The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Peter Krebs Of The Piedmont Environmental Council Joined Jerry Miller On The I Love CVille Show!

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Peter Krebs, Piedmont Environmental Council State Of Charlottesville – How Is CVille Doing? N. Oschrin: Sidewalks, Bike Lanes & Road Diet 12 Reasons Biscuit Run Greenway Is Great Idea Parking Solar & Outdoors Act – General Assembly Amazon Investing $11 Billion Into Louisa County Learn About Data Centers From PEC Tonight Register For The 3/21 Active Mobility Summit Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Peter Krebs, Community Organizer for The Piedmont Environmental Council, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville show. I've been looking forward to today's program for, I don't know, four or five days now since we lined this up late last week on the program. Peter Krebs is in the house. He's in the studio. He's behind the mic. He's on set. This guy knows the community inside and out. Piedmont Environmental Council, lucky to have him. Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and Central Virginia, lucky to have him. Take a look at the screen for some of the topics we'll cover when Peter Krebs is in the house. You, the viewer and listener, often provide topics that really get the conversation going and flowing in the right direction. We'll spend the next 45 minutes with a man who needs very

little introduction, but we're going to do it anyway. Judah, if you can go to the studio camera and welcome the dapper, the distinguished, the well-read, the well-spoken community watchdog, community leader, a champion of the outdoors, of biking, of walking, of the Rivanna River, the Rivanna Trail, of live music, of local business. I can continue. My friend, good Tuesday afternoon to you. Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. We connected last week on social, and we get to my favorite aspect of social media, turning digital into real-life conversation, and we'll get straight into the nitty-gritty. We got Biscuit Run and the Greenway

that a lot of folks are talking about. We have Natalie Orsharan, the newly minted city counselor, utilizing terminology like road diet and improved sidewalks and bike lanes, which we love. We got a parking solar bill in front of the General Assembly, the Virginia Great Outdoors Act in front of the General Assembly. PEC's got a learning opportunity tonight about data centers, which we'll cover on the program. A lot we want to get to, but first I'll get out of your way. What is your state of the union

when it comes to Charlottesville, Virginia right now? Well, first of all, thank you for having me. You know, I think the state of Charlottesville is actually positive. And it's not only because we have legitimate winter weather, which I was a little bit afraid in December. It was awfully warm. But January, we had some, like, decent weather. Sorry, my dad's a meteorologist,

so I'm very comfortable being on camera talking about the weather. Sorry, my dad's a meteorologist, so I'm very comfortable being on camera talking about the weather. And just how can you not be cheerful when it's bright and sunny outside? But also, both Charlottesville and Albemarle are on pretty good trajectories. There's some cool stuff happening. For Charlottesville, the challenge, I think, is there have been a couple of challenges. Got the comp plan, got the rezoning like under our belt, able to get going with the implementation. And I think everybody agrees that there's a lot of implementing that needs to happen before the whole thing will work. But at the city government, we talked a little bit about Sam was new,

I think, last time when I was here. Sam Sanders, city manager. Correct. And the staff of the city has been kitted out a little bit since then. That's been a work in progress, and there are a couple of key people who are now sort of getting going and starting to kick butt. I'm happy with what's happening

in terms of the transportation group with Ben Chambers, Tommy Safranek being added as a bike pad coordinator, and we still are fortunate to have Kyle Rodland on board having a bike pad coordinator. So thinking about ways that the city punches above its weight class, I think that's a phrase we hear a lot. Within the transportation team, I think they're well set up. And everybody would agree now it's time to get to work. How would you, John Blair, watching the program in Stanton, we love you, John Blair. Ginny Hu, thank you for the retweet.

Logan Wells-Klela, welcome to the program. TV station down the road watching us right here on the I Love Seville Network. How would you characterize or grade right now at this moment the bicycle and pedestrian opportunities, safety, bike lanes and sidewalks in totality? Where would you put us on a grading scale? I think where we are as far as having a safe, connected network, I think we're like a D. Not where we want to be in terms of feeling like there's a bunch of good seeds planted, good soil conditions. You know, as an environmentalist,

I guess I look at what's going on under the ground as well. I see some good things going on, some good prospects. I think there are some exciting new postures that the city is taking. Like for the last more than a year, the city has not been letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and they're getting some key things locked in without having to wait for the decade it takes to get like VDOT. Well, I'm thinking about some of the safe routes to school interventions that are taking place.

