Good morning, RVA! It’s 43 °F, and that cold front definitely showed up. Today you can expect highs in the 50s, a lot of sunshine, and temperatures at—or even below—freezing overnight. If you’ve got freeze-sensitive plants outside, they may need a little extra care to get through the next couple of nights. Temperatures will start to creep back up on Friday, so hang tight!
 

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Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that Local Initiatives Support Corp (LISC) announced they will match the City’s five-year, $50 million investment in affordable housing. That brings in $100 million over just five years to help address Richmond’s affordable housing crisis, and LISC’s president says that the investment even “leverages significantly more.” It’s a lot of money to spend in a pretty short amount of time, and it feels like the scale of investment you’ll really see on the ground. One thing I’d love to learn more about, though, is how the City will prioritize and make decisions around spending this money—because we could do a lot of creative things with all this cash!
 

Back in 2020, the General Assembly allowed public school teachers to unionize, and, pretty quickly thereafter, the RPS School Board voted to approve collective bargaining. Now the Henrico Education Association is working to secure those same rights for teachers in the County. You can learn more about those efforts to unionize here, as well as sign an authorization card that will help press the issue with the HCPS board should they not want to introduce collective bargaining in the District on their own. I would guess that this will be a much more complicated and challenge piece of advocacy than it was in Richmond—but it’s definitely not impossible! If you’re a Henrico educator, tap through to learn more.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 48 °F, rainy, and a heck of a lot colder than yesterday. Today you can expect cloudy skies and highs in the 50s, which is a full 30-degree drop from just 18 hours ago! The rain should, with any luck, move out of the area at some point later this morning. Warmer—but maybe not unseasonable—temperatures could make an appearance at the end of this week, but, until then, grab your boots and flannels!
 

Since it’s Halloween, and I spend most of my free time watching horror movies, I thought I’d suggest a horror film to pair with each news item. For this morning’s cold, wet weather, I’m going with John Carpenter’s The Fog. Something about today’s weather just says “reanimated fisherfolk” to me.
 

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Jack Jacobs at Richmond BizSense reports that, in 2025, GRTC will “add four 60-foot-long articulated buses to the fleet dedicated to the Pulse.” The new bendy buses will hold 120 passengers, a significant upgrade compared to the existing 40-foot buses which have a 76-person capacity. Also interesting, to bus people at least, these new buses will be built by New Flyer instead of Gillig, which makes all of GRTC’s current 40-foot buses that you know and love. Look at us! Articulated buses! This is some big-city stuff!
 

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Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today’s the last unseasonably warm day for at least the foreseeable future—and maybe for the rest of the year! You can expect highs in the mid 80s and a bit of rain to show up late this evening and into the morning, bringing with it a big cold front. Tomorrow, the spookiest day of the year, will see temperatures 30 degrees cooler than today!
 

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I have never seen MF BROOM, or MF DOOM for that matter, in person. The former—a tiny, cute street sweeper designed specifically to sweep bike lanes—launched a full year ago, and, presumably, did spend time in the City’s bike lanes cleaning out trash and debris. Maybe it did so under the cover of darkness or maybe only in places I don’t typically ride a bike, but either way I’ve haven’t seen this cool piece of equipment out merrily doing its cool and important job. VPM’s Ian M. Stewart solves the mystery of the missing sweeper, and reports that lack of trained operators has kept it off our streets for months now.. Luckily, for people who get excited about this sort of thing, Stewart also reports that MF BROOM should return to our bike lanes this spring (unlike MF DOOM, sadly), and that Richmonders can use the RVA311 app to check the sweeping schedule.
 

GRTC will shift it’s scheduled microtransit pilot launch to November 13th. Called LINK Microtransit, this on-demand transportation service allows riders to use a 3rd-party app to “call for a ride between any two places in a designated zone.” The LINK pilot replaces the #93 bus on the Northside and serves an area around Azalea Avenue and the racetrack. You can watch a charming intro video over on Instagram to learn more. Personally, I’m not a microtransit believer, but I am really interested to see if this pilot works out. Mostly I’m excited about a pilot existing at all! What a great, low-risk way to try something new and innovative—the City should take note!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 63 °F, and today’s the last unseasonably warm day for at least the foreseeable future—and maybe for the rest of the year! You can expect highs in the mid 80s and a bit of rain to show up late this evening and into the morning, bringing with it a big cold front. Tomorrow, the spookiest day of the year, will see temperatures 30 degrees cooler than today!
 

