Richmond Moving Forward Together: The Future of Transportation in Richmond, Virginia

Full report

Richmond moving forward together The Future of Transportation in Richmond, VA

August 2019

this report Is the result of the partnership between the City of Richmond and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.

Richmond Moving Forward Together was elaborated during the Summer of 2019 in Richmond, VA. The report investigates Transportation policy, plans and conditions for the city and brings recommendations to Mayor Levar Stoney on how to strengthen and support an agenda for better transportation according to international and local best practices. The report also looks into the current conditions of transportation in the city through a series of studies on existing plans and analysis for Richmond, and builds on those to elaborate its findings.

For more information about the City of Richmond please visit richmondgov.com

For more information on the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative please visit cityleadership.harvard.edu

Richmond moving forward together: Future of Transportation in Richmond, VA Full report

Main Authors Rafael Marengoni Collaborators Eva Colen Maggie Anderson

Preface Richmond is facing one of its most exciting moments in history for urban transportation. Recent announcements indicate a thriving renovation within the city's core area, creating thousands of homes and jobs as well as providing the city with a series of new amenities. A development that would challenge Richmond's current mid and low density urban paradigm. On top of that, a prized new transportation mode has been introduced, the existing transit lines have been redesigned to maximize frequency performance, and the results of both those efforts are reflecting in ridership recapture. The projections point to steady growth in the next years, which would allow for further expansions for Richmond’s transportation systems and services, urging the city to take bold action towards land use planning and multi-modal strategies to consolidate Richmond as a pioneer in transportation of the 21st century. Associating those strategies to cutting edge technologies and bold leadership can deliver Richmonders one of the finest operating transportation systems in America, but there are several challenges along that path.

This report would not have been possible without the collaboration of several parties involved in shaping Richmond’s current state of affairs in Transportation. A special thanks to Ross Caltrow, Max HeppBuchanan, Nicholas Smith, in collaborating with their valuable inputs in assembling this analysis.

A special thanks to Adrienne Chargois, Garland Williams and Benjamin Campbell, from the Greater Richmond Transit Company, for their time and trust in assisting the work developed for this report.

I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the support received through the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative from Mark Fagan from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Glendean Hamilton from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

I'd also like to thank Ruth Bonsignore from Flink Consulting and Diane Linderman from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, whose insights and expertise in transportation planning and policy best practices were instrumental in elaborating this report.

I really appreciate the help I received from Dironna Clark and Michael Sawyer from the City of Richmond Department of Public Works, who generously set aside time and knowledge to contribute to this work.

I am also grateful to Maritza Pechin and William Palmquist from the City of Richmond Department of Planning and Development Review, who provided their planning expertise and resources to assist with the elaboration of this report.

I deeply appreciate the feedback provided by my fellow Bloomberg Harvard Fellows, who were generous with their time and expertise, and were of immense value while conducting the research that informed this report.

I am deeply indebted to the to all of the team from the Mayor's Office, specially to Eva Colen and Maggie Anderson whose assistance was fundamental every step along the way, and to the Mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney whose leadership enabled the opportunity for this report to happen.

Rafael Marengoni Main Author Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Fellow, City of Richmond Jorge Paulo Lemann Fellow, Harvard University Richmond, VA August 2019

Executive Summary

the future of transportation in Richmond In the past few years, Richmond has aggressively reconsidered its public transportation system. It has done so by investigating ways in which it could provide a better system across modes that have been historically underprivileged through several administrations.

Richmond now seems to transition into a phase in which it has the potential to become a trend setter in urban transportation at the local, metropolitan and regional level by engaging with different partnerships and entertaining the possibility of investing in substantial changes at all three levels. Still, Richmond’s transportation future is uncertain despite the recent achievements in regards to transit improvements and the increasing support demonstrated through ridership increases, and an apparent shift towards a pro-mobility agenda at the local and regional scale. This report focuses on investigating the current landscape of transportation in Richmond across the existing plans, key players and scales, and speculates on potential scenarios for the city across those three categories. If Richmond desires to transition into being a national leader in transportation, then local leadership must consider scale, collaboration and innovation.

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At the regional scale, the Capital Region of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond is defined by being the combined area of he BaltimoreColumbia-Towson, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria and Richmond, VA Metro Areas. It is today the 7th largest regional economy in the world. It is home to over 10.2 million people and is projected to grow by nearly 20% over the next 20 years, the rough equivalent of adding 2 Greater Richmond Area’s to the region. This is by far the most challenging collaboration to consolidate, and would require the involvement at the Local, State and Federal levels, as well as with several private sector stakeholders that currently operate within this region.

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The main challenges for Richmond then, would seem to be how to coordinate collaboration with growth over the years to follow. How to centralize efforts on unifying plans, and how to coordinate involved stakeholders will be important factors moving forward. According to the population projections, all three scales relevant to Richmond are expected to grow expressively. year

total population regional

10,358,911

40 20

12,430,693 metropolitan

1,102,075

20

1,317,342

8

1 20 40

local

227,032

20

250,600

18

20 40

•

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Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

At the metropolitan scale, the Greater Richmond Area, comprised of the City of Richmond, Henrico County, Chesterfield County, Goochland County, New Kent County, Powhatan County, Hanover County, Ashland and Charles City County is a metropolitan area with approximately 1.1 million people and over 550,000 registered jobs. As a metropolitan area, it attracts commuters from 126 localities across the State of Virginia. The area’s population is projected to grow to over 1.3 million in the next 20 years gaining an equivalent in population to another City of Richmond. The challenges here lie in cross-collaboration across local governments, metropolitan service providers and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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6

At the local scale, the City of Richmond is home to 220,892 people and contains 154,885 registered jobs, and the city continues to grow. More than 20,000 people moved to Richmond between 2000 and 2017. Projections estimate that the city will grow to 242,451 people by 2030 and to 250,600 by 2040, which would represent 13.4% in 20 years.

This means more people moving in more ways in and around Richmond. This scale requires local collaboration with Transit services providers, City Council, Local Advocates and Communities, as well as the development of Land Use plan that support development at these scales combined to a multimodal Transportation strategy that can feedback into stimulating higher densities and ridership.

This scale can benefit from considering local-tolocal transportation, focusing on supporting transit through active transportation and micro-mobility strategies.

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Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

0

50km

Baltimore, MD

Washington D.C. Arlington, VA Greater Capital Region regional scale

Greater Richmond Area metropolitan scale Henrico, VA Richmond, VA local scale Chesterfield, VA Petersburg, VA

"over the next 20 years the Greater Capital Region will gain

the equivalent to two additional Greater Richmond areas, while the Greater Richmond area will gain the equivalent to one additional Richmond City" Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

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Introduction This report has been organized in three parts: context, analysis and insights.

Context investigates three different aspects of Richmond that are relevant to understand Transportation planning and policy in the city. In context, we look into plans, people and places. The plans section reviews and compiles a series of existing planning documents, analysis, projects and other reports with a focus on Richmond Area and Transportation Planning. After reviewing these plans, the 'people' section goes over some of the local champions/ stakeholders in Richmond's transportation landscape, and speaks to their focuses and affiliations while placing them within a "Transportation Initiative" framework. After identifying and organizing these stakeholders, the report moves forward to discuss the scales of analysis that shape Richmond, and discuss the city's placement on local, metropolitan and regional level highlighting some of the mentioned plans and offering insights on how it is people currently move across these three scales.

Analysis has two parts: current conditions and scenario planning.

In current conditions, we overlay some of the information brought in context to make sense of it comprehensively and understand how it is that places, plan and people shape Richmond across different scales. Afterwards, a scenario planning is proposed for all three scales considering variations in growth and levels of vision alignment across the scales. The different scenarios allow us to imagine how Richmond might develop in the years ahead, and highlights what shapes each of those scenarios in regards to land use and transportation.

Finally, "Insights" brings three main divisions for recommendations: Integrating planning, Thinking Across Scales and Multi Modal Considerations. They address a multi-category list of courses of action in regards to plans, people and place - in other words by looking into Richmond's context and analyzing it, what can be learned and what can be done? Afterwards, there are some examples of the recommendations in the form of Best Practices/ Case Studies.

Contents Context Plans

p.15

People

p.38

Places

p.43

Analysis Current conditions

p.64

Scenario planning

p.69

Insights Recommendations

p.88

Multimodal considerations

p.89

Integrating plans

p.94

Thinking across scales

p.98

Closing Remarks Closing remarks

p.102

References

p.104

1.

Context To begin understanding Richmond, and the issues pertinent to transportation planning and policy it is necessary to thoroughly assess the context in which the city finds itself. There are three categories of analysis for context which are the existing plans, the people involved and the places they affect.

The question of scale is fundamental for approaching this analysis, mainly because all of the existing plans and organizations. In this report, a division of three scales is proposed: local, metropolitan and regional, wherein "Local" refers to Richmond as a locality, with its politically defined boundaries. The "Metropolitan" scale refers to the "Greater Richmond Area" as defined by the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission (PlanRVA) composed of 9 localities, not to be confused with the Richmond-Petersburg Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Finally, the "Regional" scale refers to the area known as "The Greater Capital Region" including the three MSA's between Baltimore, Washington and Richmond.

It is important to note that these scales and geographical subdivisions were defined as such only to facilitate the discussion on transportation, and that for all three of these scales there are different organizations and plans.

1.1

Plans What are the existing guiding plans for Richmond? How do they envision the future?

Richmond is a city with several plans for its future. They are plans that are concerned with issues within the city, at the local scale within the metropolitan area at the Greater Richmond Area scale and within the larger region, as a part of the Greater Capital Area.

This section is dedicated to present these several visions, ideas and projects into one place. There are planning documents, analysis, projects and research publications- all telling us more about Richmond, how it moves today, how it might move tomorrow. From these documents it is possible to learn what collaborations currently exist, what strategies are being thought, what results have been collected, and what projects are coming next for the city.

Document

Main Author

Year

Type

Scale

Richmond’s Transit Revolution: GRTC’s

Greater Washington Partnership (GWP)

2019

Case Study

Local

Jarrett Walker and Associates (JWA)

2019

Analysis

Local

Richmond 300 Insights Report

City of Richmond, Department of Planning Review

2018

Analysis

Local

GRTC Transit Development Plan

Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC)

2018

Plan

Local

Impact of the GRTC Reroute on

Center for Urban and Regional Analysis - Virginia

2018

Analysis

Local

Richmond’s Disadvantaged Population

Commonwealth University

Pulse Corridor Plan

City of Richmond, Department of Planning Review

2017

Plan/Project

Local

Transportation Improvement Plan

Richmond Regional Transportation Planning

2017

Plan

Metropolitan

2016

Plan

Metropolitan

Ridership and Accessibility Analysis Response to CURA Report for GRTC FINAL

Organization (RRTPO) Greater RVA Transit Vision Plan

Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (VDRPT)

Bicycle Master Plan

City of Richmond, Department of Public Works

2015

Plan

Local

Vision Zero Action Plan

City of Richmond, Department of Public Works

2017

Plan

Local

Update on GRTC’s Strategic Planning

Southeastern Research Institute

2015

Analysis

Local

Richmond Connects

City of Richmond, Department of Public Works

2013

Plan

Local

DC2RVA Recommendation Report

Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation

2018

Plan/Project

Regional

Greater Washington Partnership (GWP)

2017

Plan

Regional

RRTPO, VDOT, VDRPT, USDOT

2016-2017

Plan

Metropolitan

Research

(VDRPT) Capital Region Blueprint for Regional Mobility Plan 2040 Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

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Richmond’s Transit Revolution: GRTC’s Ridership and Accessibility Analysis One of the most recent reports on Richmond's transportation. The case study organized by the Greater Washington Partnership looks into similar numbers as those presented by the GRTC, and reaches similar conclusions in assessing the transportation improvements from the reorganization of the transit network and implementation of The Pulse. GWP’s case study also includes spatial analysis that investigate changes in accessibility through isochronal mapping and distribution of employment in the Greater Richmond Area. It is one of three different reports that have been developed since 2018 that contribute to the discussion in how Richmond’s transportation network that have not been elaborated by the GRTC.

at a glance: Takeaway: The case study finds that the GRTC’s performance increased in 2019, arguably as a result of the shift in investments and strategies adopted by the company. The GWP builds support for similar types of future partnerships regarding transit expansion and the benefits associated to it.

Yet another report assessing the positive gains of the new system.

Document Type: Analysis Scale: Local Date: 2019 Authorship: Greater Washington Partnership

The CURA Report and JWA’s Response It is important to point to these recent events in discussing Transportation in Richmond, due to how much can be learned from a dispute that happened regarding Network Analysis methods and execution.

