Let’s begin today with a Patreon-fueled shout-out!
Charlottesville 350 is the local chapter of a national organization that seeks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Charlottesville 350 uses online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects, and build 100% clean energy solutions that work for all. To learn more about their most active campaigns, including a petition drive to the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/cville350
Should Amtraks’s Northeast Regional train make a stop in Bedford?
The Charlottesville-Albemarle tourism bureau gets an update on hotel happenings
Residents of the Barracks / Rugby neighborhood will go without water on Monday
Monday begins a nearly two-week total shut down of Emmet Street at Ivy Road
Vaccinations are coming for children between 5 and 11
If you live in the Barracks / Rugby neighborhood in Charlottesville, be ready for a planned water outage on Monday. A contractor will be working on water infrastructure between Barracks Road and Preston Avenue. City crews will place door hangers on properties that will be affected. The shutdown will be between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. (learn more)
Monday also marks the beginning of a two-week shut down of Emmet Street at Ivy Road for the installation of a massive piece of stormwater infrastructure.
Sunday is the second Halloween of the pandemic, but local health officials aren’t concerned that a return to trick-or-treating will see return of another surge.
“It’s really important to recognize and understand that the outdoors in always safer than indoors and so those outdoor activities are really fantastic,” said Dr. Costi Sifri, the director of hospital epidemiology at the University of Virginia Health System.
Dr. Sifri said people probably don’t have to disinfect any received treats, but recommended frequent hand washing. He also recommended having children avoid large indoor gatherings and wear masks indoors.
Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration Approval approved the Pfizer vaccines for people between 5 and 11. More details on that roll-out will be rolled out next week.
“Logistics are being worked out but there’s going to be emphasis of trying to make sure the vaccines that are offered are going to be in places that are child-friendly,” Dr. Sifri said.
On Friday, the Virginia Department of Health reported a seven-day average of 1,431 new cases a day and a seven-day percent positivity rate of 5.8 percent. On October 1, that last figure was 8.8 percent. Virginia has also recorded 1,101 COVID deaths in October today. The next new metrics won’t be available until Monday morning.
Tourism is one of the region’s largest industries, and the pandemic has shown just how important the sector is to the municipal bottom line. Russ Cronberg has been general manager of the Boar’s Head Resort for the past five years. He gave a presentation on October 25 to the Board of Directors of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau. The CACVB markets the region as a tourism destination and is funded by a portion of the transient lodging tax.
“We have 3,891 hotel rooms roughly give or take a room or two in our market currently,” Cronberg said. “Our annual occupancy is around 65 percent.”
Cronberg said most hotels need between 50 percent and 60 percent occupancy in order to break even, so an average of 65 percent is a sign of health. He said in a given year, over 1.8 million people stay in hotel rooms in the area.
“That is not timeshares, that’s not bed and breakfasts, it’s not our AirBnB’s,” Cronberg said. “That’s strictly just our hotel community.”
In the year before the pandemic, Cronberg said hotels brought in nearly $14 million in revenue for Albemarle and around $9 million in Charlottesville. The sector is still slowly rebounding after a time when most travel stopped for a while, and the hotel industry lost millions.
“Thankfully for many of the grant programs and other government funding that has helped, city funding, we’ve only lost two hotels to permanent closure but actually we have a couple more than are going to reopen,” Cronberg said.
The labor shortage is affecting all sectors, including hospitality. Cronberg said the Boar’s Head over 90 job openings in September, forcing the resort to limit the number of guests. He acknowledged that low wages are part of the problem.
“One thing that I’m proud of that has come out of this is that it really has opened the eyes of ownership and maybe operators to really speed up the increases in our industry,” Cronberg said. “And I think it’s a really good thing to get back to more equitable wages.”
Cronberg said when he began at Boar’s Head in 2016, housekeepers were getting $8.50 an hour. That’s now been increased to $17 an hour. But to keep that going, the economy still has to make it through the pandemic.
“The current COVID environment has continued to provide [difficulties] to navigate, but we in the hotel industry have continued to remain flexible with the priority of security and safety of our team as well as our guests,” Cronberg said.
Cronberg said the Charlottesville will have to compete with other destinations around Virginia.