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I have never seen MF BROOM, or MF DOOM for that matter, in person. The former—a tiny, cute street sweeper designed specifically to sweep bike lanes—launched a full year ago, and, presumably, did spend time in the City’s bike lanes cleaning out trash and debris. Maybe it did so under the cover of darkness or maybe only in places I don’t typically ride a bike, but either way I’ve haven’t seen this cool piece of equipment out merrily doing its cool and important job. VPM’s Ian M. Stewart solves the mystery of the missing sweeper, and reports that lack of trained operators has kept it off our streets for months now.. Luckily, for people who get excited about this sort of thing, Stewart also reports that MF BROOM should return to our bike lanes this spring (unlike MF DOOM, sadly), and that Richmonders can use the RVA311 app to check the sweeping schedule.
 

GRTC will shift it’s scheduled microtransit pilot launch to November 13th. Called LINK Microtransit, this on-demand transportation service allows riders to use a 3rd-party app to “call for a ride between any two places in a designated zone.” The LINK pilot replaces the #93 bus on the Northside and serves an area around Azalea Avenue and the racetrack. You can watch a charming intro video over on Instagram to learn more. Personally, I’m not a microtransit believer, but I am really interested to see if this pilot works out. Mostly I’m excited about a pilot existing at all! What a great, low-risk way to try something new and innovative—the City should take note!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 57 °F, and highs today are back up in the 80s. The weekend ahead of us looks beautifully monotonous, though, with continued clear skies and summerish temperatures. I think…it’s hammock weather out there! I hope you find time to enjoy it, because more seasonal weather moves in this coming Tuesday and you may need to add a layer or two under your Halloween costume.
 

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The Washington Post has put together some pretty striking video of a foundry melting down Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue in a 2,250-degree furnace. The whole thing was done in secret and is part of a really neat Swords Into Plowshares project that will create new public art out of the melted-down bronze that once made up the statue. There’s something weirdly cathartic about watching this video on loop.
 

Local reporter Mallory Noe-Payne, who you may remember from the Memory Wars podcast she put together with Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams, has a new one-hour special focused on Virginia’s felony disenfranchisement laws. Tap through to listen or to read a transcript of the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt to get you going: “Virginia is one of only three states with a constitution that permanently strips citizens with any felony conviction of their right to vote, and the only one of those three states that today doesn’t have a clear and public process for how someone can get that right back. It’s estimated that it impacts 12% of voting-age Black Virginians. That’s more than 1 in 10 not allowed to vote.” This is one of the more shameful parts of Virginia’s legal system, and, unfortunately, would require a constitutional amendment to change. The commonwealth’s Republicans, of course, have no interesting in passing such an amendment—which is also shameful and something that they themselves are ashamed of: “I sent interview requests to more than 50 state lawmakers who had voted against the amendment in the past, all Republicans. I got zero responses.”
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and, today, summerish temperatures return! Expect highs in the 80s this afternoon and for them to stretch on through next week. Are these record highs? Probably! Am I recovering from a fall cold? Yes! Will I still try to get out into the forest on my bicycle despite probably needing to rest? We’ll see!
 

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Remember last year when the Governor wanted to create permanent tax cuts for the wealthy but didn’t have the votes and settled instead for one-time rebates, $200 for individuals and $400 for families? Well, the Department of Taxation has set up a website to check if you’re eligible for those rebates (you gotta create an account first), and says the checks should hit your mailbox before December. The Cynical Part of Me raises an eyebrow at the near-election timing of this launch. The Regular Part of Me knows that the General Assembly just passed its budget a hot second ago and casual-sounding things like “setting up a website to check if you’re eligible” are actually huge projects for already overworked teams. Looking ahead, and given all the press releases I get from Youngkin’s team about the Commonwealth’s surging revenue, I’d guess those permanent tax cuts for the wealthy will make a return in this coming year’s budget, too. Just another reason why the November 7th election—in just 12 days!—is so very important. Make sure you’ve got a plan to vote, OK?
 