These are two different analysis that have been published since 2018. Both reports are analyzing the effects of the “Network Reroute” in Richmond. The first report was issued by VCU’s Doug Wilder Center for Urban and Regional Analysis, the second report was a direct response to VCU’s report, and was issued by Jarrett Walker and Associates (the firm that GRTC consulted with). They are: CURA's analysis focuses on "accessibility" a concept explored by several authors to which there exist many definitions.

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The CURA Report and JWA’s Response

The definition of the concept in an analysis, however, is fundamental to understand what can be learned from it. In CURA's report, they claim that the GRTC's reroute resulted in a service that was less accessible to citizens throughout Richmond, and was an even larger burden for the poorest populations in the city, suggesting that the alterations of the routes resulted in a less equitable network.

The main argument put forward by CURA is that there has been a reduction in proximity between bus stops, origins and destinations.

This is known to be true due to the fact that there was a significant reduction in the number of stops throughout the network, resulting in a relatively different coverage (less stops distributed along the routes).

JWA's response focused on arguing that a system should not be assessed by the number of stops it has, but rather by the quality of service it was able to provide on the routes (better frequency, speed, wait times). They also pointed to some apparent flaws in CURA's calculations in applying the methods they set out to reproduce.

JWA then follows to do a point by point analysis of every "error" they identify in CURA's report. JWA claims that the reroute was successful based on the criteria of what the system was designed to do. According to them, the system was designed to increase the number of jobs accessible and the quality of that access (better frequency, speed, wait time), not to expand on the coverage of the system.

The bottom line is that both reports bring valuable insights to the discussion: what decision should be prioritized? Having more bus stops so people can walk less or having shorter and faster rides, meaning that people might have to walk a couple of extra blocks to get there? A good way to learn what decision the people have preferred is by looking at ridership before and after the changes.

at a glance: Takeaway: Simply put, CURA’s report focuses on how close bus stops are to people; JWA’s route design focused on a higher bus frequencies and speed. JWA’s route design also reached more jobs overall. There are less bus stops overall, meaning walking more before and after the bus, but the buses move faster and arrive more frequently, becoming more reliable.

Document Type: Analysis Scale: Local Date: 2018 and 2019 Authorship: VCU’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis and Jarrett Walker & Associates Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

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Richmond 300 Insights Richmond 300 Insights is a compilation of several land use analysis, and is a part of the Richmond 300 plan collection. It gathers relevant information from different themes that layer up into a comprehensive demographic urban analysis. It ranges from population group breakdowns (e.g. age, income, race), density patterns throughout the city (population per area), land use determinations through broad zoning and specific districts. That being said, it is not a plan, but rather a starting point for the elaboration of a plan.

In regards to transportation, there are immense opportunities for aligning the goals for future land use with the operations and expansions thought for transportation. Land use and transportation share an intricate relationship of mutual feedback, one should inform and support the other, not only for planning purposes but also for operations. Richmond 300 shows that there is an extensive amount of available resources from previous plans to build upon, and clearly states the responsibility that future plans have in regards to transportation determinations.

The Insights report creates a base from which we can assess and plan for the future in Richmond, it ranges from different aspects of Land Use and allows speculation on what and how we might think about developing the city in the years ahead. It also is a strong example of what a collaborative planning document can look like and do: it collects from several existing reports and data sources, centralizing crucial intelligence for decision makers to perform high quality and evidence based informed policy.

Richmond 300 also states a process for decision making in regards to future land use and transportation. This process is one that allows for several stakeholders to deliberate on what decisions should be made, and what direction the city should move towards. It, again, matches up to best practices that have successfully elaborated high quality master plans.

at a glance: Takeaway: Richmond 300 Insights is a powerful document that compiles intelligence from several organizations, departments and institutions in a single location, and proposes a method for elaborating future land use plans for the City of Richmond. It is a clear, relevant and well executed document, which delineates a participatory process for decision informing as the plans move forward. It does not address specific goals, values or visions for the plans, neither does it suggest any implementation opportunities for regulating, funding and operating, which needs to be included in Richmond 300’s further versions.

Document Type: Analysis Scale: Local Date: 2018 Authorship: City of Richmond 18

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Plan 2040 The 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan (plan2040) is a regional, multi-modal transportation planning document that typically has a 20-year horizon and is updated on a five year cycle based on air quality conformity standards. plan2040 takes into account future needs for roads, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, transit, freight and passenger rail, ports and marine facilities, and air travel. This document was formerly known as the Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) before federal legislation changed the name. plan2040 is produced by the Richmond Regional Transportation Planning Organization (RRTPO), a regional policy-making organization made up of partner agencies and elected officials from nine member jurisdictions including the counties of Charles City, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent and Powhatan, the City of Richmond and Town of Ashland.

Planning initiatives such as this one are incentivized through the US’s FAST Act (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation), which supports transportation planning that is comprehensive, collaborative and continuing (3C process). In compliance with FAST, this document deploys the prescribed methodology to outline the regional planning for the Richmond Area.

It elaborates on and addresses multi-modal developments for the entire area through 9 overarching goals. The 9 goals established for transportation in the document are: - Access to employment - Congestion mitigation - Environment & Air Quality - Freight Mobility - Multi-modal Connectivity - Preservation & Maintenance - Safety & Security - System Reliability - Transportation and Land Use Integration

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Plan 2040

After specifying the established goals, the plan moves to the financial accountability section, showcasing existing funding instruments and pointing to existing revenue projections for the mentioned projects.

Another thing established through Plan 2040 are it’s accessory plans that include: - Bike and Pedestrian plan; - Greater Richmond Transit Vision; - Congestion Mitigation Process technical Report; - Richmond and Petersburg Metropolitan Planning Areas Coordinated Human Service Mobility Plan; - Central Region Intelligent Transportation Systems Implementation Plan; - Richmond/Tri-Cities Regional Intermodal Strategies Study; Together, the Plan2040 allows for a wide scope of disciplines and themes to gather in a connected way for the region, with a particular highlight for the Transit Vision Plan, also mentioned in this report.

at a glance: Takeaway: Plan 2040 is a comprehensive plan that, together with its subordinate plans, allows for a thorough organization of future transportation efforts for the Richmond Area. It complies with state and federal regulations for a plan of this nature and outlines a clear methodology to deliver its contents.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Regional Date: 2016 - 2017 Authorship: RRTPO

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GRTC Transit Development Plan GRTC's TDP is a document that sets out to outline the resolutions on how the Company aims to proceed and prioritize goals and projects for the next 4 years (even though goals for the next 10 years are also mentioned). In this document, we learn about: A brief introduction to the GRTC's system followed by some statistics: It offers numbers on the changes in operations strategies for the transit lines (the ‘reroute’) and explains the new guidelines for providing high frequency transit and where it currently serves. It also presents its other services such as the on-demand (GRTC CARE and CARE plus). From this we learn as much about GRTC’s current portfolio and scale of operations as we do about what has changed in the years preceding this plan.

The existing goals it has and a comparison to previous goals from past TDP's: In the goals section the GRTC outlines 8 goals that explore a myriad of themes such as operational improvements, financial improvements, employee experience, customer experience and more. Through these goals they also compare their current standings in relation to the past set of goals established in the previous TDP. This section also lays out the current service design standards, with information on network coverage goals, speeds per type of service, stop spacing design per region, and the passenger capacity expected per category of service (express core, core arterial, arterial, community radial, and circulator/feeder/connector services).

The Service and System evaluation segment of the TDP is perhaps one its most relevant parts to assess the document: It is a systemwide evaluation, assessing services and the network compared to current spatialized demographics, and relating those to the goals and key performance indicators. In this section, the TDP integrates the areas of service it currently has to some of the points brought in the RRTPO’s Transit Vision and includes some of the spatial

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GRTC Transit Development Plan

analysis from it. Here, information on population changes for the greater Richmond area are listed, and the recommendations for Chesterfield, Henrico and Richmond are also reiterated. Aside from the GRTVP, the TDP also integrates current stipulations that each of the localities has in their established master plans. Not only does this section cross reference the regions to other existing regional and local plans, but it thoroughly analyzes current provided services with the objectives of those plans. Moving forward, it is in this section that the TDP establishes and measures its’ KPI’s - which show the 4 core indexes to measure system performance are speed, farebox return, passenger revenue/hour and on-time performance.

Aside from those the document also covers in depth details of: - The Short and long term needs identified and stated for service improvements: - An Implementation plan for short and long term needs stated; - The Financial Plan for the mentioned strategies.

at a glance: Takeaway: The TDP allows to understand how the GRTC envisions the near future of its operations, its main goals, as well as key projects and key metrics to achieve the desired standards. The report succeeds in showcasing how the current goals, projects and metrics relate to other ongoing efforts as well as past efforts. The TDP also succeeds in combining its goals to the goals presented in plans such as the Pulse Corridor or the Greater Richmond Transit Vision Plan, centralizing efforts and moving closer to a definite course of action for transit developments.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Local/Metropolitan Date: 2018 Authorship: Greater Richmond Transit Company

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The Pulse Corridor Plan The Corridor Plan was elaborated in 2017 as a complete set of studies, guidelines, goals and strategies to move the implementation of Richmond’s first BRT project: ‘the Pulse’. This plan focuses on two different scales, and iterates through them along the entire document. The first scale is the ‘system wide’ consideration - that engages with the proposed BRT line as a whole. The second scale looks into the components of this system, and how they are unique across the city.

For both scales, the document sets out a series of land use studies that ranges across diverse themes such as land and property accumulated value, current land use designation, neighborhood division and several other layers of analysis for each of the segments determined by the proposed stops along the route. For each, a series of these studies are produced in order to better understand the implications the project would have on its adjacencies, and therefore anticipating and responding to those conditions. The intelligence provided in this plan is fundamental for projects of this nature - it combines a in-depth land use spatial analysis with transportation design. Across the recommendations, it becomes clear that this plan prioritizes mixed-uses and higher densities throughout the extension of the BRT line.

The components are broken down into the following areas: Staples Mill Station, Cleveland Station Area, Science Museum and Allison Street, VCU/VUU Station Area, Arts District, Downtown, Main Street, Shockoe Bottom and Riverfront Station Area. For all of these a thorough framework is deployed to assess existing uses and through considerations of the projects impact, goals and objectives, recommendations are established. The plan also succeeds in illustrating these different types of information with diagrams, renderings and other graphic resources.

at a glance: Takeaway: In planning Richmond’s first BRT, this document gathers insights and showcases the relevance of integrating future land use considerations with transportation design. By doing so, the plan can become a standard approach for future transit studies for corridors throughout Richmond.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Local Date: 2017 Authorship: City of Richmond Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

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Greater RVA Transit Vision The Greater RVA Transit Vision plan for (a part of the plan2040) is a regional transit plan supported by the VDRPT and centralized through the Richmond Regional Transportation Planning

Organization or simply ‘RRTPO’ a part of the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission (RRPDC) also referred to as ‘PlanRVA’. The plan establishes a connected vision for the 9 localities that comprise the RRPDC’s region: Ashland, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, Chesterfield, Richmond, New Kent, Charles City and Powhatan. It sets out a vision for 2040 in regards to transportation across the mentioned localities and establishes goals that define that vision. It is a plan that is specific to Transit for the region.

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Greater RVA Transit Vision

The plan establishes a spatial categorization framework that organizes the city through multi-modal corridors and multi-modal centers, both of which vary according to densities and uses. These categories help the plan layout a direct way of allocating priorities and determining modal strategies for the city, aware of which types of places accommodate which types of transportation infrastructure investment and capacity. The document sets out several analysis to guide its decisions on understanding demand generation trip destination likelihood based on land use and socio-demographic patterns in the region such as the concentration of jobs, homes and low-income populations. It also includes an aggregated metric that evaluates higher propensity per type of rider origins/destinations.

The plan then establishes the types of transit services that exist within the 2040 vision, and what the parameters are for each type of service. In the vision, there is a mix of BRT’s, enhanced local routes, high performing local routes, regular local routes, and express routes. After setting this model, the plan evaluates it by comparing it to a no-build option and speculating on those potential scenarios in regards of costs incurred and benefits generated, supporting the decision to advance the recommendations set out in the vision plan.

In a higher level of detail, the vision plan offers illustrations and analysis for specific aspects of the projects it mentions, showing us the multi-modal centers it proposes, as well as multi-modal corridors, and follows to make specific recommendations for each of the localities that are a part of the region. In that way, it engages stakeholders from different local governments.

at a glance: Takeaway: In establishing a metropolitan vision for the Richmond Region, this plan succeeds in addressing key issues, elaborating relevant recommendations, and supporting those through its methods and analysis.

