Pedestrian Safety in Richmond

Rich Meagher:

It’s early February in Richmond. Unseasonably cold and icy. You remember, but a sizable group of people have come to downtown Richmond for a candlelight vigil, organized by a local nonprofit, Bike Walk RVA. The vigil is for people who have died recently because they were walking

Brantley Tyndall:

In no particular order. Lauren Jones, Barbara Ann Jones, Kristen Tolbert, Donald Jaciuk, Carri Underwood, Valerie Smith.

Rich Meagher:

Pedestrian safety is a big issue in cities in general, but recently in Richmond there have been a lot of deaths. Some famous ones. Valentine Museum Director Bill Martin was a recent victim, but this is not just about well-known victims. This affects everyone, including people like Cathy Fleming, who just lost her only daughter. Warning. This may be hard to hear.

Cathy Fleming:

It was November the 29th. I got a text at 5:38 PM that she had been hit. Her friend, not thinking, I guess, um, sent me a picture of my daughter dead on the side of the streets. I think often about when I was a kid, I lived in the country and, and if I dropped a dozen of eggs and we were really poor, my mother would, it would be a consequence. My daughter, if not a dozen of eggs. My daughter was my life. So I think something needs to be done to change the way we address this. The streets are not safe. Thank you.

Rich Meagher:

Cathy’s story is heartbreaking. She’s fully aware now of how dangerous the streets are, but she’s not the only one. Lots of people bike and walk around the city or want to and wonder why we can’t do a better job of protecting them. The city has a program called Vision Zero that imagines zero pedestrian deaths, but the folks at the vigils seem to recognize that we’re pretty far away from that goal.

Rebecca Thomas:

I walk between five and seven miles a day, and I became pretty aware pretty quickly that this is not a safe place to take a walk.

Rich Meagher:

This is another vigil attendee, Rebecca Thomas. She’s not exactly a civilian. She’s an advocate for pedestrian safety, but Rebecca’s reaction to these latest deaths…

Rebecca Thomas:

Total un surprise. This is a totally normal outcome of a bad system.

Rich Meagher:

I’m Rich Meagher. This is RVA’s Got Issues from Virginia Public Media. Today on our show: Pedestrian safety in Richmond. What are we doing to make our city safer? And is it enough? To talk about these questions, we’re joined now by VPM’s Whittney Evans. She’s been looking into Vision Zero for Curious Commonwealth, A VPM news series that explores audience questions about Virginia. Welcome, Whittney.

Whittney Evans:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Rich Meagher:

Whittney, let’s start with the big picture here. What’s, what’s the big takeaway that you’ve got from your reporting on this issue?

Whittney Evans:

Well, the, my big takeaway is that people in Richmond are incredibly passionate about what happens to streets and pedestrian safety in the city. I put, um, a question out to Reddit to the RVA Reddit to…

Rich Meagher:

Dangerous, dangerous thing to do, right?

Whittney Evans:

Very dangerous. But it was a wealth of information. I asked, what are the streets in your neighborhoods that you feel like are, they’re unsafe and they really need some work. And I just got a plethora. So many streets, so many problems, so many places where people feel like, Hey, I can’t let my kid outside. Um, these cars are going too fast here. You can’t see, um, so many different issues in so many different parts of the city.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. It seems like people are really attuned to this. Like, um, I, I, and I wonder if it’s like a Venn diagram, right? You’ve got the, the really active folks our, our lovely listeners, right? The folks who are really like engaged, but also just even folks if they care about one thing, right? They might care about what happens when they walk down the street or their kids are playing out front. Like it just seems like this is an issue that it’s, it’s one of the, the top priorities for people in the city.

Whittney Evans:

Right. It’s a really immediate issue.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah.

Whittney Evans:

So you’ve got a lot of people who are active, even sometimes people who aren’t, um, too politically active, but they care a lot about the streets that they live on. Um, so I actually went out and met some of the people that responded to my question on Reddit. And this first took me to Shockoe Bottom around 17th, 18th, broad, near the McDonald’s down there. I’m sure many of you can picture that intersection in your mind. Sam Runner has lived above the intersection for about two years. He tells me this is a microcosm of bad traffic design.