And some of those are actually people interventions. So, for example, I was driving down Fifth Street or down Ridge toward Fifth Street, and I was able to wave at the crossing guard that was there on Ridge Street. And Ridge Street is scheduled for some major upgrades through a VDOT smart scale grant, which it's going to be many years before those upgrades are in place. But we got a crossing guard there to help in the meantime. Or then there's also sort of the small but annoying things

that make the whole thing fail that are being addressed. So there's a little sidewalk on High Street in front of, I believe it's an AT&T facility. That entire corridor, because of that hundred yards or so of missing sidewalk, was a total nightmare for someone in a wheelchair. We got to give some props to Kevin Cox. Oh yeah. This gentleman has been going to bat big time for sidewalks, for transportation, High Street in particular. I think Kevin Cox is watching the program right now. He deserves some credit.

Big time. And he's been at it for a long time. Yes, he has. It would not be accurate to say Kevin picked up the phone and got a result. He has been working on that problem for like a decade, and it's bearing fruit. And thank goodness that he stuck with it. I've called High Street the most underappreciated, underdeveloped, disrespected quarter in the city a number of times on this program. Agree or disagree with that. And it's a perfect segue into the city buying Zero Ease High Street from Wendell Wood,

taking housing out of the ecosystem at a time of upzoning, but preserving the Rivanna River and all its fruits and glory. Anywhere you want to go on those two topics? Oh, man, there's a whole bunch there. And I think there are other corridors that would like a word with you about being the worst corridors in the region. But maybe we'll leave that for another time. I would love to know. I would love to know your corridors.

Well, I think 29 would like a word with you. Okay. I give you that. I give you that. 29's a cluster. You know, 5th Street Extended at 64 would like a word. Extremely dangerous corridor, that one right there. Absolutely and you know I mentioned very quickly the county that's an area that the county's going

to be focusing on with extreme focus for the next couple years so put a pin on that for later but back to Zero East High Street. First of all, I believe I was one of the few advocates who was very much on record with Zero High Street apart from the site conditions being a great place to have housing like that.

Part of town is where we absolutely should have housing. I think you were the first to speak on record about it. You spoke, I believe, in front of city council as well. And interestingly, many of your takes were soon embraced or echoed by the urbanist group Livable Charlottesville. Well, and I can't say that I was ahead of them with it. It just happened I got quoted before they did.

So they've been doing their work for a long time and doing it well i don't think the ship has sailed on having any housing there really but the ship has sailed on wendell's project thank god but um yeah i don't think it's it's a foregone conclusion that um there could be some housing after all there are existing houses on some part, some adjoining parcels. So I don't think it's impossible to have housing, but that project was absolutely incompatible with the city's goals in many different ways. Do you think it was a genuine play by the developer, Wendell Wood? I don't think it was a serious proposal. I think he was serious in trying to accomplish certain goals, but not necessarily that one. Well, you have to let me unpack that.

Does that mean the financial exit he received was his primary goal, in your opinion? I think deaccessioning the property in some kind of way from his inventory was probably some kind of important goal for him. I can't speak to what's in another human's head. It's likely that, like all of us, he had multiple competing priorities. But I think unloading that property from the inventory was a significant motivator. Peter Krebs, dropping dimes here on the program. He's fantastic at what he does. I'll throw this to you here.

The Rivanna Trail, the Rivanna River, hand in hand. We have a potential connector on the south side of Charlottesville and southern Alamaro County with the Biscuit Run Greenway. I'm on record on this talk show loving this. Late last week, you put together a top 12 list on the fly during the program, made the show better last week. I think he's got his top 12 list. Judah's even getting a chuckle over there. And getting a chuckle out of Judah is difficult. 12 reasons why you think Biscuit Run Greenway is a good thing for the neighborhoods around it

and also for the city of Charlottesville. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was driving. And I was listening to the show while I was driving. I pulled over into the Mickey Tavern parking lot and banged out that top list. That was impressive. Yes. So definitely.

