Partnership, members of the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority, staff and guests, thank you all for being here at this joint meeting which represents a significant moment for great reflection and transition.

It's my honor to provide some remarks prior to a brief presentation and a look back.

Today we honor and celebrate the extensive work that this region has done to get to this point.

In our region, discussion around coordinated transit has been a cornerstone for over two decades.

There are countless staff, former and current elected officials, advocates, service providers, community groups, consultants, citizens that have all contributed to the success of the transit work in the region.

Too many people to name individually.

The concept of regional transit authority was first explored in the mid to late 2000s, leading to legislation that created the ability to form the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority.

As you all know, while the authority itself was established in the code of Virginia, accompanying legislation for revenue generation was not successful.

For many years following the adoption of the legislation, the region continued to operate without a forum for the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, University of Virginia, transit agencies, and other regional partners to routinely sit together, identify shared challenges, and coordinate solutions.

Following a recommendation from the Regional Transit Coordination Study, the RTP was created in 2017 as a committee of the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO to fulfill multiple roles.

The first was to serve as the interim body and a precursor to formally activating the Regional Transit Authority.

The second was to be a forum for communication and coordination between the transit providers.

And the third was to build consensus around regional transit priorities.

The RTP found its strength in its ability to convene regional partners to work through the issues that no single entity could solve independently.

and as those of you who have been around for some time understand, the work has not always been easy and it did not seem to move quickly enough at times.

As we all know, truly collaborative, cooperative and coordinated planning is challenging, especially with the amount of change and the number of transitions that have occurred in those two decades.

But the members of the RTP continue to lean into rather than away from those challenges.

The steadily increasing demand for reliable, frequent, and connected transit regional systems for residents is the charge that anchored the RTP's commitment.

With the start of the RTP, the region had for the first time a forum for all transit providers, all major stakeholders, to regularly gather to collectively plan for the future of transit in our region.

Over time, the region has built a shared understanding of the collective challenges and opportunities.

The RTP has helped to strengthen the relationships,

and today we have stronger channels of communication, we have more trust and we have shared expectations than we had at any point in those past two decades.

As evidenced by all of us here today, I think this is the most people that have ever been to a part of our RTP meeting, as evidenced by us here today, the RTP has paved the way for the activation of the Regional Transit Authority.

While today is a moment to celebrate the RTP as it sunsets, we must also acknowledge the extensive work that still lies ahead of us in this region.

There are many questions to consider and to grapple as CARTA works to continue to advance dedicated revenue, to recommend and fund coordinated services and improvements, and to build a regional transit system that reflects the values of our community.

Thanks to the dedicated work of the countless people in the RTP, CARTA gets a running start on addressing the future of transit in our region.

It gets the established relationships, it gets the foundational plans and the wisdom of countless studies,

and a clear understanding of the priorities.

And while it is bittersweet for the RTP to come to its end, it does represent the next step that we should be celebrating.

In closing, I'd like to recognize all of the elected officials and staff in the jurisdictions, the staff on all of the transit agencies, all of the leadership teams that were involved, the citizens that continue to engage and to push to make sure that we're doing things right by people, the representatives of all the special interest groups that continue to advocate for action

the former and current staff and planners of the PDC, folks that were involved well before the team that is currently on staff, and countless individuals who are visionary future thinkers that helped us get to where we are today.

Finally, I would like to say two special thank yous.

One is to Councilor Pinkston, who has served the MPO with thoughtfulness, integrity, and care for our community.

As he prepares to conclude his service with the Charlottesville City Council, I'd like to express my deepest appreciation for your time and your partnership.

and, of course, a special thank you to Chair Supervisor Diane McKeitel.

Your steadfast leadership, your persistence, and your vision are truly a gift to our region.

As you also roll off of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, I'd like to thank you for your commitment to the work of the Regional Transit Partnership and the newly formed Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit.

I want to take this opportunity at this time to recognize just the oil, as well as an Ohio

Micaiah Walker and I sat in a conference room and he permitted me to just be in a number and hammered out one of the contracts for the RCP and Halloween will be a fun transit among the Twin Cities and the Valley.

And she and I just, we worked together and worked together and finally got it.

And both of us were so interested.

Micaiah was so out of it.

that she just had to have better transit for her home.

So I'm just sitting at that.

Shout out to the guy who's not here, but Nikaya and Chip, thank you very much.

