Good Morning, RVA: 6.5 thoughts on BRT

Today’s weather is boringly similar to yesterday’s, thoughts on BRT, and a couple of things to get your morning moving.

July 29, 2015; 6:55 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: Joey Wharton

Good morning, RVA! It’s 75 °F, and whaddya know? Today’s looking hot, cloudy, and sprinkled with a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Expect hotter hots, sunnier skies, and fewer thunderstorms, but still pretty similar to the last couple of days.

Water cooler

I went to last night’s public meeting where folks from the GRTC and the city were on hand to discuss BRT. Here are some of my takeaways:

1. The BRT will happen–sorry opponents, that bus has sailed. However, there’s definitely still an opportunity for feedback (or for folks to water down the plan until it’s no longer an effective system), but something will be built.
2. The impending companion study (how BRT interacts with the existing GRTC system) is going to be super important.
3. I was impressed by new city CAO Selena Cuffee-Glenn and her straightforward answers–especially her willingness to say “we don’t know the answer yet.”
4. There are some very privileged people who don’t understand that many people do not and cannot own a car.
5. GRTC’s Carrie Rose Pace is great at her job. She’s exactly the right person GRTC needs at this exact moment in Richmond’s transportation history.
6. Willow Lawn will be our children’s mall–it’s the Circle of Life for that place! I can already see the packs of surly teens happy to escape the tyranny of their parents’ cars.
7. Folks could stand to be a bit more polite when interacting with our public servants (or with other humans in general).

Remember when the city told Hardywood that they didn’t need to collect meals tax and then told them “JK you need to pay us $50k in back taxes”? Well, the city’s new finance team has figured out that whole situation and Katy Burnell Evans and Graham Moomaw have the details.

I enjoyed this piece by Sam Davies about what it’s like when your kid leaves for sleep-away camp. There is less celebrating and WOOOOOOO!ing than I anticipated.

What can you possibly ask William Shatner in five minutes and still make it interesting? Style Weekly’s Brent Baldwin does a pretty good job at the task.

Stephanie Breijo at Richmond Magazine gives away all of ZZQ’s amazing brisket secrets! Quick! Put this article in your Evernote for safe keeping!

Sports!

• Squirels lost their fourth game in a row, getting shutout by Altoona. That series finishes up at 12:00 PM today, and the Squirrels return home tomorrow.
• Nats fell to the Marlins, 1-4. That’s four losses over the last five games for Washington. They’ll try again tonight at 7:10 PM.

This morning’s longread

How Hot Chicken Really Happened

I loves stories about a place told through the lens of food.

Sure enough, as I started investigating, I discovered Denise was right. For almost 70 years, hot chicken was made and sold primarily in Nashville’s black neighborhoods. I started to suspect the story of hot chicken could tell me something powerful about race relations in Nashville, especially as the city tries to figure out what it will be in the future.

This morning’s Instagram

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July 29, 2015 6:55 AM 12