Sam Runner:

We just have all of this like two big infrastructure for like, the kind of people who are living here. Like this street is extremely wide for what it is. And so I constantly see people speeding. Lanes appear and disappears. People randomly park up there, which, and other people speed around. So it’s just overall like too much trying to happen in like a relatively small space. Like we’re trying to accommodate both a large interstate that’s just like a few blocks west of here, while at the same time try and have a place where people can actually like live and like walk around. And those things just tend to conflict with each other to what I think is often like disastrous consequences.

Whittney Evans:

So Sam says he’s had so many near misses on this block that when his company had its annual benefits re-enrollment, he opted for more accident and disability insurance. Um, as we talk a few pedestrians crossover Oliver Hill Way or 17th in the direction of VCU hospital and they’re followed immediately by a tractor trailer. So just being there and seeing this, you can really sort of viscerally understand how this doesn’t work.

Rich Meagher:

I feel like stress now just thinking about it and I’m not there.

Whittney Evans:

It was stressful, <laugh> .

Rich Meagher:

<laugh>.

Whittney Evans:

And you can see above, um, up above Oliver Hill Way, there’s some busted plastic bollards at the top, um, that are sort of meant to help direct traffic and, and they’re all busted up because people are just sort of running over them. And, uh, Sam said that they have to be replaced every few days. And he basically says that, you know, once this gets fixed, we’ll really get a sense of, of how this is going to help everyone. Not just pedestrians, not just cyclists, but it’s gonna be even easier for cars, um, to move through that area of the city.

Sam Runner:

That’s one of the things that really gets me about it, is that when we design our cities safer and smarter, it’s actually way better to drive in too just because there’s a lot less conflict, a lot less chaos…

Whittney Evans:

mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Sam Runner:

…going on. And so it’s just easier for your brain to get around to feel comfortable and safe that like the roads are going to take care of you. They’re going to communicate things.

Whittney Evans:

So luckily the city has identified this particular intersection for safety improvements. It’s part of, uh, the broader Shockoe Bottom transportation plan, but that likely won’t be completed for another five years.

Rich Meagher:

The timeline of these transportation projects have to be frustrating for people, right? You have this really dangerous situation, this stressful intersection, and you know, it needs to be fixed. Sounds like the city knows it needs to be fixed, but it can’t happen overnight, right? These things take planning. They take a lot of investment. Uh, and, and I just wonder if that really turns people off to the sense that the city’s actually thinking about this and doing something about it.

Whittney Evans:

It gives the impression that the city doesn’t know, or that the city doesn’t care.

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Whittney Evans:

For some that I spoke to.

On the other side of town, in the near West End, things are a lot quieter. They feel much safer. I stopped by Jeff Finnegan’s house. Uh, it’s a residential neighborhood between Monument Avenue to the north and Patterson to the south. Both busy roads. Drivers who are trying to find the fastest path through the neighborhood often choose streets without stop signs like Antram Avenue and Antram Avenue is just steps away from Finnegan’s door. Finnegan’s kids were actually home the day I talked to him. It was a snow day. They go to Mary Mumford just up the street, and if you’ll remember their principle, Mr. Music was struck by a car while riding his bike on Patterson.

Jeff Finnegan:

Two weeks ago we saw, we were walking to the bus stop and saw a car coming north on Antram here going at least 45 miles an hour by the time he came to this block. And I gave him like a sign, like, slow down, there’s kids walking. And he actually stopped like, I don’t know, to confront me or what. But then I think he saw the kids and like floored it and sped off and continued going 45 miles an hour, uh, to that stop sign.

Whittney Evans:

So Finnegan submitted a 311 ticket, which is what the city suggests people do when they encounter issues or have questions, right? So the city responded that it didn’t plan to take measures to slow traffic on Antrim because the average speed there is 19.

Rich Meagher:

I mean, I get this from both his perspective, this guy Jeff’s perspective, and from the city’s perspective, right? The city has limited resources and they’ve gotta go where the dangerous spots are. And if you’ve got a place where most of the time people are driving through pretty slow, you can’t invest a lot of resources there, but he’s right that it just takes one or two, like he said, outliers, right? That was the word. One or two people just to come tearing through the neighborhood at 50 or 45. Uh, and that’s a danger to somebody walking through there. Um, so, so I don’t know how to square that circle, right? But it does seem like there’s a, a mismatch between what he’s feeling and what the city’s willing to do.