So I'm just, yeah, I'm going to go back a decade of the RTP and transportation planning.

I really want to thank Christine for her comments.

They reflect my comments too.

And it's a real honor to have the opportunity to acknowledge the RTP and all of the work and success that you all have had.

As a planner, the success of the RTP is a beautiful example of how regional planning works.

With support from the state,

and the TJPDC was able to support the localities and studying regional transportation services and developing a solution.

So it all started with a study in 2008, the Transit Authority Study, which resulted in the 2009 legislation for me part of.

and the 2016 Regional Transit Coordination Study reexamined the governance of the transit structures and recommended a formation of the Regional Transit Partnership as a precursor to the Regional Transit Authority.

The first RTP meeting was in 2017.

It looks like the slides aren't advancing on the shared version online.

Well, it's not, it doesn't look like it's in presenter mode on the online screen.

Yeah.

Can we check that folks online can see okay?

Okay, right.

There we go.

Okay.

In 2018,

the RTP developed a strategic plan with a clear mission and vision.

And then in 2019, the Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville signed the funding MOU to support the RTP.

And I just want to say here that it's really the, I'm going through like the studies and the actions that happened, but it's really the representatives from the jurisdictions and the transit service providers and the county and city staff and other stakeholders you met monthly

And we're really dedicated to moving this initiative forward.

So you guys might see some old names up there.

In 2020, we

All the meetings and discussions were moving towards the RTP's goals and the UVA joined the RTP as a voting member, which was fabulous.

It's quite an example of the relationship building and collaboration that was happening through the RTP.

The TJPDC also submitted two technical assistance applications through DRPT on behalf of the city and Albemarle County.

and each of those jurisdictions contributed a 50% match to those projects.

So in 2021, the RTP was awarded the DRP team funds to conduct the Albemarle County Transit Expansion Feasibility Study, which resulted in MicroCat and the Regional Transit Vision Plan and started working on them.

In 2022, the RTP

now functioning as a true coalition for transit services in the region, completed the Albemarle County transit expansion study and assisted CAT with the demonstration grant to apply to provide the micro CAT service.

The RTP completed the regional transit vision plan in 2023 and secured funding for the regional transit governance study based on the recommendations from the vision plan.

The vision plan worked with transit providers to design a network of transit services to meet the community's transit vision.

In 2024, the regional transit governance study was completed recommending that the jurisdictions enact the CARTA legislation and approach the General Assembly again for taxation authority to fund services laid out in the vision plan.

and in 2025, the city and the county enacted part of legislation.

It's very exciting for me and appointed a board and secured funding for a regional transit service prioritization study.

The study will examine the services and the most recent transit planning documents, including the vision plan and prioritize them based on cost and benefits.

Here's the first part of meeting, which is huge.

So since 2008, the communities worked together to develop a structure and support transit services.

And nine years later, we have CARTA because of the dedication and the leadership to the RTP members.

And CARTA held its first meeting in 2025 and kicked off the regional transit prioritization plan will also be kicked off in 2025.

We kicked it off yesterday.

So I just wanted to thank all the present and past members of the RTP for their dedication, hard work, and leadership.

People sometimes complain about all the plans and studies that we do and they just sit on a shelf, but not these ones.

Thanks to the dedication and leadership and the services provided by the community members, these plans grew and helped form a regional transit authority, the first of its kind in the Commonwealth.

We have regional transportation authorities, and we have one regional transit authority that is a very different structure.

This is really the first of its kind for Virginia.

So that should be very friendly.

Thank you, Lucinda.

That's great.

And I'll just open it up.

It's sitting next to Kendall, you know.

These are fine.

It's the one in there that we rarely hold meetings public in that room with music and temporarily.

Comments or questions.

Thank you, Lucinda.

That was great.

Appreciate it.

Oh, hi.

I'd like to take just a few minutes to walk through a memo that was included in your packet for today's meeting and that's an update on the Regional Transit Partnership transition.

Staff heard it articulated from RTP members on a couple different occasions and we wanted to make sure that we address two primary concerns that we've heard from you all.

And the first was CARTA involvement for special interest groups and the public and how these interest groups advocacy organizations and the public can continue to be engaged with the work that CARTA is doing.