It is one of the few documents that understands the Richmond Area as highly connected localities that could benefit immensely from more and better connectivity, and by doing so it urges for cross-locality collaboration and vision if it is to be successful. The strategies within the plan promote and support the collective gains that could be achieved through investment in transportation infrastructure and services for the metro area.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Metropolitan Date: 2016 Authorship: RRTPO and VDRPT Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

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Richmond Bicycle Master Plan The Richmond Bicycle Master Plan from 2015 is a comprehensive document that elaborates on several (perhaps all) issues pertaining to planning, providing and ensuring Richmond’s bicycle transportation system to a very high standard: - It compiles a set of spatial analysis crossing data on employment, population density, and the location of recreational facilities across the city - aggregating that data to produce a demand model for bicycle infrastructure.

- It then cross-references that layer of information to the condition of the streets in the city, mapping locations that would be more likely to become successful candidates for bicycle infrastructure upgrades.

- It conducts surveys to identify the profile of potential cyclists in the city, and creates target audiences based on that profiling, addressing preferences and most common destinations from the survey group.

- It maps the entire city with network recommendations, and establishes a compilation of projects divided by type, location, time frame of implementation, size and cost - elaborating a ‘prioritization score’, that allows an analyst to quickly navigate the presented options.

- It proceeds to organize those improvements in time frames of short, medium and long term solutions, while offering a catalog of illustrations of some of the project locations conditions’ and also providing a sectional illustration of the solutions.

- It then follows to map out implementation processes for the projects, identifying best practices for policy, program and infrastructure implementations. It identifies a full list of stakeholders and the roles they have in this process.

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Richmond Bicycle Master Plan

Finally, it stipulates a full catalog of design guidelines for the recommendations mentioned, allowing a clear and unambiguous example of what is meant by the terminology referred to; a walkthrough of the demand modeling efforts and results; a guide on available funding resources for projects; and last but not least, an outreach communications strategy to move forward with the plan.

This plan is a very complete document, and leaves very little for the imagination when it comes to thinking about bicycle transportation systems in Richmond.

at a glance: Takeaway: The Bicycle plan shows a robust, complete and comprehensive modal analysis for thinking about the provision of biking programs, policy and infrastructure for Richmond. In setting out to exhaust options and strategies to provide for this mode, the document looks and feels very successful, and iterates through what needs to be done, why it should be done, and how it might be done. This document, however needs to be integrated into other future land use plans to ensure it’s incremental implementation.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Local Date: 2015 Authorship: City of Richmond Department of Public Works

DC2RVA Recommendation Report The document gathers the recommendations set forward by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation and the Commonwealth Transportation Board in regards to the project known as “DC2RVA’, which consists of a high speed rail line connecting Washington DC to Richmond. The project is a partnership between the VDRPT and the Federal Railroad

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DC2RVA Recommendation Report

Administration, and aims to create a competitive alternative rail system for the area’s transportation demands for commuters and freight. It builds upon a narrative that strengthens the efforts made towards multimodal systems, and understands strategies of this nature to increase the potential for accommodating future growth.

The recommendation investigates different alternatives for moving forward with the project.

The report is structured in breaking down the studies performed and the alternatives considered through several methodologies of operations analysis, iterating through considerations per segment of the project. As it is laid out in the report, the project consists of 6 main segments, numbered accordingly from North to South and specifying stops along those segments and the main areas of impact. The report gives special attention in some points to the Arlington section and Ashland section of the project. The Arlington section is mentioned more specifically to point the urgency to diversify the provision of transportation solutions, given the current conditions of the I-95 and the congestion stresses it has been submitted to. The Ashland section is highlighted due to the nature of the project’s potential impact to th e area expressed during the alternatives development process.

Amongst the alternatives developed for Richmond are versions of the project with stations at Staples Mill, Main Street Station, Boulevard, and Broad Street - with the recommendation being to move forward with the FRA and CTB aligned proposal: operating at full service with a station in Staples Mill Road/Main Street station providing connection to the Downtown area of Richmond but also one in a more suburban location, which complies with previous recommendations established by the FRA in a guide published in 2005.

at a glance: Takeaway: This document shows us some of the issues concerning the largest project being discussed for the Mid-Atlantic Region, with Richmond in a central position to benefit from the Regional development of high performing transportation infrastructure and connect itself in a stronger way to the Capital region. It showcases and compares relevant alternatives, and establishes recommendations that align with a larger vision and comply with federal best practice guides.

Document Type: Report Date: 2017 Authorship: Commonwealth Transportation Board and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

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Vision Zero Richmond Virginia Action Plan The Vision Zero Action Plan is Richmond’s own version of an international initiative that aspires to creating zero fatalities due to traffic accidents. This document covers what Vision Zero is, what it means for Richmond and what can be done to move this program forward in the city. Vision Zero is often a data based approach associated to policy, programs and sometimes infrastructure that assists in reducing the exposure to risks in road traffic.

The action plan shows the fluctuation in fatalities and injuries from traffic accidents, as well as the numbers on the most frequent reasons behind those accidents. By crossing that data with GIS bases, it becomes possible to visualize the exact locations of these accidents, which the action plan shows us. The document also puts forward a series of fundamental recommendations and allocates specific stakeholders in government to advance them.

The plan categorizes these into three main branches, they represent shifts through: the executive office’s policy making, the legislative and budgetary offices, and cultural shifts. For all three categories, the recommendations fall into a framework pointing the overall goal, the rationale that supports it, the leading organization to move it forward, and a metric to evaluate it.

This allows for an organized approach to delivering the goals stated in the plan, and the attribution of specific stakeholders and their roles in the delivery process.

at a glance: Takeaway: Through a clear and organized approach, the Vision Zero Action Plan explains the Vision Zero concept, showcases the relevant data concerning Richmond’s case, identifies branches of action, and establishes recommendations, rationales, leaders and metrics to move forward on these actions.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Local Date: 2017 Authorship: City of Richmond

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Update on GRTC’s Strategic Planning Research The Update is a presentation prepared by the Southeastern Institute of Research in which a series of findings are presented. The findings are mainly the result of surveys conducted with GRTC riders, and has two overall goals: Identifying immediate ways to improve the GRTC's transit services and how the GRTC can help the RVA region move forward.

Over 1,500 people were surveyed across the 24 routes the GRTC served in 2015. Some of the main findings were that over 70% of the GRTC's riders were very satisfied with the services provided and that over 60% of the riders used the GRTC to get to work. The survey then proceeds to elaborate on a series of system performance perception questions to compile a gap analysis. The categories explored were: - Convenience; - Ease of use and access; - Reliability; - Safety; - Affordability; - Using time productively during the trip; - Good for the environment; - On-time arrival at my destination; - Cost of the trip; - Amount of stress I would experience; - Travel comfort; The Gap analysis compared the importance given to an evaluated attribute to the performance measured of that attribute. The main gaps identified were for "Reliability" of the service and "On-time arrival at destination", which both showed a -13% gap between importance and performance, suggesting that the GRTC should focus efforts on addressing these two areas.

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Update on GRTC's Strategic Planning Research

It was also identified that the top 4 areas in which the GRTC's services correlated with "Overall satisfaction with GRTC" were Convenience, Ease of use and access, Reliability and On-time arrival at destination.

According to the survey, riders identified issues related to bus stop shelters as being points to improve upon (more benches, more shelters, better shelters). Another identified desire amongst riders was having shorter wait times, meaning more frequent buses, as well as weekend service.

In regards of network coverage, over 25% of riders would like more services into Chesterfield County, and over 35% would like more services into Henrico, Short Pump or West End. The Update also shows that 56% of the riders in Henrico County live more than 10 blocks away from a bus stop, and that in Chesterfield County that number jumps to 76% of the riders. For the City of Richmond, about 58% of the riders live within 3 blocks of a bus stop, while only 18% of riders are more than 10 blocks away from one.

at a glance: Takeaway: The Update is a document that gathers a series of findings based on data collected in April 2015. It surveys GRTC riders and inquired about the condition of services provided in different categories. It also compiles suggestions and preferences that users and businesses have for improving transit moving forward. From it we learn that expanding services to Henrico and Chesterfield are high on the priority list for users, as well as expanding transit frequency and bus stop infrastructure.

Document Type: Survey Scale: Metropolitan Date: 2015 Authorship: Southeastern Institute for Research

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Richmond Connects Richmond Connects is the cities latest finalized Transportation plan. It was released in 2013, and aimed to address multimodal considerations structured through 10 guiding principles while assessing existing conditions, and planning future conditions. The guiding principles listed in their order of priority are: 1. Safety; 2. System Preservation; 3. Equity; 4. Complete Streets; 5. Multimodal linkages; 6. Sustainable Transportation; 7. Alternative Mode Support; 8. Regional Coordination; 9. Historic Character; 10. Innovation.

The plan also included analysis for existing and future conditions, as a way of taking note of the starting point for future transportation initiatives in the City.

The existing conditions section conducted an assessment, creating an inventory of infrastructure services and the transportation networks in Richmond, while also specifying the differences across transportation modes. Among the considerations presented in this section were system performance, travel mode breakdowns, and land use patterns. Existing conditions also included a series of spatial socioeconomic analysis, such as mapping residential and employment distribution patterns in Richmond. Aside from land use patterns, the report also presents the travel-mode breakdowns for Richmond, which showed that approximately 83% of Richmonders would commute by using cars (whether driving alone or carpooling).

Some of the conclusions from this section include the support

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Richmond Connects

needed from land use conditions to support a multimodal transportation system, such as higher densities and mixed uses throughout the city.

In future conditions, the concerns focus on traffic forecasts throughout the existing road network, the expansion of household and employment growth areas at a metro level, and the demands for specific levels of service (LOS) according to the forecasts. At the Metropolitan level, there are 4 main axis that guide the imagined "regional corridors" that would connect the city to "regional activity centers" and to employment and housing growth areas. It also shows the first drafts of the Broad Street Rapid Transit Corridor from 2012.

The summary of needs identified in the plan amount to 8 categories: 1. Complete streets; 2. Transit investments; 3. Multimodal investments; 4. Safety and operational needs; 5. System maintenance and preservation; 6. Access and mobility needs; 7. Context sensitive solutions and sustainability; 8. Additional funding; For each of these categories, the plan follows to specify general strategies, which are translated into a list of projects ranked according to their level of priority. The priorities are defined based on whether or not the projects attend to one or more of the guiding principles established in the plan. The plan also includes a standard process for including new projects to the plan: formulation, screening, prioritization and implementation - iterating through these 4 steps to deliver new capital projects that are identified

at a glance: Takeaway: Richmond connects created a principle-oriented strategy with defined priorities and projects to be developed. Considerations included land use, multimodal transportation support, funding mechanisms and the existing and future conditions of the city-wide network.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Local Date: 2013 Authorship: City of Richmond Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

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The Capital Region Blueprint for Regional Mobility The Blueprint for Regional mobility is a first-of-its-kind agenda for transportation, being a ‘comprehensive region-wide transportation agenda’ led by regional employers of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond areas. The blueprint envisions a highly connected ‘super region’ in which accessibility gains relevance as one of the pillars of future development. One of the factors that the document highlights in making its case for the acceleration of transportation initiatives are the growth projections estimated for the region. According to the document, the region is to expand significantly beyond its current transportation infrastructure’s capacity, which would generate a series of substantial challenges for the regions’ development.

The numbers in the report would point to a 2.4 million increase in population as well as a congestion region-wide increase of 150% by 2040. As a consequence, the effects of this mismatch would compromise economic development for the region. A way to mitigate these undesirable forecasts would be to consider the regions’ potential in creating a consolidated, integrated transportation network in the years ahead.

To achieve the system proposed, the blueprint outlines 4 priorities and 7 solutions. The priorities are: connecting the super region; improving consumer experience; ensuring equitable access; and integrating innovation. Moving along, the blueprint includes in its approach Each solution includes specific actions the region’s leaders and stakeholders must take to advance the solution—along with clear next-move recommendations that outline a road-map for each of the specific actions.

