Good morning, RVA: The tiniest bit of gun legislation, a new bike lane survey, and Breakaway RVA

Take the bike lane survey! Tell them sharrows are bad!

Good morning, RVA! It's 70 °F, and today looks hot. You can expect humid highs in the mid 90s with no respite in sight until Saturday. Remember: Hydrate or diedrate! Stay cool out there, y'all.

Water cooler

Over the weekend a bipartisan group of Senators (including enough Republicans to overcome a Senate filibuster) announced they'd reached an agreement on how to finally pass a tiny bit of gun violence legislation. Vox has a good explainer of what's in the proposed agreement, and opens with this great summary: "Perhaps what is most surprising about the [gun violence] framework is that it exists at all." As you might have guessed, the framework is heavy on mental health and increasing the presence of armed police officers in schools and light on, you know, actual legislation to prevent people from getting guns. Disappointing, but, like Vox said, while there's nothing shocking about these proposals, it is surprising that more than just the same few Senate Republicans have decided to do anything at all to help keep their communities safer. We'll see if any of these proposals become actual laws and if this small moment of compromise leads to more action in the future.

Exciting news! Richmond's Department of Public Works has a new survey up to collect feedback on the next round of proposed bike lanes. This round features some new infrastructure on the Southside, in Scott's Addition, and a couple other bits here and there that would help connect pieces of our existing bike network. If you need help getting oriented, the folks at RICToday put together this handy map of all the proposed segments. You should definitely take this survey before it closes on June 26th, and you should definitely rank poorly every option featuring sharrows. Sharrows, the weird arrow/bike glyph stenciled on a street, are not bike infrastructure and do not keep people safe. They shouldn't even be in the City's tool box. Anyway, exciting news, and I'm impressed at the regular pace the City has kept up rolling out new infrastructure over the last couple of years.

City Council meets tonight with an agenda packed full of ordinances and resolutions I've got my eye on. Unfortunately, I think almost every single one of them will be continued until a later date except the ordinance authorizing the City's participation in a gun buyback program (ORD. 2022-169). Reading through the text of this ordinance, I think the City has allocated $500,000 towards gun buybacks in general and will spend $83,050 of that on a first event in partnership with the Robby Poblete Foundation. I don't think gun buybacks are the end-all-be-all of making our communities safer from gun violence, but given the limited authority localities have over guns—as above—every little bit helps.

Ned Oliver and Karri Peifer at Axios Richmond have an update on the ugly fencing around Marcus-David Peters Circle, which should, fingers crossed, come down by fall. The Mayor's press secretary says the grass in the circle needs time to reestablish itself and then "the area will then be landscaped and planted with shrubbery until a longer term use for the space is determined." At this point, unfortunately, I don't think a process exists to determine that longer-term use.

Mark your calendars! Breakaway RVA's second ride of the year will celebrate Pride in Richmond. This easy-pace, super chill group ride kicks off at the Monroe Park fountain and, over the course of 7.5 miles, will tour "significant LGTBQ+ sites in Richmond." They'll finish up at Barcode for some (optional) post-ride drinks. Big group rides like Breakaway are a blast, and I always have an excellent time. Wheels up at 5:45 PM this coming Thursday, June 16th, and you can register (for free!) over on the Eventbrite.

This morning's longread
As the Great Salt Lake Dries Up, Utah Faces An ‘Environmental Nuclear Bomb’

Climate change and population change has led to a huge reduction in the amount of water that feeds the Great Salt Lake. That's not good for a ton of reasons—including a few I wouldn't have guess. Make sure you tap through for some pretty dramatic before-and-after satellite images of the lake.

Among Utah’s coterie of nervous advocates for the Great Salt Lake, Owens Lake has become shorthand for the risks of failing to act quickly enough and the grave damage if the lake dries up, the contents of its bed spinning into the air. On what used to be the shore of what used to be Owens Lake is what’s left of the town of Keeler. When the lake still existed, Keeler was a boom town. Today it consists of an abandoned school, an abandoned train station, a long-closed general store, a post office that’s open from 10 a.m. to noon, and about 50 remaining residents who value their space, and have lots of it.

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