Previously, we have stated that CARTA, of course, is still a public body and so the meetings are always open to the public and we invite anyone to join and provide comments on the work that they're doing at that time.

but beyond that, CARTA will really rely on its local jurisdictions to collect and communicate the feedback directly from their residents, their transit riders and their employers that are in the region and that's primarily for two reasons.

One, because CARTA doesn't directly operate any transit service currently and so it makes sense that local governments would be the key conduit for communicating any feedback that the residents have and then the second reason is that really maintains the connection between

the work that CARTA is doing for planning for revenue generation and for funding and the actual work that's happening at the local level with its local jurisdictions.

And then the second concern that we heard articulated with the representation of rural transit needs given the current board structure of two members from the city of Charlottesville and two from the county of Albemarle, how will rural jurisdictions be represented in that?

The Carta working group, you know, before Carta was activated, went around and did have discussions with the local jurisdictions, the rural jurisdictions, gauging their interest in joining Carta.

And there wasn't any at that time.

But we do recognize that this is an ongoing conversation.

And so we do have scoped as part of our transit prioritization study to make sure we are including staff at the rural jurisdictions as we talk through different scenarios for transit expansion to gauge their priorities and keep transit top of mind should they be interested in the future.

And so we have communicated and shared materials for the letter that requests the RTP dissolution, the RTP MOU amendment, and also the CARTA memorandum of understanding to all of the signatories of the RTP MOU.

And so those are our next steps.

So I'll open it up for questions or comments.

And I do want to make sure that there's a comfort level because I think

The providers, the transit providers in the community were concerned about losing a voice that they've had at the table within this group.

And I just want to make sure that there's a comfort level with what the planning is right now, that going forward.

And I'll open it up just for comments and questions.

And thank you for your presentation.

And I just want to make sure, feel free to

We've had a discussion about this a couple of times and I can't make sure we didn't.

There isn't something left.

Who else?

You know they can carve a chance first.

They can carve a chance.

Well, the transit providers have had a concern as well as some of the other

Do you want to go first?

There should be no confusion about either JAWS before for my personal support or the Cardinal, right?

My questions have been about how do we get the regional voice?

Has there been a good enough value proposition

for the rural jurisdictions to be a part of CARNA as we continue to create regional constructs where they are always by design outvoted.

I've been a part of most of those in the 30 years that I've worked with for either the City of Charlottesville or for John.

And it's more effective for them to just go and directly negotiate

helps the region to advance if that's the ambition.

So as it has been stood up, you know, there is some possibility that it continues just to be a Charlottesville, Albemarle time for quite a period of time.

That causes some concern, you know.

So if we're not getting the funding right away, I've had questions about whether we should have delayed

the sunsetting of RTP by another year to try and get different people from the regions to participate in RTP and see what a good collaborative process has been happening here.

And I also understand what the duplication and constraints are on Christine's staff time that don't make that an effective decision.

And so I

We're bringing the dissolution to the job board and I'll be recommending that they sign off on it when we meet on December 10th.

I do have a belief that the most effective version of CARTA is like the big tent version of CARTA.

You know, we had many discussions where people are like, are you talking big A or little A when you talk about the authority?

And I do think that

County is the collaboration, the cooperation, the coordination, and what a great community it is for that.

you know I hope that that is not lost right and I'll just say that for me you know I was at city council for a work session last night I had about a half hour with the council and one of the councilors only questions to me was about well what about when years down the road we only have one entity I was like yeah so to me that's just one vision of what CARTA can or should be that we should be focused on

trying to provide the best service and having the best collaboration rather than trying to figure out whether there's only one person or one voter.

That was really well said and I appreciate that.

I wanted to have an opportunity this afternoon before we left

for folks to talk about this and make sure.

I would say it's a different perspective.

So I don't have as much interaction with the surrounding smaller communities as Mike does.

But what I will say is I look at CARTA as an extension of RTP.

It really allows for those groups to come to CARTA.

and how their voice is heard there.

They may not necessarily be voting members at this point in time, but that does not necessarily mean that you don't have input.

If I'm looking at other regional transit authorities around the state, I look at it as those entities bring in some money.

The jurisdictions sometimes, well, the transit entities sometimes make a pitch to that authority for funding purposes,

or new services those sorts of things I look at that's how I envision Cardiff happening now because that's really kind of the in my mind the next iteration of where transit goes before we even talk about whether it's one gigantic entity 10-20 years from now but it allows us to have the dialogue because the

the jurisdictions still are making the funding choices right now, because the funds will come in and there will still have to be a pitch.

