Richmond’s Pulse bus rapid transit gets the red carpet treatment

Boldly wearing white shoes to an event starring red paint, Mayor Levar Stoney donned a hard hat and fluorescent safety vest Tuesday morning as he sprayed the first feet of the new red carpet treatment for the Greater Richmond Transit Company’s (GRTC) Pulse bus rapid transit (BRT) route. Rosslyn may have red stripes, but thanks to a $2 million dollar grant from Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transit, the commonwealth’s capital city will be among the first in the state to install red bus-only lanes. The full extent of the painting should be completed within 45 days.

The first calls for more clearly delineated bus-only lanes along Broad Street came in 2019 following the death of Alice E. Woodson, who was hit by the operator of a Pulse bus as she got out of a car stopped at the red light at the intersection with Bowe Street. With the application of bright red paint the full length of the Broad Street bus-only lanes from Thompson Street near Scott’s Addition to 14th Street downtown, the city hopes to prevent similar incidents.

“These new red Pulse lanes are for visibility and also for safety purposes,” said Stoney at the public painting event. “We want to avoid any future fatalities, and we want buses to stay in the bus lane and cars to stay out of the bus lane.”

The head of Richmond’s Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility, Dironna Clarke, framed the new red lanes similarly: “This red paint symbolizes the city’s efforts to make the streets more pedestrian- and transit-user-friendly. We hope this will prevent accidents.”

Red (Pulse’s Version) pic.twitter.com/rLl8ijwr6x

— GRTC Pulse (@GRTCPulse) June 21, 2022

Technically a two-year demonstration project, the City of Richmond will be evaluating the new all red lanes based on six criteria—half of which focus on safety: reduction of illegal occupancy of transit lanes by non-transit vehicles, improved transit travel time, reduced transit lane illegal parking, reduction in minor collisions in project area, reduction in injury collisions in project area, and reduction in overall collisions in the BRT project area.

Should the pilot program be deemed a failure, the red bus-only lanes will likely stay anyway. The methyl methacrylate compound used to transform the freshly-laid black asphalt into a vibrant red is designed to hold 12 to 15 years.

Although the focus of the administration’s comments centered on safety, the new red bus-only lanes along Broad should also boost the reliability and speed of the BRT route. Two critical causes of bunching and delays for Pulse riders won’t be fixed with this current red paint project, however.

Despite his statement at the painting event that the city’s infrastructure “should prioritize those who take the bus over private cars,” Stoney wouldn’t commit to extending the Pulse’s bus-only lanes down 14th Street and along Main Street through Shockoe Bottom—the biggest problem area for Richmond’s premier bus service. Not even a study is currently underway to extend the bus-only lanes, according to Clarke. She instead encouraged residents to voice such concerns via the recently launched Richmond Connects transportation planning process.

The final problem for the Pulse Stoney wouldn’t commit to addressing are four parking stalls in the bus-only lane on the 300 block of East Broad Street. Although the parking spots previously never existed and were only accidentally added to the street by a mistaken consultant during the 2018 build out of the Pulse, “the parking spots in front of Code RVA remain due to the Pulse project leaving some Broad Street parking for patrons of businesses,” according to Clarke. “Again as a part of Richmond Connects we will re-examine if transit needs outweigh the parking needs for that block.”

Although the verdict on extending the prohibition of and finally altogether removing car parking from the bus-only lanes remains up in the air, public transit riders themselves have already reached a verdict on the new red lanes along Broad Street. As one rider said Tuesday: “It’s a good thing.”