Good morning, RVA! It's 38 °F, and, today, we’ve got highs in the mid 40s and a pretty good chance of rain this evening. Warmer temperatures continue this week despite whatever I said last week!
Water cooler
Over in the Virginian-Pilot, Mayor Stoney has a column about what he’d like to see the Democrats in the General Assembly do with their new-found majority. Here’s his five-item short list: Fund the true cost of education, provide localities the authority to regulate firearms, fund city infrastructure needs, promote affordable housing, and pass legislation to promote inclusive communities. It’s a good list, and I want all of these things, too. I’m especially interested in guns, of course, but also schools funding—particularly that State-level Democrats don’t pull some budgetary sleight of hand to avoid coming up with the full $1 billion of new funding that they themselves say is required. Also, I’ll forgive the omission of a dedicated funding stream for public transportation for the Richmond region since this column ran in the Pilot.
Yesterday was World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Today, at the Library of Virginia from 6:00–8:00 PM, you can join Richmond Families for Safe Streets in remembering friends and family members lost to traffic fatalities (Facebook). From the Facebook event: “Come prepared to light a candle, write a message in memorial of someone you have lost, and to share your story with others if you like.”
Related: On World Day of Remembrance, Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren tweeted: “Traffic violence kills thousands and injures even more Americans every year. On World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Crash Victims, I'm sending my love to the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones. It's time to #EndTrafficViolence.” I’m hoping she’s got a plan for that, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Richmond BizSense’s J. Elias O’Neal has an interesting article about plans to redevelop the very top left corner of Scott’s Addition (1708 Belleville Street). Carter Snipes, the guy who redid the Hofheimer Building, wants to plop down a winery, restaurant, and “park space for people and their pets.” While the neighborhood desperately needs more green space, for sure, what it really needs is public green space. I’m interested to hear more, especially with quotes like this from Snipes, “If we can get the right support from CSX and the city, I think this site can truly function as a neighborhood park.”
Lia Tabackman at WTVR says the Hanover County School Board will meet to “discuss a possible resolution to a lawsuit filed against them by the Hanover County Unit of the NAACP” about renaming Lee-Davis High School. I’ve not followed this story super closely, but it feels like progress any time you get an elected body comparing the cost of continuing a lawsuit (several million dollars) to the cost of just doing whatever the lawsuit says you should do ($495,000). I’m wondering if we could hear some big news on this in just a couple of days??
Also from WTVR: “...folks donned T-Rex costumes trying to break a Guinness World Record at Dorey Park in Henrico County Sunday afternoon. The Richmond Road Runners Club hosted the event where participants donned inflatable T-Rex and T-Rex Jr. costumes for the second Richmond T. Rex Run.” The second T-Rex Run?? This quote is amazing: “When you hear about T-Rexes, you think about running around a park, and that excites people [and] is what I think makes Richmond, Richmond.” I agree! Nothing makes Richmond, Richmond more than inflatable T-Rexes running around in a park.
Mayor Stoney and Friends will host another town hall to discuss the North of Broad project, this one at the Hickory Hill Community Center (3000 E. Belt Boulevard) from 6:00–7:30 PM. Whatever you think about this project, there have been (and continue to be) many opportunities to get in front of the decision makers pushing things a long and ask them your questions. Whether a normal human person has enough time and bandwidth to process all of the information spewing out of these meetings and come up with a smart questions is an entirely different matter. Speaking of, Richmond Magazine’s Rodrigo Arriaza was at this past weekend’s Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission meeting and has a write up—if you’re looking to process more information spew.
This morning's longread
Zombie Miles And Napa Weekends: How A Week With Chauffeurs Showed The Major Flaw In Our Self-Driving Car Future
Y’all known I don’t believe in AVs, but here is a really interesting piece about how folks would use them should they magically come into existence. Spoiler: There would be a ton more cars on the road.
The logic behind how AVs will reduce traffic or reduce emissions—that there will be less space between cars, and cars will communicate with each other to flow more quickly and less erratically than with humans behind the wheel—is fundamentally no different than the arguments made in those old video clips, which maintained that more space for cars in the form of new lanes and new roads will do the same. Today, we have roughly 80 years of experience that has demonstrated it’s not that simple because when new roads and highways make traveling faster over longer distances possible, people change their behavior and restructure their lives to account for that. As more and more people do this, the roads fill up, resulting in rush hour gridlock and longer commutes for everybody.
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