In other state government news, Ben Paviour at VPM reports on the ongoing mess at the Department of Elections and their decision to remove thousands of folks from the voter rolls. It’s hard to tell what’s actually going on here, and I’d argue that’s probably part of the point. Skip the confusion, and tap straight on through to the Department of Elections website to check your voter registration status right now.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 54 °F, and, today, summerish temperatures return! Expect highs in the 80s this afternoon and for them to stretch on through next week. Are these record highs? Probably! Am I recovering from a fall cold? Yes! Will I still try to get out into the forest on my bicycle despite probably needing to rest? We’ll see!
 

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Remember last year when the Governor wanted to create permanent tax cuts for the wealthy but didn’t have the votes and settled instead for one-time rebates, $200 for individuals and $400 for families? Well, the Department of Taxation has set up a website to check if you’re eligible for those rebates (you gotta create an account first), and says the checks should hit your mailbox before December. The Cynical Part of Me raises an eyebrow at the near-election timing of this launch. The Regular Part of Me knows that the General Assembly just passed its budget a hot second ago and casual-sounding things like “setting up a website to check if you’re eligible” are actually huge projects for already overworked teams. Looking ahead, and given all the press releases I get from Youngkin’s team about the Commonwealth’s surging revenue, I’d guess those permanent tax cuts for the wealthy will make a return in this coming year’s budget, too. Just another reason why the November 7th election—in just 12 days!—is so very important. Make sure you’ve got a plan to vote, OK?
 

In other state government news, Ben Paviour at VPM reports on the ongoing mess at the Department of Elections and their decision to remove thousands of folks from the voter rolls. It’s hard to tell what’s actually going on here, and I’d argue that’s probably part of the point. Skip the confusion, and tap straight on through to the Department of Elections website to check your voter registration status right now.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today continues yesterday afternoon’s beautiful weather. Expect highs right around 80 °F and sunshine. We’ve got some really wonderful (and unseasonable) weather lined up over the next six or so days. Find time to enjoy it!
 

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This afternoon, City Council’s Governmental Operations committee meets with a very short agenda: just one paper, a cool presentation, and a discussion—luckily all three are interesting. First, GovOps will consider ORD. 2023–315 which is a second attempt at establishing a Public Utilities and Services Commission. I have no idea how this attempt differs from the previous one, but that previous paper, (ORD. 2023–188), has been withdrawn. Second, they’ll hear a combined sewer system program update presentation! This is a great and short presentation, and you’ll definitely want to check out slide five which lays out the cost effectiveness of all the proposed CSO projects. That’s cost effectiveness measured in cost per billion CFUs removed from the James River. I had to look it up, but I think “CFU” means Colony Forming Unit—like, colony of bacteria. That’s a neat measurement, and the Department of Public Utilities has a requirement to reduce the annual discharge of bacteria into the river by 3.6 million billion CFUs. The presentation ends with a call for Council to advocate for the state to restore the $100 million in CSO money they dropped from last year’s budget and to ask for $200 million in this coming year’s budget. These are definitely things you could ask your state legislators for, too, by the way (but maybe wait until after they’re elected in two weeks). I love this stuff! Third, GovOps will discuss City Charter next steps. This is an important discussion as Council probably needs to figure out their vibes on any changes to the Charter ASAP. Once we get too far into Budget Season and next year’s elections, I have a feeling these big structural changes might could get lost in the shuffle.
 

Jahd Khalil at VPM has some more reporting on Casino 2.0’s proposed wages. I’m fascinated by how hard it is to accurately talk about what people working at this casino will get paid, but, after doing some math and talking to some experts, Khalil estimates the “average” (again, it’s hard to even say what that word means here) wage for casino workers at $15.87 per hour. For context, he also points out that in just two years, the commonwealth will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F right now, and I will not tell you the temperature in my “No Heat ‘til November” house. But! Today, highs will creep back up into the 70s and continue to increase through this coming Monday when we’ll see temperatures in the upper 80s. Again: Probably bad if you think too hard about it, but great for this weekend’s Halloween parties.
 

