Transit Advisory Board Meeting 2026-03-11 (audio only) - Mar 11, 2026

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Loudoun County Board Committees and Advisory Boards 35 min 8 agenda items transcribed 3 days ago official recording ↗

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Who is the new Transit Program Manager and what role will they play?

Unknown 0:02

You're ready. All right. Well, I'm happy that everybody made it out in this beautiful weather we are experiencing. Lovely day, 6311 today. Thank you all for breaking the storm and showing up here. Let's call this meeting to order. Sarah, would you like to? Already introduced,

Joseph 0:25

uh, yes, uh, this is Joseph. Uh, he is our new hire working under Steven as, um. Go ahead and tell you the

Unknown 0:36

transit program manager. So.

Joseph 0:41

Uh,

Unknown 0:41

transit program manager.

Joseph 0:43

Yeah. Thank

Unknown 0:43

you. Thank you.

Joseph 0:44

He's been here just a couple of weeks. Yeah.

Unknown 0:47

Yeah. A few weeks.

Joseph 0:49

And he will be transitioning into the staff liaison role. So, um. My this meeting, I walked through everything and just had him observe the different steps that I take at the next meeting for May. It's my hope that he'll. Do those with a little bit more guidance for me and then maybe by the November meeting. It will be Oolong

Unknown 1:13

Joe. Hi. We have a good teacher. Yeah, I do, actually. Yes, right. Do we have any public comments? No, I'm just asking. Wonderful. Great. Moving right along. We have an approval of the January 14th business meeting minutes.

Joseph 1:41

I do have a correction to make Kevin had an opportunity to look over the minutes and in his public comment statement. They, he was talking about the route 3, 2, 2, rather than the route. 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, so I made that correction in the draft. That you are not seeing because I just made

Unknown 2:06

it. uh there

Joseph 2:28

was one that did you email that one to me you know i think

Unknown 2:37

Okay. Any other observation in the minutes? Do we have a motion to accept the minutes? Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, the vote is accepted. All right, so unanimous with Davis abstaining. Okay.

Why were the January 14th meeting minutes corrected and approved?

Unknown 3:40

What kinds of service and ridership updates? So, January, you know. Overall, if you look at the overall ridership. It looks kind of black from December, but keep in mind, we had a pretty significant impact operations in January. We lost a full week of commuter service. A lot of that loss had less to do with the roads and more to do with sidewalks, bus stops, particularly in DC. Uh, and fed, you know, uh, the federal workforce, uh. Status, you know, there was a lot of most of that week. Good part of that week they were on there were a couple of days they were closed and a couple of days around maximum telework for unscheduled telework for the whole week. So. Um, that combined with our bus stop conditions, I mean, generally when they're all telework, no one gets on the bus.

Unknown 4:38

So. With the challenges downtown where, I mean, we challenges such that we would have been dropping people in the street. Or they'd have been standing in the street waiting for us. So we just. Better to stay out quite honestly, a lot of operations down there were pretty badly affected by this state of the sidewalk. So. Got some interesting feedback from commuters. Um. That was, I feel like there's a bit of a change in the. federal approach to the workday that I think maybe have to do with the return to office. Over the past four years or so, if they said telework, everybody vaporized, you know, because they could. But the rules this year said unscheduled telework is authorized for those who are authorized to

Unknown 5:31

and authorized to telework, I think is a hinge pin there that we didn't fully grasp going into the winter. Because I think in the past, if you had the ability to telework, you could have telework. In the current work rules, it seems like if you're not authorized to telework, you're not allowed to telework, even on a stove, on those conditions. And this is a lot of me drawing inferences and getting some feedback from pastors. We have a few people call and say, hey, I got to get to work. And we were kind of, okay, well, so I think the next event, which will hopefully be next winter, still March, if the feds go to a maximum talent work and we can operate safely, I think we may stay in service and kind of see, you know, I never know what the date is if I don't run.

Unknown 6:21

You know, so I may the next time go ahead and run and see how many people get on the bus. We'll see. But it was a little bit interesting. It was definitely felt like it was a bit of a change.