TAKE ACTION

It sounds like Chesterfield County has mostly decided to provide some sort of public transportation on Route 1 from the City limits to John Tyler Community College. Whether that will be fixed-route bus service provided by GRTC (👍) or an on-demand service provided by a private company (👎) remains to be seen. To help inform their decision, the County has put together a survey for folks who live, work, play, learn, and worship along the corridor. If you spend any time at all along Route 1 please fill out this survey! If you know people who spend any time at all along Route 1 please send them this survey!

AROUND THE REGION

Mark your calendars for February 28th! RVA Rapid Transit, along with a handful of other organizations, will host Mayorathon: Policy Jam from 6:30 – 8:00 PM at the Institute for Contemporary Art. We’ll sit down with Mayor Stoney to discuss his first two years in office and then also recommend priorities for his next two years. The evening will feature an in-depth, entertaining, and informal discussion on policy issues, with special guest appearances. It’s gonna be fun, wonky, and a good way to spend your Thursday evening. You can and should RSVP here.

At some point recently, GRTC installed new snow-route badges on some of their bus stop signs (pictured above). These charming little snowflakes let you know if your bus still serves that particular stop when GRTC switches over to snow routes. It’s a little, infrequently-used thing, but sure makes a big difference for folks standing out in the cold and snow.

ELSEWHERE

This Women Changing Transit mentorship program run by TransitCenter sounds awesome: “This program aims to connect women transit professionals with women leaders in transit to serve as mentors to help guide, advise and grow in their careers. The year-long mentorship program is open to applicants who identify as women and who are in the first 10 years of their career, in any facet of the transportation field: planning, engineering, administration, operations, finance, and advocacy. The multidisciplinary nature of this mentorship is intended to support and enhance connections and relationships across public/private/non-profit lines.” If you’re even slightly interested in this, I really recommend that you apply. The TransitCenter folks are wonderful to work with!

Now that our Bus Rapid Transit line is up and running, it’s fun to follow other cities through their BRT planning processes. Both Birmingham and Charleston are working through the next steps of bringing rapid transit to their towns.

These subway station designs in Toronto are beautiful / interesting!

—Ross Catrow