Good morning, RVA: Read the budget document, Legend Brewing, and congestion pricing

Good Morning, RVA!

Good morning, RVA! It's 46 °F and still rainy—at least from where I’m sitting. The chance of rain dwindles as the day progresses, but the weather most likely won’t dry out entirely until this afternoon. The slog through today is worth it, though, because the weekend looks stunning: Sunny and clear with highs in the mid 60s and 70s.

Water cooler

Yesterday, the Mayor introduced his FY25 budget, and you can watch the video of his remarks via the City’s legislative website, listen to them at 2x over on The Boring Show, or read them as prepared in this PDF. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Em Holter has an overview and, of course, you can dive straight into the official proposed budget document here.

I haven’t had much time to dig through the PDF yet, but highlights include: pay raises for City employees, $21 million for street maintenance (that covers paving but can also include additional infrastructure like sidewalks and bike lanes), $10 million to make improvements to Brown’s Island, $6.1 million for the Fall Line Trail, and a $15.8 million increase for Richmond Public Schools. There’s a bunch to discuss, of course, but that last item for schools will be top of mind for a lot of folks. Remember: The budget passed by the RPS School Board requested an additional $25 million from the City, and they’ll now need to come up with $9 million worth of cuts.

Stay tuned, and give the Mayor’s presentation a listen, it’s only 47 minutes long (just 24 minutes at 2x)!.

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Richmond BizSense’s Mike Platania reports that “Legend Brewing Co. has put its Manchester real estate up for sale, leaving the future of Richmond’s oldest brewery up in the air. .” To everything there is a season, and, for the Ukrop’s of Richmond beer, that season may be over. I’m bummed, but, if interrogate that feeling, I think it’s mostly about being old enough to remember various Time Was-es. Anyway! Get over it, old man, and let’s build some more housing down that way!

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A bunch of journalists at VPM report that the City of Alexandria “ended negotiations” on the Governor’s stadium deal, effectively killing what Sen. Louise Lucas has affectionately called The GlennDome. Governor Youngkin put out this passive aggressive statement which includes an actual “but nooooooo.”

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Definitely not local but still really interesting: The New York Times reports that, after years of back and forth, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to approve congestion pricing in Manhattan. Should the new policy clear the remaining hurdles (literally six lawsuits and a bunch of angry rich people), most passenger cars would be charged $15 a day to enter Manhattan below 60th Street. New York has tried to implement congestion pricing for years and years, and, again, if it somehow squeaks the new regulations past a bunch of litigious New Yorkers, it will become the first American city to do so. Exciting stuff if only for creating an example of how it’s possible to build a less car-centric city—even in America!

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Today at 12:00 PM, RVA Rapid Transit will host a virtual Transit Talk focused on the Richmond Connects Final Action Plan. They’ll have folks on hand from the City’s Office of Equitable Transit & Mobility to answer all of your questions about the actual infrastructure Richmond Connects recommends building. Tune in if you’re curious about how our now-adopted transportation plan (!) will impact your neighborhood. I think, between now and this coming January, everyone needs to make a list of projects they’re stoked on and start thinking about how to hold our elected officials accountable for getting them implemented. For me, my list includes (but is not limited to!): Chamberlayne Avenue pedestrian safety improvements, Southside Plaza pedestrian connections across railroad tracks, the James River Branch Trail, and extending the Franklin Street cycle track to Lombardy.

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Logistical note: Tomorrow is Good Friday, and the local school districts are closed. While this is technically not a state holiday, the gap between George Washington Day on February 19th and Memorial Day on May 27th is far too long to endure without some sort of break. So! I’m taking tomorrow off from this email newsletter and will return to your inboxes on Monday. If you can, maybe join me in some time away from responsibilities—I think the weather might just be too good to ignore.

This morning's longread

The Science Fiction of the 1900s

I really appreciated this reframing of classic science fiction (rocket ships and robots) as “from the 1900s.” Sure it makes Elon Musk’s hobbies look ancient and out-of-touch, but it also makes me wonder what sort of old-timey visions of the future I’m still holding on to. For what it’s worth, Kim Stanley Robinson—who has written plenty of classic sci-fi stories, including an entire series about colonizing Mars—does a wonderful job writing contemporary science fiction in his book The Ministry for the Future. It’s a book I’m always thinking about, and one of my strongest recommendations!

Hieroglyph was a project where a specific design constraint was imposed on a set of authors and scientists, forcing them to reframe how they looked at science fiction, and the future. I’m not looking to repeat that exact experiment; but I am going to ask this of you: Are your ideas and plans for confronting the crises and opportunities we face in the 2020s based on ideas ‘from the 1900s?’ If so, it is possible that there are new ideas and plans that are a better match to our current situation? I’ve set this as my own design constraint for the next few years. I’m going to write short stories, novels, and collaborate with as many people as I can on real-world projects to reframe and reinvent our future.

If you’d like to suggest a longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.

Picture of the Day

Never a great sign.