Good morning, RVA! It's 66 °F, and yesterday was actually pretty lovely—so much so that I feel like I need to apologize for lumping it in with the rest of this summer’s sweltering Wednesdays. Today, though, we‘ll have temperatures back in the 90s and a chance for rain later this evening. Looking ahead, the NBC12 weather team says to watch out for tomorrow, when they expect near-record temperatures, triple-digit Feels Likes, and a chance for “an isolated strong late-day storm.” Seems like a lot, and I’m content with today’s comparatively boring forecast!
Water cooler
VPM’s Meghan Moore tried to get out there and ride on the newly-relaunched RVA BikeShare system and reports on some difficulty with, well, everything. I think the headline speaks for itself: “RVA BikeShare 2.0 exists, but does not work.” Moore could not purchase a membership, couldn’t take advantage of the free rides offered by the City, couldn’t get the system to take a credit card, and got a bounce back from the support email address. Brutal. While I totally empathize with needing some time to work the kinks out of operating a once-shuttered system under a new vendor, I do wonder if the relaunch was unnecessarily rushed? Like, was anyone expecting an RVA BikeShare return this summer? I say we give the team some time to find their rhythm, and, if it’s still not working next week, I’ll probably have some more thoughts.
Wyatt Gordon at Greater Greater Washington looks at how Richmond’s Department of Public Works will spend millions of dollars from the Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program, mostly through modifying stoplights and installing stop signs. I agree with Bike Walk RVA’s Brantley Tyndall who says “I would like to see more pedestrian focus on the use of Highway Safety Improvement Program dollars...Flashing yellow arrows and high visibility backplates should provide a significant pedestrian safety benefit at intersections due to increased driver awareness. They won’t be as effective as raised crosswalks or lane narrowing, but we will take what we can get.” Also, towards the end of the article, the City’s Vision Zero Coordinator falsely equates those flimsy stop for pedestrian signs to real pilot infrastructure projects built using temporary materials, saying “If I were to stop and focus on doing something with temporary materials, that doesn’t last very long — we’ve seen what happens with the stop for pedestrian signs, we could go around chasing those forever and never get around to the funding that makes a difference.” First, when I ask the City to pilot infrastructure projects, I’m not asking—and have never asked!—for those pedestrian signs. Second, I don’t get this intense resistance to pilot projects; it makes absolutely zero sense. There are many examples of how to slow traffic using temporary materials. It’s not like Richmond is some special infrastructure snowflake. We have barrels! We have barriers! Now let’s use them to quickly make our streets safer.
As foretold, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Em Holter reports that a judge ruled against the Richmond Lodge No. 1 of the Good Lions Inc. and cleared the path for Richmonders to vote on Casino 2.0 at this November’s election. There are lots of other reasons to make a plan to get out and vote in November, but, if you live in Richmond, this is certainly one of them.
Axios Richmond’s Ned Oliver stumbled upon a new cake restaurant chain called “Nothing Bundt Cakes,” which, as far as pun-based names go, is at least greater than the median. Do we need a bundt cake restaurant? I do not know, but Oliver reviews the new shop while also throwing shade on his grandma.
August is Virginia Craft Beer Month, which I did not know! To celebrate, the Virginia Museum of History and Culture and the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia will host “Brewing in the Black Community: From African Origins to Craft’s Future” this coming Friday. Ian M. Stewart, writing for Style Weekly, talks to some of the folks involved about what sounds like a really rad event. Stop by, learn a ton, and sample some beers—including one brewed in a traditional African style.
This morning's longread
The Next Olympics Mascot Might Have Been a Mutant Morning Glory
Nicola Twilley, who I know through her wonderful podcast Gastropod, writes about the failed attempt to create a checkerboard morning glory as the mascot for the 2020 Olympics. It’s probably OK that the attempt failed, as the 2020 Olympics, held in 2021, were the first and only Olympics without spectators. I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to read pre-2020 pieces (this one was published in November 2019) and not think “oh man, you didn’t even know what was coming” the entire time.
As he reflected on what he disliked about the Olympics—the tchotchke-choked monetization that accompanies an otherwise stirring display of human effort, teamwork, and excellence—Slavin wondered what its opposite would be. A true Olympic mascot, he felt, should be “a source of delight and wonder and beauty, and actually add something to the planet instead of just ending up in a landfill somewhere.” Slavin imagined designing a new form of life, to be collectively grown and given away—perhaps a tree, genetically modified so that its leaves expressed Olympic colors. He told Ogasawara that he had an idea, but that there was no way Mori would be bold enough to do it. This, unsurprisingly, was like catnip to the powerful executive, and the company quickly signed on to support the creation of the world’s first genetically modified Olympic mascot.
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Picture of the Day
Growing melons from seed each year is maybe the thing I’m most proud of.