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Connor Scribner at VPM reports on how redlining and systemic racism impact homeownership in the Richmond region. This is a long piece that’s filled with a bunch of complicated, interlocking reasons why it’s a challenge for folks—especially people living in majority Black and Brown neighborhoods—to own, maintain, or keep up with the taxes on a home. For some additional reading, tap through to Damon Harris’s Teal House Company to learn more about his approach to equitable real estate that actually creates more homeowners. And, for additional context, check out the old redlining maps for Richmond so you have a sense of where these neighborhood sit.
 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Anna Bryson reports on the impending (or maybe already arriven) child care funding crisis. From the piece: “Expansions to a federal child care subsidy program expired Sept. 30, and an additional $15 billion in child care grants that target low-income families are set to end Sept. 30, 2024….child care providers and business leaders worry about how the loss of child care services for thousands of Virginians could affect families’ ability to afford child care and therefore be able to work.“ This funding cliff just exacerbates the existing child care crisis in Virginia. Remember, the State’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, just last week, reported that over three quarters of families cannot afford childcare. What’s more, 24,000 kids in Virginia could lose access to childcare should these federal funds evaporate (although Sen. Kaine thinks that number could stretch all the way to 80,000). This is such a huge problem that it really only feels fixable at the federal level, which is currently adrift in a see of dysfunction. Or maybe the state level: The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation found that it’d cost the commonwealth $320 million annually to preserve all of the current, about-to-vanish funding. I’m going to keep an eye on the Governor’s budget this year to see if/how he chooses to address the issue.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 40 °F, and that’s chilly! Today you can expect classic late-October highs in the mid 60s, but, looking at the extended forecast, I see a string of days with temperatures in the 80s later this week. While that’s definitely warmer than the average for this time of year, it does look pretty perfect. I’m choosing to not think too hard about what that means and to, instead, get excited for a week of great weather.
 

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Years ago, back when Outbreak was just a 1995 film starring Dustin Hoffman and not a way of life, Richmond Public Schools launched their Dreams4RPS strategic planning process. It was an incredibly impressive, deep, and involved process that ranks for me (along with Richmond 300) as one of the best public engagement processes we’ve seen in Richmond. Not only was the process great, but the School District actually uses the plan created by all that hard work. The RPS administration regularly presents updates on Dreams4RPS at School Board meetings, which, speaking as a person who enjoys a lot of plans and planing processes, is certainly not always the case. Now, five years later, RPS has kicked off the sequel, Dreams4RPS: Let’s Keep Dreaming. I’m sure Dreams4RPS:LKD will pop back up in the newsletter frequently, but, to get started, fill out the very open-ended feedback survey and put one of these district meetings (open to families, staff, students, and community members) on your calendar.
 

Axios Richmond’s Ned Oliver reports that I am a full 0.01% of the total number of people who have early voted in the upcoming election. If that seems like a lot, it should, because just 5,242 folks have cast an early ballot. It’s early still, but Oliver also points out that the Casino 2.0 folks have spent over $8 million to turn people out to the polls (plus bought them rides and BBQ!), and the dollar-per-vote at this point looks pretty grim.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and there’s a pretty good chance for rain this afternoon. Other than that, though, you can expect highs in the 70s while you’re watching the clouds roll in—and then roll right out, because the weekend looks dry, cool, and fantastic. I’ve got a bunch of garden-related tasks and bike riding to do, and I hope you’ve got similarly excellent plans.
 

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ArborDayRVA, Richmond’s big celebration of trees, kicks off today and runs through next Sunday, October 29th. You’re gonna want to tap through to the aforelinked website with your calendar handy, because there are a ton of tree-related and tree-adjacent events over the next nine days. I’m particularly keen on the tree identification bike ride, the native seed harvesting workshop, the Tree Equity Score Analyzer training (?!), and, of course, any of the tree giveaway events (and there are many). It’s a lot of treevents, which certainly seems appropriate given just how much trees do for our communities.
 

Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Maya, a Mexican restaurant at 525 E. Grace Street has closed up shop and will move out to Short Pump. Important question: Is this block of Grace Street cursed? The other day, I grabbed a couple beers at Secret Sandwich Society and had to lock my bike up way down the block. Walking down Grace, between Fifth and Sixth, and I was shocked by how it is an absolutely ghost town over there—and has been for…a decade? Or more? What’s the deal with this block and why has the majority of it remained vacant for years and years? Does it have something to do with who owns the buildings? How do we un-curse this storefront retail space?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and there’s a pretty good chance for rain this afternoon. Other than that, though, you can expect highs in the 70s while you’re watching the clouds roll in—and then roll right out, because the weekend looks dry, cool, and fantastic. I’ve got a bunch of garden-related tasks and bike riding to do, and I hope you’ve got similarly excellent plans.
 