First, I need to take my hat off to the county. I'm not going to do it because my hair is terrible underneath. But figuratively speaking, hats off to the county and to the Foxcroft and Mill Creek residents for showing up, all of them in good numbers. At Monticello High School last Thursday. Correct. Last Wednesday. Sorry, last Thursday at Monticello High School. A lot of people there and a significant proportion of residents were there.

Great discussion, a very honest discussion, a lot of questions that were asked. Some opinions were shared. And that process had sort of been a little bit on ice since the pandemic. And I believe the purpose of that gathering was to bring the project back into the public eye a little bit to reinvigorate discussions. As I said, good exchange of ideas, and now it's important for the county to sit down with their yellow legal pad and have a serious-minded negotiation with both of the two HOAs. Which is what, Mill Creek and Foxcroft?

Foxcroft and Mill Creek, that's correct. And hopefully come to very similar agreements with both HOAs. Now, both HOAs don't have exactly the same questions, concerns. So, for example, Foxcroft has a community center right next to the trailhead, and they don't want people filling up their community center's parking lot trying to get to the park.

Totally reasonable. Mill Creek, on the other hand, they might be more interested in land use that's happening on and around the park. After all, they border Biscuit Run Park, whereas Foxcroft doesn't border the actual Biscuit Run Park. So not exactly the same negotiation, but it should be the same type of trail with the same rules and understandings in both sectors.

We have a Mill Creek, and I won't utilize her name. She's a key member of the family, a Mill Creek resident, Mill Creek South specifically watching the program. I won't utilize her name. She said, most of us want Biscuit Run because we are tired of people parking illegally in our neighborhood to access the trails. However, our biggest concern is will this bring in more people who, let's just say, are using the trails to However, our biggest concern is will this bring in more people who, let's just say,

are using the trails to make some bad decisions. Those folks sometimes wander into the neighborhood and that can make families with small children uncomfortable. Just for the record, she is in favor of the biscuit-run greenway, but she is highlighting that point. We'll go to Neil Williamson next. Your thoughts on that comment? Yeah, uh our approach for at least the entire time that i've been working on this project is that the goal is to have an outcome that really benefits the residents of foxcroft and mill creek first and foremost after all it is on their land so um absolutely uh we we have sort of here's a reason

one of the reasons why I give Charlottesville a D for its connectivity is we depend a lot on these informal arrangements where it's not really clear whether where a trail leads or how you get from A to B or how you're supposed to behave in a given situation and what's okay.

And when it's not clear what's okay, then sometimes things that are not okay become a little bit more likely to happen. And by having that space be managed with intentionality, and so, for example, to the question of people wandering around, we can have a comprehensive system of signage to keep people from getting lost and to make clear, this area is for you, This area is for the residents.

And similarly, having really a level of investment that only the county can make, I don't think it's really fair to expect the residents through their homeowners dues to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of a trail that the entire community is using. That just isn't fair to them. Having the county do the maintenance, have the county handle security through the ACPD, that's huge. Like they can't go back there because the PD would be trespassing right now. By having it be part of a trail, it becomes part of the regular patrol. And so again, like getting out of this sort of gray area of connectivity into a more like cut and dry about what's okay and what's expected and, you know, what's for you. I think, you know, if I was trying to manage the perception of this challenge and the primary business we're in is perception management or brain management,

I would position it in a way when this trail is executed and done the right way, it's going to drive, I think, significant value for the homes in those neighborhoods. Yeah, so there actually is pretty solid research. Very solid research. Yeah, and interestingly, the boost in property values decreases as you move away from the trailhead. So not surprisingly, a lot of the questions, concerns from attendees last Thursday were about people who live right there, right? It seems like they ought to be the most impacted.

But it turns out that the impact is strongly positive and correlates to proximity. And I think that... In financial gain of property. In financial gain. But I think also thinking about it from a little bit broader idea of what economics is. So the money thing, it's nice. I'm sure it's good to have a little bit of economic boost. The reason behind that increase is what's interesting to me. It speaks pretty directly to a quality of life. It's a more desirable place for the reasons you went into last week.

It's a great place to walk. You could let your kids run out the door and into a park. Get some off-screen exercise. Off-screen exercise. And it's a better place to live when you're next to a trail. And that's why the property value is boosted a little bit. It's like in the 10% to 15% range. It's not going to transform somebody's property, but it is going to have a measurable impact.

