ELSEWHERE

As we watch and wait for the General Assembly to decide on the fate of the transportation bills impacting the Richmond region (HB 1541 and HB 1414), let‘s take a look at a few transportation items from around the country:

TransitCenter published a postmortem of Nashville’s failed 2018 transportation referendum (PDF). This report offers a ton of lessons—for us here in Central Virginia—on how to engage bus riders and build a diverse coalition of support as the region continues to invest in new transit projects. Honestly, there are a lot of lessons in here for folks doing any sort of collaboration-building work—transit-related or otherwise!
The Indianapolis NBC affiliate reports that average daily ridership on IndyGo’s brand new BRT, the Red Line, is less than half of the 11,000 rides projected. It’s not an exact comparison, but, average weekday ridership on the Pulse this past fall hit 8,298, far above the 3,500 rides projected (and far above Indy’s current average daily ridership). While the Pulse is not perfect, its continued strong ridership shows that the region made some pretty good decisions when building a new foundation of the future of public transit in Richmond.
Dockless e-scooters are not public transportation (although, maybe they should be), but they do provide an interesting and useful way for folks to get to and from public transit lines. Chicago just released an absolutely fascinating evaluation of their e-scooter pilot program (PDF), that’s worth flipping through. This kind of in-depth, data-driven analysis of transportation programs and decisions is wonderful and part of the reason why RVA Rapid Transit has pushed for Richmond City to create its own Department of Transportation.

—Ross Catrow