Whittney Evans:

I’ve, I’ve spoken to city leaders who, who say, you know, we have the data, like you said, we know what roads are the most dangerous, we know what the average speeds are on all of these roads, and we can tell you where we need to put our resources. And as we’ve learned from my Reddit question, there are a lot more roads like this where people feel unsafe, and yet it does not rise to the level of city intervention.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. It’s almost like there needs to be some attention paid by the city to marketing. Right? And that, what I mean over that is, it’s not just that you have to find the data where the most dangerous things are, but if what your goal is is to try to get everybody feeling that the city is safe, you have to pay attention to those feelings, right? And so even some of these neighborhoods, I wonder if there’s some, some attention that needs to be paid like a speed table or a stop sign or whatever that might slow down drivers that might make these residents in these neighborhoods feel a little bit better about it. But I don’t know if there’s a, a vibes budget line…

Whittney Evans:

<laugh>

Rich Meagher:

…in, uh, the city’s, uh, dealing with this. Now, one of the things that I have heard from the Reddit bros going a long way back, the way we solve the problem of traffic and pedestrian safety particularly, is we restructure government. What they’ve asked for is a city Department of Transportation. That’s been a longstanding solution that’s been out there in the wild. And it was even talked about during our last mayoral campaign. You know, a couple of candidates took it up, but it, it didn’t seem to be a pet issue for Danny Avula, and yet this year he’s going ahead with it, right?

Whittney Evans:

That’s right. We’re, we have a Department of Transportation and we have a new director of that department, and his name is Andy Banno. And I think the city is going to get better at telling the story of transportation. Andy Banno says 2026 is the year of the pedestrian. And he described exactly how this new department, and he will work to achieve this Vision Zero goal.

Andy Banno:

Having this integrated team with shared resources means that instead of multiple groups competing for the same pot of money, someone’s in the chair at the top saying, here’s what our mission is. Let’s look at these different opportunities and see what makes sense to reach our Vision Zero goals. Um, and we can, because of that move much faster on, um, some of the like the lighter, quicker, cheaper quick build type projects. Um, we can test things more. We can have planners and engineers work together. Um, so everyone knows, you know, if I’m working on a project from the planning stage from idea stage, I know this thing has a shot of actually getting done.

Rich Meagher:

So the way he’s describing that, it sounds like the problem wasn’t that we didn’t have money or that we weren’t doing projects, it’s that people were all stepping all over each other. Is that, is this just a coordination problem?

Whittney Evans:

That’s the way it sounds. And to the city’s credit, you know, a lot of the projects that are going on right now, like Jahnke Road, Hull Street, um, the city sought money for those projects years and years ago, some before Levar Stoney was mayor. Um, so these projects are sometimes decades in the making. And I think what’s going to happen now is the process of getting that money is going to be a little bit easier and people are sort of all gonna be of the same mind when it comes to what projects we’re working on.

Rich Meagher:

So is the idea here that we need this department of transportation to go get more grants, to get more projects in the works or we already have enough that we’re working on and he’s just gonna make it a little easier and, and more coordinated to, to execute?

Whittney Evans:

Banno says the city has already been able to secure hundreds of millions of dollars for the next few years that is just dedicated to these pedestrian safety projects alone. So it seems as if we are, we are flush with cash <laugh>…

Rich Meagher:

<laugh>

Whittney Evans:

…for these projects. Um, and we’re thinking ahead, moving into the future. How are we gonna access this cash more easily in a more coordinated way in the future?

Rich Meagher:

Right? There’s another thing that Banno said that I wanted to pick up on, right? And it was three adjectives that, you know, it wasn’t an accident that he strung them together, right? It’s the, the lighter, quicker, cheaper, right? That’s a thing in transportation circles that I don’t think a lot of people understand. Right?

Whittney Evans:

Right. I was curious about that too, because when I talk to some of these more hardcore pedestrian safety advocates, and even just regular Richmond residents, many them say they’re worried about pedestrian projects getting sort of watered down because of cost or to sort of placate car traffic.

Rich Meagher:

Mm-hmm.

Whittney Evans:

They say they want more than just some paint on the road and a traffic cone for safety upgrades. Right? Banno had an interesting response to this concern.