I think that's pretty significant. Neil Williamson, president of the Free Enterprise Forum, watching the program. Question specifically for Peter. Neil says, I'm curious what Peter thinks about allowing nonprofits to build affordable housing around state-owned biscuit-run park. Well, I think we have an extraordinarily national-level effort to that kind happening in Southwood, right? I mean, hopefully you have folks from Habitat on here occasionally, but what's happening at Habitat, or what's happening at Southwood,

via Habitat and via the leadership of Habitat residents is phenomenal. And this is also an area where I've been actually pretty vocal and pretty out front about the importance of connecting Southwood to Biscuit Run. And I was just asking a friend of mine about the county's CIP, proposed CIP. We're hoping this next round of county CIPs can include monies for this bridge that we've proposed connecting Southwood to Bisco Run Park for precisely the... I know Neil pretty well, but I can't read his mind,

but, like, folks living in places like Southwood benefit maybe the most of all for proximity to the park. 100%. So let's get them connected. 100%. Having the folks get them connected. 100%. Having the folks in Southwood having access to Biscuit Run Park is a no-brainer slam dunk

and I would say it's almost deserved. So thank you for the softball, Neil. I owe you one. Yeah, yeah. I think he was doing that. So the homeowner in Mill Creek South said the signage will definitely help. We've even had neighbors get lost back there.

Officer patrols would be great, and she welcomes having the Alamaro County Police Department patrolling the trails there. Phillip Dow is watching in Scottsville. He says, I can see there will be a parking issue for this trail. I can see it being similar to the Monticello Trail where you see cars parking on 20 coming into town. We see that on the Monticello Trail all the time, especially in the spring and the summer when the weather is nice. And, you know, of course, my big thing that got me into this work in the first place was connecting the Monticello Trail to Charlottesville and PVCC. So you don't need to park at that little trailhead anymore. Right. Well said.

Comments coming in fast and furious here for Peter Krebs. And we promised we're going to bring up the road diet. The viewers and listeners are, in fact, why don't we go to it now? The viewers and listeners are beating us to the road diet. It came up a couple of weeks ago. Judah brought it up after reading the article, the profile in the Daily Progress on Natalie Ulshren, newly minted city councilor, the second youngest on the dais, Michael Payne being the youngest. She was quoted in the newspaper as being in favor of a road diet. She alludes by making the roads in the city more narrow, and the city owns the roads. By making the roads more narrow, the research shows that it makes transportation safer.

She also alludes by making the roads narrow, aka a road diet, we could utilize the additional space for bike lanes and improve sidewalks for better pedestrian enjoyment, if you may. Your thoughts on all this. Yeah. So, you know, all the time people say, like, why can't we be more like, I don't know, Boulder or a lot of places out west? Well, we don't have vast amounts of land to play with. And we are actually fortunate in Charlottesville. We don't have many vast, overbuilt roads, but our roads are indeed overbuilt. And because we can't necessarily add more right-of-way, we have to be much smarter with the right-of-way that we do have.

And so having narrower lanes reduces speed of vehicles, and there are important thresholds where speed and safety come together. People are far more likely to survive a collision if it's in the 20-mile-an-hour range as opposed to the 35-mile-an-hour range. And we know that most people don't pay attention to a speed limit sign, so you have to use other ways to limit speed. And actually, one of the best ways to do that is to narrow down the lanes. So that makes the roads safer for people driving in cars.

It's a good idea already to do that. But it also frees up real estate that can be used for more productive things than encouraging people to drive fast through the middle of the city judah if you uh neil williamson shares a link of what a road diet with a graphic you know you're making the program better it's on the i love seville facebook group the group not the page and he shares a link that shows a road diet image i'll show it to peter yeah so he can talk about this here can you i can see that perfectly. Jude, if you could grab this and give us a thumbs up when it's on screen

so the viewers and listeners can also see what a road diet would look like. For example, Vanessa Parkhill, which she's a key member of our viewer and listenership family, she is vehemently opposed to the road diet and does the thumbs down emoji on screen here. I'm seeing it from others as well. Perhaps the road diet needs better brand equity or explanation or perception management. Because maybe if you put that graphic on screen, it will help the viewers and listeners. Peter, anywhere you want to go on this? So that's a good start. With that graphic, I might even consider removing the suicide lane from that as well and using that real estate more productively also. Is the suicide lane the turning lane?