- Modernizing intercity and commuter rail; - Improve Roadway and Trail Performance; - Create High-Performing Public Transit; - Grow Employer Mobility Programs; - Expand Access to Opportunity; - Enable Technology-Driven Future; - Reform Governance and Funding

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The Capital Region Blueprint for Regional Mobility

While the actions reiterate the 4 priorities initially set, reinforcing connectivity, equity, consumer experience and innovation, they also allocate specific agencies and organizations as stakeholders in each of the presented steps.

at a glance: Takeaway: The Capital Region Blueprint for Regional Mobility presents a strong case to championing a large scale regional integration of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond areas. It acknowledges that this region already experiences commuter exchanges and points to the challenges that will emerge in case action is not taken to build the supporting systems necessary across the entire region. It also understands that leadership vision alignment is fundamental to achieve the ambitious proposition it defends, and points to several existing synergies that may prove to develop into mutual gains for the many localities within the studied area.

Document Type: Plan Scale: Regional Date: 2017 Authorship: Greater Washington Partnership (GWP)

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Learning from Richmond's plans There is an extensive amount of planning happening in Richmond, across all three of the mentioned scales and through several organizations. Moving forward the city administration would benefit best from establishing a clear hierarchy between these plans, and elect one "champion" plan for each of the scales. Ideally, the champion plan of one scale would be in compliance with the strategies presented for the larger scales, allowing the city to engage multiple scales of decision-making consistently, cohesively.

The existing plans must be consistent throughout scales, and must require compliance of any subordinate plan or amended projects.

This holds true for Transportation planning but also for Land Use planning. We can safely assume that land use and transportation should and must develop in tandem.

While we know that there is a mutual support relation between transportation and land use, Local Champion: Richmond 300 (as it still develops) Metropolitan Champion: Greater Richmond Transit Vision Regional Champion: Capital Region Blueprint for Regional Mobility

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1.2

People What are the existing guiding plans for Richmond? How do they envision the future?

Richmond is a city that boasts several plans for itself. They are plans that are concerned with issues within the city, at the local scale within the metropolitan area at the Greater Richmond Area scale within the larger region, as a part of the Greater Capital Area.

This section is dedicated to gather these several visions, ideas and projects into one place. There are planning documents, analysis, projects and research pieces - all telling us more about Richmond, how it moves today, how it might move tomorrow. From these documents it is possible to learn what collaborations currently exist, what strategies are being thought, what results have been collected, and what projects are coming next for the city.

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Organization

Nature

Scale

Greater Richmond Transit Company

Quasi-public Transit Agency

Local, Metropolitan

Department of Public Works, City of Richmond

Local Government Agency

Local

Department of Planning Review, City of Richmond

Local Government Agency

Local

Mayor's Office, City of Richmond

Local Government Agency

Local, Metropolitan, Regional

Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation

State Government Agency

Local, Metropolitan, Regional

Virginia Department of Transportation

State Government Agency

Local, Metropolitan, Regional

Greater Washington Partnership

Private Organization

Regional

Richmond Region Transportation Planning Organization

State Planning Agency

Metropolitan

Richmond Regional Planning District Commission

State Planning Agency

Metropolitan

RVA Rapid Transit

Local Advocacy Group

Local, Metropolitan

Richmond 300 Transportation Work Group

Local Community-Public Group

Local

Urban Design Committee

Local Government Regulatory Sub-Committee

Local

Land use, Housing and Transportation Committee

Local Government Regulatory Sub-Committee

Local

City Council

Local Government Legislative Body

Local

Venture Richmond

Local Advocacy Group

Local

Center for Urban and Regional Analysis, Virginia Commonwealth University

Local Research Group

Local, Metropolitan, Regional

Bolt Corporation

Local Transportation Provider

Local

Lyft

Local Transportation Provider

Local

Uber

Local Transportation Provider

Local

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Transportation Initiative Process

Transportation Initiative Processes: In an abstract form, Transportation Initiatives in the City of Richmond seem to follow an order that flows from initial support all the way to operations and management. Initially, support expressed by communities legitimizes the actions centralized by leadership, that result in a shared vision. That vision should reflect a project oriented approach that begins with support and is polished by leadership - establishing what needs to be done. The vision is what would support the plans to follow, which address exactly what will be done in order to achieve the vision. The elaborated plans must comply with regulation and gain traction within the legislative bodies in order to secure local funding - mainly through City Council approval. It must also comply to State and Federal guidelines if it intends to expand its funding eligibility. Moving forward, the plans' projects become eligible for multiple sources of funding at local, state and federal levels. These stages specifically define how the vision should be carried out, with Key Performance Indicators (KPI) established to assess the set of projects to be regulated and funded. Then, these projects allocate the afforded funds towards delivering what was established in the plans to allow for them to begin operating.

Operations cycles through providing services or infrastructure, analyzing the performance through the previously established KPI's and adjusting to ensure better or best performance.

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Learning from the Pulse

The Pulse Bus Rapid Transit: a Case Study The Pulse is the result of extensive collaboration across all three scales of government - Cross-locality partnership, regional leadership, state level support and federal funding. It started off as a study to evaluate the feasibility for different options of Bus Rapid Transit corridors along Broad St - one of the main East-West corridors in the City of Richmond.

Lead by a GRTC study team, the first alternatives registered came about in October 2010 when it was first presented to the Public.

Later, in 2013 the study team brought an alternative that tried to address the main concerns presented by stakeholders and the public - resulting in a recommended alternative. This would be the alternative to be presented to the FTA (Federal Transit Administration), GRTC Board and MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) and Land Use, Transportation and Housing Committee (City of Richmond). The GRTC team would continue to coordinate efforts with FTA, Virginia Department of Historic Resources and others as planning and design progressed.

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In 2014, with the complete Broad Street Rapid Transit Study, the City of Richmond along with Henrico County and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation applied for the federal TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economy Recovery) Grant, supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT).

The funds provided by the federal government were matched by Local and State governments, with final estimated costs at around $53,000,000 dollars. Construction began in 2016, and would finish in 2018.

As of June 24th, 2018 the Pulse began its operations. One year later, is by far the GRTC's most used Route, with averages above 6,000 rides per weekday for its first year of operations (June 2018 to June 2019). On June 25th of 2019, the Pulse received a BRT Bronze Award from ITDP (Institute for Transportation & Development Policy), joining a group of 6 other American cities that have an acknowledged ITDP standard for Bus Rapid Transit service.

Learning from the Pulse The Pulse is an example of how transportation initiatives have happened, and still can happen in the City of Richmond. By building local support and channeling it through leadership to create a vision, plans were able to become regulated and funded, and then delivered, operated and assessed. Multiple stakeholders had a role in each of these steps, yet despite the amount of players involved the project was successfully delivered and the partnerships forged proved themselves effective. Learning from the Pulse means honing existing skills and networks towards more projects like the Pulse in order to expand transit access and efficiency across Richmond.

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1.3

Places In places, we explore the three main scales considered in future plans of relevance to the City of Richmond. We do so by investigating the disparities of sizes of these areas, their populations, job markets and current exchange conditions. The scales chosen reflect those in which there is currently agency mediated through planning documents or known partnerships/projects. Through these, we define: 'Regional' as the Metropolitan Statistical Areas of Baltimore, Washington (GWP) and Richmond combined - as defined by the Greater Washington Partnership. Currently, the plan/project that is being investigated at this scale is the DC2RVA High Speed Rail - which seeks to increase connection options between the Washington-Arlington Area and the Richmond Metro Area.

'Metropolitan' as the combined areas of the 9 localities around the City of Richmond established in the Richmond Region Planning District Commission (RRPDC) - including Ashland, Charles City, Chesterfield County, City of Richmond, Goochland County, Hanover County, Henrico County, Powhatan County, and New Kent County.

'Local' as the locality of the City of Richmond, defined exclusively by the political delimitation of the City.

Over the three scales explored there are insights to be drawn by observing current patterns, particularly when we look into average housing prices, median incomes, and current commuting patterns.

These three categories suggest potential synergies of further integration across scales.

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Three Scales of Analysis

Baltimore, MD

Washington D.C.

Arlington, VA

Greater Capital Region regional scale

Greater Richmond Area metropolitan scale

Richmond, VA local scale

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100km

Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

The region defined as the "Greater Capital Region" is a part of the mentioned plan 'The Capital Region Blueprint for Regional Mobility' organized by the Greater Washington Partnership. It is comprised of the contiguous areas of the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria and Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Today, the areas are home to a population of over 10 million people and an employment market of over 5 million jobs. of which 96.1% originate from within the region itself.

How much of the Region's Job Market is occupied

by Residents of the Greater Capital Region?

5,024,837

4,829,306

4,000,000

3,000,000

2,000,000

1,000,000

195,531 0

Total Jobs within the Region

Residents of the Region employed within the Region

Commuters from other Regions

Out of the three MSA's that form the Greater Capital Region, Richmond Metro has the lowest Median Household Income and Median Property Value, and highest percentage of individual driving amongst commutes. Richmond Metro is also the smallest employer amongst its Capital Region counterparts, with roughly half the number of jobs than the Baltimore Area and about 20% the amount of jobs than the Washington Area.

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Regional: Greater Capital Region Baltimore-Columbia-Towson

2.8M Residents 1.42M Jobs 76.4% Of Commuters Drive Alone $297,300 Median Property Value $77,394 Median Household Income

71%

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria

of regional commuters drive alone

6.2M Residents 3.34M Jobs 66.4% Of Commuters Drive Alone $424,600 Median Property Value $99,669 Median Household Income

10,358,911 Residents 5,024,837 Jobs 3 Metropolitan Areas

Richmond Metro

1.3M Residents 615,053 Jobs 81.1% Of Commuters Drive Alone $237,000 Median Property Value $67,633 Median Household Income

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100km

Divisions as established by the Greater Washington Partnership Richmond Moving Forward Together - Office of the Mayor, Richmond, VA

What are the internal dynamics of commuters within the Region?

The matrix above illustrates the commuting patterns within the Greater Capital Region, specifying where people live and work.

Unsurprisingly, the number of people who live and work within the same Metro Area are higher than the number of people that commute to other Metro Area's. Yet, by analyzing how the region's workforce exchanges commuters, we learn that the Baltimore Area and Washington Area exchange over 200,000 commuters, while Richmond Area's exchange with the Washington Area adds to nearly 13,000 commuters. The least expressive exchange happens between the Baltimore Area and Richmond Metro, with little above 200 commuters. This could suggest that the Richmond Metro area has the potential to increase its connectivity to the other Metro Areas, and with that expand access to larger and wealthier employment markets.

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Metropolitan : Greater Richmond Area

1,102,075 Residents 550,530 Jobs 9 Localities Hanover Ashland

Goochland

Henrico New Kent Richmond

Powhatan Charles City Chesterfield

0

25km

The second scale of analysis is the 'Metropolitan' one, defined by the 9 localities of the RRPDC - also known as the Greater Richmond Area. It is home to over 1,000,000 people and has over 550,000 jobs. Transportation operations here rely heavily on the Road Network, and public transportation only operates consistently across localities in the areas serviced by the GRTC, with routes connecting Chesterfield, Richmond and Henrico County. This section looks into internal and external dynamics that allow us to better understand how the Metropolitan Area functions in regards to where people are and how they move to and through the Greater Richmond Area.

Divisions as established by the Richmond Region Planning District Commission 48

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External dynamics: commuters in Virginia

Arlington

Charlottesville Richmond Lynchburg

Virginia Beach

"More than 1 out of 7 commutes in Virginia end within the Greater Richmond Area"

Commutes in Virginia The map above illustrates the lines connecting origins to destinations of the commutes in the State of Virginia for the year 2015. Where the lines overlap, the red lines merge and graphically highlight where activities are most intense in the State. The Greater Richmond Area is at the center of the main commuter flows of the State of Virginia, which amounted to 3,307,123 individual flows in 2015 that originated and ended within the State. Amongst those, about 500,000 went to the Greater Richmond Area, representing over 15% of all Virginia to Virginia commutes.

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Internal dynamics: How have density patterns changed over the past decades?

GRVA in 1990

GRVA in 2017

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"The Greater Richmond Area is growing denser: in 2017, over 50% of Greater Richmond's population lived within 6% of its' area. Between the 1990 and 2017, the population grew by 33.4%"

Where people live in the Greater Richmond Area: a 27 year transition in density.

The maps on page 50 illustrate the Greater Richmond Area subdivided by Census Block Groups. The shades of red represent how many people per hectare each of the Block Groups contained for the years of 1990 (top) and 2017 (bottom). Each of the colors that fill the block groups represents a quantile going from least dense (white) to most dense (dark red).

In 1990 the least dense block groups ranged from having 0 to 0.46 people per hectare. In 2017 that range shifted to 0 to 1.9. For the highest density block groups that range shifted from 19.72 to 85.84 people per hectare in 1990, to 20.0 to 94.0 in 2017. Overall, there has been a consistent increase in the density ranges throughout the block group quantiles for the period observed. Spatially, a more compact pattern can be observed in the map for 2017 when compared to 1990, that may suggest further agglomeration trends for the Greater Richmond Area.