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ArborDayRVA, Richmond’s big celebration of trees, kicks off today and runs through next Sunday, October 29th. You’re gonna want to tap through to the aforelinked website with your calendar handy, because there are a ton of tree-related and tree-adjacent events over the next nine days. I’m particularly keen on the tree identification bike ride, the native seed harvesting workshop, the Tree Equity Score Analyzer training (?!), and, of course, any of the tree giveaway events (and there are many). It’s a lot of treevents, which certainly seems appropriate given just how much trees do for our communities.
 

Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Maya, a Mexican restaurant at 525 E. Grace Street has closed up shop and will move out to Short Pump. Important question: Is this block of Grace Street cursed? The other day, I grabbed a couple beers at Secret Sandwich Society and had to lock my bike up way down the block. Walking down Grace, between Fifth and Sixth, and I was shocked by how it is an absolutely ghost town over there—and has been for…a decade? Or more? What’s the deal with this block and why has the majority of it remained vacant for years and years? Does it have something to do with who owns the buildings? How do we un-curse this storefront retail space?
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 47 °F, and today’s weather looks great! Expect highs in the 70s and sunshine for most of the day. We’ve got a bit of rain still lingering around tomorrow afternoon’s forecast, but, other than that, I think we’re in store for a really excellent stretch of Richmond In The Fall!
 

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Yesterday, Henrico officially broke ground on the County’s first segment (and, I think, the first segment overall) of the 43-mile Fall Line Trail. This tiny little section of trail will cover about a quarter of a mile in Lakeside, swooping through the old Bank of America building parking lot and into the charming Spring Park. So exciting! While Henrico has a whole timeline laid out for construction of their future (and longer) bits and pieces of the Fall Line, I haven’t seen anything similar from Richmond or Chesterfield—but someone point me to it if it exists, please! Tom Lappas at the Henrico Citizen has some more details and a picture from the official ribbon cutting / ceremonial golden-shovel digging situation.
 

This afternoon, City Council’s Finance and Economic Development committee meets with at least two boring-but-interesting papers on their agenda. First, ORD. 2023–289 is the ordinance that Council must pass each and every year setting the real estate tax rate (usually at $1.20). If they do not, the rate defaults all the way back to $1.125 due to some ridiculous anti-city state law. Such a significant loss in revenue would have a brutal and immediate impact on City services! This paper is boring, because it passes each year with mostly no drama (see: brutal impact on City services). It’s interesting though, because in recent years there’s been talk of lowering the real estate tax rate as an incentive for approving the Casino 2.0 referendum. That (horrible) idea seems mostly dead in the water these days, though—especially since pro-casino Councilmember Jones is listed as this ordinance’s patron. Second, ORD. 2023–310 approves modifications to a parking space lease between the City and the federal government. This paper is clearly boring, but it’s also interesting because, due to the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, it includes an addendum “incorporating a prohibition on a ByteDance covered application.” See, interesting!
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and temperatures have started to creep up a bit. Not that they’ve been unpleasant lately, but, this afternoon, you can expect really pleasant highs closer to 70 °F and maybe a bit more sunshine, too. Keep an eye on the forecast for Friday and Saturday, though, because the chances for rain have steadily increased over the last couple of days.
 

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The Virginia Mercury’s Meghan McIntyre reports on the ongoing process of Medicaid unwinding, which, in case you forgot: “For the past three years, anyone who was enrolled in Medicaid was allowed to keep their coverage regardless of whether or not they still met eligibility requirements like income level.” Now, in a sort of Office Space “we fixed the glitch” way, states are going through each enrollee to determine if those enrollees are still eligible. McIntyre reports that, so far, 160,000 Virginia have lost their coverage and, of those, 32% are to “procedural reasons rather than ineligibility.” 50,000 folks losing access to healthcare because of procedural paperwork sounds horrible to me, but it does sound like the State’s Department of Medical Assistance Services has some processes in place to get people reenrolled—and even provide retroactive coverage for some folks who got unnecessarily unwound. If this describes you or yours, you should get in contact with Cover VA.
 

