Good morning, RVA! It's 57 °F, and our streak of amazing weather may end this afternoon. There’s a decentish chance for rain starting after lunch and continuing on through the evening. Same kind of deal on Saturday, too. Temperatures look great, though, so I think as long as you can dodge the rain, you’ve still got a good chance for some solid out-of-doors time this weekend.
Water cooler
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 1,928 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 21 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 225 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 67, Henrico: 88, and Richmond: 70). Since this pandemic began, 1,241 people have died in the Richmond region. Hmmm, a new reported case count number just a hair shy of 2,000—don’t love that. Here’s this week’s stacked chart of new reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. And, aside from the absolutely useless deaths graph, I think you can clearly see we're in a "will they or won't they" phase. I get that basically maintaining the current level of disease spread as we head into Memorial Day, the end of the semester, and nicer weather all round seems like decent progress, but, dang, these numbers are still numbers that would have terrified us back in the fall. I know that this section of the email has become a boring and skippable place where I repeat myself about the importance of staying disease vigilant, but, like, that's still what we should be doing! I mean, check out the UVA Model update from a couple of days ago. All scenarios, even the best case ones, have us cresting a new peak of disease around the first week of May. With only 34% of Virginia with at least one dose of the vaccine, we're nowhere near a place where herd immunity will protect Us—like the larger, communal us.
I haven't seen it reflected in any of my vaccine chartsandgraphs yet, but the New York Times reports that due to that Baltimore factory screw up, Johnson & Johnson will "allocate 86 percent fewer doses across the United States next week than are currently being allocated." These are big, mega drops in the amount of vaccine states were expecting. For example, California got 527,700 doses of J&J last week, this week it will only get 67,600. According to this CDC table, which I hadn't seen until this morning, Virginia received 124,700 J&J doses this week and will only get 14,800 next week. Yikes. If you were hoping to get a one-and-done Johnson & Johnson shot over the next little while, you should probably temper that expectation.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch's Kenya Hunter reports that Micky Ogburn will step down as chairwoman of the Henrico County School Board. Ogburn shared a dumb conservative-outrage Facebook post about Dr. Seuss a couple weeks back, and, since then, a few folks had called for her to step down from her leadership position—including at least one fellow boardmember. Important clarification: Ogburn is not resigning resigning, just stepping down from her leadership position. She will still represent Henrico's Three Chopt District on the School Board.
Also in the RTD by Rex Springston, check out this interesting oral history of how the Northside's Bryan Park has changed over the last couple of decades. I had no idea the park narrowly avoided a horrible, worst-case future as a golf course! Or that in the 90s the City used the middle of the park to dump trash and abandon vehicles. Fascinating. Two notes: First, Bryan Park is great, and I'm thankful for the hard work that went into saving it and helping it thrive as a public space; Second, there are definitely some dog whistles in this piece about why the park was "seedy" in the 90s. Beware.
Sometimes I come across things that are incredibly boring but feel like I should know more about. Dominion Energy's triennial review is just one of those things, and I appreciate the Virginia Mercury's Sarah Vogelsong for explaining it in a bearable, nearly enjoyable way. Why does the triennial review matter? "At the most basic level, the triennial review matters because it determines whether the base rates Dominion’s customers have been paying over the past four years have been reasonable." You don't have a choice about who you buy your electricity from, so reviews like this (theoretically) prevent the monopoly from gouging you on rates (theoretically). More importantly, why is it called a triennial review when it covers four years? "Let’s get this one out of the way: Yes, Dominion’s 2021 triennial review covers the four years from 2017 to 2020. No, it does not make sense." Love it.
Remember: Today at 12:00 PM, the City will host its last virtual public meeting (for now) on the proposed resort casino. You can join in via Microsoft teams and hear a report-out of the community feedback up to this point. I think this is a repeat of yesterday's meeting, video of which should be posted online at some point soon. Now, the "evaluation panel," will take a look at the proposals and community feedback and make a recommendation on their preferred location/proposal to City Council. That should happen in the next couple of months. Who sits on the evaluation panel? A bunch of folks you may recognize: Councilmembers Addison and Robertson, CAO Lincoln Saunders, and then a bunch of high-ups from the City (including Maritza Pechin, the new head of the Office of Equitable Development). Stressful work for that crew over the next several weeks—good luck!
It's day nine of /r/rva's obsession with Brookland Park Boulevard's Little Pedestrian Sign that Could. Here's a full list of the locations (kind of) where the City will install these signs.
This morning's longread
How to make the bus better
Think of this piece like a Jarrett Walker primer and way to spend a bit of time this weekend revisiting some transit basics (or visiting them for the first time!).
Every once in a while someone rediscovers that city buses are a good mode of transportation, either because they’ve gotten frustrated with a local government wasting money on mixed-traffic streetcars, or else — as in this recent Farhad Manjoo column — because they’ve gotten frustrated with endless Silicon Valley hype-cycles about new driving technology. And this is true. The bus is a very elegant solution to the basic geometrical issue with cars. Forty people who fit very comfortably on a bus would fill several lanes in solo cars. And if they’re standing, even more people can crowd onto a bus at peak hours, while the street literally cannot accommodate any extra cars.
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