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Internal dynamics: How is employment distributed throughout the area?

Where people work in the Greater Richmond Area The map above illustrates the distribution of jobs throughout the Greater Richmond Area. They are represented through the shades of blue, the darker blues represent a higher concentration of jobs per block group. In total, the area has over 550,000 jobs of which over 85% are located within Chesterfield, Richmond and Henrico, with the highest concentration of jobs per hectare in Downtown Richmond, Short Pump and along the Midlothian Turnpike in Chesterfield.

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Internal dynamics: how does the Transit System reach the most socially vulnerable areas?

Transit and Access across different income groups The map above compares the Greater Richmond Area's block groups based on yearly median income per capita. The shades from dark blue to light blue show block groups from lowest to highest income per capita. The red lines on the map represent the GRTC's current transit network, with routes in Chesterfield, Richmond and Henrico. From this we learn that: - 1/3 of all jobs in the region are within the 40% poorest areas of GRVA. - 47% of all jobs within Greater Richmond Area are within half a mile from a GRTC transit stop.

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The matrix above, similar to the one presented at the regional scale, illustrates the exchanges within the Greater Richmond Area, with numbers on where people live and work cross-referenced graphically. Here, we can see that Richmond City, Henrico County and Chesterfield County are the three largest employers in the Area, and that there is significant amount of workforce exchange.

According to the data from 2015, over 40,000 Residents of Henrico County commuted to Richmond to get to their jobs, and over 37,000 from Chesterfield County did the same. Aside from this, together, the three localities, are hubs that employ people from all of the neighboring localities expressively.

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Local: City of Richmond

227,032 Residents 154,885 Jobs 1 City

0

5km

The final scale investigated is the city of Richmond itself. The analysis is done by looking into different land use patterns, commuter flows and its breakdowns to best understand how land use and transportation support each other at the scale of the city.

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External dynamics: How do commuting patterns in Virginia Relate to Richmond?

The map above is a representation of every single locality in Virginia from which people commute to Richmond. Similar to the patterns observed at the other scales, Richmond also attracts people from all over Virginia. In 2015, Richmond registered commuters from 134 localities of Virginia.

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Internal dynamics: How do people who live and work in Richmond move through the city?

Internally, Richmond displays a complex pattern of exchange with over 30,000 block-to-block commuters moving through the city on a daily basis. As observed before, there are 54,524 people living and working in the City of Richmond - which accounts for about 35% of all jobs in the City. This reinforces the Metropolitan aspect of the City of Richmond within the Greater Richmond Area.

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Internal dynamics: How do people move through the City?

Job Density Richmond's internal Commuter Flows

Scott's Addition

North Side

Government Center

VCU/VUU

Manchester

Population Density

Broad Rock Phillip Morris

The representations above show us three different things: the lines connecting origin and destination of people who live and work in Richmond; the concentration of jobs per block group and the concentration of people per block group.

By separating the commuter flows within Richmond through Block Groups and comparing them to population density and job density, it becomes possible to visualize the main employment hubs and commuter concentrations. In the larger map above, we overlay the lines based on the amount of flows - they become darker as they overlap and we begin to see these dark dots coincide with the locations of Richmond's main employment centers. When comparing job and population densities we can identify some of the differences in land use that generate longer commutes, due to land use restriction zoning in the City.

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Internal dynamics: what is the distribution of residential land use in Richmond?

By further observing existing land use in Richmond, we learn that this higher concentration of Jobs within the downtown area is supported not only by higher densities but mainly because of mixed land use provisions. The predominant land use in Richmond is of Single Family housing - occupying over 38% of the City. When compared to other the land uses that can provide housing (duplex, mixed-use, and multi-family) we learn that single family housing represents 83% of all land use dedicated to housing in Richmond. Knowing that Transit Initiatives depend on higher densities, there is an evident challenge in providing that for more locations given Richmond's current residential land use distribution.

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Internal dynamics: what is the distribution of economically active land use in Richmond?

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Scott's Addition

I-95

By comparing the parcels that support economic activity, we can observe how employment options are distribute across the city.

In the higher density areas, employment clusters blend with housing, or agglomerate adjacent to it, such as in the Scott's Addition area.

In the lower density areas, however, the economic land use tends to follow certain corridors such as Hull St. Midlothian Turnpike, Jefferson Davis Highway, and the I-95.

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2.

Analysis What we can learn from assessing plans, people and places, is that Richmond has several roles in shaping the future of Transportation across several locations.

At the Local scale, it can consolidate the inner city networks and experiment more with land use and transportation strategies.

Herein lies the opportunity for the land use and transportation plans currently in development: Richmond 300. This plan can consolidate Richmond's efforts in establishing itself as a leader in local transportation by exploring the integration of future land use in tandem with multi-modal strategies across the city.

At the Metropolitan level, there seems to be great opportunities in guiding development through transit, further facilitating the already intense exchange patterns that the metropolitan area is composed of. The Greater Richmond Transit Vision offers a robust set of solutions for this scale.

At the Regional scale, it seems as if there is the much to be gained, seen as the Richmond Metro area does not yet benefit as much with the proximity to the Washington DC and Baltimore areas as it could.

This is a scale that allows for much speculation, and perhaps less urgency.

In that sense, the prioritization of efforts should focus on the local and metropolitan scales initially, as the larger partnerships gain traction. That way, once the Regional projects increases Richmond's connectivity capacity up North, the Greater Richmond Area will have dealt with pressing issues nearby.

2.1

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Current Conditions This section is dedicated to addressing the issues external to what was presented in "1. Context". The issues gathered here supplement an understanding of relevant questions and challenges for transportation. In this section three pieces of information expand on factors that are relevant to considering public transportation initiatives. Insights on how transportation has a role in addressing climate change, expanding equity, and increasing quality for services.

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Public Transportation and Climate Change The way we address transportation is of increasing value to mitigate the effects of climate change. Today, transportation is the leading cause of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions in the United States According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, transportation is the leading cause for GHG emissions nationally (29%), followed by Electricity (28%). Passenger cars alone account for 38.5% of all transportation related emissions. Amongst the harmful gases, CO2 accounts for roughly 97% of transportation emissions. Driving change in transportation patterns is fundamental to address climate change. There is growing urgency to stimulate the use of modes that emit less or no pollutants.

Virginia was, in 2016, the 18th highest CO2 producer of the United States, 46% of which came from transportation related emissions.

One of the challenges that exists in facing this issue are the promises of Electric Vehicles (EVs). Even though EVs don't use fossil fuels directly, the electricity they use instead also comes from fossil fuel sources.

Transportation solutions that intend to truly address climate change and emissions must seek for less emissions (directly and indirectly), more use of active modes and denser patterns of development.

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Public Transportation and Equity In America, the yearly average cost of owning and operating a car in 2017 was estimated in U$ 8,468 by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The poverty threshold, on the other hand, was established at roughly U$ 25,000 for the same year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Simultaneously, 76.3% of Americans drove alone to work in 2016, while another 9% carpooled. In that same period, transportation was ranked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as the 2nd highest household cost, losing only to housing costs.

For a family within the poverty threshold, owning and operating a car means spending 1/3 of yearly incomes on transportation. This is the cost that many families may face in the US today. Knowing this, it may be safe to assume that for many of these families, public transportation is the only feasible option to access jobs, amenities and services. In Richmond, according to data from 2016, about 26% of the population are living within poverty - roughly 50,000 people.

In this sense, public transportation has a role in providing the expansion of equity in America. Transportation, as many other public services, has a transformative capacity. It is a means of physically accessing opportunities and connecting people to other people and places.

How much of a financial burden is car ownership for Households?

dollars per year

U$ 44,332

40,000

30,000

U$ 25,100

20,000

U$ 8,468

10,000

0

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Median Household Income in Richmond

Poverty Threshold

Costs of Car Ownership

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Public Transportation and Quality Over the period of 2014 to 2018, America has witnessed a national trend in transit ridership declines, having lost almost 1 billion annual riders over the mentioned period. Ridership numbers for the year of 2018 were below the numbers registered for 2006. Some cities have been exceptions to this trend. One of the main reasons behind their success is the quality of the services offered throughout their transit networks.

Three of the factors that play a role in increasing ridership are access to transit, often measured as the distances to transit stops, hours of service and service frequency (the time between trains or buses).

These three are associated with how much people will effectively use it. However, some efforts to improve transit usage found that the best way to attract riders is to reduce travel times by increasing service frequencies instead of improving access to transit stops.

These general findings would seem to hold true in Richmond's case. The recent improvements provided through the re-route and the inauguration of the Pulse BRT line have been followed by a 17% increase in ridership in 1 year. Quality of service defined by frequency, speed and convenience of transit have a role in ensuring a transit system's success.

How did the GRTC's ridership number respond to changes in routes, frequency and speed? riders over period 8,000

7,185

7,063

6,630 6,038 6,000

4,000

2,000

0

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2016

2017

2018

2019

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2.2

Scenario Planning Scenario planning is growing as a widely accepted best practice tool by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NHCRP) Report 750 Foresight Series, which encourages transportation policy makers to engage with scenario planning as a tool to allow for future investments in mobility needs. With that in mind, this report set out to elaborate potential scenarios for Richmond across the three scales being contemplated. Then, after having investigated current plans, projections and organizational arrangements, it was decided that the two main factors to consider would be growth and collaboration.

Growth refers to Population and Economic growth, in other words, more people coming, staying and thriving in Richmond. Knowing that the location and intensity of growth will play a significant role in shaping the future.

Collaboration refers to how much the regional authorities communicate and align goals for mutual gains, in other words how much local governments are willing to work together for shared wins. As it has been seen in this report, there are several plans and organizations involved in guiding Richmond's transportation initiatives. The extent to which these visions align across the scales they influence will also be a determining factor in shaping the future of transportation in Richmond.

Collaboration and growth present challenges to each other, whether more growth enables more collaboration or if the accumulation of the externalities that follow growth will overwhelm our leaders and question the capacity to further promote collaboration.

Here, we iterate on scenarios by speculating on how much the involved scales might grow, and how well leadership throughout these scales can collaborate.

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At the Local level, collaboration and vision alignment refer to how successful the relationship between the local stakeholders, mainly: City Council, the Mayor's Administration, the many communities of Richmond, local advocacy groups, large scale organizations (e.g. VCU, Bon Secours) and other service providers (e.g. GRTC, Bolt, Lyft, Uber). The cohesion between these stakeholders and their ideas is what "collaboration" refers to. Another important stakeholder to add to this list is the State Government, which can allow additional funding and expertise for projects at the local level.

Growth refers directly with Richmond's capacity to attract people and businesses to move and stay here (talent attraction and retention) - resulting in how neighborhoods develop, increasing the numbers of jobs and homes - generating a more dynamic and robust economy.

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A1. Constrained Development Description It is 2040. Employers are frustrated with Richmond’s loss of the ability to attract and retain talent. The once growing city with investments in transportation and job creation is now stagnant, and the housing crisis remains, as student populations continue to inflate the prices of a restricted housing market supply. Jobs and people are beginning to look outside the city’s core and outside the state. The city’s population continues to rely heavily on individual car ownership as the preferred means of transportation, while congestion and limited parking options continue to annoy the locals.

To add to that, the distribution of alternative modes of transportation echoes the inequality that has only grown in the past years due to the lack of economic opportunity growth in the region. Alternative services such as TNC’s and Micro-mobility rideshare providers cater to the whole city, but favor wealthier neighborhoods. The GRTC sees limitations to expand, as ridership numbers have ceased to grow and investments in new services and maintenance become increasingly harder to accomplish with. The Local leaders struggle to provide the population with new transportation options due to differences within their agendas and the visions each of the local leaders have to what needs to be done. As Richmond holds stable in size, and in a political gridlock, companies and families see themselves looking for other places to relocate to, reinforcing Richmond’s struggle to grow.

The interstate maintained roads continue to operate as a primary connectors to employment hubs that continue dispersed outside the city boundaries. TNC and Micro-mobility options see Richmond as shrinking market and begin reconsidering operations within the city.

Overall, the city’s mode-share is somewhat maintained and skews further towards individual car ownership. GHG emissions continue to increase, as well as parking and congestion problems within the city.

Employment and People gradually begin to move away from the city pursuing new places and opportunities.

Headline: The estimated growth of Richmond has not met the projections’ expectations and local authorities do not see eye to eye.