City Council will have to be involved.

Board of Supervisors will still have to be involved in making those decisions.

That's where the power lies.

So there still is an avenue.

It may not necessarily be in this room, but it may be in front of City Council, or it may be in front of Board of Supervisors having those discussions about

where we move the organizations, whether that is John or Kat, in the future.

So I like the perspective that Mike brings, but from my vantage point, I'm already making those connections because I have to go before the border supervisors or city council when we talk about making a change to services anyway.

It's kind of a natural extension of what we do.

as a fixed route transit provider.

Pitching services to you, whether you like them or not, then you move forward.

If you tell me you're going to fund them or not, then we move forward.

And that's how I see, whether it's in Richmond or Northern Virginia, those models are happening right now.

So I don't see CARB being any different.

I think it's new to this region, but I think it's an extension of where

Any other problems?

I don't want, I don't want to put anybody on the spot.

I'll just add to all that.

I mean, I appreciate staff's time and I know that adding this is kind of part of the record transition.

I'm capturing how some of the ideas of the people who brought up some of the challenges

and that the benefits of RTP went well beyond getting ready for RTA.

And I think that was really valuable.

And I, you know, as an advocate for improved transit and transportation in our community, even personally, and representing CAA, you know, there's so much good energy, whether it be from a public health and health district standpoint, to BEC and C3, looking at an environmental standpoint, people looking at a better transportation equity standpoint, quality of life, public safety standpoint, age-friendly standpoint,

and we're going to need all of those groups and more to help CARTA get the support, the public support to make this happen.

And I want to make sure, you know, representing CAA, you don't lose track of that.

So I appreciate that all being part of the record and you're giving a chance for an online discussion now.

And just the other component from CAA standpoint, we actually have a transportation work group, which I'm a member of meeting this morning, hence why I'm here representing CAA,

One of the other things that we continually talk about is how do individual consumers, users, you know, how is their voice heard?

There's some very good groups representing stakeholders, but we all, I think, know and want to hear also from individual users, writers, potential writers, former writers, and a lot of those folks are on the margins.

and don't know how to, where to go, don't know how to advocate necessarily and don't really know where to go.

And we still feel like there's not really a clear, somebody asked me, I want to talk more about my needs as a writer.

I'm not sure really where the best place for them to go.

And so that's not really a hardest answer right now, but I think while all this groups together,

Well thank you, that's fresh with space.

Yeah I'll just say also that it you know it's hard to say what

the role of somebody like me, I'm a public figure, but I'm not a public official.

So not quite the same thing.

And so I completely see a big firewall, like from a due process perspective.

But also having said that though, while there is the matters from the public opportunity or we have everybody's email address, everybody's available,

The answer to something that somebody says that matters from the public is always the same answer.

It has to be.

Thank you for your comments.

That's the answer.

And that's not quite the same when there's a discussion where there's some nuance that's being made.

So I think there is good value for doing that.

though on the other hand as well like how do you decide between environmentalists or the elders or the grocers or you know the hospitals I was looking at some of the non-voting members that were on the list and I was like well that's quite a long list of non-voting members before so I think the solution that I would recommend is that

The public needs to know about what's happening here before it's fully baked.

And that is something that I'm able to do.

Counseling supervisors are able to do that too in their report outs.

But doing a good job at communicating through the media, like

Sean's probably working on there.

And I find out, you know, what's being discussed also by reading his newsletter.

Any other comments?

What Mike said reminded me of this in context of the role in which we engage with rural localities.

We've talked about this before on this board, we've talked about it on the board of supervisors and the TJPDC.

But, you know, I saw I saw a headline on an article this morning and I was briefly excited and was getting ready to send it to you and then I realized

I'm like, oh, exciting.

I'm thinking, oh, maybe this is about smart scale funding.

Maybe this is about regional.

And no, the thing I forget is that when we're looking at transit transportation funding, this is a purely localist pork fight when it gets to Richmond.

It is pure pork.

And not throwing aspersions, that's what I want my lawmakers to do for me, right, to bring on the bacon.

But we have three lawmakers.

as we move forward, figuring out how we build that coalition and build a coalition that can bite more aggressively for the funding that we are eventually going to need is going to be an important strategy.

