TAKE ACTION
This Thursday, Henrico will host the first of three public meetings to present recommended changes to their portion of the region's transportation network. This is exciting! If you live, work, worship, or hang out in the County, these three meetings are a golden opportunity to get involved and tell the folks in charge what you think. This week's meeting will take place at the Libbie Mill Library from 5:30–7:00 PM. If you can't make it, additional (and identical) meetings will be held on October 16th and November 2nd. P.S. If you like homework, read the Henrico County Transit Choices Report beforehand (PDF)!
Also, our next batch of transit map T-shirts will head to the printer in just a couple of days. Don't wait to pull the trigger! Get yours now.
AROUND THE REGION
This Friday, October 6th, I'll be speaking about transit and justice at St. Paul's Eyes on Richmond lunch series in a talk titled "Here, There, and Eveywhere"—which, yes, is a Beatles song. If you've never heard me talk about the impact the lack of regional transit has on Metro Richmond you should come out! I can promise lots of interesting charts, graphs, and maps.
Reminder! Next Thursday (October 12th), we're hosting an event with Partnership for Smarter Growth and the excellent transit experts from TransitCenter. We'll discuss where Richmond fits in with national trends regarding bus networks, BRTs, transit-oriented land use, streetscaping, and how cities and transit agencies work together. If you're a transit fan or just transit-curious, come on out and spend an evening talking transportation! It's a free event; learn more and RSVP here.
IMPORTANT UPDATE! Due to the one million transit-related things going on this month (see above), we've decided to reschedule our October 17th screening of Free to Ride. We're shooting for a new date in early 2018. Stay tuned!
ELSEWHERE
It seems like everyone is talking about Amazon's new headquarters and its requirement for a mass transit system. This column in the Cincinnati Enquirer puts it really well for cities (like Richmond) that don't meet that requirement: "It’s never too late to start creating this system. To do this we need more vocal supporters telling their elected officials we want this. Corporations like Amazon saying they want this goes a long way, but elected representatives need to hear this from us, the general public, too."
Earlier this year I wrote about a Columbus pilot program to give folks who work downtown free access to their transit network. The Columbus Dispatch has an update on the $4.5 million expansion of the plan which is paid for by downtown property owners, employers, local businesses, grants, and the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. The program hopes to get more people on the bus and free up some of the limited downtown parking.
Boston wants to make their bus passes work with all sorts of transit-related services: bike share, Zipcar, parking meters, and Lyft. We're a ways off from this in Richmond, but how great would a unified GRTC and RVA Bike Share card be?
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