Charlottesville is one of several localities across the Commonwealth of Virginia that administers its own transportation projects which means overseeing design, right-of-way purchase, and construction.
In 2024, the Virginia Department of Transportation rated the city’s efforts as “deficient” under a performance policy adopted by the Commonwealth Transportation Board the previous October.
“We were having problems over a number of years with some of the localities not being timely and getting things done,” said Shep Miller, Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation.
Miller said the goal of the program is not to penalize localities but to make sure they can deliver projects.
“Everything that I’ve heard from the localities that have been under the microscope, if you will, has been positive, not negative,” Miller said.
In all there are 83 localities that administer projects through VDOT’s Six-Year Improvement Program with a total of $2.53 billion. That money adds up and the Locality Sustained Performance Program is intended to help ensure the funds are used effectively.
“That policy requires an annual review to the Board and directs the Department to use the metrics alongside our dashboard to measure the programmatic success of localities having the greatest impact on the Six-Year Improvement Program,” said Terry Short of VDOT’s Local Assistance Division. “It also requires the Department using the results of LSPP to make recommendations to the Board regarding future allocations.”
The program tracks on-time performance, whether progress is being met, and how the locality is managing the funding. The goal of the latter is to minimize the amount that goes unspent.
“Every day that those allocations are not expended only increases the cost to deliver that project,” Short said. “Plus we have deadlines for the expenditures, federal funds that provide us very little flexibility.”
To attempt to remove the “deficient” tag, a locality such as Charlottesville has to work with VDOT to develop a project development improvement plan to identify root causes. Short said there are some commonalities among those who aren’t up to the agency’s standards.
“Some localities just frankly had too many projects in their portfolios to manage effectively, while others have significant issues with getting right away phases and working with utility companies,” Short said. “Many identify the lack of contractors and even in house staff to support the portfolio that they were attempting to manage.”
One corrective action is to cancel projects which Charlottesville has done with the termination of a second phase of a streetscape for Emmet Street that the CTB accepted in December 2024.
In FY2024, there were 13 localities were considered deficient and three of them successfully mitigated their way out of that status during the evaluation in FY2025. Another two will be removed in the current performance year.
Charlottesville will remain deficient because as of November 2025 it still has not met the on-time, reasonable progress, or fiscal management metrics. Short acknowledged there has been progress.
“This is their third year on the list, but, you know, they’ve taken considerable steps to close the gap on their outstanding project portfolio, Including foregoing applications this year for revenue sharing and [transportation alternatives] entirely so that they can continue to focus on their backlog of projects,” Short said.
A new project development improvement plan will be created early next year. The city has been planning to apply for funding through VDOT’s Smart Scale process to reconstruct the interchange of West Main, Ridge Street, and McIntire Road.
Before you go: Paid subscribers cover the cost of conducting research for this article which was originally published in the December 10, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can either subscribe through Substack, make a monthly contribution through Patreon, or consider becoming a sponsor. The goal of Town Crier Productions is to increase awareness about what is happening at the local, regional, state, and federal government levels. Please share the work with others if you want people to know things.
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