Good morning, RVA! It's 29 °F, and today you can expect highs just on the cooler side of 50 °F. The skies stay cloudy but dry today as we’re waiting on a bit of rain tomorrow evening and still gearing up for a sunny weekend. It feels like winter in Richmond!
Water cooler
It’s the second Wednesday in January, and that means today the General Assembly will kick off its 2023 session! The General Assembly, it’ll have you know, is the oldest continuously operating law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and, as such, is weird and doesn’t really care what you think about it. For example, since it’s an odd-numbered year, the GA will meet for just “30 days,” because our legislative process predates America and we still think our legislators need to hurry back home and take care of the farm. The delightful weirdness begins in earnest at 12:00 PM, and you can probably find all sorts of interesting resources—including some streaming video—over on VirginiaGeneralAssembly.gov. At 4:00 PM, Governor Youngkin will deliver a State of the Commonwealth address to both houses of the GA and will “outline his Day Two Agenda for Virginia.” You can probably expect tax cuts, defunding public schools, undoing climate policy, and further restricting abortion to all make the talking points.
That previous, dystopian sentence bums me out, but I am feeling decidedly un-bummed by the news that it seems Democrat Aaron Rouse won the 7th Senate District special election last night. Should the results hold, this gives Democrats a decidedly Morrissey-proof majority in the Senate and strengthens their brick wall against policies Senator Morrissey may be willing to cross the aisle to support—like restricting abortion and defunding public schools. I guess Rouse is due to get to work in Richmond this morning? The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Andrew Cain says results will be finalized on Friday, so I’m not sure how seating him in the Senate works. Regardless, busy week for that guy!
Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reports on the new Philly/Jersey-inspired restaurant going into the old Robin Inn spot. Lots of big names associated with this project: The beverage manager from Saison (RIP), the co-owner of Brennan Pass, and the co-owner of Cobra Burger (not Cobra Cabana). Sounds like the new owners recognize the value of an old, dark, wood-paneled space in the Fan and (thankfully!) aren’t planning any sort of major renovations.
Axios Richmond’s Ned Oliver pointed me to this video on Eater about how Sub Rosa makes their pear, ricotta, and caramel croissants. A lot of freaking work goes into this very delicious snack!
Cool job news: VPM is looking to hire a general manager for Style Weekly. VPM bought Style Weekly a couple years back and has been—at least from my outside perspective—pretty hands-off when it comes to their arts- and culture-focused mission. This sounds like a fun opportunity for the right person.
This morning's longread
Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It?
This is the third or fourth major, national article I’ve seen about induced demand in the last couple of years, and it gives me hope that maybe we can all stop spending millions and millions of dollars to needlessly expand highways. If you’re widening highways just to reduce congestion—see I-64 east of Richmond or 195 in Chesterfield—you’re going to end up disappointed in only a handful of years.
For critics of widening projects, the prime example of induced demand is the Katy Freeway in Houston, one of the widest highways in the world with 26 lanes. Immediately after Katy’s last expansion, in 2008, the project was hailed as a success. But within five years, peak hour travel times on the freeway were longer than before the expansion. Matt Turner, an economics professor at Brown University and co-author of the 2009 study on congestion, said adding lanes is a fine solution if the goal is to get more cars on the road. But most highway expansion projects, including those in progress in Texas, cite reducing traffic as a primary goal. “If you keep adding lanes because you want to reduce traffic congestion, you have to be really determined not to learn from history,” Dr. Turner said.
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Picture of the Day
I love this tangle of trunks.
