The policy board Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization is an obscure body with a lot of say over what transportation projects move forward. Tomorrow they will meet and approve a plan for the MPO staff to conduct something called a “travel demand management” program.
Such work is called for in the 2050 Long Range Transportation Plan, a document that the United States Department of Transportation requires in order to coordinate funding for infrastructure projects. The MPO Policy Board adopted the last one in May 2024 and you can view it here.
“Staff identified the need to complete a comprehensive transportation demand management study to reduce vehicle miles traveled or VMT, increase the trips made by walking, biking and using transit and enhancing connections between transit, bike-pedestrian networks and our park and ride facilities,” said Taylor Jenkins, director of transportation for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.
In order to inform a draft scope of work for the study, staff looked at plans in other communities:
- Mode Shift: A VMT Reduction Strategy produced for the Metropolitan Council for the Minneapolis / St. Paul area
- Active Transportation Plan produced for the Sarasota/Manatee MPO in Florida
- Congestion Management Process Origin and Destination Report produced for the Collier MPO in Florida
Each used different methodology for collecting data in order to describe a picture of how people get around those communities. Jenkins said staff is recommending using data from the firm Streetlight because the MPO has access through a contract with the Virginia Department of Transportation.
“We’d be able to understand the travel coming inside and going outside of the MPO area and traveling within,” Jenkins said. “And Streetlight also allows us to identify trips specifically by mode and the average trip length.”
Analysis from the data would help inform recommendations to find ways to get people to use their automobiles less and shared transportation more.
On June 17, Jenkins asked the MPO-Tech Committee if they had any feedback on the study.
Ben Chambers, Charlottesville’s transportation planning manager, said his experience with Streetlight is that it does not adequately capture bike and pedestrian traffic so additional data could be pulled up from Strava and other sources. He said the city used Strava to help come up with a recent sidewalk prioritization list.
Chambers also said staff should reach out to the University of Virginia.
“You’re going to be focused on employer destinations so reaching out to [the University of Virginia Parking and Transportation] to make sure that you understand where their parkers and parking commuters are coming from,” Chambers said.
UVA last adopted a master plan for parking and transportation in July 2019 that has a ten year planning horizon. (view it)
“The Plan considers the existing conditions on Grounds as well as the University’s suburban setting, which shapes the travel choices of those accessing the University,” reads a section of the plan. “The Plan also takes into account the University’s role in the community as a regional provider of health care services as well as athletic, cultural, and academic events.”
The plan has 18 strategies to reduce the number of single occupant vehicles that travel to their many locations.
Bill Palmer in UVA’s Office of the Architect said UVA is always surveying employees to determine their willingness to move to some of the other forms. He said the price to park at UVA is high, but many don’t have an alternative.
“In our employee population, a lot of people just live not in a way that they can walk or take transit to work very easily, so you’re looking at doing carpool stuff,” Palmer said. “That’s a pretty effective strategy if you can figure out how to do it well.”
Jason Espie, a planner with Jaunt, said most of the people who use the agency’s commuter routes are doing so to get to work at UVA.
“I would love to know, are there more pockets of employees out there where we can like reach better,” Espie said. “In Greene county, right on the line there, are there a lot of people there who need to drive in?”
Albemarle Planning Commissioner Lonnie Murray said many UVA employees who do commute in have to drive through the city to get to parking lots.
“If the parking lot was like outside the city, like, you know, like at Fontaine or on the edge of the city, then there would actually be an incentive to take the bus,” Murray said.
Palmer noted that construction is underway of a parking structure at Fontaine to serve that purpose. Shuttle buses frequently will run from there to other locations across UVA’s ever-expanding grounds.
MPO briefing
The MPO got a briefing at their meeting on June 25 and heard the same information from Jenkins.
“The intention is to reduce vehicle miles traveled or VMT specifically within the Charlottesville downtown area, increase trips made by other modes, and enhance connections to our existing multimodal transportation,” said Taylor Jenkins, said Taylor Jenkins, director of transportation for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission.
“Some of the strategies that could be considered here could be related to land use policies, Rideshare parking programs,” Jenkins said. “It doesn’t just have to be infrastructure. We understand how all these things work together to encourage or discourage the mode that someone chooses to take.”
Albemarle Supervisor Ned Gallaway said one thing to consider is that there are people who have to drive into Charlottesville from outlying communities and then there are people who live here who drive alone as well.
“I’m just wondering, does this get at that conflict? Gallaway asked. “You can make the city as much of an alternative mode as you want, but you still have to deal with vehicle traffic.”
There will also be a public engagement portion of the work.
City Councilor Natalie Oschrin asked if certain information could be collected.
“If there’s a question that says, well, ‘would you prefer to live closer?’ that could be a data point, not necessarily for this study, but to be used in other studies about housing,” Oschrin said.
Jenkins and other staff will review the feedback from the MPO and come back at the next MPO meeting for a vote on whether to proceed.
Before you go: The first half of this story went out in the June 24, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. The second part will go out in the July 2, 2025 edition after this article has been posted. That’s because it pulls together information from two different meetings. Town Crier Productions is weird but hopefully useful.
Discover more from Information Charlottesville
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