The middle, the double turning lane. But the principle is there. And so I think to Natalie's point, she was talking about having protected bike lanes. So grabbing a little bit more extra real estate and using that for a separation between the vehicle lane and the bike lane would be ideal. people thumbs downing that graphic simply because they don't want to be in a car, in a bike, with only a stripe between them and the vehicle. And the graphic is on screen that Neil Williamson just shared, Judah moving mountains on the program. They're seeing this graphic now. The suicide lane is on the right. It's in the right side of the graphic. It's the turning lane in the middle. Interestingly, and a lot of people do not know about this the only reason I learned about this

is because my wife and I looked at a home on Barracks Road that was on the market this is being this is going to be a reality on Barracks Road the city is going to take a portion and it's including some of land owners property on Barracks Road

and in fact I'll see if I can find the website for this including some of landowners' property on Barracks Road. And, in fact, I'll see if I can find the website for this, to narrow the road and put bicycle lanes and better walking paths on Barracks Road to create connectivity on Barracks Road to the rest of the city. They're also doing some interesting things with taking away the left turn into the shopping center which is meadow brook across from barracks road shopping center i'm sure you follow this as closely as i i mean better than i do yeah so i believe that's the project that is is um on the steep hill dropping down to emmett street 100 and the website is barracksemmittimprovements.com for those that want to know. So that project's going to

have a completely off-road climbing lane. Sort of like they have at Beer Run right now. So get in the bikes that are, I mean, let's be real, going like six miles an hour trying to climb up that grade,

just get them off the street entirely and onto a protected facility. But so I think we're not here to slay the messenger of that graphic, right? The principle, though, and again, Natalie was pretty specific about having protected facilities, like the more you're a vulnerable user, the more your elder or a child or female or black or any of the vulnerable road users, the more it's protected, the more it's not mixing with automobiles, the better. One of the principles that we're seeing and being applied to transportation planning across the board is a focus on eliminating deaths

and reducing serious injuries to the smallest number possible. So that's one of the reasons roundabouts have proliferated. You see a decent amount of fender benders on roundabouts, but you don't see people being T-boned and killed on roundabouts. So this protection of human life is something that I'm all for. Comments are coming in fast on this. Bill McChesney, the mayor of McIntyre, watching the program right now. Bill McChesney says a road diet and the goals of up zoning are not compatible. Without parking requirements, on-street parking will be absolutely overwhelmed. Do you want to unpack that one, Peter?

So I haven't seen data that justifies that. Places where some of the densest places on the planet have done road diets. It's actually less dense communities like ours that are sort of trailing indicators when it comes to road diets. And we simply have not seen a parking apocalypse happen in places where road diets have happened this is from deep go ahead i i mean i'd be interested to read case studies but i just haven't seen them um deep throat number one in the family watching the program for peter on the road diet does anyone have a complete map of lane whiffs in charlesville i have never seen one in the city's open data

portal road shape file is clearly non- on road width. How can we talk about this stuff with no knowledge of actual lane widths? I don't see how we go below 10 feet on lane width, and if we intend to have a lot of bus transit, 10 feet lane is going to be very tight. So that's going to be a question for the city. I can't speak to what their GIS resources are. But I will say, though, that any modification of a road profile is going to include down-to-the-inch measurement. The intensity of resources that need to be mustered to make these projects happen don't comport well with being done in a fly-by-night kind of way. This is a great question here from Jennifer. I love the viewers and listeners. She says, can your guests help us understand the advantages and disadvantages of owning the roads

like the city does versus what the county does with the relationship with VDOT? Hell of a question. That is a hell of a question. And I'm not really, I pay attention a little bit more than maybe most people, but I'm not... 100% you do. I'm not super, like, certified to give a great answer to that. I will say that the city... The city can be more accountable to its residents because it has to own its problems. It can't just point the finger to VDOT.

