Summary of tweets from February 27, 2020 Regional Transit Partnership

I am here at the Regional Transit Partnership, where there are a lot of new people here in the audience. There's also a new City Council member and a new Albemarle Supervisor. And here is the agenda: (bit.ly/2I2dK9Y)

'Public speaking still makes me nervous but I'm pushing back on that. Because I want this community to work together to improve transit.
I know it can work.

I raised the question of whether transit service will serve the Center when it moves to Belvedere. Now Chip Boyles with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is here to give an overview of the Regional Transit Partnership. Here's a
@cvilletomorrow story I wrote on this back in August 2015 (bit.ly/34u3f8p)

The draft Memorandum of Understanding for the partnership is worth reviewing. I've clipped out the deliverables here. (bit.ly/2T3J4LK)

There have been many changes since the RTP began and they've just adopted new by-laws. One change included addition of UVA as a voting member. That's a meaningful change and a good sign. Take a look at this document here: (bit.ly/387L35W)

The topic of the CAT Advisory Board By-Laws came up, but before discussing fully, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley brings up the topic of adding new shelters. CAT Director Garland Williams states that they need to know where route changes will be first before building new ones. CAT Advisory Board Chair wants people to join. They meet every three months. He told me yesterday they only have three members right now and want eight more.

But how effective is this body? Did they get a chance to weigh in on the detour? Take a look. (bit.ly/3abRLtb) City Councilor Lloyd Snook said he was told there was no board at this moment.

Supervisor McKeel said she used to attend but stopped because they were not doing anything.

Council has yet to adopt the by-laws but is expected to do so soon. (bit.ly/3abRLtb) Next, a group from Leadership Charlottesville presents a video project where they interviewed people about transportation.

I spoke with this group in December and their enthusiasm fueled my own.
I hope this video goes online somewhere. The more stories, the better. They've called it Voices of Transit.

In 2007, another Leadership Charlottesville did a podcast series called Voices of Poverty and I had the fortune to produce it. That's here on @cvillepodcast (bit.ly/1Ju8jev)

The video features people talking about the current system, and some of the issues. I would love to do a podcast just about how we get around this community and the state. But my skills are so rusty. I may do an experiment soon. In response, CAT Director Garland Williams said they want to make a lot of the improvements suggested by people interviewed, but CAT can't talk about expanding until they fix existing system.

There are also two other transit services in our area - @rideJAUNT and @UVAUTS

Some of the people interviewed were riders of the Park Connect service. I am hoping to use that sometime in the near future.

Next up at the meeting is a presentation on data on electric scooters in Charlottesville area. Presentation not online at the moment. Around 60 percent of rides stop and start around the University of Virginia according to bike/ped/dockless mobility coordinator Amanda Poncy. Every road in Charlottesville has seen at least one trip by a scooter or e-bike. Poncy says the busiest time for these scooters is around 5:00 p.m. September was the busiest period. 38,000 trips that month.

Trevor Henry asks if data is affected by Lime and Bird's decision to not serve market. VeoRide is the only provider left. After a discussion of injuries, UVA Parking and Transportation Director Becca White notes that before Bird went live in Dec. 2018, local emergency officials worked to come up with common nomenclature for how to code injuries related to scooters.

So many interesting tidbits! About three percent of rides started and stopped near a transit stop.

McCormick Road is the most heavily scootered road.

Now Poncy is showing a map of origins and destinations in Albemarle. These represent only about three percent of rides. The meeting is now up to the discussion of a series of listening sessions conducted across Virginia by @VCNVAorg and @VaTransitAssoc

That 37 page document is here. (bit.ly/3ceehU7) Now someone from the @VirginiaDRPT is here to talk about the grant funding process. 

TJPDC is seeking money to help pay for the projects listed on 52 and 53 of the full packet (bit.ly/3acrKKa)

The @VirginiaDRPT is also working on the two new intrastate bus routes, including one that will travel between Danville and D.C. Here's a @MassTransitmag article from December (bit.ly/35F3PRH)

Just heard it will take a year for CAT data reporting to become normalized.

I'm not tweeting many details of current discussions because I want to make sure I'm capturing what people said accurately. The details of transit planning are crucial to get right. UVA has built a lot of offices on Old Ivy Road and on Monday they will begin a 16-week test of a shuttle to get people employees to and from there.

They're all also working on vanpools. I've seen some of the details, such as that one for Scottsville @NBC29 has reported on Jim Foley, director of pupil transportation in Albemarle, said they are working with 3rd party provider on mobility solutions to get students to the Center I and Center II centers.

Also, legislation to make drivers "critical shortage" has passed (bit.ly/36qwQBe)

At the end of meeting, CAT Director Garland Williams said he will ask Council to allow Route 11 to serve the Center in one direction. They can't go in other direction because of an unsignalized left hand turn at Rio / Belvedere. They are looking for other solutions, too.