🖤💛 Good morning, RVA: Streets for All!, Michael Twitty, and French fries

Good morning, RVA! It’s 21 °F, and today you can expect highs in the low 40s. I think it’s cold weather from here on out, y’all!

Water cooler

Here’s some big legislative news: 1st District Councilmember Andreas Addison has introduced his Streets for All legislative package, which includes five resolutions and five ordinances all designed to make our streets safer for people. I think its important, and I want you to see exactly what a “legislative package” looks like, so I’m going to list out each and every bill—hold onto your butts.

Here’s what we’re looking at:

• RES. 2019-R069 asks the General Assembly to let the City create no-turn-on-red zones (!) and allow Idaho stops.
• RES. 2019-R068 sets a bunch of equity and sustainability goals like reducing the use of private automobiles as a primary transportation mode by 50 percent within 12 years and increasing access to public transportation in areas that don’t have it now.
• RES. 2019-R067 creates budget priorities for a true, standalone Vision Zero coordinator; $1,000,000 annually for Vision Zero projects; more funding for RPD to do traffic enforcement; and cash to fill vacancies in the Department of Public Works and the Department of Planning and Development Review.
• RES. 2019-R066 requests that the City study Barnes Dance crossings!
• RES. 2019-R065 asks the City to create a streetlight standard (if you haven’t been on Floyd between Robinson and Strawberry at night, make it your beeswax to do so and see what great street lighting can do for a neighborhood).
• ORD. 2019–320 reduces the speed on Patterson to 25 miles per hour.
• ORD. 2019–319 reduces the speed on Libbie to 25 miles per hour.
• ORD. 2019–315 creates a $60 fee for parking in the bike lane.
• ORD. 2019–314 requires contractors who close sidewalks, bike lanes, or transit lanes, to restore them to their original condition within three days of the end of their permit.
• ORD. 2019–313 sets a standard for intersections to become eligible for all-way stop signs.

Whew! That’s a lot of stuff!

I think—other than the Mayor’s efforts to raise the real estate tax to pre-Recession Era levels—this is the boldest legislative effort I’ve seen since I’ve followed City Council. Sure, it doesn’t get everything done that I’d want, but the thoughtfulness and amount of work that went in to creating a 10-paper package like this is incredible. We just don’t see that from our (part-time) legislators. I hope the Councilmember’s work serves as inspiration for his peers, and we start to see legislation like this addressing any of the one billion areas we could use more progressive policies. How about we start with housing?

I knew that the City had an Eviction Diversion Program, but did not know we were getting an Eviction Task Force. Tap through to the aforelinked press release to see the list of task force members—it’s pretty much a who’s-who of Richmond housing.

City Council’s GovOps committee meets today with a short agenda, but keep your eye on RES. 2019-R064 which would ask the General Assembly to change the City’s Charter making it a requirement to live in the district in which you were elected for the entirety of your term. This would close the Agelasto Loophole™.

Y’all, Micheal Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene, will discuss his book at the Library of Virginia tonight from 5:30–7:00 PM. Twitty is amazing, and I first saw him while watching episodes of 18th Century Cooking on YouTube. I mean: “Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the southern past—and that food has the power to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together.” You might also remember his post about disgruntled White plantation visitors. Anyway, I think he’s great, and think you should definitely attend this event. It’s free and open to the public.

I take this post on /r/rva very seriously, “Urgent: Best fries in Richmond?” You won’t find the correct answer in that thread though, but I am willing to tell you here: Greenleaf’s Pool Room has the best fries in Richmond.

Because the number of NoBro meetings is basically infinite at this point, the Mayor and City officials will host their own set of town halls, beginning tonight at Carver Elementary (1110 W. Leigh Street) from 6:00–7:30 PM.

This morning’s longread

Oregon Just Voted to Legalize Duplexes on Almost Every City Lot

As the 2020 General Assembly session approaches, Democrats across the state are making progressive wishlists and checking them twice. Earlier this year Oregon and Minneapolis got rid of zoning laws preventing denser housing (duplexes and triplexes) in what had been single-family-only zones. I haven’t heard about anyone attempting to do this in Virginia, but we should! Remember, it’s not about banning single-family homes, it’s about allowing duplex and triplexes.

Oregon legislators took a historic leap toward greener, fairer, less expensive cities Sunday by passing the first law of its kind in the United States or Canada: A state-level legalization of so-called “missing middle” housing. If signed by Gov. Kate Brown in the next month, House Bill 2001 will strike down local bans on duplexes for every low-density residential lot in all cities with more than 10,000 residents and all urban lots in the Portland metro area. In cities of more than 25,000 and within the Portland metro area, the bill would further legalize triplexes, fourplexes, attached townhomes, and cottage clusters on some lots in all “areas zoned for residential use,” where only single-detached houses are currently allowed. Or, as some more dramatic headlines have summarized it: The bill bans single-family zoning.

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This morning’s Instagram