And then when you point the finger to VDOT, there's all kinds of finger pointing that can go all the way up to the secretary of transportation. And I come from a family of civil servants, but I don't at all love it. I will say that mildly when I see somebody sort of finger pointing, saying, I'd love to help you, but this other thing is keeping us from helping you right so in principle having like less layers gives the city greater accountability on the flip side charlottesville is a place where we have justifiably high expectations. And we live in a pretty small city that has lots of resources, but not infinitely many resources. So having dealt with the city and the county both,

I have observed advantages and disadvantages of both ways but the accountability I think is is a little bit tighter on on the city side downside you know we I opened the show talking about how the city had some real staffing up that's needed to happen over the last couple years. And I don't think I'm speaking out of school to say that over the last five, ten years, the city has had the oomph that it's needed to manage a lot of its own projects. I'm so excited to see the Belmont Bridge about to open. And speaking of road diets, we've had a road diet on the Belmont Bridge now for three or four years, and it has not been a traffic-opelix. You know, it seems to have worked.

And I wish that some of the projects that I've been watching for as long as I've been watching the Belmont Bridge, like the Barracks Road streetscape improvement that you mentioned, or Emmett Street, or Fontaine, or I already mentioned Ridge, all these other projects have sort of been languishing. High Street is another one. Many of the projects do languish i'm still waiting for the west main streetscape project to become a reality i think that funding has now gone away so yeah so um which is unfortunate excited to see some of that going but that is sort of actually one of the things that's exciting where I was talking about the city not really necessarily waiting

for the decade-long solution. So I've heard rumors that the city is going to take another stab at West Main Street by road diet rather than having a 40 million million decade-long transportation infrastructure project. That's fresh news to me here. Can you unpack that for me? Well, so... I did not know this. Not every element of the West Main streetscape required digging up pavement.

Some of it was just thinking differently about where lanes are organized. And actually, you mentioned Livable Seville. One of their very energized and real leaders from Livable Seville sort of digested a post-mortem of the West Main Street debacle. Was this Johnson or Gilligan? It was actually neither one. I believe it was Andy Orban.

Forgive me, Andy, if I'm misattributing something to you, but I'm thinking it was him. I believe an architect and an avid bicycle rider. Yeah. Don't know. Okay. Yeah, so he put forward a proposal like, okay, so let's play with some paint

and see what we could do now to make things not perfect, but much better. I think we might be not, hopefully I'm not outing anything here, but I think we might see something like that rolling out in the next year or so. Wow. You wouldn't say this unless you had a connection with it.

Which would be way quicker than West Main, even if it had been properly funded. A devil's advocate for the sake of a talk show. If Heather Hill was here, a former city councilor, she would be very much championing the West Main Streetscape Project, which was one of her calling cards when she was on the dais. That West Main Street Skate Project had funding, if memory serves correct.

Was it state and university funding contributing to this? And local funds. And local funding. And that funding, that money, had a time stamp or an expiration date on it, which has since passed? So I think there was the... There were a couple things that kind of came together to make that project sort of dissolve, but the lack of project management wherewithal.

That was one. Also, if memory serves correct, school reconfiguration at Buford was prioritized over the West Main Streetscape project? Yeah, so I think if the project, I don't think that was fatal. After all, monies that we didn't know about back then did materialize for the reconfiguration. And it was knowable that monies could materialize if we looked hard enough. The question is,

do we do that work to mobilize monies for a project that we're not going to be able to manage to completion? And justifiably, VDOT had its doubts. And remember here I was talking about like minimizing the number of like dependencies you have on different things. There it was just not enough to keep it going. And Heather's right. When you look at the bike pad master plan, I think that was like number one on the priorities list. And I want to highlight this.

Former counselor Heather Hill, who we routinely see, and in fact we saw her last week right in front of the studio, lives in the city, obviously she was a city counselor, and is a very active runner around the city so she is like running the streets for exercise and understands pedestrian safety extremely well because she is utilizing them to stay in shape neil shares this from the federal highway administration while road diets can improve safety and accommodate motorized and non-motorized transportation models along a corridor, they may not be appropriate or feasible in all locations.