Ned Oliver at Axios Richmond has some bananas reporting on the lengths the pro-casino folks are going to get folks out to the polls. Not only are they paying for potential voters’ Uber rides to early voting sites, they are handing out free lunch tickets for Hawk’s BBQ when they get there—“a pork sandwich, two pieces of fried fish or a jumbo kielbasa—all served with a drink and a side of fries or mac and cheese.” A Casino 2.0 spokesperson says, “We’re celebrating early voting…I don’t know if it’s that different than giving people water and snacks in line.” OK.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 45 °F, and today looks a lot like yesterday, with highs in the mid 60s alongside some here-and-there clouds. Temperatures will start to tick up tomorrow and lead us in to a really beautiful weekend. I know it’s only Tuesday, but I’m already thinking about my weekend plans.
 

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Yesterday, the City’s Department of Public Works announced that they will expand the use of Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPIs) from 28 to 107 intersections. When an intersection has an LPI, the walk signals give people walking, rolling, or riding a head start before any of the traffic signals turn green. This lets folks safely move out into the intersection and into the drivers’ fields of view before the latter start zooming along on their way. LPIs are a good, clever use of existing infrastructure and do not require anyone to mix and pour concrete—always a financial and timeline plus. Paired with banning right-on-red, and LPIs give you a much safer intersection crossing for pedestrians. You can find the map of soon-to-be-upgraded intersections here, with the majority of those upgrades located Downtown, around VCU’s Monroe Park campus, and a few in Carytown.
 

Sarah Vogelsong at the Virginia Mercury reports something that every family with young children already knows: “Child care is unaffordable for the majority of Virginia families.” 85% of families with infants, 82% of families with toddlers, and 74% of families with preschoolers cannot afford childcare, according to the State’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). Tap through for an absolutely brutal chart showing what percentage of a family’s income is required to afford childcare—an especially frightening number for families with just one adult. What to do about this crisis? Well, some of Governor Youngkin’s administration goes on record to push for reducing regulations as the solution, which JLARC pretty clearly says is not the issue. Instead the Commission points to consistently low wages for childcare workers, which leads to a workforce shortage, which leads to a decrease in the availability of childcare for Virginia’s families.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 44 °F, and today looks crisp! You can expect a partly cloudy sky with the extremely fall-like temperatures topping out right around 60 °F. Things’ll warm up a bit as the week progresses, but, for today, I’d definitely recommend wrapping up in a couple of layers.
 

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The City’s Planning Commission meets today, and you can check out their full agenda here. Scroll down a bit, and you’ll find ORD. 2023–281, which would amend the City’s Master Plan (aka Richmond 300) to classify all of Richmond’s public housing neighborhoods as “priority neighborhoods.” You can look through the entirely new Priority Neighborhoods chapter of the Master Plan in this massive PDF (starting on p. 83) and see some of the next steps for each neighborhood. In addition to the new chapter, a bunch of the Plan’s existing goals have been updated to include the new priority neighborhoods. Where Richmond 300 currently suggests developing new parks at “nodes” (remember, those are interesting places across the city where development can/should/is happening), it would now suggest we develop new parks at “nodes and priority neighborhoods.” I’ve only skimmed through the new chapter and the updated goals, but it’d be cool to have full-throated support for preserving and building more public housing.
 

Also related to Richmond 300, the City wants to put together a Cultural Resources Management Plan to “identify, preserve, and promote stewardship of a community’s cultural assets and historic resources.” The public portion of this process kicks off tonight with a meeting at 6:00 PM at the Main Library (101 E. Franklin Street), and, because every public process must, there is an accompanying survey that you can fill out. I thought this survey was kind of intense!—with its interesting Rorschach test of “which of the images above show historic buildings, sites, or place,” and, even more intense, “which of the buildings, sites, or places above are worthy of protection/preservation.” Yikes! “worthy” is such loaded language! I also didn’t love the zero-sum framing of “development/density pressure” as a threat to historic resources and communities—I don’t think this is an either/or! Like, old stuff is cool, for sure, but also we need to build more housing for people that are alive now.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and today is our last stunning day for awhile. You should do whatever you can to take advantage of the sunshine and the highs in the mid 70s, because clouds, cooler temperatures, and rain move in tomorrow. Looking ahead, and it might be a minute before we have an entirely bright and cheery day again.
 