Highlights: - Single Occupancy Vehicles(SOV) are maintained as the highest modeshare in the city; - Funding available for local projects becomes increasingly difficult; - Alternatives to Single Occupancy Vehicles like ride-sharing and vehiclesharing are not as convenient, reliable, or available as projections had suggested; - Investment in active transportation infrastructure is limited and considered supplemental to traditional infrastructure needs. Local leaders disagree on how and where to prioritize small modes; - Choking traffic congestion and unreliable public transit are causing residents and employers to look for opportunities outside of Richmond; Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative

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B1. Dispersed Nodes Description Richmond has grown strongly: people and businesses continue to move to Richmond despite the seemingly stark divides in local leadership’s visions. The GRTC has enough ridership projections and density to operate better and faster services throughout the city, but the lack in alignment with local leadership jeopardizes that opportunity. Most of the population that has the choice continues to use SOV’s primarily. Transportation improvements and Land Use rezoning that support small modes and transit are approved ad hoc throughout the city, resulting in several alterations of the existing masterplans and partial implementation of the strategies. The city, however, no has more drivers than ever. Congestion and GHG emissions reach new levels, while parking becomes scarcer. The regions of the city that managed to receive local support for higher densities and alternative modes begin to grow faster than others.

This process generates several unforeseen externalities, and further attenuates inequalities in the city.

Headline: Richmond experiences intense growth but local authorities disagree in how to direct the city’s future Highlights: - Multi-modal strategies are fragmented throughout the city - Investment in active transportation infrastructure is inconsistent and continues to happen in select locations; - Rate of growth and coordination allow for visionary and demand responsive land use planning; - Funding available for local projects becomes exists but project and policy coordination struggles to streamline them effectively; - Alternatives to individual car ownership like ride-sharing and vehiclesharing are seen as secondary options; - The rise in the cost of housing and commercial property pushes families and businesses to cheaper locations, often lower in density;

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C1. Incremental Network Description The growth forecast was overly optimistic, and Richmond has only grown a portion of the expected 30,000 people. Still, local leaders are highly aligned and have a shared vision for the city. The slower growth showcases that new development has become a challenge in the city, forcing density to plateau. Collaboration across the city’s leadership allows for bold and resourceful action, and local small mode mobility plans are developed and implemented, alongside the existing transit network. Slowly, Richmond develops specific activity centers distributed throughout the city while integrating them through transportation. The plans develop incrementally, and are supported by an aligned vision for land use that supports future growth. By investing in smaller modes (biking, pedestrian and micro), Richmond becomes an increasingly safer and greener city. The slow growth allows for a creative the implementation of the plans which in turn allows the city leaders to notice areas with larger potential for growth. The investment in smaller modes in tandem with rezoning towards higher densities and more mixed uses begin to consolidate the streetscape of neighborhoods throughout Richmond.

Eventually, through this series of studies and investments Richmond local authorities manage to consolidate a network of connected activity nodes in the city and stimulate a differentiated rate of growth in and around these locations. These local hubs support the incremental growth of a polycentric slower, safer and greener Richmond. The activities and planning rely highly on local authority collaboration and on the development of a strategic handful of projects and plans for corridors throughout the City. Richmond’s public image increasingly improves, and begins, once again, to attract and retain talent.

Headline: The projected growth of Richmond has not met the projections’ expectations and local authorities are committed to push for change in the city.

Highlights: - Multi-modal strategies are piloted exhaustively within the limited locations that have concentrated more growth; - Investment in active transportation infrastructure is limited but considered fundamental; - Funding available for local projects becomes increasingly difficult - projects must be diligently prioritized to maximize impact; - Alternatives to individual car ownership like ride-sharing and vehiclesharing are facilitated through regulation; - The value capture from the denser nodes is redirected to infrastructure investments and services;

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D1. Local Magnet Description It’s 2040. The expansion of local businesses and institutions continued to attract talent to Richmond, and local leaders did their best in providing planning regulations that could accommodate that inflow of newcomers. The city’s downtown diversified and densified. What used to be towers of parking lots are now homes, and the street level activity has grown due to successful shops now established in several of the new mixed-use developments. The inflow of people and increase in street level activity resulted in higher transit ridership - its become far easier to walk around or hop on a bus than to find parking. The share of riders opting for small modes is also growing. The air feels cleaner, the streets are buzzing, and tax dollars from real estate development are subsidizing an expanding transit network system across the city. By increasing the amount of people and bikes on the streets and providing them with streetscape infrastructure, as well as by providing high quality transit, the number in traffic accident injuries and deaths has fallen drastically - the streets are safer. Not only because of external factors, but also because of implementation of smarter technologies monitoring and controlling traffic, slowing it down when needed.

People and businesses in Richmond also benefit indirectly from the portfolio of transportation developed in the city: by driving less richmonders now actually have more disposable income, and enjoy the city’s service industry and amenities, both stimulating the local economy and improving the quality of life for the residents - and they’re able to do it for a longer amount of time. On top of this life expectancy in Richmond has increased due to the drop in traffic related accidents, the adoption of active modes of transportation and the cleaner air which combined resulted in improved standards for public health. These active, busy streets are also safer from crime All of these factors combined result in a large attraction of residents and businesses to the city which continues to expand - more and more people want to live in Richmond.

Headline: The Local leadership did its homework: Richmond’s growth came, and we were ready for it.

Highlights: - Multi-modal strategies are more successfully deployed in the centers that can concentrate more streetscape infrastructure and density; - Higher ridership lines in local transit begin to afford to subsidize lower performing routes in less dense areas; - Investment in active transportation infrastructure is prioritized - Funding for local projects is possible due to the inflow of new residents.

- Car ridership has decreased throughout the city but is still dominant in the less dense areas and in adjacent localities.

- Streets are safer, less violent and busy.

- The inflow of people and businesses to Richmond has an effect on the real-estate markets, challenging the city’s housing stock elasticity.

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At the Metropolitan level, collaboration and vision alignment refer to how successful the relationship between the stakeholders across the Richmond Region, mainly: the public leaders of the localities that are a part of the Richmond Region Planning District Commission, as well as the organizations and communities that shape the Metro Area. Collaboration here would mean a shared vision for the Metro area's development, a way for all localities to embrace plans and strategies that built off each other to result in a more integrated, diverse and dynamic Richmond Region.

Growth refers to the capacity that the Richmond Region has to attract people to live and work here.

Effectively, many people already embrace a Metro-Regional lifestyle in the area, and commute daily across localities - is this a pattern here to stay?

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A2. Highways and Hubs Description The year is 2040, the Greater Richmond Area has had seen mild growth in population and jobs in the past 20 years. Localities are pursuing different strategies for development including contrasting visions for transportation and land use plans. This mismatch produces effects throughout the region that continue to reinforce established job hubs and sparse, car-oriented development. Efforts to consolidate regional integration are yet to be successful, and due to this, the region continues to operate as it has: with inequitable and uneven patterns of urbanization through a patchwork of solutions.

In this region, development can be understood through its main symbols: highways and hubs. The already successful job clusters of the region continue to operate and exchange commuters from all 8 of the localities in Greater Richmond. The unaligned efforts in transportation result in a stress on Richmond’s system, being unable to capitalize and operate proportionately to the amount of flows it generates and hosts. Without the collaboration from the other localities, it becomes increasingly difficult to address the bigger issues in the region, and provide for the hundreds of thousands of commuters that circulate through it.

The region’s population that has the choice continues to prioritize the only mode that they find reliable: their own car. Businesses also do little to relocate to more expensive city centers, and choose to agglomerate on the edges of the localities relying heavily on the connectivity provided through the interstate highway network.

Changes in mode share tend to be small and happen in select locations that can support alternative modes. Suburban patterns of development still are preferred.

Headline: The cross-locality collaboration efforts have struggled and the collective growth of the metropolitan area has not yet met the projections’ expectations Highlights: -Multi-modal strategies are more successfully deployed in the centers that can concentrate more streetscape infrastructure and density; - Higher ridership lines in local transit begin to afford to subsidize lower performing routes in less dense areas; - Investment in active transportation infrastructure is prioritized - Funding for local projects is possible due to the inflow of new residents.

- Car ridership has decreased throughout the city but is still dominant in the less dense areas and in adjacent localities.

- The GRTC can afford to operate more higher frequency transit lines across the city

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B2. Metropolis Blueprint Description The Greater Richmond Area’s leaders have been collaborating extensively over the past decades. Goal alignment practice has become commonplace, and the entire region begins to operate with highly cohesive and coordinated goals. Land use planning strategically supports some areas to concentrate density, and services are provided across the region and local leaders want to respond to the mild amount of growth that has been registered.

Slowly, the region reinforces its ‘winners’ and promotes further supports areas that concentrate higher amounts of jobs and homes.

While the numbers to support the widespread expansion of mobility services are still insufficient, connectivity within the metropolitan area is strong but the most frequent and reliable mobility services are concentrated along key corridors. Some of the congestion issues most associated with getting in and around Richmond have manifested while parking is increasingly scarce in the city’s core, and begin to become scarcer in the other localities’ centers as well.

However, by supporting projects on a metropolitan scale, transit services connect seamlessly through the Greater Richmond Area, and allow for frequency on strategically selected routes. These high frequency routes support the slow accumulation of density in nodes across the metro area, which builds support for the projects developed. These nodes also accommodate partial investment in small mode infrastructure around main transit stations, beginning to disseminate a more plural transportation network.

Headline: The Greater Richmond Area’s leaders collaboration is strong, and planning efforts have been made to accommodate future growth.

Highlights: - Multi-modal strategies are more successfully deployed in the localities’ centers that begin to concentrate more streetscape infrastructure and density; - Higher frequency transit lines connect across the 9 localities, but the coverage is limited; - Investment in active transportation infrastructure is prioritized but not many resources are available; - Funding for regional metro projects are possible due to the collective resources from the localities in the region; - As public transportation begins to serve more areas of the metropolitan region with high frequency lines, the share in public transportation riders increases.

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C2. Polycentric Region Description The Greater Richmond Area’s growth has been sustained over the past 20 years. The planning efforts for the region have further consolidated the localities’ individual development strategies, resulting in a metropolitan area marked by dispersed centers that continue to function individually, but do not prioritize the benefits of coordinating development. Each of the localities retain their local characteristics, forcing transportation behaviors to continue relying on SOV’s. Active modes are adopted at the will of each of the localities and Public Transportation, mainly transit, continues to operate as a fragmented service catering to the localities that can afford it. As a result, the localities’ lower-income residents continue to have less options commuting within the region.

Different priorities in the use of resources begin to shift the patterns of development, and localities that are able to incentivize higher densities and more diverse land use reinforce contrasts in development. Areas that are able to allow for more development are able to balance the housing stock and employment opportunities, generating and consolidating centralities across Greater Richmond.

Local efforts, however, struggle with mitigating the effects of how the differences in strategies affect how people move and live around the region, resulting in stressed transportation infrastructure.

The growth the region has experienced concentrates more of the negative externalities than the agglomeration benefits. More congestion, more emissions and less options region-wide. While some parts of the region invest in improvements to support further growth, they can only have an impact within the limits of each locality. In struggling to support the inflow of people and businesses,the Greater Richmond Area becomes less competitive to attract and retain them.

Headline: As the Greater Richmond Area grows, separated agendas guide the development of each of the localities transportation strategies.

Highlights: - Multi-modal strategies are adopted in limited locations; - Higher frequency transit lines operate within the localities that can afford it, and do little to connect to their neighbors; - Investment in active transportation is limited due to the costs of mitigating effects of the increasing congestion; - Regional Metro projects are constrained.

- Density in jobs and homes concentrate around the existing hubs.

- As public transportation fails to operate regionally, SOV’s continue to be the preferred mode of choice - further stressing existing infrastructure and real-estate markets, challenging the city’s housing stock elasticity.

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D2. Mid Atlantic Magnet Description The year is 2040, and the Greater Richmond Area has been growing consistently over the past two decades. Leadership within the Richmond Area has been able to align their goals and support the growth, resulting in a thriving Metropolitan Area that is able to adopt best practices for land use and transportation coordination. As the metropolitan area grew, public transportation responded to land use planning, allowing for a regional fast, frequent and reliable transit network, connected to local multi-modal networks. The region developed the ability to coordinate transportation options across scales which lead to more people gaining access to more places consistently.

