Good morning, RVA! It's 60 °F, and the day ahead of us looks pretty great. Expect highs in the 70s, some sunshine, and not much chance of rain until tomorrow morning. Today looks like the best day of the week, and maybe the best day until Monday! I hope you can find the time to get out there and enjoy it!
Water cooler
Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury has an interesting/terrifying report about the use of cell phone tracking by Virginia's police departments. From the piece: "At least nine of the 18 police departments sampled track cell phones, but how frequently varied considerably by department. At the high end, Chesterfield accounted for 4,500 days of tracking and 346 warrants, while Norfolk Police, at the low end, reported 63 days of tracking across six warrants." Police must get a warrant to track a phone's location, but it sounds like, in practice, that's not particularly challenging. Also interesting, Verizon charges just $200 for a month for secretly tracking a customer's phone, while AT&T charges $850.
Last week, I linked to this really inspiring Henrico Draft Bike Lanes map, which is part of the County's update to their Comprehensive Plan. Today, I want to link to this public engagement survey where Henrico residents can leave feedback on the long term future of the County. I flipped through the survey (but didn't submit since I don't live in Henrico), and found this extremely fascinating map of where respondents think the County should protect, change, grow housing, grow employment, invest, and focus on transportation. Almost every transportation pin sits in the western part of the county, every "protect" pin in the eastern part, and most of the housing pins encircle the City. I'm not sure what it means, but it's a striking map. Anyway, Henrico runs fast and tight with their public engagement processes, so if you're a resident you should definitely take advantage of this opportunity to weigh in! You've got until April 22nd to do so.
Hey, look at this! The League of American Bicyclists named Bike Walk RVA's Brantley Tyndall their Advocate of the Year! The League is a national bike advocacy group and each year recognizes "a leader of a bicycling and/or walking advocacy organization who has shown tireless commitment to promoting bicycling and walking in their state/community. This person goes above and beyond the call of duty to transform their state/community into a great place for biking and walking. Their time, knowledge, creativity, and commitment are the highest standard of excellence exemplifying a role model for peers." That definitely describe Brantley and his work in the Richmond region and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Congrats, and thank you for your hard work to make biking better!
Colleen Curran at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the Catrow family can continue enjoying takeout margs for at least another two years! Curran says the Governor signed two bills (HB 426 and SB 254) extending takeout and delivery cocktails until 2024. Unfortunately, the new bills have some stipulations that could cause just enough friction that some restaurants may choose to just not. Specifically, the law requires containers that display the name of the restaurant with no straw holes. That means buying separate containers and either custom printing them or slapping a sticker on the side. Maybe someone will come up with a cheap and easy solution to this mostly invented non-problem?
Via /r/rva, is it worth getting a library card from all three of Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield library systems? Yes! The three localities each allow neighboring residents to sign up for cards, and you can then add those cards to the Libby app—dramatically increasing the chances of finding whatever you're looking for. Plus, the three systems seem to have a bit of a different selection, too. Why not!
P.S. City Council budget sessions #5 and #6 are up on The Boring Show. We've got just one more regular budget session before Council moves on to trying their best to amend the Mayor's budget. Typically, the budget amendment process is not the most fruitful, but maybe this year they'll all get on the same page about some Council priorities that differ from the Mayor's priorities (as reflected in his proposed budget—the Civilian Review Board comes to mind...).
This morning's longread
Your Camera Roll Contains a Masterpiece
I really enjoyed this thoughtful piece about taking the time to actually process, edit, and contemplate the photos on your camera roll. I love taking pictures but, recently, have kind fallen out of that (important!) part of the practice. This article was like a nice, gentle reminder to put some more effort back into it.
Redacting takes time. You can’t edit pictures by thinking; you have to do it by looking. The more pictures you have, the more you have to look. Everyone’s different, but here’s how I worked back in the film days. Every other night, I’d develop three rolls of Kodak Tri-X film, standing at my kitchen sink. With a lighted magnifier, I would carefully examine the three contact sheets, each containing thirty-five frames. Looking at the miniature pictures, I knew the cost of each one to the cent. From them, I’d select maybe fifteen pictures, making eight-by-ten work prints of them. At first, I’d think they all showed the same promise. But then I’d pin them up on the wall for five days and look at them. Day by day, something mysterious would happen. Perhaps three of the pictures would pull me in further, with force, until I loved looking at them. The other twelve I’d never need to see again.
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