Pruitt shares information on CARTA with fellow Albemarle Supervisors

2026 will mark the first full year of operations for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Transit Authority, a body created to fulfil one of the recommendations of a recent governance study.

At the group’s first meeting of the year, the four-member CARTA Board elected Scottsville District Supervisor Mike Pruitt as vice-chair. On February 4, he told his colleagues on the Board the organization is waiting on the results of a prioritization study.

“It feels like basically our ability to do work on CARTA is held up by the fact that we are waiting on the results of a study and the one that we discuss,” Pruitt said.

Supervisor Ann Mallek was in office in 2008 when talk of a regional transit authority led to legislation that allowed CARTA to be formed. It took until 2025 for that to happen. She wanted to know if there were conversations about who owns transit assets. That had been one of the sticking points in the past.

“Because if the authority is going to be doing stuff independently, it has to own the assets and run the operation as opposed to having it be a department of one jurisdiction or another,” Mallek said.

Deputy County Executive Ann Wall said there is no discussion of governance on CARTA at the moment. The immediate work plan is prioritization.

“That might be expanded routes, improved frequency of routes, expanding hours of operation, or specific kinds of transit opportunities like bus rapid transit, like BRT,” Wall said.

Wall said governance might be a topic for CARTA in the future. None of the existing service providers are members of CARTA but staff are invited to make presentations.

“The purpose of CARTA early on in these initial phases was really to be an opportunity to assist with additional revenue to improve transit in the community,” Wall said.

CARTA next meets on March 26.

Before then, Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders will have released his recommended budget for FY27 and one item is a request for an additional $2.2 million in funding for Charlottesville Area Transit which is wholly owned by the city. Among other things, this funding would cover the hiring of an additional ten drivers and five support staff.

This would be the first phase of a four-year plan to gradually increase the number of drivers as I reported in December. Council got a briefing at a work session on January 29.

“Transit has been a conversation, a pretty hefty conversation for the past few years,” Sanders said. “The desire was for us to be able to realize in this budget this year a significant step forward, forward and in improving transit service for our region, for our community.”

Sanders said some of the $2.2 million would be covered by Albemarle County. This first phase would increase headways on Route 7 and the trolley-style bus route to every 15 minutes during weekdays.

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