Andy Banno:

This is starting from the point of view of where do we want to be in the future? What, what can this particular street that we’re looking at, what can it be in the future? And what can we afford right now and what could we afford in the future? Franklin Street would be fantastic if it had a grassy median that separated moving car traffic from bicycle traffic. That would be a premium street, that would be a delightful street. Everyone would wanna be there. Alright? How many millions would that cost? Okay, that, let’s put that on the horizon. So our option is we save and save and save and save and a generation from now you start to see a transformational city. Or we capture the territory as quickly as possible on the cheap, at the same time that we’re applying for grants for federal, for state, for regional money, so that we can go in on some of the most important areas. Concrete islands here, concrete landscaped islands here, curbs moving around here, like heavy physical infrastructure.

Whittney Evans:

So he says the goal isn’t to have a, you know, a city full of flex posts and paint on the streets. The long-term goal is to build more permanent infrastructure and safer infrastructure.

Rich Meagher:

Right? So he is asking residents to, to imagine a, use a little imagination, right? It’s almost like buying a house where the realtor’s like, don’t, don’t see the paint, right? See the bones of the house because, you know, if it’s got a hideous paint and shag carpets, you can always replace that stuff.

Whittney Evans:

It’s a signifier. It’s a signifier that the city is hoping that culture will change.

Andy Banno:

Our goal is to have the most beautiful city with epic streets, where the transportation is just a thing. It’s just about how you get around. We’re we’re not building a city for the sake of doing street work. We’re doing transportation work so that you and I can have delightful lives. Like our work is kind of that, it’s that foundation for all the good stuff that can follow. It’s the economic development stuff. It’s the better health stuff. It’s, it’s, it’s all the human flourishing stuff.

Rich Meagher:

Human flourishing on the sidewalk.

Whittney Evans:

Human flourishing stuff.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it like the idea of a delightful street, I think it’s lovely, but I don’t think that’s how most people are thinking about this, and particularly in this year of crisis, right? So Andy says he wants this to be the year of the pedestrian. I mean, I argue that it already is, but not in a good way, right? Because we’ve had so many pedestrian deaths. So I just wonder how easy it’s gonna be for them to turn this around from it’s the year of the pedestrian death to this is the year where we honor and protect the pedestrian.

Whittney Evans:

That’s right. And you know, there’s, there’s room for skepticism here because, uh, Vision Zero has been around since 2017 and since 2017 these crashes and these pedestrian fatalities and injuries have only remained steady or even increased.

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Whittney Evans:

So there’s a lot riding on, on these projects in this, in this grand idea that the city has.

Rich Meagher:

Whittney Evans is a reporter with VPM News and VPM News’ Curious Commonwealth. Thanks Whittney.

Whittney Evans:

Thank you Rich.

Rich Meagher:

Coming up, how do we change hearts and minds about pedestrians in a car crazy culture? We talk to the experts when we come back on RVA’s Got Issues.

This is RVA’s Got Issues. We’re talking pedestrian safety, in Richmond. But pedestrian safety’s hard to do in a city, a country, that has trouble thinking about moving people anywhere but in their cars. To find out how we change those minds, I’m joined now by two RVA transportation experts. Richard Hankins is executive director of Partnership for Smarter Growth, a nonprofit that works on development and transportation issues. And Tara FitzPatrick is Safe Routes to School Coordinator for Greater Richmond Fit4Kids, a nonprofit that works to improve child health and wellness in RVA. Tara, Richard, welcome.

Richard Hankins:

Thank you for having us.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Hi, thanks for having us.

Rich Meagher:

I know you’re both familiar with the city’s Vision Zero Plan, so that’s zero pedestrian deaths is the goal. You know, right now that seems so far away. Big numbers earlier this year, another person killed crossing the Street even after we started reporting this story. 23-year-old Hope Cartwright was struck while crossing the intersection of Cary and 2nd. We just heard on the show from Andy Banno, the new Department of Transportation head for the city. He said, this is gonna be year of the pedestrian. Right. Richard, does that seem feasible to you this year? After all that’s just happened?

Richard Hankins:

I think yes and no. I am, I’m really excited for Andy to take the helm. It speaks well of the, uh, the city to hire somebody who is so focused on multimodalism and pedestrian and bicyclists. I mean, that’s Andy’s bread and butter. Um, as far as getting through red tape and bureaucracy and political and money, that is to be seen because of course we’re still America and we still have a culture that we are very car-centric and it is hard for a lot of people to even get around without one. So to increase biking and walking at the expense of parking or, or travel lanes can be very difficult on, on several levels.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. Tara, you’re nodding your head along with Richard as he’s saying that, does the year of the pedestrian sound a little farfetched for 2026?