The Greater Richmond area was able to collectively allocate resources to capital projects, resulting in high quality, first class services. This triggered further development which was what allowed the area to grow consistently over the years. In leading this effort, the Richmond Area became a case study for cross locality collaboration which streamlined funding for more projects from the State. Today, the Richmond Region is able to articulate with adjacent Metropolitan Areas pushing Virginia forward. This allowed for high amounts of investment in small modes, generating a safer and healthier metropolitan area, as more and more Richmonders shift towards active transportation as a means to supplement their mobility needs.

The partnerships established continue to bring more businesses and people to the Richmond Area, which is now a national leader in transportation.

By offering more types of services and modes, there is a significant shift in mode-share and the problems associated with congestion and a high SOV usage are mitigated, allowing for SOV’s to continue to be a part of the area’s transportation portfolio while other alternatives are able to absorb higher volumes of riders.

Headline: The Greater Richmond Area’s leaders have been able to successfully coordinate planning efforts and resources to provide for a rapidly expanding region.

Highlights: - Multi-modal strategies are adopted, incentivized and widespread; - Higher frequency transit lines operate consistently throughout the area, strengthening the connections across the Richmond Area; - Investment in active transportation is seen as a fundamental strategy; - Regional Metro projects become a commonplace practice.

- Densities in jobs and homes increase region-wide, further supporting investment in public services.

- SOV’s become increasingly seen as a complementary mode, as ridership patterns shift.

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Within the Regional perspective, collaboration and vision alignment refer to how successful the relationship between the stakeholders across the Richmond Region, mainly: the public leaders of the localities that are a part of the Richmond Region Planning District Commission, as well as the organizations and communities that shape the Metro Area. Collaboration here would mean a shared vision for the Metro area's development, a way for all localities to embrace plans and strategies that built off each other to result in a more integrated, diverse and dynamic Richmond Region.

Growth refers to the capacity that the Richmond Region has to attract people to live and work here.

Effectively, many people already embrace a Metro-Regional lifestyle in the area, and commute daily across localities - is this a pattern here to stay?.

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A3. Gridlock Bound Description The year is 2040. Commuters find it increasingly difficult to commute across and within the Greater Capital Region, and the timid growth of the past years fails to support the efforts that each of the Metropolitan Areas has pursued to stimulate the region’s development. The flows between Washington, Baltimore and Richmond generate congestion within the urban cores, and the highway investments are costly while generating limited impact in improving mobility.

The explosion of jobs in the Arlington Amazon Campus, generated more traffic than the area’s infrastructure could support, only deteriorating what was an already precarious situation in 2019. The region has not seen any other venture comparable to the attraction of Amazon since. Other regions of the United States that were able to leverage collaboration and generate robust conditions for development became more attractive destinations for employers and employees. The Region still relies heavily on its public sector apparatus and educational institutions as attractors, but with limited capacity to expand. The slow pace of growth has also taken a toll on development, meaning that local housing capacity has not expanded in years, resulting in high maintenance costs and an older, limited, housing stock.

As people continue to rely on SOV’s the region’s roads are overloaded with traffic, further increasing the maintenance costs.

Due to this, the resources to diversify in development strategies become limited, and other services also suffer from financial shortages. Commutes get longer, as the air quality deteriorates and parking gets harder and harder to come across.

Headline: As the Metropolitan Areas of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond develop, little is done to address transportation needs consistent across the Greater Capital Region. Congestion continues to deteriorate as more people turn to SOV ownership as a primary transportation option.

Highlights: - Regional strategies are mainly roads, which become harder to maintain; - The region begins to lose its ability to attract and maintain talent and businesses, as other regions are more attractive; - Congestion in the urban cores becomes commonplace across the region; Investment in transportation projects at this scale are limited to highways; - The inflow of people and businesses to Richmond has an effect on the real-estate markets, challenging the city’s housing stock elasticity.

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B3: The Regional Vision Description Leaders across the Greater Capital Region prioritize projects to further integrate the region, stimulating the existing workforce exchange and collaboration. With this, a multi-modal strategy favoring alternatives to investing in SOV infrastructure takes place, diversifying the regions’ Transportation portfolio. What follows, are incremental developments of a series of projects across the region: high-speed rail, local transit hubs and local small mode investments.

The regions’ growth does not yet support a full scale investment to deploy these strategies extensively, but the collaboration built creates cohesion in land use strategies and investment coordination.

Slowly, the impacts of these measures are felt throughout the region, facilitating people, businesses and goods to circulate faster, promoting more trade and talent exchange. As the project developments occur, the region begins to reap the benefits of largescale shared infrastructure, while also alleviating stress on existing infrastructure. Still, SOV commute numbers are elevated, and are still the preferred mode choice across the region. The development of regional scale projects depends heavily on the capacity that the urban cores connected through these projects have to accommodate mode shifts.

The distributed urban centers along the connection axis in the region coordinate visions in land use planning, focusing on creating regulations to allow the region to accommodate future growth. The transfer rate from SOV commutes to Transit commutes is not yet expressive, as the alternative systems develop slowly, meaning Headline: As the Metropolitan Areas of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond develop, efforts are concentrated in stimulating collaboration across the region - growth in jobs and population is timid.

Highlights: - Regional strategies are diverse prioritizing high-speed rail infrastructure; - The region has in place a set of strategies and projects to accommodate future growth coordinating land use and transportation; - Congestion in the urban cores becomes commonplace across the region while investments in alternative modes are already taking place; - Cross-scale initiatives begin to allow better mode transfers;

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C3. Externality Agglomerators Description congestion is still a significant issue.

In 2040 the Greater Capital Region is established as one of the largest regions in America, as it growth has been sustained over the past decades. The region, however, performs similarly to what it did 20 years ago with exchange across the region depending heavily on individual initiative and SOV facilitating infrastructure. Little has been done to invest in alternative modes that could successfully connect the region, and the result are roads overflowing with traffic and expensive commutes. As the urban centers grow faster than the rural localities, they continue to attract people and businesses further concentrating high densities. Development spreads across the urbanized localities as growth becomes constrained within the downtown areas of these urban centers.

The success of each of the Metropolitan areas has depended on how well they’ve been able to balance investment in new local and metro scale to mitigate the effects of growth. The metropolitan areas that have been able to balance a good amount of housing availability with provision of public services has been able to accommodate that growth while minimizing externalities. The area at large, however, still accumulates collective externalities generated from the already existing exchanges across the Greater Capital Region.

The lack of coordination has only exacerbated the precariousness of the inherited transportation infrastructure, and the scarcity of investments at the regional scale continue to affect the region’s performance at large. Parking is scarce, housing prices are high, congestion is constant and GHG emissions sky-rocket. The growth experienced in the past decades begins to seem unsustainable.

Headline: As the Metropolitan Areas of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond develop growth is strong, while coordination to accommodate it is lacking.

Highlights: - Housing price variations further exacerbate gentrification and social inequities across the region; - Congestion is still the main transportation concern; - The negative effects from growth begin to outweigh the benefits.

- The inability to coordinate growth has created frustration amongst residents and employers;

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D3. Regional Giant Description Leaders across the Greater Capital Region have been able to coordinate growth while fostering a strong environment of innovation in policies and services. The result is a regional transportation system that integrates and supports the exchange of people, ideas and goods. The capital region becomes a national hub, attracting people and businesses globally due to concentration of high quality services and state of the art infrastructure. Coordination of land use has allowed the adjacent metropolitan areas to strategically grow while mitigating the negative impacts of growth, minimizing congestion and allowing for elastic housing supplies near transit infrastructure. GHG emissions have fallen drastically over the past decades, and the region is considered a case study for regional sustainable planning.

The ability to attract more people and businesses support investments in high quality public programs and services, creating a positive feedback loop further incentivizing growth. Land use provisions allow for the accommodation of that growth through coordinated land developments, creating vibrant urban areas along the regional infrastructure corridors. With this, each of the urban areas is able to support investments in infrastructure for small modes and local transit, creating a high performing, multi-scalar and multimodal system.

Headline: As the Metropolitan Areas of Baltimore, Washington and Richmond develop growth is strong, and it continues to be supported through established collaborative leadership.

Highlights: -Regional strategies are diverse and extensively deployed prioritizing highspeed rail infrastructure; - The region has in place a set of policies and services that accommodate and incentivize growth; - Mode shift has favored regional transit and SOVs are seen as complementary; - Cross-scale initiatives allow better mode transfers across the region; - Talent attraction and retention are the new normal; - The region’s carbon footprint decreases significantly;

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3.

Insights In elaborating this report's recommendations there are key challenges that must be noted: To frame the following recommendations, the key challenges facing transportation in Richmond were laid out for the next two decades (2020-2040) in conformity with Richmond 300’s target period based on the earlier trends analysis and scenario planning: 1. The future is unknown 2. Technological change will come sooner or later 3. Richmond is growing and changing 4. Transportation needs vary across the city’s geography 5. Transportation is a regional issue 6. Transportation is a scalar issue 7. Transportation and Land Use Patterns are intimately connected: they change and affect each other mutually.

8. We need more people in fewer vehicles 9. Our future needs to be greener than we currently are: decarbonizing transportation is a trend 10. Bold action changes the game.

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3.1

Recommendations The recommendations proposed in this report follow 3 main categories, they are:

3.1.1 Multimodal Considerations: Quality Transportation -Transit -Small Modes -Individual Drivers

Equitable Transportation: -Transit -Small Modes -Individual Drivers

Sustainable Transportation -Transit -Small Modes -Individual Drivers

3.1.2 Integrating Plans: Transportation and Land Use; Local, Metro and Regional; Modes; Leadership;

3.1.3 Thinking through Scales Thinking Local; Thinking Metro; Thinking Regional;

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3.1.1

Multimodal considerations Quality Transportation Mode: Transit Frequent, Widespread and Comfortable. High quality transit means we aim for high frequency services and on a network that expands its reach continuously. This is particularly relevant for Transit because it connects more people to homes, jobs and amenities, crucial aspects of growing agglomeration economies. The amount a network can expand is limited by the variation of the distributed activity density patterns throughout a region, in other words, it's current and future land use. It's important to remember that looking at density for the concentrations of households by itself is a misleading concept, after all most people are not home for most part of the day. Density, then, must be seen as a range of spaces between homes and jobs, which people can choose to occupy.

While only land use can define and offer these "in-between spaces" to make them successful and attractive destinations for people on their daily journeys, it is Transit that can offer the connection people need to get to these places.

According to the Transit Center' 2016 "Who's on Board" report, the two most important determinants of rider satisfaction with transit are service frequency and travel time. In other words: Transit should aim to be Fast and Frequent.

Small modes (active modes and micro-mobility) Safe, Well Kept and Appealing. For Active modes and Micromobility solutions, high quality has a different meaning. Mainly because these modes have a different scale of operation. We have to think about them as being the extended life of a sidewalk, something easy, fun and safe. These modes are fragile when compared to the others, so to ensure high quality is to ensure safe

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paths for them to operate in, dedicated lanes play a significant role in this. There is today a vast repertoire of solutions that have been implemented for bike safety and infrastructure, all of those are applicable to an extent to the other “small modes”. In fact, the safety of biking facilities specifically has an impact on all other modes’ safety. Cities with better (safer) biking infrastructure have been shown to be safer for all modes. If they are safe, we protect more users, if they are well kept we ensure they stay safe, and if they’re appealing we might be able to attract more users. These modes integrate beautifully with transit and the remarks on density mentioned before holds true for the small modes. A comprehensively designed system must consider the seamless integration between transit and small modes - facilitating.

Individual drivers - Safe, Efficient and Controlled. Individual drivers are a dominant mode in the US and have been for a while. While the main focus of transportation efforts should be on shifting towards more people using transit and small modes, we cannot deny that individual drivers will still exist and be a big part of the transportation eco-system in Richmond. Cars are dangerous vehicles, and over 40,000 Americans die yearly in a car crash. High quality for cars must result in safer streets. Here, technology will play an increasingly relevant role in the years ahead. As cars continue to occupy streets, there are limits to this, and limits to how much can be done in regards to congestion management. Duranton and Turner bring us a concept of the “Fundamental Law of Congestion” that points that investments in road capacity expansion is a useless attempt to mitigate congestion growth. In fact, for every new mile of roads built, a new mile of Vehicle Mile Traveled increased in a 1 to 1 factor. Knowing this, we can assume that there is a physical limit to cars within cities and as cities grow and as technology catches up, we will see a shift in the space we dedicate for individual drivers towards autonomous vehicles with a smaller footprint. A high quality network for individual drivers must transition into a multi-modal one.

