Good morning, RVA! It's 41 °F, but highs near 70 this afternoon sound pretty great. Expect warmer weather, maybe forever! I mean, due to climate change, sure, but also because spring and summer!
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 13,535 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and 458 people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 1,578 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 457, Henrico: 817, and Richmond: 304). While we’ve already got a couple state-supplied metrics to track as Virginia slowwwwly works its way toward Phase One of the Governor’s recovery plan, the Washington Post says the federal government has another number to cram into your spreadsheet: Monthly tests per 1,000 people. Their guidance to states, apparently, is to shoot for 30 tests per 1,000 residents in a month. As you can probably guess, Virginia hasn’t hit this goal yet, but, due to a recent ramp up in tests, the Commonwealth no longer sits dead last among its fellow states. That’s progress! Over the last 30 days, according to the current VDH data, Virginia has administer 8.3 tests per 1,000 residents. To hit the federal goal, we’d need to average about 8,500 tests per day (more than double what we’re doing now, but still less than the Governor’s goal of 10,000 per day). Too many numbers! My spreadsheets have officially crossed into the unmanageable zone!
Speaking of testing, the local health district will host a testing event in Creighton Court today. You do not have to live in Creighton Court to get tested, but you must: live in Richmond City or Henrico; have some COVID-19 symptoms; and not have insurance, have insurance that doesn’t cover testing, or live in an affordable housing community. Also! You must register in advance by calling the COVID-19 hotline (804.205.3501). If you live or work in the East End, please help spread the word and keep an eye out for future pop-up testing events.
Roberto Roldan has more details on yesterday’s bus operator call-out at GRTC, including a letter sent by CEO Julie Timm to the union president. First, before I write anything about this, I have to acknowledge that I’ve spent my entire life growing up in Virginia and have all sorts of anti-labor predispositions that I’m still working through. That said, this is a tough, tough situation on all sides. Bus operators are, without a doubt, essential employees in normal times and are especially so in this present moment. They’re performing hazardous work and should—in my personal opinion—receive hazard pay. That work, though, is essential for some of our most vulnerable Richmonders, and we’ve seen that reflected in the relatively high bus ridership throughout the pandemic. When bus service drops across the city to once-per-hour, folks with lower incomes suffer the most. The union wants time-and-a-half for folks, but Timm says that’ll cost $3 million, just through the end of June. Additionally, C. Suarez Rojas at the Richmond Times-Dispatch says that company policy (which is almost certainly not immutable) restricts GRTC from adjusting the current year’s budget by more than $250,000 and that “Timm last week authorized a $300 and $500 bonus for drivers, supervisors, mechanics and cleaning crews.” Here’s the thing: GRTC doesn’t make a profit. The lion’s share of its revenue comes from local, state, and federal governments. If paying bus operators hazard pay is a priority, then the region needs to put that priority into their budgets. But what money even exist? Even in the midst of the coronavirus, though, there’s money to get this done thanks to the recently-passed federal relief act and the newly-created Central Virginia Transportation Authority. With some creativity, empathy, and trust, I think the region could protect both our bus operators who are doing essential work and the folks who depend on bus service to live their lives. Our region’s leaders just need to make it a priority.
I saw and heard about a bunch of folks letting the Mayor know that closing streets to through traffic and opening them up to people traffic is a priority during this coronacrisis. Let’s keep it up! Email the Mayor or tweet at him (rvamayor@richmondgov.com, @LevarStoney) and ask him to close 10% of Richmond’s streets to through traffic giving folks from all parts of the City enough space to practice safe social distancing. Today, let’s focus on personal stories. Have you ever felt unsafe on a crowded, narrow sidewalk? Does your neighborhood lack the room to safely push a stroller? Do your streets just not have sidewalks at all? Those are important details for the folks in charge to hear! Tell the Mayor your story, and lets get a program like Oakland’s Slow Streets implemented ASAP.
Reminder: The Bikes, Buses + Budget Urbanism Happy Hour takes place tonight at 6:00 PM. Join me and some of my favorite folks (Adam Lockett, Louise Lockett Gordon, and Kendra Norrell) as we talk through what this upcoming budget means for transportation across the city. I mean, it should be an interesting discussion—see above, am I right?
This morning's longread
Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not
I love this sentence: “a pandemic is a communications emergency as much as a medical crisis.” Good, clear comms is so dang important!
Upon learning of the first domestic diagnosis, he told his staff—from emergency-room nurses to receptionists—that, from then on, everything they said was just as important as what they did. One of the E.I.S.’s core principles is that a pandemic is a communications emergency as much as a medical crisis. Members of the public entering the hospital, Riedo told his staff, must be asked if they had travelled out of the country; if someone had respiratory trouble, staff needed to collect as much information as possible about the patient’s recent interactions with other people, including where they had taken place. You never know, Riedo explained, which chance encounter will shape a catastrophe. There are so many terrifying possibilities in a pandemic; information brings relief.
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