TAKE ACTION

If you’re a Richmond City or Henrico County resident, please take two minutes of your day and email your representative in support of the funding for public transportation included in each locality’s budget. To recap:

In Richmond, the Mayor has proposed $965,000 in new funding for GRTC for “increased service and route frequency to those communities that need it the most.”
In Henrico, the County Manager has proposed $465,000 to preserve and continue the new service that they launched this past September.

Both of these are worthy investments by our region and should be encouraged! You can find contact information for the Richmond City Council here and contact information for the Henrico Board of Supervisors here. If you’re stuck on what your email should say, keep it simple! Something along the lines of: “I’m a constituent, and I’m happy to see more funding for GRTC in this year’s budget. Please support this much needed investment in our regional public transportation system.”

AROUND THE REGION

At a recent meeting, the GRTC Board of Directors voted to restore some of the frequent, 15-minute service to Fulton’s #4A and #4B bus routes. This peak-only restoration of service will allow folks to get in and out of Fulton—on the way to and from work—much more efficiently and will cut the average wait for folks transferring from the Pulse in half. As our region scrapes together the pieces of the skeletal beginnings of a regional public transportation system, it’s important to remember that even with the influx of funding mentioned above, the Richmond region still spends less on transit per capita than almost any of its peer cities.

ELSEWHERE

This past week, Gwinnett County voters went to the polls and, unfortunately, rejected a 1% sales tax increase to expand public transportation into their region. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editorial board says that “the changing politics and demographics of Gwinnett seem to guarantee that MARTA will eventually arrive.” Also in the AJC, a demographic breakdown of the vote and five takeaways from their quick analysis of the turnout.

—Ross Catrow