Earlier this week, I wrote about the ITDP's study for using "percentage of a population living near rapid transit" (PNT) as a measure of transit accessibility. It's an interesting measure mostly because it's so dang easy to calculate and gives you a hint about the equity of a region's transit system and possible places for expansion. But after publishing that back-of-the-napkin piece, I wondered what the region's actual PNT would be with the Pulse, and more interesting, what it would be once we fully implement the (so-to-be-official) Richmond Regional Transit Vision Plan.

Wonder no longer, because here are the numbers and maps to answer that very question!

PNT of the Richmond region

You can compare and contrast our PNT with other cities from around the world using the table in the ITDP report (PDF). Most of those cities are huge so the comparisons aren't the greatest—although the Rotterdam region (1.2 million folks and a PNT of 55%) gets closest.

Here's what giving 44% of the region access to rapid transit looks like. The red are census blocks within 1 kilometer of a rapid transit line, the darker colors are denser census blocks.

Folks within 1km of rapid transit after the Pulse opens

Folks within 1km of rapid transit after full implementation of the RRTVP

A couple of notes

• For PNT purposes, "near" is defined as within 1 kilometer and "rapid transit" is defined as BRT, light rail, or metro.
• All of the population data comes from the six-year-old 2010 Census. Keep that in mind.
• Here's the map of the Pulse's route.
• Here's the draft regional map from the Richmond Regional Transit Vision Plan.
• Some of the highlighted census blocks are oddly shaped and obviously stretch further than 1 kilometer from a rapid transit route. Such is life!
• Depending on what's recommended by the final RRTVP, we might could add Hanover to this map.