Good morning, RVA! It's 40 °F, and thus begins our stretch of dramatically good weather! Today and tomorrow you can expect dry, sunny highs in the 70s, and, then, Thursday and Friday, get ready for temperatures that could hit 80 °F. We might see a bit of rain on Friday, but, most likely, we’ll stay dry and warm until at least early next week. Get out your tank tops and slip-ons, because it’s happening!
Water cooler
Did you get trapped in brutal car traffic yesterday morning? VPM reports that “several protesters blocked Interstates 95 and 64 near the Bryan Park interchange for over an hour on Monday morning.” According to an email sent to VPM, the protestors called for the U.S. to “cease all funding for the genocidal, Israeli occupation of Palestine at once.” Fair warning: I’m going to set aside the focus of this protest, which, I know is exactly the opposite of the point, and, because my brain can’t help itself, write about infrastructure. I don’t intend to minimize horrible situation facing the people living in Gaza, but I’m aware it could read that way even though that’s not what I intend.
With that said, I think yesterday’s protest was fascinating from an urbanism and infrastructure perspective. First, it’s super dangerous to go out and stand on I-95! That in itself says something about our highway system, but every time I think about these people just...standing...in the middle the interstate, my heart rate literally increases. Second, how fragile is the car-based infrastructure we’ve built across this country? It’s optimized to speed people in and out of the suburbs as quickly as possible, but if anything—anything at all!—goes wrong, the whole system immediately fails. A total of 10 people disabled an entire region just by choosing the right place and time to simply stand still. Plus, not only did they shut down the interstate, but they also disrupted neighborhoods across the region as drivers tried to find alternate routes around the gridlock. The highways suck, yes, but, ultimately we need to make it easy and efficient for folks to take fewer trips by car. I assume bike commuters were not impacted by the sudden influx of traffic.