And if that becomes a purple coalition, I think that honestly might have more sway, because it would be counter-cyclical, which is not something every other transit coalition

So I don't know that I have a structural fix for that today, but we mentioned it before, and I think it always bears mention.

And as we're getting ready to look at what a very great session in Richmond is going to look like, something I was very much reminded of, never going to get far, either transit or transportation priorities funded, so long as we're purely relying on the same three people's personal relational capital.

And that's a really good point, too.

Very good point.

This is great.

Well, we appreciate the knowledge.

And I think it is good to have this on the record so that folks can go back and say, oh, yes, the other thing is no one else has any other comments.

I'm going to take us in a little bit different direction, and I'm going to take

The Chair's prerogative to bring up something that I want to remind folks about, maybe inform, remind, and ask, but I'm going to pass around a memorandum, so I can take a copy, take a look at it.

This is a memorandum that was sent from Jeff Richardson and Sam Sanders to Jim Ryan and J.J.

dated June the 23rd.

And this is simply that request from us around representations in the University of Virginia and the importance of having UVA

As a non-voting member, certainly is what the ask is.

And I just don't want to lose track with this.

I want everybody that's going forward with CARTA staff and everybody to remember that this ask has been made from the University of Virginia.

And it is critical that we have someone from UVA that these upper fed on

that is the one that can make the decision.

That's what this memorandum is about.

And I will say at the same time, I want to remind folks that there was a very strong statement in the transit governance sketch that mentioned specifically the University of Virginia's participation in that.

and I'm going to take the time to read this because I want it on the record.

This was from the transit governance study 6.4 collaboration with UVA.

UVA involvement in regional transit extends beyond that of a transit service provider through UTS.

The university is also a major stakeholder in the region.

and could serve as a crucial partner in the pursuit of regionalized transit service.

Although representatives from the UTS were engaged throughout the study, further engagement with the university is needed to discuss potential mutual benefits in collaborating in regional transit service.

Additional discussion with UVA stakeholders would lead to a clear role for the university

and a future authority.

Recommendation.

Conduct a transit needs assessment that clearly analyzes rural transit.

Recommendation.

Ensure continued rural engagement and development of legislative backing for regional transit authority.

Include protective mechanisms in the use of transit revenue generated to lead the equitable investment across the region.

Continue educational efforts

on the potential benefits of a regional authority and its impact on different types of residents.

So the recommendation, the main recommendation that came from the transit government study, engaged UVA leadership at a level where there is a decision-making authority in efforts towards establishing transit authority.

I think this is a really critical point.

We need UVA at the table, I'm just saying.

I'm throwing that out right now, because it seemed like it was an appropriate time for us to leave, remembering this.

No, I'm certainly ashamed.

Ms. McHale, you sharing the letter that was sent on behalf of the city and the county.

as you pointed out, it was in that transit government study for Virginia to participate, University of Virginia to participate really behind decision-making authority representing itself as an employer, a property owner of a really large, but we really do appreciate UTS.

I'll just say we really do appreciate

Scott has been a really great partner.

Right.

And I think the point, and you're exactly right to hit that hard.

The point is not that UVA is the provider of UTS.

They are an employer in our community.

I think that's the issue.

They have a broader role than just being a provider

I will note that based on the date of this memorandum, that was a pretty difficult time for us to send this memorandum to the UVA.

Engaging with the leadership has been a bit of a challenge over the last few months, but we have reestablished that relationship.

We didn't get much response to this.

We have gotten a response from UVA since we've been reading page three.

Good, okay.

And they are looking forward to participating.

So maybe we should rename it recently.

Just wanted that to be said on the record.

That would be, that's great.

Okay.

So let me get back to my agenda and I believe it's time for the regional, sorry, the training providers, which is

Oh, that's great.

So Scott's not here, but can't go there.

Hey everyone.

Well, number one, I need to go to basketball to get the proper responses.

Yeah, no, thank you for highlighting that Ms. McKeel.

We're about to embark on our kind of patchworkiest quilt of service packages over the next month plus, month and a half.

We change over to exam service on the 10th of December and then the commuter service on the 22nd.

Over to recess service on January 5th and back to full service on January 1st.

So a lot of moving parts at University Transit.

over the course of Thanksgiving and winter break.

I don't know if you guys have ever spoken about the Fontaine parking garage here.

Yeah, OK, so that thing opened.

It has 1200 park capacity.

