🟠🟡 Good morning, RVA: Richmond City Jail, towed cars, and three interesting bills

Good morning, RVA! It’s 52 °F, and, depending when you read this email, last night’s rain my just now be starting to tail off. You can expect highs in the 50s along with some welcomed sunshine today, with more of the same over the long weekend. I hope you find some time to rest, relax, get involved, and get outside!
 

Water cooler

As of last night, Richmond is at a medium COVID-19 Community Level, while Henrico and Chesterfield continue to have high CDC COVID-19 Community Levels. The 7-day average case rate per 100,000 people in each locality is 122, 353, and 262, respectively, and the 7-day average of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people is 17.4. Looking at the map of Virginia on the CDC’s Community Level Site, I don’t think you should necessarily read Richmond’s drop from high to medium as a sign that less disease is floating around in our communities. Nearly the entire state is painted orange and hospital numbers for our region are generally trending upward. If you’ve got (crowded) places to be, think about the risks you’re willing to take and how you can mitigate those a bit by wearing a mask, staying outside if you can, and getting your bivalent booster if you haven’t already.
 

WTVR’s Tyler Lane reports that another person has died at the Richmond City Jail, the third person in as many months and the fourth person in the past year. We’ve seen the jail and the sheriff (who runs the jail) in the headlines a handful of times recently—and none of those stories have been positive. In fact, I think last time I wrote about the jail it was when the sheriff had used a lie detector on her employees to find out who talked to the press. Ridiculous! I don’t think we’re done with this story, and I appreciate Lane’s continued reporting. I’d guess we’ll continue to hear from him on this over the next year.
 

The City of Richmond now has an online, searchable list of every car that they’ve had towed. From the press release: “It’s the stuff of stress dreams: You walk outside to find that your car is no longer where you left it. Was it towed or stolen? If it was in the city of Richmond, you can now go online to determine whether it was towed and where it is located.” I don’t car a ton, so having one towed isn’t really something I think about often, but…is this how folks were living until this week?? That’s a stress dream I didn’t even know I should have been having!
 

I’ve been following the redevelopment of this 68-unit apartment building on Brookland Park Boulevard for years now, and, just today, Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense reports that construction will begin next month! On the site of an old church, these new units will be “restricted to households earning between 40 and 60 percent of the area median income,” brining a sizable chunk of affordable housing to the corridor. My prediction of “Brookland Park Bouelvard will look totally different in five years” took a three-year pandemic hiatus, but I think it might be starting to pick up steam again.
 

I like this “occasional series” from Meghan McIntyre at the Virginia Mercury highlighting three interesting bills for this week.” Remember as you read through this list, especially when you get to the anti-science bill at the end, that we’re very early in the legislative process and a lot of these bills only get submitted for headlines, ratings, and chuckles.
 

A quick update: Earlier this week, one of our regional planning groups, Plan RVA, met to discuss the possibility of extending the Pulse further west into Henrico. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but they’ve posted the video over on their YouTube, which means you can set the playback speed to 2x and get through the entire thing in just under 20 minutes. I just added this to my long-weekend to-do list!
 

As per the Old Ways handed down by George Wythe himself (probably), Monday is Lobby Day in Richmond, and that means you should expect tons of folks Downtown near the Capitol trying to convince legislators to do one thing or another. It’s a neat tradition, and, when the streets aren’t filled with gun-toting men high on testosterone, it’s a pretty visible example of folks getting involved in the legislative process. Keep it in mind if you’ve got to move through the City, though, as there are some street closures.
 

Logistical note! Since Monday is Lobby Day aka Martin Luther King Jr. Day aka an official state holiday, I’ll be taking the day off from your inboxes. I hope you’ll find some way—even if it’s small—to get involved in your community over the long weekend. In fact, Katie Potter at RIC Today has 35+ different ways to get more involved across the region.
 

This morning’s longread

Hell on Two Wheels, Until the E-Bike’s Battery Runs Out

Here’s a very fun, very New Yorkër review of many e-bikes that are too expensive for me to consider owning. Good writers are such a treat!
 

Among the throttle models on display, I picked the Orbiter T1 ($3,000), because it did not look as if it belonged in “The Terminator.” To engage the accelerator, you push down on a spring-loaded thumb throttle on the right grip. Trying to summon the courage to press the throttle, I pedalled along the empty sidewalk of Broome Street. I turned onto Elizabeth Street, where there were some people on the sidewalk whom I preferred not to mow down. I switched to the street. Trembling, I pressed the throttle. Whoa! There was no jerk when the motor kicked in, as there can be with a pedal-assist. The throttle allows a more gradual acceleration than a pedal-assist does. It’s also useful in starting from a standstill on an upslope. By the time I reached the end of the block, I was ready to join the Hells Angels.
 

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Picture of the Day

Glass is cool.