Dan Pettit, mustache Dan Pettit, who we've monikered, says, how would a fire truck handle narrow roads with cars parked on both sides? Do they complain at all? How do they make it through? Janice Boyce-Trevillian watching the program. Vanessa Parkhill highlights the Park Street project being a travesty. She's talking about the Park Street by the bypass, which could back up from time to time. Beautiful thing about this talk show is we don't mind if folks agree to disagree, just as long as it's done in respectful fashion. Trey Barham watching the program. Deep Throat, who is extremely active civically and speaking in front of the council and sending emails to local government. He says, let me add that my interactions with VDOT have been miles better than my interactions with Charlottesville's traffic engineer.

So he's offering that perspective here. The show is on fire here. We're 45 minutes in. I threw a lot to you. Anywhere you want to go. And then we're going to have to go quick hitters. Time flies with my friend Peter Krabs. Yeah. So one of the things that I learned when I was working, when I started working is some people were like, oh, I feel sorry for you.

You have to deal with VDOT. And there's a lot of different VDOT, right? Like, it's a huge organization, and, you know, I've really had great interactions with the local residency in the Culpeper district. So back at the time that West Main Street went away, people were saying, like, man, if we only had the model that the county has for who manages transportation projects, we wouldn't be stuck. So after all, West Main Street was a mega project, right? Fell apart.

A lot of cooks in the kitchen on that project. RIO 29 mega project, and it went great in the county. Hydraulic 29 mega project, not flying as well as RIO 29, but I'm so excited where they're about to break ground on the pedestrian bridge i think yesterday i drove by them breaking ground on the the turn lane improvements that are happening at hydraulic 29 so like hydraulic 29 and west main about the same age as projects go. The one which is being managed by VDOT is getting rolling and the one that was not managed by VDOT is languishing. So, you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I love the conversation with this man so much.

I'm going to go long and unfortunately I'm going to do what Peter highlighted earlier in the program, not obey speed limit signs to make my next meeting, which is in Alamaro County. But I want to go along with Peter Krebs here. He's cringing right now with me making that statement, but I want to highlight you so much. My tongue is a speed governor. It can only go 28 miles an hour. I have no doubt that you maintain the it. All the time. Peter, I'm going to throw this to you here. Let's talk General Assembly, a parking solar bill. And is it the Great Virginia Outdoor Act bill?

The Virginia Great Outdoors Act. Let's talk about that first. Please. So the Gold Apple that PC and other organizations have been reaching for for a long time is a dedicated source of year for trails and park access and other conservation projects. So this is going to be a big source of funds for the new Virginia Trail office, for example. We're very excited about that. That's going to be a game changer for the Commonwealth. You also mentioned the parking lot solar bill. Actually, Virginia, people ask me all the time, Peter, why don't they put solar over

parking lots? It makes sense in so many reasons. It keeps the car out of the sun. It keeps the car from getting frosted. It makes it shadier for people to live. And it keeps the pavement from absorbing heat and creating a heat island. And by the way, it's a major way to collect solar energy to help with our climate goals. Virginia is actually pretty far behind in implementing that stuff. This new bill will help it move forward a little bit. And then there's also a bill that, or a couple bills actually, which will do a better job of controlling the impacts of data centers coming into Virginia. And I want to talk more about that in just a second. But I'm going to give you a URL, which I'll drop in the chat in a second.

But if you want to learn more about the couple of items I mentioned, you can go to pecva.org slash well, just go there and you'll be able to navigate to the Action Center. I'll put a link to that in the chat. And also, the Statewide Alliance of Conservation Orgs, which is the Virginia

Conservation Network, has a bill tracker page, which I'll link in the chat, that has like 30 awesome bills that the General Assembly is looking at right now. This man tracks the General Assembly closely. One of our favorite viewers and listeners that watches the program, Jim Hingley, really tracks the General Assembly closely. Did you have a chance, J-Dubs, to respond to that email so we could book the guests, the suggestion from Mr. Hingley for the program? No.

We'll take care of that. I'm going to throw this to you here. We'll go four minutes. I'm going to be going a little faster than I should here. Okay. But I want to pick this man's brain here. $11 billion, Amazon, Louisa County, multiple data centers. Right. I haven't had a chance to ask you

or talk with you about this. Anywhere you want to go. Okay. So Louisa is outside my service area, and I haven't studied that project closely. It's not something that PC is in favor of. There's, broadly speaking, a couple of reasons why data centers are, we think, bad news. First of all, their industrial uses that blow out the environment in so many ways. They're full of impervious surfaces. Their backup generators generate pollution from their diesel generators. They require power lines that cut swaths through the environment, breaking up forests and creating lots of edge conditions, which is what wrecks forests and encourages the spread of invasive species.