The big thing on our plate is shifting our UVA Health daily last mile commuters from where they currently park, which is the imminent Ivy garage on Ivy Road.

over to that new garage and upon paint.

And once we're able to do that, we need some infrastructure completion there.

Once we're able to do that, we're going to launch what we're calling the Purple Line, which is kind of our biggest single structural change in the last decade or so.

And so I'm sure Scott will be happy to share the details with you guys, or I can, but it's going to change some traffic patterns and

that kind of thing.

The biggest struggle we're encountering with that is this Verve project at the intersection of Jefferson Park Avenue and Jefferson Park Avenue and Ibbot Street and Stadium Road.

And so we have to get that kind of ironed out while working with people from the city, people from the project.

But that's a pretty critical artery for us through the university and would be a critical artery for our

15 bus an hour purple line.

So that's kind of the big thing on the UTS docket.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think we have concerns about this massive apartment building in these rather restricted, you know, smaller city streets, but

road closures at willy-nilly times and trucks delivering stuff and it causes a lot of problems.

I just wanted to mention it.

I don't know, commiserations?

It was helpful because I had someone say to me, oh, well, the Fontaine Tucking Rob is a new one.

It's just for employees.

And I was trying to figure out if they were Fontaine employees.

Yeah, we have,

roughly 1,800 last mile commuters that are employees of UVA Health.

There's not enough parking on site yet.

And so this is one of the big functions that University Transit serves is that last mile commute.

Yeah.

So any questions for Kendall?

That's great.

You have good information.

Hey, thanks.

All right.

I don't think there, I think it just flew by everybody when Kendall said 15 buses and an hour.

That's for every four minutes.

It's hard.

It's a hard job.

Our electric charging stations have been commissioned.

We are actually starting to charge

vehicles.

We will have dedicated training for all of our school drivers over the Christmas break, because this long rail provides us enough time to do so, with the goal of really starting our test, the pilot for the school buses in January when the students come back.

So we will be rotating them on different routes to see

is for having discussions with the school system about adding to the pilot there.

It's similar to the pilots that we're going to do on the transit side for a maximum of up to six vehicles.

But right now it's two, hopefully by two more next fiscal year school buses going forward, and then we'll see what happens.

On the transit side,

We're going to be ordering our second round of battery electric vehicles next month.

Those are the ones we've already been funded for.

The discussions are going on right now about whether to go to the sixth, which is the initial pilot that we have talked about.

So that is a decision that we'll be bringing forward to the city council.

And then there's discussion about whether any federal funding is going to be available to help us augment

or offset those costs.

I don't know what that answered here, but we'll continue to monitor that.

Hopefully, the state has been stepping up.

They've done a wonderful job in helping us close that gap.

They helped us close the funding gap on our transit project.

It was by a $2 million hole, and they closed that up pretty quickly.

Thank you, state, because that's what happened.

So it's just a matter of,

prioritizing goals around our eventual shift from alternatives to alternative fuels.

And when we do it, it's not if we're gonna do it, it's the timing of when we're gonna do it.

Because that train is basically already, no pun intended, the train's already left the station.

We've got infrastructure for battery electric coming for CAD.

For the transit side,

and then the only discussion really that happens after that is whether we pull the trigger on the hydrogen side.

I'm hopeful that we will be able to do that.

I think there's great benefits in doing that.

And they're potentially maybe a local fund.

I mean, a commonwealth funding source fairly soon.

If that's the case, then it gives us more

The major push right now is trying to figure out what our funding level is going to look like

budget-wise for FY 27.

The discussions are happening with the city and the county.

They have been a little bit informative.

They've been eye-opening about priorities and they're going to be making these intentions through the city manager's office to city council.

We're still having engaging conversations with the county about what their needs are and put that whole toll package to the county.

We'll be having really fun with the next, I guess, month or so, but the whole goal of having a solid recommendation for recommendation from the city and the county by late January, early February.

And just a quick comment, and I'm sure you are aware that our kind of public schools have been using electric buses at the urban rate.

And I'm sure you and Jamie are down for that.

You've got to watch out for her.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm sure of that.

All right.

Mike.

Oh, any questions for Bob before we move on?

Good.

All right.

Well you know it's in the joy of budget season we find ourselves today so we already have budgets in to Charlottesville, Albemarle which kind of then dictates what the others look like because they're going to have to project

State match rates and a number of other things.

