People who drive from Charlottesville to Albemarle, and vice-versa. Same with people on bicycles, and pedestrians.

Why don’t Charlottesville & Albemarle work together (with the University of Virginia, too)?

Finally, they might.*

From Charlottesville Tomorrow

The Albemarle Board of Supervisors and the Charlottesville City Council have agreed to enter into a formal partnership to help improve bus service in the region.

“This is a partnership that is advisory,” said Chip Boyles, the executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. “It’s a committee and board of decision-makers that will begin to review some different documents and communications that haven’t been reviewed by a joint body before.”

The agreement comes eight years after the two localities opted not to form a Regional Transit Authority to expand transit routes in the area.

“The problem is we didn’t get the authority to fund that from Richmond which is one of a few reasons that effort stalled,” said Will Cockrell, a transportation planner with the TJPDC.

Charlottesville Area Transit is operated as a division of the city’s public works department and has an $8 million operating budget for the current fiscal year. That includes $1.14 million in funding from Albemarle, but county officials do not have a formal role in how CAT is governed.

To those of us who live in the Charlottesville – Albemarle area, that the localities cooperate on transportation so grudgingly is often a remarkable frustration.

To new folks, this lack of cooperation is insane. Let’s hope the politicians and staff can work together – share funds, planning, actions to make transportation planning, implementation, and human settlement patterns more functional.

*The City of Charlottesville & County of Albemarle should merge.