They use a tremendous amount of water to keep them cool. But the worst thing about it actually is the amount of power that they consume. So this is a complicated issue, and I'm going to try to say it simply, and hopefully I'll get it right here. But basically, the Virginia Clean Economy Act set forth a set of goals where within our lifetimes, Virginia will be able to meet its projected electricity demand through renewable resources.

Yay, that's going to help us get ahead of climate change. Unfortunately, the data center industry will also use something like the projected amount of required energy within that same time and that was not accounted for in the Clean Economy Act. So what that means is that it is likely that Dominion will keep online those polluting current power plants and build other unclean power plants. It's terrifying. So yes, we'll have clean energy, which is great, but we're still going to have the dirty energy

producing power plants in the future. And it's mainly because of data centers. And data centers do a little bit help with cloud computing, but those are not the main... Cloud computing is not the main reason for data centers. Crypto and AI are actually the main users of the new data centers that are coming online. Which is something the data center guys do not want out there.

But he's 100%. They're managing perception here. And they're also managing it, and I fall victim to this, under the disguise of an economy driver and a job creation inspirer, which is basically brand management. Randy O'Neill is watching the program. Those funds are a gross misuse of funds. Confusing transportation with health and wellness is a

failing strategy. These small not-for-profits perpetuate a nice payroll for an executive class of lobbyists. Media patronage jobs. 100 million is a sick number. He's watching the program here. A lot of comments coming in. We are not going to

get to all these comments on today's program. We will invite Peter Krebs back, but I have to give the man the floor to talk about the registration for the March 21st Active Mobility Summit and a fantastic event tonight that PEC is hosting about data centers. Okay, so I just had a mini rant about data centers, so we'll start with that one. So tonight, PEC is hosting an event here in Charlottesville where people can learn all about the data centers that could be coming to our community

and the energy implications. That'll be tonight at the Jefferson School, 6.30 to 8 p.m. You can sign up for that at pecva.org slash events. Okay? So there's that. And then I'm super excited, and hopefully you'll have me back closer to the event, about our March 21st Active Mobility Summit,

which will be an opportunity for people working on trails, sidewalks, biking, walking, tourism, you know, health, everybody that's working on active lifestyles and active mobility to come together March 21 at the wool factory to You know create new partnerships and to celebrate work and chart a good path forward for a more connected community You could sign up for that either at pekva.org slash events or pekva.org Slash mobility summit. I'll drop those both in the chat I tagged you on three of the pages that had the most engagement. It aired on 15 Facebooks, all over Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Instagram. Neil, I'm tagging Peter on the comments that just came in here.

You are a talk show host's dream. I sincerely mean that, dude. I love the show. 55 minutes straight and we didn't even get to everything. Not even close. It's always the case when he's on the show. I swear we will reach out to you in early March. We should do it. This is fun.

We'll get that scheduled. I do have some bad news for you. Oh, no. Yes. I'm not going to be having a Market Street sandwich today. I brought my lunch. Did you hear us talking about that? Yes.

Judith's laughing over there. Every time Peter's come on the program, maybe not every time, the majority of the times, he's asked Judith and I what is good at the Market Street Market with their deli, which the three of us love their deli. I stay away from pre-made tuna. Come on. You had to know Judah said pre-made tuna fish. Did you see? That's blasphemous from Peter right there. Yeah. That's just my personal taste. I love a sandwich as much as the next guy,

but I don't know how long that's been in the case. I'm going to say my goodbye now to you because I have a 2 o'clock meeting across town that I'm going to sprint to. Peter Krebs, Piedmont Environmental Council, Judah Wittkower, the director and producer. For those that are asking, the show is archived wherever you get your podcasts and your social media content.

We will see you guys at 10.15 tomorrow with Real Talk with Keith Smith. So long, everybody. For those that are asking, the show is archived wherever you get your podcasts and your social media content. We will see you guys at 10.15 tomorrow with Real Talk with Keith Smith. So long, everybody. Thank you. Peter, that was awesome. Yeah, I'm not trying to. Thank you.