There's some tweaks that may be out there as we have those discussions out with the other jurisdictions because we certainly want them to shape whatever the patterns are in every jurisdiction.

For the city and county, we are projecting just a slight decrease in the request for livable funds and I know that that will be welcome news to budget offices since every year is a tight budget year it seems.

We are a finalist, it appears.

We've had a follow-up call with National RTAP about a grant we put in that would provide a new level of service for a commuter map route to Greene County and also increase some frequency on the 29 North route that serves Albemarle County, which is good news.

And we've spent a good amount of time

working with DRPT if that's not able to be funded and what that might look like as a demonstration grant.

We spent many hours discussing with the PDC team and some folks from DRPT how we can deliver a really important project to the region for

you know, possibly 5310 service, you know, to expand on what the PDC is hearing as the mobility managers for this area and what we're here for.

sometimes we have a circular discussion uh no uh i think that we are moving towards some ideas about you know pool of dollars for 5310 but also the overwhelming request for midday service to get people

with DRBT.

I hate to even spoil the surprise.

And our last board meeting of the calendar year for a job is on December 10th.

And in addition, talk about the RTP.

We will be presenting to the board our audited report from FY 25 close out.

And we will be

either in that meeting, by the February meeting, recommending the return of excess capital to the jurisdictions.

So that should be good news as well for all the Jacobs and Chrissies and Chrissies of the world in your respective offices.

Some of the people in this room have been working on our communication strategy and now some of our marketing and rebranding efforts.

We have an important meeting this Thursday

and looking forward to bringing the group together for that.

I would remind everybody that in September, we kind of embarked on this celebrating our 50th year and on our website, I did encourage council to talk with constituents about come to the website, share a picture, share a story, share a video about your experience with John over these last 50 years.

And so we'll continue to be talking about that with some emphasis in September

to celebrate the close of that time.

Last item on that board meeting, which ended in December, is to honor Ray Herron, who served the city of Charlottesville on the job floor for 24 years prior to ending his service, maybe two months ago.

Other than that, we have the Virginia Transit Leadership Institute in town tomorrow all day.

They were here in April at the shop and we're hosting a job this time.

This is 15 transit professionals from around the state who are emerging leaders and trying to grow in the profession.

And so we have a number of sessions planned throughout the day.

And the highlight of that, of course, is that the three of us will be on a panel answering questions.

I don't think so We do have a signed contract for our demonstration project

Any questions for the line comments?

Okay.

All right.

All right.

A reminder that the 45 days of comment period for the proposed merit capital and operating changes

is still open and it closes on Friday, November 21st.

Any comments you have on those proposed changes should be sent to DRPTPR at DRPT.virginia.gov.

TSDAP will be meeting on Monday, the 24th at 930 to review the public comments and potentially vote on the endorsement of the proposed changes.

You want to tune into that.

These ultimately do get passed by the CTB.

They won't be implemented until FY28.

Do both of the beloved providers in this area lose money in that scenario?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Public comment is the best recommendation I have.

Instead of a bridging a big freeze in our city bus, we now have a contractor for the new service, the Tidewater Current,

that's the east-west going through Charlottesville and Crozet.

So we're negotiating launch date but looking at spring and so we're very excited for a 2026 launch and hopefully we'll continue to have more info to share on that.

The CHISM plan, the Coordinated Human Service Mobility Plan update is ongoing.

The new plan should be available at the end of December.

There's a survey coming out soon.

I think some of you may already have it.

to get input on the prioritization of strategies for funding human service transportation projects across the state.

Also, the grant program season is kind of kicking off for us.

Grants will open December 1st.

They're due February 1st.

Tomorrow is the transit program grant workshop.

Thursday, the assistance program workshop.

And then today was the 5310 human service grant workshop.

We'll be working very closely with Kat and John and TJ who we see over the next couple months getting our applications ready.

Any questions for David?

Nope.

All right.

The next item on the agenda is Keith Smith.

How did you appear on that?

And I've learned something.

So I've changed it.

I've got all kinds of notes.

So watch out.

I got a podium and I like to talk.

and it's got this whole New Yorker accent thing going on.

But, um, so I'm here as the chair of the PMOC.

The reason I do it is we've spent so much time together, these different groups, but I'm the chair of the Planning District Commission and I'm here to present this wonderful resolution.

I'm going to let Taylor read it because you're not going to have too much of this New York accent doing that, but,

and looking around in this room and watching this communication between the two organizations.

