Charlottesville Community Engagement: WTJU Edition #1

Charlottesville Podcasting Network

On February 24, 2024, the very first installment of a new customized version of Charlottesville Community Engagement created for WTJU. I’m Sean Tubbs, a community journalist who started this website in 2005 as an experiment in community journalism! That adventure continues with an omnibus version of the regular podcast.

Back in the summer of 2020, I started a newsletter and podcast about what’s called “the built environment.” What is that? Here’s a definition from the United States Environmental Protection Agency:

“The built environment touches all aspects of our lives, encompassing the buildings we live in, the distribution systems that provide us with water and electricity, and the roads, bridges, and transportation systems we use to get from place to place.”

Charlottesville Community Engagement tries to cover as much of that as possible in the area around the University of Virginia and what’s known as the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. Listen to enough of these and you’ll get to know more about how decisions are made and how you might get involved.

On this program:

• A 59-year-old Charlottesville man was killed crossing U.S. 29 Tuesday evening, very near the location of a planned pedestrian bridge and in an area where more housing units are soon expected
• Two engineers with the Virginia Department of Transportation discuss the upcoming construction of several projects at Hydraulic and U.S. 29 including that bridge
• Elected officials in Nelson County and Greene County learn about a transportation safety study that the regional planning district is producing to help get more funding for construction of such projects
• Albemarle County is moving ahead with changes the Square in Crozet
• County Executive Jeffrey Richardson unveils a $629 million budget for fiscal year 2025

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Before you go: The Charlottesville Podcasting Network is a product of Town Crier Productions, a company formed in 2020 as part of my return to journalism. The material in this program is assembled from editions of Charlottesville Community Engagement that seeks to report as much as possible about how things get built.

To ensure this research can be sustained, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing monthly through Patreon.