“In order to do that, I really think and speaking with operators and other GMs and other hotel owners, we really have to look at the CACVB funding model. It’s not just giving the funding and saying thank you, here you go, but measuring those successes and making sure the thing we are doing are driving occupancy to our area, are driving tourism dollars into the arts and into the historical communities.”
Later in the meeting, the CACVB discussed the possibility of changing the representation on the Board of Directors to include more representatives from the industry. Such a move would have to be approved by Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle Board of Supervisors. Read more about that story in Allison Wrabel’s October 25, 2021 article in the Daily Progress.
You’re listening to Charlottesville Community Engagement and time for a second Patreon-fueled shout-out!
The Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign, an initiative that wants you to grow native plants in yards, farms, public spaces and gardens in the northern Piedmont. The leaves have started to fall as autumn set in, and as they do, this is a good time to begin planning for the spring. Native plants provide habitat, food sources for wildlife, ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change, and clean water. Start at the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Facebook page and tell them Lonnie Murray sent you!
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At the same time the CACVB seeks to compete with other areas within driving distance, another community along the Amtrak line between Roanoke and Washington wants in on the action as well. A group in Bedford has been lobbying for a stop on the service. This past week, officials with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation reviewed a study on whether that’s feasible and what it would cost.
Emily Stock is the manager of rail planning at DRPT.
“Our focus is the movement of people and goods throughout the Commonwealth and our primary areas of activity are rail, public transportation, and commuter services,” Stock said.
The DRPT began funding regional service in Virginia in the late 2000’s, and the Northeast Regional Service between Lynchburg and Washington’s Union Station began in the fall of 2009. In 2014, DRPT reached agreement with Norfolk Southern to extend passenger service to Roanoke.
At that time, the Bedford / Franklin Regional Rail Initiative launched. The Town of Bedford hired a consultant to produce a report in 2016, and the DRPT studied whether there would be enough ridership to support a stop. On October 25, Stock presented the latest report. (watch)
“Fast forward to now and we’ve had a few years now under our belt of Roanoke service which has been very helpful to us in projecting potential ridership for Bedford also,” Stock said.
But before ridership is considered, the station has to be located on a section of a track within certain parameters.
“Norfolk Southern, the host freight railroad, does not allow adjacent high level platforms to their main line tracks,” Stock said.
A stop in Bedford would likely be a “caretaker” station and located downtown. Two sites have seen the most study, including the site of a former train depot near the Courthouse. Stock said what would be needed.
“A platform with a canopy,” Stock said. “A station building. We’d need enough room for that. Also room for parking, for rental cars, for auto and taxi pick-up drop off.”
The courthouse site was dropped from consideration because an at-grade vehicular crossing would have to have been closed to address safety concerns. The alternative is located about a mile west outside of downtown Bedford.
“Our cost to construct here would be almost $11 million in 2025 construction dollars and that includes a 40 percent contingency which is standard for this level of design,” Stock said.
One consideration while looking at potential ridership is how close Roanoke and Lynchburg are to Bedford. One forecast has found the stop would have 25,400 ons and offs per years, but some of that would take away from nearby stations. The net new riders to the system would be 10,500 per year generated by the Bedford station. The good news for proponents of a Bedford station is that the freight hauler that owns the lines do not have technical objectives.
“What we found Norfolk Southern was that they did not see any new material delay for Norfolk Southern operations as a result of a stop in Bedford which is very good news,” Stock said.
The report is due to the General Assembly by November 15. Next steps will include federal review under the National Environmental Policy Act and working with the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority on a grant application for the federal funding.
“Other good news is that we do expect to start an Amtrak Thruwaybus as a first step,” Stock said. “You may recall that for Roanoke there was a Thruway bus that was operating before any rail service went to Roanoke.”
That Thruway service is expected to begin next spring, though a location for the stop has not yet been determined.
This service will eventually be extended to Christiansburg, where work is underway to design a passenger rail station to serve the New River Valley.
Thanks again for reading!
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October 30, 2021: DRPT report states Bedford train stop won’t delay freight; a briefing on the hotel industry in Albemarle/Charlottesville