Tara FitzPatrick:

I am hopeful in, you know, as Richard mentioned, in the decisions that are being made. Um, but I I also think that we have a big culture shift that is, um, a really heavy lift and we are gonna continue to need, you know, the buy-in and the support from people at all levels.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah. Let’s get into that a little bit. Like you told our producer even before this new Department of Transportation hire, that things seem better in the city in terms of leadership mindset about pedestrian safety. What exactly has changed there?

Tara FitzPatrick:

I think that there’s been a push by advocates, I would say. You know, I’ve been doing this job for 10 years.

Rich Meagher:

mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Tara FitzPatrick:

So I’m gonna include myself in that group of advocates. And, um, I wanna say it was around 2018, we were working as a Complete Streets Coalition

Rich Meagher:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Um, and started the Vision Zero Scorecard just after the city implemented the Vision Zero plan. And as part of that, there were big conversations around moving towards having a Department of Transportation. I think we’ve been going through now two mayoral election cycles where that was a really big conversation. And I think that, um, as Richard mentioned earlier, the higher being somebody who is focused not entirely on motor vehicle transportation, but looks at multimodality is a big shift. Um, that I think is really important.

Richard Hankins:

I do think the trajectory, you know, DPW last year, two years ago promised to put down about 200 speed tables, which with those bumps in the middle of the intersection and…

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Richard Hankins:

…it is harder to fly down a street when there’s a gigantic bump of asphalt.

Rich Meagher:

They’re super annoying when you’re driving. Right? Yeah.

Richard Hankins:

But that’s kind of the point.

Rich Meagher:

Yeah.

Richard Hankins:

Um, and so I would love to to point out about, it’s interesting that when a road feels more stressful, maybe it’s more narrow, maybe there’s more congestion, maybe there’s more foot traffic, uh, it’s actually shown that people actually drive better. So people, if you’re driving on a gigantic, um, strode, which is kind of a suburban half road, half street, that’s not very effective at anything. Think Broad Street, think Midlothian Turnpike, those roads can lull you into a false sense of complacency. The roads are so wide, you can kind of just, you know, assuming, uh, there’s no traffic, cruise along at 50, 60 miles an hour and you’re not really paying attention. But if you’re driving, you know, through Cary Street and Carytown, that’s a stressful road <laugh>. You are paying attention to everything. And that actually makes Carytown, um, it feels like a paradox ’cause it’s actually so much safer because the drivers have to be so aware and they have to slow down and be so cognizant. So a lot of it is in our, in our street and road designs on what sort of safety outcomes are we creating.

Rich Meagher:

And so you’re suggesting that even though we’ve had these high profile deaths that are, you know, getting us farther away from a Vision Zero where we have zero pedestrian deaths, that the, the underlying work is still going on, that actually things are getting better on the ground,

Richard Hankins:

Things are definitely getting better. I mean, as we can see, I know you’ve seen the speed tables as well. There is more money being put into it. Um, there, I think there’s more political will. I think there’s a really interesting angle of our mayor Danny Avula being a public health advocate. And, you know, we have a loneliness epidemic, you know, we’re not exercising enough. And a lot of that is ’cause we’re isolating ourselves in our cars and actually walking allows you to be more part of the fabric of your community instead of isolated from it through, uh, metal and glass.

Rich Meagher:

So is there a thing, and, and I’ll start with you Tara, about this. Is there a thing you think this city should be doing that it’s not doing that might be keeping us from reaching our Vision Zero goals?

Tara FitzPatrick:

I think that there are a lot of great opportunities that I’m already hearing from the Department of Transportation and others in DPW around sort of quick build things. Um, those are great ways to, like Richard said, kind of narrow the visual, the visual or even the actual experience on the roadway. And, and yes, like to some degree making it feel more stressful as a driver is what makes us all a little bit safer. ’cause it makes you pay attention more. Even, um, taking advantage of when they are repaving that they will restripe so that they will then include like a parking protected bike lane.

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Um, but I also think about the things that I am hopeful that the city is looking to consider. More or less primary prevention things. When we look at, um, some of the ways in which our city here and across the country have found ourselves in the situation where we are, we have to look back, how did we get here? Well, we got here in many ways because of highway construction.

