CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will hear and provide feedback on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission’s draft regional transit service priorities and implementation plan at Wednesday’s board meeting.

The planning process started in 2022 when the TJPDC released the Regional Transit Vision Plan to improve and expand public transportation across the Charlottesville region, according to the agenda briefing.

“Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT), Jaunt, UVA, Albemarle County, and BRITE have conducted transit studies recommending other service improvements as well,” the briefing said. “Following a recommendation from the Regional Transit Governance Study, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Transit Authority (CARTA) was activated in 2025.”

“That brings city and county together around transit decisions,” Albemarle Communications Director Abbey Stumpf told Cville Right Now. “So, for the county that includes Supervisors Mike Pruitt and Sally Duncan and then on the city side it’s Natalie Oschrin and Jen Fleisher. So, supervisors will be learning about a 12-month planning effort by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission to evaluate regional transit recommendations from previous plans and then build out a prioritized list.”

The draft itself was considered by the CARTA last month and pointed out the factors influencing transit use in surveys done over the past year are more frequent service as the most important for regular users, and proximity and accessibility for infrequent or non-users.

Top five route priorities scored in the draft in regard to equity, population density, and activity centers are CAT 7 New Emmet/Seminole Trail, CAT trolley, CAT 10 New Pantops, JAUNT Buckingham Connect, and CAT 3 Southwood/Belmont.

The afternoon meeting starts at 2:30 p.m.with a proclamation recognizing Sept. as World Alzheimer’s Month, and that’s following by a resolution recognizing Michie Tavern owner Greg MacDonald.

The resolution recognizes Michie Tavern as “one of the County’s oldest and most historically significant dining establishments, known for its welcoming environment, exceptional culinary experience, and contributions to its cultural heritage.”

The resolution acknowledges the establishment has been run by the Conte/MacDonald family for 58 years.

“Greg MacDonald has made meaningful and lasting contributions to Albemarle County through his dedication to historic preservation, tourism advancement, and the continued vitality of one of the County’s most treasured establishments,” the resolution said.

The resolution recognizes and honors him for his decades of leadership of the establishment. Michie Tavern was sold in July to local businessman Hasmukh Shah through Shah Family Holdings.

Supervisors will also get the report from the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors’ Bureau report regarding $1 billion of tourism spending in 2025.

In the evening meeting starting at 6 p.m., supervisors will consider a permit to fill in a floodplain area in association with a retaining wall and pump station for the Beaver Creek reservoir.

The second evening public hearing involves preparing a small half-acre piece of land in the northern section of the 462-acre Rivanna Futures parcel for potential development.

Supervisors will consider rezoning that land from the current “preserved steep slopes” to “managed steep slopes.”

Steep slopes are frequent considerations in Albemarle land parcels with a hilly and mountainous topography, Stumpf explained.

“It’s a technical reclassification of how a small section of a hillside can be disturbed during construction,” she said. “Preserved steep slopes are hillsides that are environmentally sensitive enough that they should stay basically untouched and they’re usually large or connected to big streams or things along those lines and you can’t really build on them. Managed steep slopes can be development with rules, so you can grade them, you can flatten them out so you can build on them. but you still need to follow basic standards and regulations to minimize erosion and manage storm water and things along those lines.”

There is no specific project planned for that parcel as the land is being zoned to maximize it to be ready for a developer that may want to locate there.