Good morning, RVA: 12,970 • 448; let the Mayor know you want Open Streets; and a budget hearing

Good morning, RVA! It’s 49 °F, and, after some possible rain this morning, highs should find their way into the 60s. Warmer weather for the rest of this week, though!

Water cooler

Richmond Police are reporting that a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed this past Thursday on the 1100 block of N. 21st Street. RPD detectives have charged a 12-year-old boy with first degree murder.

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 12,970 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth, and 448 people in Virginia have died as a result of the virus. VDH reports 1,550 cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 457, Henrico: 792, and Richmond: 301). The Governor has started putting together a plan for recovery (PDF) (which, as a phrase, I like so much better than “reopening”), and the RTD’s Mel Leonor has a great explainer thread on Twitter. After the Commonwealth meets some mostly data-based requirements, we can move into the Governor’s Phase One, which is described as “some businesses re-open with strict safety restrictions, continued social distancing, continued teleworking, and face coverings recommended in public.” Here are the five requirements the Governor laid out as prerequisites for the move to Phase One: A decrease in the percentage of positive tests over 14 days, a decrease in hospitalizations over 14 days, an increase in testing and tracing, enough hospital beds and intensive care capacity, and an increasing and sustainable supply of personal protective equipment. With that in mind, here are three new charts I put together that might help you track our progress on percentage positive cases, testing, and hospitalizations. As of this morning, Virginia has marked just one day of decreased hospitalizations and percentage of positive tests. I imagine tracking these two numbers will Become A Thing, especially as we get closer to the required 14-day barrier. What happens after that? The Governor said he’d release details of future phases early next month, stay tuned.

I’ve written about it before: Closing streets to through traffic during this crisis is one of the easiest and cheapest things the City can do to make life better and safer for Richmonders. Staying active and getting outside is crucial to folks' mental health during this incredibly stressful time, and, due to the Governor’s social distancing requirements, folks need more space on our streets to do so. For whatever reason, our City hasn’t made creating an Open Streets program (or Slow Streets, as Oakland calls them) a priority, and that needs to change. Please take two minutes this morning and either email or tweet at Mayor Stoney ([email protected], @LevarStoney) and ask him to create an Open Streets program and close 10% of the City’s streets to through traffic so all Richmonders can practice safe social distancing—whether by foot, bike, wheel chair, or anything else. In Oakland, they’ve picked streets from their proposed Neighborhood Bike Routes, so that means low-volume streets in every part of the City that wouldn’t impact public transit. And, remember, this would just close streets to through traffic, not to residents or emergency vehicles. In the past, the Mayor has talked about his priority to make sure every Richmonder lives within a short walk of a public park. He knows the value of public, green space to living a thriving life. A Richmond Open Streets program is just the rapid-response, virustime implementation of that priority.

City Council will hold a public hearing on the budget today during their 1:00 PM meeting. If you have thoughts and feelings on this year’s proposed budget and would like them included as part of the public hearing, you need to email them to the clerk ASAP ([email protected]). If you’re like, “Uhh…I have no idea what I would even ask City Council to do. Like, what is even going on?” I don’t blame you. I spent a couple hours over the weekend looking through the Mayor’s proposed cuts trying to decide if I had a different set of priorities. To be honest, it was a daunting task and, with the information available, I didn’t get too far. You can look at the Mayor’s proposed list of cuts here, and look at a list of City Council’s priorities should money be found to restore any of those cuts here. Oh, also, don’t forget about Richmond Public Schools, which needs to decrease their budget by about $19 million. Here’s their pretty detailed draft list of how they’ll go about doing that (PDF). That’s a depressing list of documents that you’ll probably look at and go “What…the heck.” Again, I totally empathize. A few more opportunities remain for you to get involved in this budget process—so if you can’t wrap your head around it this morning, there’s still time.

Here’s an ominous update from GRTC this morning: “GRTC is modifying service today as a result of an Operator call-out, when bus drivers scheduled to work for shifts do not report to work. Approximately half of the necessary workforce is reporting for duty as of 4:30AM. Therefore, GRTC is adjusting service today where buses run about once an hour. Customers are strongly cautioned to expect significant service delays. Most buses not normally operating once an hour will be severely disrupted.” If we face sustained bus service cuts in Richmond, it’ll be because of a lack of operators, not a lack of funding. Bus operators are essential employees in this crisis and are doing important, dangerous work. I hope GRTC and its operators can come to an acceptable agreement soon.

Tomorrow, April 28th, you can tune in to another RVA Bike Month virtual happy hour, this one featuring yours truly: “Bikes, Buses + Budget: Discussing Transit Funding.” It should be a blast—if your idea of a blast is discussing the transportation priorities in a crisis-level budget. I mean, this is what I’d probably be doing anyways on a Tuesday night, so I’m excited to have other folks join in.

This morning’s longread

Every Second Matters: The True Story of the White Island Eruption

Every article I read I view through the lends of coronavirus, including this one about walking into an active volcano for fun. What level of risk are folks willing to tolerate? How is that different when your risk impacts not just yourself but others around you?

Final analysis of the eruption is months away and may never be definitive. Still, New Zealand volcanologists are confident they know what happened. The eruption was most likely phreatomagmatic, combining steam and magma. It would have begun with a magma rise from a fault movement deep in the earth, which was then given more upward force by gases exsolving out of the liquid as it rose and depressurized, an effect that Tom Wilson, professor of disaster risk and resilience at the University of Canterbury, likened to opening a soda bottle. When the magma hit the acid crater lake, or seawater and rainwater percolating down, or both, the water would have been flashed into gas and the molten rock into glass. Both of those processes would have released enough explosive energy to shoot steam 12,000 feet into the air and blow a deadly wave of hot rock, ash, and acid gas across the crater floor.

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