You know, it demonstrated that collaboration matters and it's a really awesome thing to see.

So I'm going to go off script a little bit.

Thank you for taking care of the rural jurisdictions.

I live in a rural jurisdiction.

What you guys do Mike is awesome.

I'm praying you get the midday thing.

My 85 year old parents would appreciate it.

Otherwise, I got to drive from my office all the way home to pick them up to take them to the doctor.

So keep up the good work.

It's awesome stuff.

You know, the RTV has built this foundation that Carter is going to grow off of, and it's a really awesome thing to watch.

No, don't do that because I'm going to crawl through it.

I may be a Marine, but I'm a big softie on it.

I've been on the commission for 15 years and, you know, sat across and next to Diane in regional housing partnership meetings, land trust meetings, commission meetings, and your leadership and compassion.

And I watched it here today.

is unbelievable.

I personally learned a lot from you on how to manage a meeting, so thank you.

Thank you for doing that.

You show up.

You listen.

You keep us grounded.

You keep us grounded.

And you guide the difficult conversations, which is a skill set to do, and I'm just honored to be in the same room that you are and have that conversation.

On top of that, you had to deal with me, which is never a good thing.

My big ideas, my big questions, and my crazy housing math that I like to throw around to everybody on it.

You're just awesome.

You're going to be greatly missed.

I am personally going to miss you.

and I can't see how these organizations will be the same without you out there.

And I am, this is from my heart, love you dearly, you're going to do great and don't let me know where you live because I might come find you.

So I'm officially supposed to give this presentation, but I'm going to let Elton do this.

Definitely none of this was on my script.

So a couple of quick things.

I also co-chair the Regional Housing Partnership.

Why the hell isn't UVA here?

It took us years to get Colette Sheehy at the table for the Regional Housing Partnership.

Regional Housing Partnership and your organization are at the hip.

Diana reminded me of this regularly at that.

We currently, since Colette has retired, Alice Rumpcher.

Alice is part of it.

I have an executive committee meeting next week with that.

And if she doesn't, we're going to, she needs to be at this table.

It's important to have her there.

All right.

I'll let this fine young person.

You are awesome.

So she's from Jersey, I'm from Brooklyn, we'll get it worked out.

I'm going to read our resolution commending the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership.

Whereas the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership was established following a recommendation of the Regional Transit Coordination Study in 2017,

to serve as an interim body and precursor for establishing a regional transit authority.

And whereas the mission of the RTP was to provide recommendations to decision makers on transit related matters with goals that included communication, coordination, regional goals, vision and shared opportunities.

And whereas since its inception, the RTP has been instrumental in laying the foundation for a stronger, more coordinated regional transit system.

and whereas the RTP had successfully provided a strong forum for communication and coordination between transit providers and built a critical role in building consensus around regional transit priorities and whereas the work of the RTP included completion of a strategic plan, the Albemarle County Transit Expansion Study, a Regional Transit Vision Plan and a Transit Governance Study and whereas the Transit Governance Study provided the foundation for formation and activation of the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority

to serve as a primary forum for regional transit discussion and decision-making, and whereas the first chair of the RTP was Albemarle supervisor Diana McKeel, who was elected to the position in October 2017, and whereas Ms. McKeel, who's completing her third and final term on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors this year, has continued to share the RTP's sensitive formation, and whereas Ms. McKeel brought a strong desire and keen perspective to discussions about improving transit service in the region, and

whereas Ms. McKeel's passion and servanthood also led to her serving on the board of directors for the Virginia Transit Association, including as its president, and whereas the pending dissolution of the RTP and transfer of its duties to CARTA is a milestone in discussion of transit service in the region.

Now, therefore, it be resolved that the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission does hereby commend the Jefferson Area Regional Transit Partnership for the exemplary work to provide a forum for discussion and foundation for action to expand transit options in the region.

Cupcakes.

I need to adjourn the Cardboard and the RTB meeting and here are no objections going to adjourn us and the next part of the meeting will be January the 27th of 20th.

And I think we have some refreshments.

I see something over there.

Thank you very much.

A positive turning point for the TJPDC region with much more work and success to come.

Diana, it wouldn't have happened without you.

If you were to let me read that, I would have never got to it because it would have got off.

ADD would have kicked in.

There we go.

And nobody would get cupcakes.