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Tara FitzPatrick:

So something that may have been something like an arterial where more people would’ve typically used it on a commute, suddenly you have those turn into highways. But the problem is, is that those existed as communities before the highway status was applied to that. And so you see, um, a lot of issues with driver behavior or you know, people using it as a quick route through. In my role as safe routes to school coordinator, we see that there are a lot of schools on those roads and people still treat those roads as highways. And so we can work on kind of pulling back that status.

Rich Meagher:

Like almost devolve the highway back to a regular road.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Yeah, I mean, just from a personal perspective, one of my kids goes to, um, Linwood Holton. So I cross Laburnum every day, four times a day to take my, my son to and from school. There was a student who was running late and I helped her cross one day and this woman stopped on the road and screamed at us, to a child and I, um, why are you crossing the road here? This is a highway. But it was in the crosswalk and it was really upsetting for us because that we’re looking at their school. This is a place that should be safe to them where they should be able to spend time, you know, seven, eight hours a day there. And then simply the act of getting there and leaving, um, is so dangerous. And I am very grateful kind of bringing it back to the leadership to hear from, um, Andy and others in DPW and at the city where they are looking to prioritize, um, improving safety in school zones.

Rich Meagher:

One of the things that, uh, I I, I want to point to, right, is that where people think this will never change, it’s just the way things are. But, but you have achieved some progress on this, right? So one example that I hear about often is crossing guards, right? This is an infrastructure, but this is an area where the city’s just doing a lot better than it used to be doing. Like, where were we and where are we now in terms of crossing guards?

Tara FitzPatrick:

I started the Safe Routes to School program in 2015. There were crossing guards at about seven or eight schools, and it was run through Richmond Police Department

Rich Meagher:

Out of how many schools?

Tara FitzPatrick:

There are 22 elementary schools. Um, and yeah, it was only at elementary schools where we had them. We brought different parties together at RPD, um, with City Council School Board. But when Jason Kamras’ team came on board, his chief of staff at the time, Michelle Hudacsko, became a big champion of this. She grew up in DC, DC public schools, walked to school, saw the value. So we brought the budget line item over from RPD to RPS, and um, for the same budget we’ve been able to go from about seven to 10 crossing guards up to almost a hundred.

Rich Meagher:

It’s a success story, right? It’s a lot of work by, uh, but it’s changed, right? So it’s changed the mindset. It’s changed the rules. So I wanted to, to talk to Richard about another example, right? Because this idea about having the champions and bringing folks together, you do have to have those policy makers who are, are, are seeing things the one might say the right way. Uh, Richard, I know your group is working on something called the, the Central Virginia Transportation Authority.

Richard Hankins:

Oh yes, we are <laugh>.

Rich Meagher:

The CVTA, right?

Richard Hankins:

Yes.

Rich Meagher:

What, what’s their deal? What is that and, and what are you guys trying to do with them?

Richard Hankins:

Great question. So the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, or the CVTA, um, was created in 2020 by the Virginia General Assembly. So it’s created by the state. And if you guys notice in the past few years that, uh, your sales tax went up to 6% from 5.3. And there’s actually about a 7.6, 7.70 cent gas tax for every gallon. That raises a few hundred million dollars every year, which is insane. 35% is for regional transportation projects.

Rich Meagher:

Okay. And that goes to the CVTA?

Richard Hankins:

Yes. There’s a CVTA board. So Mayor Avula sits on it. I think Supervisor Nelson sits on it. It it is a who’s who of, uh, public policy makers in Richmond. I think about 70 or 80% of that 35% it goes towards highway expansion. To their credit, they did put about a hundred million dollars towards the fall line trail, which is that new bike path.

Rich Meagher:

Sure.

Richard Hankins:

Going from Ashland to Petersburg. But, uh, they’re contributing, I think, um, just with this, uh, random extra pot of money, they’re putting $20 million towards the Powhite Parkway expansion. And this is coming off of the heels of a survey of Chesterfield residents where they found that overwhelmingly Chesterfield residents wanted more walking and biking options. The formula, I think is just a little bias towards, towards highway expansion. Um, for the bike ped section, uh, you can’t apply towards sidewalks, even if they went across jurisdictions. You can’t apply for bike lanes, but you can only apply for things that are like the capital trail, the fall line trail, or feeder routes into it, which is very frustrating.

Rich Meagher:

Right. So the CVTA, it’s this regional body.

Richard Hankins:

Yeah.

Rich Meagher:

It’s a kind of regional government.

