Good morning, RVA! It's 72 °F, and, whoa, it's rained a lot over the past 24 hours. You can expect more rain, too, throughout the morning. Cooler temperatures, though!
Water cooler
This past Saturday, the CDC and VDH got their ducks in a row and now third doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are available to folks with significantly compromised immune systems. The CDC has a list of folks who may need the additional dose, and it really is moderately to severely immunocompromised people: those who've received an organ transplant, those with advanced or untreated HIV, and people receiving active cancer treatment for tumors or cancers of the blood. VDH estimates that 3% of Virginians with two doses of an mRNA vaccine are eligible (124,322 total people). If you feel like you fall into a one of these significantly immunocompromised categories, if possible, talk to your health care provider.
Here's your reminder that the Richmond Public Schools superintendent will present his recommendation for an employee vaccine mandate at tonight's School Board meeting. From the aforelinked presentation: "Employees who do not meet the October 1 deadline (save for those who are granted an exemption) will be subject to progressive discipline, including loss of employment."
Chris Suarez at the RTD has the best story of the week: 'The Urban Botanists': Two Jackson Ward residents planting gardens in neighborhood alleyways and tree wells. If you've ridden through Jackson Ward lately, it's impossible not to notice the impact Taber Bain's guerrilla tree well gardens have had on the neighborhood. There's just so much plant life bursting up out of the ground! It's kind of shocking—but in an entirely good way. These gardens not only help soak up some runoff and keep water out of the City's aging sewer system, they also bring some joy and whimsy into the urban environment. I love it! I also love it as an example of how one person can tend, care for, and improve their neighborhood. Bain's already got me thinking of ways I can help make my own neighborhood a nicer place to live. Also, and I feel like I have to say this part out loud, I will be very upset if some rulesfollower makes it their mission to tear up these gardens and replace them with whatever dumb non-native annual ornamental.
Today the City's Planning Commission will meet and, among other things, talk about ORD. 2021-208, a Special Use Permit for 3101 E. Marshall Street. According to the staff report, the SUP would allow nine units instead of five, more commercial space on the ground floor, and fewer parking spaces. I know almost nothing about this project, but it has 14 total letters of opposition, which is atypical. So I tapped through and read a few of them, and they are just a treasure trove of NIMBY language. It's like an AI trained on public comments was tasked with writing oppositional letters. A few excerpts: "If I had known about this undergoing prior my purchase, I would have likely not purchased my current residence," "The height of the building makes it imposing and seem too big for the neighborhood, dwarfing the 100 year old homes next to it," "The building is oversized and unattractive—it doesn't match the character of the surrounding area," "The plans for 3101-05 will quite literally blot out the sun on our property," and, of course, plenty of comments about the lack of additional parking. City Staff, however, finds: "the proposed use would not be detrimental to the general welfare of the community involved and would not create congestion in the streets in the area involved." Like I said, I know nothing about the merits of this project, but I do find it fascinating how the same language is used over and over and over again to oppose any project of any size, shape, or scope in any part of the city.
The RTD's David Tran reports on the need for more bus stop amenities across our region and how complicated and slow the process of getting those amenities installed can be. I wish we could find a way to address this problem: "'Even if a lot of people want an amenity, if we can’t safely install something, if the sidewalk is too narrow and it can’t fit a bench, as much as we would like to, we just can’t,' said Raquel Aguire, GRTC’s bus stop and amenities program manager." Doing something seems better than doing nothing at all, though, right? Maybe we need a more flexible set of tools to help with these complicated issues—like smaller benches or a way to expand sidewalks as part of traffic claiming around bus stops.
I asked for data humans to get with it and start crunching the new Census data that dropped the other day, and we already have some of their early results. Chris Suarez and Jessica Nocera at the Richmond Times-Dispatch have this story about the influx of white people into Richmond, while the RTD's Mel Leonor reports that, on the whole, Virginia is now a more racially and ethnically diverse state. Also, the Virginia Public Access Project put together this nice map of which localities in the Commonwealth grew the most, showing the stark divide between rural and non-rural Virginia. I imagine we'll get to see more of this type of reporting and analysis in the coming weeks.
This morning's longread
We Still Do Not Have the COVID Data We Need
Emily Oster's latest email looks into the types of data we should be collecting—but aren't—to help us make decisions heading into the fall and winter.
There are a large number of smaller data pieces that we need answered, where it seems possible to answer them, and yet we have failed to do so. I want to talk about three examples — the problem, and how we might have done better (or might still do better!). As someone who thinks all the time about data, and what data we need, it seems clear that there are some feasible opportunities we have passed by. And in case anyone is listening, I’ll end with my pitch for a “Data Force.”
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