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Lots of GRTC announcements this week! First, free Transit Royale membership on the excellent Transit app, and now the news that the GRTC Board has approved a north-south Bus Rapid Transit route. The gist is, from north to south: Down Chamberlayne, over to the Downtown Transfer Station, across the Manchester Bridge, out Hull Street for a bit, and then up to Midlothian for the rest of its run. I couldn’t find a more detailed route map, but maybe that’s the point, as approval of the route “sends GRTC on to more detailed traffic planning, route design, and environmental impact study.” It’s an interesting route, for sure, handling the question of which major corridor to use for the southern end by splitting time on both Hull Street and Midlothian. I look forward to more details, PDFs, studies, and chances to get involved!
 

Wyatt Gordon reports on a recent “walking audit” of Chamberlayne Avenue—a sort of first-hand tour of bad and unsafe infrastructure. Unmentioned: These incredibly intense bollards that protect some sort of green electrical box in the middle of a street crossing. I think these bollards are most effective infrastructure on the entire corridor, and it’s not lost on me the lengths we’ll go to protect a green metal box but not actual human people. Anyway, I hope that by prioritizing the bus for an eventual Bus Rapid Transit route, we’ll see slower vehicle speeds along with investments in infrastructure for people (not boxes), and, as a result, we’ll end up with a much safer Chamberlayne.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and today looks a little warmer than yesterday and brings with it some absolutely perfect highs in the mid 70s. Rain will likely move in on Saturday, though, so take the next 48 hours and find some time to go enjoy the out-of-doors!
 

Water cooler

Yesterday, GRTC announced exciting news for bus riders: They’ll now provide free Transit Royale subscriptions for all riders. This means that Richmond joins the list of growing municipalities to have an official relationship with the really wonderful and beautiful Transit app. If you ever need to ride the bus, this is the app to use. It’s useful, fun, and, most of all, much easier to use any other public transit app I’ve put on my phone. I can’t recommend it enough! With the free Transit Royale subscription users get a bunch of fun perks, but mostly I’m excited about how this illustrates GRTC’s commitment to providing a better and more modern experience for transit riders. Download the app, tap around a bit, and start planning your next trip today.
 

City Council’s Education and Human Services committee meets today at 2:00 PM with a short list of papers to consider but a handful of interesting presentations and discussion items. I can’t find the associated PDFs, but if you tune in at 2:00 PM you’ll hear updates on both “Children’s Funding Project fiscal mapping” and the state and federal early childhood funding cliff. As you probably guessed, these two things are related! I’m especially interested in the former as the Children’s Funding Project is a nonprofit that “helps communities and states expand equitable opportunities for children and youth through strategic public financing.” Certainly sounds like a PDF worth reading (if anyone has a copy, please send it my way). After these two presentations, the Committee will try to make space in their brains for Council’s upcoming legislative agenda, a homeless services update, and then they’ll hear from the RPS School Board.
 

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and today looks a little warmer than yesterday and brings with it some absolutely perfect highs in the mid 70s. Rain will likely move in on Saturday, though, so take the next 48 hours and find some time to go enjoy the out-of-doors!
 

Water cooler

Yesterday, GRTC announced exciting news for bus riders: They’ll now provide free Transit Royale subscriptions for all riders. This means that Richmond joins the list of growing municipalities to have an official relationship with the really wonderful and beautiful Transit app. If you ever need to ride the bus, this is the app to use. It’s useful, fun, and, most of all, much easier to use any other public transit app I’ve put on my phone. I can’t recommend it enough! With the free Transit Royale subscription users get a bunch of fun perks, but mostly I’m excited about how this illustrates GRTC’s commitment to providing a better and more modern experience for transit riders. Download the app, tap around a bit, and start planning your next trip today.
 

City Council’s Education and Human Services committee meets today at 2:00 PM with a short list of papers to consider but a handful of interesting presentations and discussion items. I can’t find the associated PDFs, but if you tune in at 2:00 PM you’ll hear updates on both “Children’s Funding Project fiscal mapping” and the state and federal early childhood funding cliff. As you probably guessed, these two things are related! I’m especially interested in the former as the Children’s Funding Project is a nonprofit that “helps communities and states expand equitable opportunities for children and youth through strategic public financing.” Certainly sounds like a PDF worth reading (if anyone has a copy, please send it my way). After these two presentations, the Committee will try to make space in their brains for Council’s upcoming legislative agenda, a homeless services update, and then they’ll hear from the RPS School Board.