Councilmember Andreas Addison at a memorial for victims of traffic violence held by the Richmond Police Department. Image by Office of Andreas Addison.

Watching the Pulse bus drive off as you wait to cross the street, traversing treacherous sidewalks and dangerous streets, waiting for a bus that never comes—these experiences are all too common in Richmond, where there’s an emerging consensus that the city’s streets need to be fixed. In November, 1st District Councilmember Andreas Addison introduced a Streets for All legislative package to tackle Richmond’s multimodal shortcomings.

On Tuesday, November 12, Addison introduced a slate of 28 ordinances and resolutions to make Richmond a safer and easier place to walk, bike, and take the bus. Broadly, they aim to create a safe and inclusive streetscape for all users, prioritize multimodal transportation over private vehicles, and assert the primacy of pedestrians in urban growth.

“We’re growing as a region, and I want to see us grow with transit,” said Addison. “As a council, we should be having these big conversations about the future of our city.”

Streets for all users

When he ditched his car last month as part of a #NoCarNovember challenge, Addison got a crash course on the plight of the growing number of Richmonders who either cannot afford or do not want a private vehicle. Inspired by a recent omnibus from DC Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, Addison and his Council Liaison Daniel Wagner set about drafting his package of Streets for All legislation that reads like an urbanist’s wish list. Resolution highlights include:

  • Ending the blocking of sidewalks for construction (long a demand in Richmond),
  • Banning right turns on red,
  • Establishing a fine for parking in a bike lane (technically not an offense under current city law), and,
  • Introducing the Idaho stop—a code under which bicyclists can treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs, due to their lesser ability to injure or kill others.

The ordinances in Addison’s Streets for All omnibus are similarly bold. If all of the proposals in his package pass, then Richmonders can expect more police officers to enforce existing laws, must-yield signs in dangerous crosswalks, red light cameras, pedestrian lead intervals, a full-time Vision Zero employee, and one million dollars in the annual budget towards Vision Zero implementation.

A Pulse bus stop in Richmond. Image by Office of Andreas Addison.

The focus on reducing injuries and fatalities has long been a priority for Addison. “I signed the Vision Zero pledge with Mayor Levar Stoney in 2017, but I’m not satisfied with our progress since then, and the reason why is we are not structured as a city to do it.”

With pedestrian deaths in Virginia set to reach a new record this year, Richmond’s 2018 Vision Zero Scorecard reveals just how much work remains to be done.

“I want us to stop having these conversations where it’s wrapped up in the budget. Let’s talk about Vision Zero now so when we get around to the budget all of the necessary funding is already in there. Improvements are happening all over the city, but no one will know about the culture change if there is no dedicated person to be in charge of it,” said Addison.

Advocates support Addison’s proposal

Last year, then-City Council President and 3rd District representative Chris Hilbert teamed up with Councilmember Kimberly Gray of the 2nd District to kill an already planned and paid for bike lane along Brook Road on Richmond’s Northside. However, they met fierce opposition. Bike Walk RVA—a local multimodal advocacy group—turned out dozens of residents to support the bike lane in front of City Council, and ultimately defeated the ordinance that would have blocked its construction.

Many Richmonders believe that moment was a turning point in a city long dominated by car culture. The Brook Road bike lane victory allowed activists to dream that perhaps with widespread public support, other measures to foster safer streets could pass too. So how do advocates feel about Streets for All?

Kim Moore, President of Richmond Area Bicycling Association (RABA), said, “For the Council Member’s proposals to work, there has to be a lot of dialogue and reconciliation between motorists and cyclists—both sides have misunderstandings, frustrations, and anger with the other. I know because I am a motorist as well.”

As a cyclist with more than 27 years of experience on Richmond’s roads, Moore is cheered by Addison’s proposed investments and rule changes, though she wasn’t convinced it would be enough to change a decades-long culture of dangerous driving.

“Motorist training and awareness of cyclists and their rights to be on the road would be a helpful addition to any proposal for safer streets,” said Moore. “[Safe Streets for All] should start with driver education, be on driver’s license tests, and be a part of any license reactivation training or safe driving education.”

Bud Vye, Advocacy Director for both RABA and the Virginia Bicycling Federation, also thinks the bill is a step in the right direction. His organizations’ top legislative priorities dovetail nicely with the councilmember’s proposals.

Vye wants localities around the state to embrace camera enforcement of traffic laws, ban cell phone usage while driving, and lower speed limits across the board. One area where Vye sees room for improvement is to change the law to state that drivers must stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk, rather than using the less forceful term “yield.”

Will Streets for All pass?

Facing little to no opposition from the administration or other councilmembers, Addison expects his Streets for All package to pass out of the Land Use, Housing & Transportation Committee more or less unchanged. Thanks to the support of various community groups like Bike Walk RVA, Addison and Wagner hope all of the items in his omnibus will be passed by the City Council at their December and January meetings.

Councilmember Mike Jones of Richmond’s 9th District says he will help Addison fight for Streets for All’s passage. He represents a swathe of the city’s more suburban Southside, and is well aware of the dangerous state of Richmond’s infrastructure—when it exists at all. Many parts of the 9th lack sidewalks, and there are 60 to 90 crashes at many of the major intersections there.

“In a city like Richmond, if we truly want to be multimodal we need to put our money where our mouth is. I live in a district where people can’t leave their houses and walk our streets safely. You can’t even walk a major corridor like Hull Street from end to end, and that’s ridiculous,” Jones said.

Councilmember Mike Jones (right) checking out Complete Streets challenges on major corridors in the 9th District this past summer. Image by Office of Mike Jones.

Since his election, Jones has been talking with Mayor Levar Stoney about traffic calming measures and speed diets. “This can’t be a three-year proposition; in my district this needs to happen fast. No one needs to be driving over 35 mph anywhere within the city.”

In Streets for All, Jones sees a real chance for Richmond to move in a new direction on street safety.

“I’m excited about the entire package. We’ve got to make an investment in our city to make sure people can safely walk and bike our streets.You could put anything before me that deals with safer streets and I’ll vote for it. I hope that advocates of every age, color, and economic status will come out and fight for this Streets for All package,” said Jones in an interview.

Even if some of Addison’s proposals fail to be adopted, the councilmember is happy that Streets for All is on the agenda: “I wanted to take a strategic look at what it takes for people to be safe in our city. I’d rather not look at this process as ‘Do I have the votes to pass?’ but rather as ‘Is this a conversation we need to have?’”

Wyatt Gordon is the senior policy manager for land use and transportation at the Virginia Conservation Network, and an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Urban Planning. He's a born-and-raised Richmonder with a master's in Urban Planning from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a bachelor's in International Political Economy from American University.