🏨 Good morning, RVA: Hotel tax expansion, whose rights are important, and Breakaway RVA!

Good morning, RVA! It’s 51 °F, and today looks absolutely beautiful. You should expect some sunshine served up alongside highs in the 70s, plus a strong desire to take a stroll or a ride around the block later this evening. We’ve got a great one ahead of us, and I hope you can find the time to take advantage of it!
 

Water cooler

Today, City Council’s Finance and Economic Development committee will meet and consider ORD. 2023–151, which would require Airbnbs to pay the City’s hotel tax. If I read the staff report correctly, new State legislation went into effect last year that allows the City to expand the scope of its hotel tax to short-term rentals, aka Airbnbs. We should 100% tax these things! But we’ll have to see what sort of impact it has on Richmond’s bottom line, because, turns out, the City (and other participating localities in the region) gives the entirety of its hotel tax to the Greater Richmond Convention Center Authority. Through a formula I don’t really understand, if the Authority collects too much revenue it will rebate some of that back to the City. However, “these rebates have recently been reduced given the impacts of COVID-19 on travel.” The process of the City making actual money from this new expansion of taxes is, in the staff report’s own words, “slightly circuitous.”
 

OK nerds, the City’s Charter Review Commission meets tonight for, what I think is, their penultimate meeting (6:00 PM on the 5th floor of City Hall). I encourage you to attend and whet your nerd whistle, because next week the Commission will host their final meeting at which they really, really want to hear your thoughts and feelings on how best to update the City’s Charter. I know this seems like extremely dry subject matter, but the Charter controls all sorts of things that make up the very foundations of how Richmond’s government works. What if we had two at-large City Council seats? What if School Board was appointed? What if we just didn’t with the strong mayor form of government? Some of those are maybe bad ideas, but all of them are laid out in our Charter. Anyway, I’m really interested to see what this group comes up with in their final recommendations (and if the General Assembly, which must approve any changes the City wants to make to its own Charter, is willing to go a long with those recommendations).
 

Via /r/rva, a disturbing video of a man with an assault rifle lurking outside the house of Henrico’s County Manager yelling about one thing or another. This has always seemed like where the escalation of our country’s idolatrous worship of guns would take us. Now any unhinged individual can terrorize an entire neighborhood and no one can do anything about it. We currently value this man’s “rights” to threaten a cul-de-sac with a rifle more than we do the rights of the families living on that street to feel safe—or even to leave their homes!
 

I’m linking to this story in Axios Richmond by Karri Peifer about Henrico upgrading their recycling bins solely because of the header image. Using a recycling bin as a podium at a press conference about recycling bins is A+ genius work.
 

Tonight, we’ve got a great one for RVA Bike Month: Breakaway RVA’s first ride of the 2023 season! These large group ride are always chill, fun, friendly, and you’ll usually learn a thing or three along the way, too. This evening’s ride starts at 5:45 PM at Triple Crossing Fulton (5203 Hatcher Street), and will take a nice loop around the riverfront—a James River Cruise—ending up back at Triple Crossing for a chance to hang with your fellow riders. Important safety note: If you plan on joining tonight, please make sure you bring a light!
 

This morning’s longread

How the Design of Corners Affects Speed

This slightly nerdy article about the corner radiuses of intersections opens with “once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” and I think that’s so very true! Next time you’re out, take a look at the scary intersections you move through every day. Were they built with big, gently sweeping corners that allow drivers to take the turns at high speeds without slowing down? Probably! Once you notice this dark design pattern, you truly will start to see it everywhere—especially at the places where you feel most unsafe!
 

While sharp corners reduce the crossing distance, wide corners create longer crosswalks. The length of the crosswalk can make it difficult for pedestrians to cross quickly and increase their exposure to traffic, including vehicles that are turning. Sharp corners allow for pedestrians, especially older adults, children, or people with disabilities, to cross safely and to ensure they are visible to drivers. A particularly egregious version of the big radius is the “slip lane” which allows a driver to maintain speeds while avoiding a traffic signal. It is particularly dangerous for pedestrians to cross the unsignalized slip lane given that drivers are maintaining a relatively high speed, and probably looking to the street ahead to time their merge with traffic. The safe and appropriate solution where pedestrians are present is to “square off” the intersection as shown below.
 

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Picture of the Day

I’m not sure blackberries are the smartest thing to plant in a tree well downtown, but, sure, why not!