This past week, transit supporters were at the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors meeting in support of bringing public transit to the county. Check out the RVA Rapid Transit Facebook page for a couple of pictures (give us a Like while you're there!), and if you want to watch the public comments you can do so here (skip to 1:28:00 in the video).

If you live in Chesterfield, let your Board of Supervisors representative know that you support bringing public transit to the County!

AROUND THE REGION

The Whole Foods development on Broad Street has received conditional approval from the Richmond Planning and Development Review office. The Pulse has a set of stations at this very intersection—the westbound station sits directly in front of the Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken and the eastbound station sits across the street from the planned Whole Foods.

GRTC has bought a property adjacent to its Belt Boulevard Headquarters to help store their ever-growing bus fleet. Thumbs up to expanding bus service!

ELSEWHERE

For the next couple of weeks, this section of our wonderful weekly email will be provided by our new intern Zac. He'll be helping us with some research, planning, and writing—including, among other things, this!

The Dallas City Council recently shook up the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board when four members who voted in favor of a commuter rail line in a northern suburb were voted out of office. Improving the city’s existing bus system and streetcar and adding a downtown subway were priorities for the City Council, and given the $1 billion cost of each project—and uncertainty of federal funds—they had to choose which would benefit the city most.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry has set a big goal for the city’s transit system: Within 10 years she hopes to have light rail running on all four major corridors in the region. The project, which would be funded by local referendum, would help bring more job opportunities in Nashville to the residents of Davidson County who live outside the city limits. Mayor Barry believes that once Nashville leads the way, the region will follow.

As Atlanta looks to combat congestion, they're looking towards Denver's model of using every transit tool available: bus rapid transit, light rail, street cars, bike and pedestrian trails, and toll lanes on congested highways. Two critical things made Denver's transit success possible: regional partnerships and voter-approved taxes.

Bikes help solve the last mile problem of getting from your home to public transportation—but riding safely requires safe streets, which means bike lanes. Macon, Georgia had few residents riding bikes on the city’s existing three disconnected blocks of bike lanes, and the low ridership made the city government reluctant to expand and connect them. They decided to launch a temporary trial network that connected the bike lanes into an 8-mile network and, to their surprise, ridership grew 800%! This shows that if you build safe, connected transportation, people will ride.

If you'd like to support RVA Rapid Transit's work to bring a truly regional transit system to Richmond, consider picking up an awesome transit map T-shirt or making a tax-deductible donation.

—Ross Catrow