The Shortline 5-24-24
Virginia Breeze bus east-west Tidewater Current route announced • Virginia localities now allowed to lower speed limits • Three changes every zoning code update should include
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A recent Northern Virginia Daily article (based on a state police press release) engaged in victim-blaming, using oddly passive language in reporting that Rex Catt, an Edinburg man who was riding a bike, was struck and killed by an unnamed person driving a car.
A 2024 Kia Seltos traveling south on Old Valley Pike struck the bicyclist. The driver of the Kia, a 74-year-old woman from New Market, could not avoid the collision and stopped at the scene, according to the release … Catt, who was not wearing a helmet, died while in transport to Shenandoah Memorial Hospital.
Would a helmet have saved Catt’s life in this instance? Bike helmets are designed to protect the head of a person riding a bike in the event they fall off the bike. Bike helmets are not designed to protect people on bikes from getting killed by automobiles moving at unsurvivable speeds.
In 2016, 50% of the people killed while riding their bicycles in the U.S. were not wearing helmets, which leaves the other half, some of whom may have been wearing helmets but who were still killed after being hit by motorists. (Forbes)
This is the intersection of Maple Lane and Route 11 described in the NVD story (facing south).
There is no sidewalk, shoulder, or bike lane. Here’s the same intersection, facing north.
According to his obituary, Catt was a US Navy veteran and an auto body technician.
Every month in the Valley, people die in car crashes, or drive cars into buildings, and we generally accept that although these incidents may be tragic, they are normal — collateral damage in a car-dependent society. Given these incidents are so common, we need to start questioning the narrative of individual responsibility and victim-blaming that is so often assumed. Efforts such as the Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio have begun to shine a light on the elephant in the room: our built environment.
The Valley
Population analysts expect an influx of 6,000 new residents into Rockingham County by the next Census in 2030. (Rocktown Now)
A new Virginia Breeze Bus line called the Tidewater Current will have stops in Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Richmond, and Virginia Beach. DRPT anticipates service starting in 2025. The Tidewater Current will provide bi-directional service 365 days a year. (13 News Now)
Local weather analysts are revealing more information about how a dangerous flash flood was able to sneak up on parts of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County earlier this month. (Rocktown Now)
While childcare is one half of the problem facing HCPS in changing the schools start times, the lack of transportation for students before and after school is the other big challenge. (Rocktown Now)
Members of the Grottoes planning commission held an open house about the Comprehensive Plan at the town hall Thursday. Residents expressed concerns about US-340, the highway through town. Some said that trucks on the highway go too fast, while others said they want a safer way to cross the highway, such as a pedestrian bridge. (Daily News-Record)
Virginia
Governor Youngkin signed legislation that will expand all localities’ speed-reducing authority to include roadways within a business or residential district and state-owned highways. Del. Betsy Carr, D-Richmond, sponsored the legislation, which is set to take effect July 1. (Virginia Mercury)
The United States has added almost 5 million housing units since 2020, most heavily in the South and most of them single-family homes, making a housing shortage look conquerable in much of the nation. Of those, Virginia added 99,435 housing units from 2020 to 2023, a 3% increase. (Virginia Mercury)
Richmond's Maggie Walker Community Land Trust (MWCLT) isn’t just a community land trust. As the first land bank and land trust in the US, the MWCLT has developed a powerful approach to make housing affordable to more low- and middle-income Richmonders through private and public sector partnerships. (Next City)
A new website, Documenting Exclusion & Resilience, illustrates how discriminatory covenants in the early 20th-century shaped the Northern Virginia subdivisions we know today. Researchers found a history discriminatory practices not just in single-family neighborhoods, but in all types of housing, including apartments, row houses and duplexes. (Arlington Magazine)
The Prince William County Historical Commission is sounding the alarm after two historic African American cemeteries in Brentsville were damaged by the construction of a new data center and a related electrical substation. (Prince William Times)
Dominion Energy says new natural gas plants will be needed to meet rising electricity demand, while the state studies how the booming data center sector will impact Virginia’s transition to renewable energy. (Inside Climate News)
Energix, an Israeli company behind multiple utility-scale solar farms in Southside and Southwest Virginia has been cited for the third year in a row for violating state environmental regulations and must pay a civil penalty of $158,000. (Cardinal News)
The 43-mile paved bike/pedestrian standalone trail — which will stretch from Ashland to Petersburg — just got a major influx of funding from the state of Virginia. (WTVR)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is warning residents along the Atlantic coast to prepare for an especially bad hurricane season this year, due in large part to climate change. NOAA expects 17 to 25 named storms, including up to 13 that become hurricanes and four to seven that are Category 3 or higher. (WHRO)
Elsewhere
Every zoning code update should include at least three changes: reducing lot size requirements, eliminating parking requirements, and allowing manufactured housing. To address the affordable housing crisis, both zoning reform and subsidies are required. (Urban Land Institute)
The Growing MKE plan aims to make it easier to develop new housing in Milwaukee, including housing of smaller sizes that is more affordable to rent but often prohibited or difficult to develop today. A non-zoning policy proposal would mandate parking be unbundled from the listed cost of an apartment. (Urban Milwaukee)
Homes on chassis are also far less aesthetically pleasing — and they conjure up long-standing prejudice against “mobile homes” in “trailer parks.” If Congress removed the permanent chassis requirement, manufactured homes would be safer, and they would be much more acceptable in traditional neighborhoods. (The Washington Post)
Most American communities don’t even bother to count what percentage of the population can't drive. In the handful of states that have tried, though, the answer has been around 30 percent – which is just enough to create a real movement for change, if we'd all just band together. (Streetsblog USA)
Urban planning critic Charles Marohn says the U.S. should build streets for people to live, and roads to move traffic quickly. Stroads do neither, and US cities and towns should stop building them. (WSJ)
Deeply entrenched housing segregation has subverted school desegregation goals. What if instead of accepting neighborhood segregation as given, school officials could work with housing developers and housing-focused organizations to address segregated communities? (Housing Matters)
95.80 percent of total residential land area in California is zoned as single-family-only, and 30 percent of all land (including commercial and park space) area is zoned single-family-only, severely constraining the spatial possibilities for denser and more affordable housing. (Othering & Belonging Institute)
Transportation engineers use level of service (LOS) to assess vehicular traffic flow. It's rated like a school report card from A (free flow) to F (congested). LOS is the transportation industry standard for analyzing intersections, and it has nothing to do with safety. It's been used for decades to ruin the neighborhood. (Urbanism Speakeasy)
A new study finds that electric vehicles pose greater risk to pedestrians than gas-powered vehicles in urban environments. Casualty rate for pedestrians per 100M miles travelled in urban areas: EV/HEV cars: 5.16 -- Internal Combustion Engine cars: 2.40 (BMJ Journals, Jalopnik)
A team of heat experts known as the Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative calculated exactly how much of a difference low-tech solutions like trees and white paint could make in an overheating world. A large expansion in tree canopy cover and white roofs and pavement could reduce heat-related hospitalizations between 12% and 47%. (Anthropocene)