Good morning, RVA: 45, 1; local states of emergency; and new bus service in Chesterfield

Good morning, RVA! It’s 39 °F—suddenly chilly again! Highs today will stay in the upper 50s, but things should warm up as the week moves on.

Water cooler

As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 45 positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth. One person in Virginia has died as a result of the virus.

On Friday, Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, and Goochland all declared local states of emergency. I don’t know why I couldn’t find it in the code last week, but § 44–146.21 defines a local emergency and what new powers the localities can wield once it’s been declared. One of the more interesting bits for me (especially as budget season and its public hearings rapidly approach) is the power to “proceed without regard to time-consuming procedures and formalities prescribed by law (except mandatory constitutional requirements) pertaining to the performance of public work.” That gets my brain churning on how the City could quickly roll out some good public policy. I’ll be looking for how the Mayor uses this and the other defined powers in the coming weeks and months—there’s a lot of flexibility to do some real good in there, I think. Along with the State of Emergency, the aforementioned localities will all close their offices today for “planning and to begin additional cleaning in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.” Almost every public service is delayed, has had their schedule adjusted, or is outright closed—including the Richmond Public Library. You shouldn’t be going anywhere if you don’t have to, but, if must leave the house, make sure you check a website before you do.

As per forever and always, the Richmond Public Schools superintendent is dominating communications in This Most Unusual Time. Since early Friday morning, he’s sent out three emails. The first focused on information for RPS employees. The second included an evolving FAQ and an important reminder that many RPS schools will open as food distributions sites Monday through Friday, from 9:30 AM–12:30 PM. If you’d like to volunteer at these food distribution sites, you can fill out this form. I definitely have a hard time balancing the real need for folks to get food into the hands of kids with the equally real need for folks to stay home if they can. Please use an abundance of caution and commonsense before deciding you should volunteer! Luckily, if all of that sounds way too stressful but you’d still like to help out, Kamras’s third email will point you to donating to the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation—which you can do while sitting on your couch.

I don’t know what to make of this letter from VCU President Rao alerting folks that “a person who attended a program at VCU’s Larrick Center on March 5 and 6 recently tested positive for the novel coronavirus COVID-19.” Reading this several times, I don’t think this is a newcase, but that one of the existing, known positive cases was on campus early March. Totally not sure, though. Anyway, via /r/rva, here’s a slightly spooky video of an eerily empty campus that’s normally packed this time of year.

Joining the Department of Public Utilities, Dominion Energy has suspended all service disconnections for nonpayment. Neither here nor there, the last week has convinced me that we should look into municipal broadband.

Today, for the first time in at least a decade, new bus service begins in Chesterfield. The #111 Route 1/Falling Creek/Tyler bus serves the Route 1 corridor from the city limits to John Tyler Community College. It’s a bummer that this new service, which has been in the works for a year or two, opens when folks need to be spending as little time as possible seated in confined spaces next to strangers. We’ll get ridership data soon, but…idk. When, in the future, the County looks at the numbers to debate the usefulness of this service, they need to put a big, fat asterisk next to the coronavirus months. Related, Bus Genius Jarrett Walker looks at where to cut if a transit agency starts to run out of money—dark stuff. You can consider me newly worried about how Richmond and Henrico have both cut their local contribution to GRTC by 50% during a time when ridership and farebox revenue could be on the decline. It’s critical to maintain the existing bus service we’ve got, and the fact is that it might cost the region more money to do that. Also, if you do need to continue riding the bus, make sure you check GRTC’s status and updates page.

The Washington Post has a super neat interactive piece about flattening the coronavirus curve. Social distancing does work, just look at all those little dots bouncing around! Be a good dot, and stay put.

This morning’s longread

Bicycles, Gender, and Risk: Driver Behaviors When Passing Cyclists

It’s common knowledge among bikepeople that drivers pass women on bikes with more caution than they do men on bikes. However, this new study says that’s incorrect! On the other hand, it verifies something we all know: Protected bike lanes reduce risk and increase safety for all people on bikes.

None of the 33 encroachments occurred on the protected bike lane; 64% occurred on the 4-lane roadway without any bicycle facilities. Thus, in general, protected bike lanes that separate cyclists from vehicles clearly accomplish their objectives: they increase passing distance, decrease encroachments, reduce risk, and increase safety. The finding that surprised and concerned the County’s bicycle advisory task force concerned differences in vehicle passing distances based on the gender of the cyclist. Overall, mean passing distance for the female rider was 68 inches, three inches less than the mean for the male riders (71 inches). And of the 33 encroachments that occurred, 24 (73%) were on the female rider. Statistical modeling showed that, other factors equal, the female cyclist was 3.8 times more likely to be encroached upon.

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