12 Feb 2020

Addressing the Henrico County Board of Supervisors on Mass Transit

by | posted in: Transportation | 0

Thank you Chairman Branin and members of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors for this opportunity to address the topic of mass transit in Henrico. My name is Karen Rosenblum, and I live at 2103 Persimmon Trek, Henrico.

I am 1st Vice President of the Richmond Metro Area League of Women Voters and speak on its behalf today.  I am also pleased to be a thirty-year resident of Henrico County, all of it in the Three Chopt district.

As you may know, this year the League of Women Voters is celebrating its 100th anniversary.  The League is known especially for the fact that it is a political but non-partisan organization. This means that we do not endorse candidates or parties.  Rather we pursue in-depth study on issues and use that study as the basis for our advocacy and community education. In this case, we have a long-serving Transportation Committee, which has focused especially on pedestrian safety for transit access on West Broad Street. That focus undergirds the comments we would like to make today:

  1. First, we are thankful that some sidewalks have been built along West Broad Street.
  2. Over the long term, we hope the Board works toward the vision of continuous sidewalks along West Broad, from the City of Richmond to the Goochland county line.
  3. We urge the Board to use every possible means to provide funding for what is critical pedestrian safety infrastructure such as sidewalks, crosswalks, and pedestrian count-down traffic signals.
  4. We congratulate Henrico for the successful Smart Scale application submitted by the Assistant Director of Public Works. That application was approved and will provide important funding for West Broad Street pedestrian and transit improvements between Pemberton and Parham (#3549).  http://www.smartscale.org/projects/fy-2020-projects.asp

Finally, two items we want to highlight:

First, the significant increase from FY2018 to FY2019 in the overall fixed-route ridership on GRTC. This trend should continue in FY2020, as the route to Short Pump becomes an established connection to jobs both in Henrico and Richmond. We urge the Board to give the Pulse time to grow its Henrico roots.

http://ridegrtc.com/media/annual_reports/December_2019_Ridership_Web-slide.pdf

We also want to highlight the 2019 VTrans Summary of Mid-term Transportation Needs.  That report recognized several needs along West Broad Street, including the needs for

      • congestion mitigation, and accessibility and mobility improvements,
      • for workers, transit and non-motorized accessibility improvements,
      • for equity emphasis areas, transit access improvements,
      • and the need for pedestrian safety improvements. (http://www.vtrans.org/resources/VTrans_Midterm_Report_Richmond.pdfpp. 18, 22, 24, 28, and 31)

In closing, Henrico’s 2026 Comprehensive Plan gives us confidence that the County and the League share many of the same goals. We urge you to pursue every available public and private source of funding toward realizing that shared vision.

Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Richmond Metro Area League of Women Voters.

 

Respectfully,

 

 

Karen E. Rosenblum, Ph.D.

1st Vice President, League of Women Voters Richmond Metro Area