Richard Hankins:

Yes.

Rich Meagher:

And it’s supposed to do all this transportation stuff and our, some of our sales tax money goes towards it.

Richard Hankins:

Yeah.

Rich Meagher:

But it’s spending a lot of that on highways.

Richard Hankins:

Yeah.

Rich Meagher:

And it seems like their rules, the way you’re describing it, make it hard to spend money on the things we actually need for transportation ’cause they want to just do big swings that affect the whole region. Does that sound right?

Richard Hankins:

Yeah. I mean, it’s hard not to feel frustrated that there’s a certain level of discretion given to highways and a certain level of prescription given towards more, um, active and sustainable transportation projects.

Rich Meagher:

Right? So it, it sounds to me like at least at the, at at, at the local level here in Richmond, there are some hearts and minds who are, are, are starting to think the, the right way. And I’m wondering about residents, right? Uh, Tara you told the story of this, uh, lovely woman yelling at you crossing the street in Laburnum, right. Um, and you know, we, we had, uh, you know, we heard about the, the vigil at the beginning of the show. Like those people get it. I’m, I’m betting a lot of our listeners who tune in here kind of get it, but many people in the region, they’re still very car centric, right? They think, I I just want an easy place to park. Why, why are they putting all this ugly junk in the road? Like, how do we shift that? Is it shifting?

Tara FitzPatrick:

Well, unfortunately, I think the tragedies, um, are shifting because more and more people are realizing that they know someone who’s been harmed or worse by traffic violence. So yes, I, I think that we’re going to see that, sadly. You know, very early in my advocacy work, it was pointed out to me that everyone is a pedestrian for the first and last mile, right? So you might not consider yourself a pedestrian. You might be living out in Chesterfield and think to yourself, well, you know, it’s really sad that there was this fatality at 2nd and Cary last night, but that’s not gonna happen to me. And, um, we always hear people blaming, you know, what were they wearing? Were they wearing something too dark?

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Were they not, you know, lit up like the the…

Richard Hankins:

…Christmas tree.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Yeah. But the reality is, is like even if you come anywhere in our communities, whether it’s in the counties, whether it’s in the city, but especially in the city, and you drive there and you park your car, you are going to be walking to your destination from there most likely. And so that’s where all of us can agree, you know, we are all a pedestrian at some point, so we should make it safe so that whether you’re the person who’s only commuting from your car as a pedestrian into your destination, or whether you never really get in your car. When I lived, um, downtown, I lived in Jackson Ward when my kids were born. And, um, I walk them every day to preschool. You have to kind of consider that our systems need to be built for all of those users.

Rich Meagher:

Right.

Tara FitzPatrick:

And we can do that.

Richard Hankins:

And to their credit, they used to be. I mean, that’s the historic fabric of the city. This is very abnormal for all of human history to segregate by land uses and to live miles away from the things you need every day. I mean, you know, it was very normal to have these small like Shields Market and stuff in The Fan. I mean that, that was normal. But, you know, we’ve decided through exclusionary land use policies, which basically means you can build nothing but this exact thing, usually a single family house or like a strip mall. And all of a sudden we’ve decided that, uh, we’ve baked it into policy that we don’t want you to live near things. And so some people have to drive ’cause that’s all that we’ve built. You know, it’s not, it’s not any individual’s fault for acting in their best interest within a system. If you’re gonna live in a subdivision ’cause that’s the house that you could afford, then you’re gonna be driving everywhere and you just have to bake the cost into, into your, into your way of life.

Rich Meagher:

Tara FitzPatrick works with Greater Richmond Fit4Kids. Richard Hankins is with Partnership for Smarter Growth. Thanks to you both.

Richard Hankins:

Thank you.

Tara FitzPatrick:

Thank you.

Rich Meagher:

That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Tara Fitzpatrick and Richard Hankins. Special thanks to Whittney Evans and the VPM News team. Tell us about your issues. Visit our website at RVAsGotissues.vpm.org. Follow us on Instagram @RichGotissues, or send us an email at [email protected]. Be sure to leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform. RVA’s Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Rachel Dwyer. Script editing on this episode by Nicki Stein. Audio mix by Steve Lack. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Shawn Freude is our executive producer. Steve Humble is VPM’s Chief Content Officer. Rebekah Sausmikat is our social media handle strategist. I’m your host, Rich Meagher. Thanks for listening.