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Equitable Transportation Transit - Affordable, Accessible and Inclusive. Equity in transit, or expanding equity in transit means removing or reducing the potential ‘barriers to entry’ to reach it and ride it. Those barriers are usually price, place and awareness. Prices need to be within user budget and transit provider capacity, it has to work for both. ‘Place’ refers to the location of access, in other words, where the bus stops are, and how they are distributed across the city. Stops have to be consistently spaced throughout the network in order to provide multiple locations of service. But the more stops you have on a single route, the slower that route will be able to operate. *** Has to do with offering services to as many people in as many places as possible, regardless of any other factor. This is a concept often referred to as ‘accessibility’ and it plays an important role in equitable transit. When good transit is accessible more people can be a part of it.

Small modes (active modes and micro-mobility) - Distributed, Designed and Dedicated. The access to alternative low cost modes in several locations of the city help attract more users. Yet, offering access to these modes is not enough.

Ridership for small modes is always a combination of adequate provision of infrastructure and land use. If people are to feel included in the city through these modes they must: Be distributed throughout several locations - so people can see them, know about them and get to them; Be designed as a system, so people can seamlessly connect to where they need to go whether that means getting to a transit station or to the final destination;

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Be dedicated in such a way that people feel that there is high quality infrastructure dedicated to users like them, making them safer and more comfortable as they choose to use an alternative mode; If these three conditions are fulfilled, small mode users will have a far better experience in using those modes.

Individual drivers - Necessary, Sufficient but not Excessive. Equity for cars is somewhat tricky. How to discuss equity for a mode that has been privileged for decades and decades? For cars, equity might mean that we cannot forget that a lot of people drive, but the provisions made for cars should not stimulate more people to become drivers.

In that sense, all provisions for cars must be an absolute necessity, and should accommodate as many benefits for alternative modes as possible. They must also be sufficient, meaning that we should not provide more than cars need to maintain a certain baseline it has to be just enough. Which is where the ‘but not excessive’ serves more as a reminder that these provisions cannot nor should not be overdone. A point of theory to add to this is the DownsThomson paradox, in which road improvements that seek to reduce congestion actually make it worse. This is also confirmed in the work of Duranton and Turner in which they find that for every 1Km added to urban interstate highway there is an increase of 1 Vehicle-Kilometer-Traveled on that same road - referred to as “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion”. Making provisions to expand equity for this particular mode so tricky.

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Sustainable Transportation Transit - Low/No Emissions - High ridership. Sustainable transit depends mainly on two things: the amount of riders and the amount of emissions. These two factors are strongly related in ensuring transit can be sustainable. Effectively, transit emits more GHG (greenhouse gases) than cars because they are heavier vehicles that require more energy to move around. However, they are significantly more sustainable than cars when we consider the GHG emissions per capita. That figure changes yet again when we factor in transit that uses alternative fuels or fuel-efficient engines. In that sense transit is really only more sustainable than cars when we have a lot of people using it and when we invest in the technology to run it on cleaner sources of energy. Growing ridership makes transit more sustainable because of a direct per capita reduction in emissions. If those riders used to be drivers or are choice-riders then it becomes even more sustainable because we see a shift in overall mode share in the city. The only mode with less environmental impact than transit are Active Modes (biking and walking).

Small modes (active modes and micro-mobility) - Disseminated and Supported. These modes are the true champions of sustainability. These modes thrive in dense, active, lively urban areas and make the city safer for everyone. Incentivizing and supporting the diffusion of these modes can be done through policy, capital projects and support through land use regulation.

Individual drivers - Low/No Emissions - Low ridership - EV Changes in transportation technology can allow individual drivers to significantly reduce their footprint while driving. Driving patterns in the United States are unlikely to change in the near future, but the technology in vehicles is. Autonomy, Electrification and Ride Sharing will continue to evolve and further disrupt how people use cars in cities. These technologies can help reduce the tremendous impact that cars have, and allow this mode to become less common and less damaging.

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3.1.2

Integrating plans Integrating plans: transportation and land use Local planning officials should work closely with the GRTC to integrate land use planning and transportation planning. As transportation planners often seek to offer higher levels of service in higher density areas, the real land uses play an immense role in allowing transportation services to be of higher quality. By thinking about land use planning and transportation system design together, we enable both planners to overlap strategies to foster better results. Mixed-use developments and higher densities can support a transportation service to be more successful and attract more riders.

At the same time, a more successful transportation service will support higher densities and mix-used developments to flourish.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

Currently, the city separates its land use planning from its transportation planning, and is also separated from the organization that provides transit services and operations. By thinking of future developments in tandem with new transportation strategies, it will become easier to deliver projects such as multimodal hubs and corridors, which depend on both transportation and land use planning. The Pulse Corridor Plan showcases some of the potentials of this integration.

Some Initial Steps 1. Assess how the current Transportation Development Plan by the GRTC could integrate with the ongoing Richmond 300 Plan.

2. Identify synergies between the initiatives supported by the GRTC and the projects to-be-detailed in the future Land Use plans.

3. Formally include decisions agreed upon by both parties into the final planning documents.

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Integrating plans: local, metro and regional Local, Metropolitan and Regional plans should be aligned in vision and strategy, to support further sustainable growth across all scales. For the people that live and work in Richmond and its adjacent areas, their day to day activities often reach beyond the limits of the city or locality that they live in. In fact, they span across the Local, Metropolitan and the Regional scales. Planning within the limits of the city can only do so much to support an economy that behaves on a larger scale. Local planning efforts should align and support Metropolitan planning efforts, which in turn should align and support Regional planning efforts.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

Currently, localities do not yet elaborate their land use and transportation plans cohesively with their neighbors. There are lost opportunities in not doing so, as we know that in reality people live throughout the region and not confined to their localities.

Some Initial Steps 1. Choose "champion" plans to centralize efforts on for each of the scales with the relevant stakeholders - these should be plans with clear and measurable goals that are relevant and valuable to the parties involved (e.g. Greater Richmond Transit Vision Plan).

2. Ensure that the "champion" plans specify projects that localities can work on together for mutual gains (e.g. high-speed rail, multimodal corridors, BRT expansions, etc). The Pulse implementation is a valuable case study for this.

3. Ensure that the "champions" are aligned. The plans must comply with each other, and therefore they must have a hierarchy. The local plans must comply with the metropolitan plan, and the metropolitan with the regional. There must be an overarching structure that informs the strategies and vision thoroughly throughout scales.

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Integrating plans: modes Transportation plans should consider systems that overlap and transition between modes. In planning future transportation initiatives, instead of separating modal strategies in different plans (e.g. Bicycle Master Plan, Transportation Development Plan, Complete Streets, etc) local planners should overlay the different systems and infrastructures proposed together - bicycle facilities, sidewalks, transit lines and other amenities such as bus stops support each other.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

There are synergies to be explored in providing multimodal facilities and infrastructures comprehensively, and they create a transportation system that offers more options to the population. In a survey conducted by Transit Center, they find that the majority of transit riders walk to transit. In the survey, 80% of all-purpose riders typically access transit on foot, and Richmond has seen an increase in bicycling (+109%) and walking (+47%) over the 2000-2016 period.

Some Initial Steps 1. Combine the existing intelligence and resolutions for different modes into the Richmond 300 strategies.

2. Identify locations for pilot projects for combined infrastructure. The Richmond Bicycle Master Plan has several typologies that combine different modal considerations as examples.

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Integrating plans: leadership The City of Richmond should have a specific stakeholder allocated to coordinate policy and plans across modes, across scales. While there is some level of collaboration from local organizations on projects and plans the City of Richmond does not have a single staff member who coordinates across the city's several initiatives. A transportation policy coordinator could help deliver the administration's vision while collaborating with the existing experts across the current landscape.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

If transportation is a priority for the current administration, it would benefit from having a member of staff dedicated towards this fully.

The current institutional arrangements fragment accountability and are overwhelmed with fundamental functions as the demands for services and policy increase.

Some Initial Steps 1. Procuring a staff member to engage on issues related to land use and transportation.

2. Connecting them to the current institutions and inserting them into the elaboration of the new, and implementation of current plans.

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3.1.2

Thinking across scales Thinking Local What are the top priorities at the local scale? Moving forward with Richmond's transportation agenda, opportunities at the local scale involve investment in projects that can support increasing ridership for transit - improving transit service quality and increasing mixed use urban density to accommodate more people and activities.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

These are two factors that can only be addressed at the local scale, the scale of streets and neighborhoods of Richmond. It is the most fundamental of scales when thinking of the direct impacts on people's lives in the city.

Some Initial Steps 1. Through Richmond 300, establish key projects for increasing the quality of transit and small mode services; 2. Through Richmond 300, consolidate corridors to selectively support higher densities through land use regulation;

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Thinking Metro What are the top priorities at the Metropolitan scale? Leaders should establish key projects to collaborate on to support the implementation the Greater Richmond Regional Transit Vision's Multimodal centers and corridors. These should address changes in land use to support higher densities and multimodal facilities.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

The Greater Richmond Area's dynamics show us the potential for increasing connection options throughout the region. There are already several residents of the area that commute daily within it.

While the region continues to grow, if current transportation trends continue, there will be a significant increase in VMT. Supporting these flows through larger transportation initiatives will play a role in reducing VMT related GHG emissions.

Some Initial Steps 1. Establish the next "big" project to pursue with other local leaders to improve connectivity within the Greater Richmond Area.

2. Partner with the GRTC to identify potential costs and benefits of the next projects, and the impact on the existing network.

3. Build support for identifying the Greater Richmond Area as a National leader in transportation initiatives.

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Thinking Regional What are the top priorities at the Regional scale? The City of Richmond should elaborate studies on projects to support intermodal terminals for the high-speed rail, while equipping the adjacent areas with the capacity to expand and adjust to new densities. As Richmond seems to be on the verge of increasing transportation connectivity capacity with the Northern Virginia, Washington and Baltimore areas it should also consider how this will affect the neighborhoods adjacent to these developments.

Why is this Recommendation Important?

Out of the three MSA's within the Greater Capital Region, Richmond's has the cheapest average housing costs. If commuting from the Northern Metro Areas becomes faster and more convenient, there is a potential for Richmond's housing market and local transportation network to be affected. To address this progressive planning must take place on the areas in which such impact can be expected - the neighborhoods near and around the two Rail Stations (Staples Mill Road and Main Street Station)

Some Initial Steps 1. Conduct studies on the adjacent areas of Staples Mill Road and Main Street Station to evaluate potential for Higher Density 2. Conduct studies on the adjacent areas of Staples Mill Road and Main Street Station to evaluate potential for Land Value Capture for future projects 3. Conduct studies on the adjacent areas of Staples Mill Road and Main Street Station to integrate the stations into Richmond's multimodal transportation network.

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Closing remarks This report is the product of extensive collaboration, and could not have been elaborated without the support of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative and the Mayor's Office of the City of Richmond.

I am extremely thankful to both organizations for the opportunity to complete this study of Richmond and the possible futures of its urban transformations.

I do hope that some of the work gathered here helps inform the policy and planning that will help Richmond continue to thrive, and make it a more equitable, sustainable and livable place. v

References American Community Survey, 2009-2013, County to County Commuter Flows American Census 1990, Total Population per Block Group, Virginia American Census 2000, Total Population per Block Group, Virginia American Census 2010, Total Population per Block Group, Virginia American Community Survey 2017, Total Population per Block Group, Virginia United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017 CONSUMER EXPENDITURES--2017 United States Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2017 Average Cost of Owning and Operating an Automobile United States Census Bureau, 2015, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics OriginDestination Employment Statistics (LEHD, LODES) Steven Manson, Jonathan Schroeder, David Van Riper, and Steven Ruggles, 2018, IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 13.0 [Database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. 2018. http://doi.org/10.18128/D050.V13.0 Transportation Development Plan FY2018-28, 2018, Greater Richmond Transit Company - http:// ridegrtc.com/statistics-reports/projects-plans/transit-development-plan Fedetal Transit Administration USDOT, 2018, "National Transit Database" http:// nationaltransitdatabase.org or https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/ntd-data Brookings Institute, 2017, Adie Tomer brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/10/03/americans-commuting-choices-5-major-takeawaysfrom-2016-census-data/ London School of Economics, 2019, LSE Cities "Five transport policies that could build thriving cities" blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/08/02/five-transport-policies-that-could-build-thrivingcities/ "Who's On Board", 2016, Transit Center - http://transitcenter.org Richmond 300 Insighs Report, 2018, City of Richmond - http://richmond300.com Greater Capital Region Blueprint for Mobility, 2017, Greater Washington Partnership - http:// greaterwashingtonpartnership.com/blueprint/