News
Region 8 Council Meets to Consider Four Proposals
During their April 26 meeting at Blue Ridge Community College, the GO Virginia Region 8 Council will consider funding requests for four projects. Two projects are proposed to address impacts from the pandemic:
• The Shenandoah Valley Small Business Resiliency Team (SBRT) intends to deliver a second round of focused services to 60 businesses, particularly those in the hard-hit tourism and healthcare sectors. Services could include e-commerce, finance, or operational systems. SBRT is a partnership of Harrisonburg Economic Development, Frederick County Economic Development, Shenandoah Valley Small Business Development Center, and Lord Fairfax Small Business Development Center.
• The Next Gen Nurses project will address workforce shortages that have worsened during the pandemic. The project will leverage retiring nurses as clinical trainers to expand the pipeline of incoming nurses. Project partners include Shenandoah University, Valley Health, VDH Lord Fairfax District, and local governments.
A third project includes the Scaling Entrepreneurs through Experimentation and Design (SEED) project submitted by James Madison University. The purpose of the SEED project is to accelerate innovations by providing early-stage engineering and product design services. Proposed in downtown Harrisonburg, the project includes new space, equipment, and resources for entrepreneurs.
The final project, Accelerating Advance Manufacturing Workforce, was submitted by Lord Fairfax Community College Workforce Solutions. The project means to address the skills gap in the manufacturing sector by offering a training and credentialling and by directly connecting students with manufacturing employers.
GO Virginia is a state initiative led by local business, education, and government leaders. The mission of the GO Virginia Region 8 Council is to collaborate with regional stakeholders to fund grants that will foster private sector growth and create higher wage job opportunities throughout the Shenandoah Valley, thereby enhancing the lives of all who live and work in the region.
Bath-Highland Network Authority Meeting
The Bath-Highland Network Authority will hold a meeting at the Highland Center at 61 Highland Center Drive, Monterey, VA 24465 on April 11, 2022, at 1:00 p.m. For more information about the meeting, please contact Ms. Hunter Moore at 540-885-5174 ext. 118 or hunter@cspdc.org.
CSPDC Issues Notice of Award for On-Call Consultant Program
The CSPDC began reprocuring our On-Call Consultant program in 2021 and this month notice of decision to award was issued for nine selected firms. Created in 2012, the program provides the CSPDC, our 21 jurisdictions, and 2 Metropolitan Planning Organizations quick access to competitively procured consultants. While there are many benefits to the program, the most notable are reduced operational expenses and quicker turnaround on projects. A wide variety of planning and technical services can be obtained through the program and both the CSPDC and many of our region’s jurisdictions have successfully used our On-Call program. Additionally, selected transportation engineering consultants underwent VDOT’s pre-award audit, making them eligible for state and federally funded projects. Our new bench of consultants include:
1. Kimley – Horn & Associates (KHA)
2. A. Morton Thomas and Associates (AMT)
3 Timmons Group
4. Whitman, Requardt, & Associates (WRA)
5. Vanasse, Hangen, & Brustlin (VHB)
6. Draper Aden Associates (DAA)
7. Mangum Economics
8. Colley Architects
9. Launch! Consulting
The Federal Transit Administration Awards Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission with Bus and Bus Facilities Grant
~ Rehabilitating BRITE Transit’s transportation hub in downtown Staunton~
(STAUNTON): Last week, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced its award of $915,600 in Bus and Bus Facilities Program funding to BRITE Transit, a service of the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission (CSPDC). BRITE Transit provides bus service to seven localities in the Shenandoah region. The funding will enable the agency to rehabilitate its transit hub in Staunton, Virginia. CSPDC is providing a $45,600 local match accompanied by a $177,900 state match from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT).
“So many BRITE Transit riders pass through this parking lot each day. This grant enables us to create a safe, accessible, multimodal transit hub for them,” stated Bonnie Riedesel, Executive Director of the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission. “We look forward to our continued partnership with FTA, DRPT, and the City of Staunton to create a transit asset and public space that will benefit the BRITE System for years to come.”
The FTA Bus and Facilities grant program makes federal resources available to states and their direct recipients to replace or restore buses and associated bus facilities including innovation enhancements supporting low or no emission vehicles.
“This project is a prime example of how transit agencies can partner with DRPT to develop high-quality grant applications for discretionary federal funding. By leveraging a combination of local, state, and federal funding, agencies like CSPDC are helping improve, innovate, and modernize transit in Virginia,” stated Jennifer DeBruhl, Acting Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation. “As Virginians return to the office, we urge them to Rediscover Your Ride by choosing public transportation.”
The CSPDC transit hub rehabilitation project will redefine the surface parking lot with dedicated space for bus parking, an ADA-accessible passenger boarding and alighting platform, add vehicular parking for “kiss and ride” transit riders, and include passenger facilities like shelters, benches, and safety lighting. The project will also add an electrical conduit for electric vehicle charging stations. The project is anticipated to be completed over the next two years.
“This is wonderful news. The upgrades to the Lewis Street Hub are definitely needed. It will make it much easier to catch the bus and make transfers,” Becky Messer, BRITE passenger and BRITE Technical Advisory Committee member.
CSPDC Hosting Regional Roundtable on Main Street Resiliency
The CSPDC will host a regional roundtable focused on Main Street Resiliency on Thursday, April 7th at 9:00 a.m. Join the Regional Roundtable to learn pandemic recovery strategies for your downtown. Presentations by Matthew Wagner, Chief Program Officer at Main Street America, and Courtney Mailey, a Community Revitalization Specialist at Virginia Main Street, will cover current trends and best practices to support the economic recovery of local main streets. The CSPDC’s COVID-19 Economic Analysis concluded that downtown areas were most heavily impacted by the pandemic and will take longer to recover compared to the rest of the region. The analysis studied downtown areas in the following cities and towns: Staunton, Harrisonburg, Waynesboro, Buena Vista, Lexington, Bridgewater, Broadway, Monterey, and Hot Springs. Featuring research by Main Street America and Virginia Main Street, the CSPDC’s regional roundtable will provide takeaways applicable to all localities in the Central Shenandoah region.