Shelters and benches for 75% of Richmond’s 1,609 bus stops? GRTC has a plan for that.

Aug 31, 2023

TransitOpinionBy Wyatt Gordon (Contributor) October 18, 2022

The transfer point between GRTC's Pulse and Route 19 in Henrico. Image by Wyatt Gordon.

There may be no better point from which to observe the infrastructural inequities of Richmond's public transportation system than the western end of the Pulse, the city's award-winning bus rapid transit route. On the southern side of the road resides an impressive station complete with comfortable benches, a large overhang, and decorative glass panels to protect riders from the elements. Across the street, riders waiting on the half-hourly Route 19 to Short Pump regularly sit on an overturned shopping cart or lean against the for lease sign out front the abandoned Hardee's.

Casual observers point to the Pulse as somehow exacerbating existing disparities when in reality Richmond's fanciest bus route has raised the bar on what many of the region's residents consider acceptable stop infrastructure. As of last month the board of the Greater Richmond Transit Company agrees.

Increasing infrastructure

According to the newly passed Essential Infrastructure Plan, starting next summer GRTC will begin installing 160 shelters and 225 benches over the next five years. Today just 5% of the Richmond region's 1,609 bus stops have a shelter while only 21% even have a bench.

Under GRTC's "moderate" and "attainable" scenarios the total number of stops with infrastructure to support a dignified wait would rise to 50% by 2027. The plan's "aspirational" option imagines a world in which an additional 402 benches are installed, outfitting 75% of the system's total stops with a bench and/or a shelter.

A map showing the correlation between low-income Census block groups and lack of bus stop infrastructure along GRTC routes. Image from GRTC's 2022 Essential Transit Infrastructure Plan.

"We put in the Pulse line and immediately people began to see the infrastructure differences between those stations and the rest of our bus stops," explained Torres. "Previously we have been more reactive and have waited until we get requests from customers, operators or the jurisdictions, but we really saw during the pandemic that transit is an essential service and essential workers utilized our system heavily, so we want to take a more holistic view of our system and give the same sort of comfort and consideration to the rest of our bus stops because we know most trips begin and end on a route other than the Pulse."

One of the biggest barriers to building out benches and shelters across the region was lifted earlier this year when the Virginia Department of Transportation finally approved GRTC's proposed shelter style after an inexplicable two year plus delay. The lack of official approval is the reason why Henrico County doesn't have a single shelter on VDOT right of way and has only installed shelters at government sites and on privately-owned parcels.

GRTC and the jurisdictions it serves will still have to request special use permits from VDOT site by site on any state-owned corridors, including many of the counties’ suburban arterials, before stop infrastructure can be installed.

Currently, VDOT is demanding an 18 inch deep concrete foundation for each new bus shelter — a depth typically only mandated for buildings and a full foot deeper than existing bus stop pads that support benches and shelters around the region. The price tag for all that extra concrete could sharply constrain GRTC's ambitious plans to offer riders a more dignified experience.

"This would require an additional cost that we currently don't have in our budget," said Torres. "A shelter does not have the same requirements as a building structure, so we are opening that back up with VDOT and working with the Department of Rail and Public Transportation to expedite that conversation."

Funding the future

To pay for the Essential Infrastructure Plan's $11-28.6 million in proposed improvements, GRTC, the City of Richmond, and f Henrico and Chesterfield counties are cobbling together funding from as many sources as they can find.

GRTC has applied for dollars from DRPT via its Making Efficient and Responsible Investments in Transit program and plans to ask for funding from the Federal Highway Administration's Transportation Alternatives Program as well. The City of Richmond hopes to contribute money from USDOT's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program to build out surrounding sidewalks. Chesterfield has led the way in using capital dollars from its Route 111 grant to pay for stop infrastructure along the county's first local service line. Despite otherwise exploiting poor Black Richmonders for profit, even Bon Secours has paid for over a dozen shelters around its East End hospital.

The most exciting new source of essential stop infrastructure funding is Congress’ annual appropriations bill. Representative Abigail Spanberger worked with Henrico County to get $1.2 million to improve transit stops in that locality. The funding which President Biden signed into law just a few weeks ago will cover the costs of adding 31 shelters, building out 50 benches, and laying concrete pads around the county.

At a time when many households are struggling to make ends meet, the move to put more money into improving public transportation only made sense to Spanberger.

"It's about the fact that GRTC routes get people from their homes to their jobs, making sure that people have access to opportunities that exist throughout the county whether they have a car or not," she said. "For folks that don't have regular access to a vehicle, hearing stories about people who are taking ubers back and forth to a minimum wage job — that is absolutely just an unthinkable loss of potential income in having to get themselves to their job in the first place."

Beyond the immediate economic relief that GRTC's zero-fare bus service offers to riders, Spanberger also underscored the importance of essential transit infrastructure to cutting carbon pollution.

"Public transportation is an incredible tool for giving people another option and mitigating the impacts of climate change," she added. "The idea that we’ll have covered bus shelters on hot or rainy days, maybe that person who could drive will choose to save some gas and do good by the environment. Giving people the option of public transportation that is reliable, heavily usable, and ultimately a desirable way to move throughout the region is incredibly important."

We need dignified places to wait https://t.co/qsdFOhm7dd

Even once GRTC and the localities it serves can cobble together the funding for improved transit infrastructure across the region, challenges to the speedy deployment of further benches and shelters could arise from issues ranging from procurement to permitting and staffing shortages.

The road to improved public transportation is rarely an easy one, but Richard Hankins, RVA Rapid Transit's Programs & Communications Manager, has hope that help is on the way for riders.

"We’re really excited to see GRTC taking aggressive steps to give all riders dignified places to wait," he said. "Nobody who takes transit should be treated as a second class citizen and that includes giving bus riders dignified places to wait out of the sun, rain, and snow."

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Wyatt Gordon is a correspondent for the Virginia Mercury via a grant from the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Piedmont Environmental Council. He is also a policy manager for land use and transportation at the Virginia Conservation Network. 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. He's written for the Times of India, Nairobi News, Style Weekly, GGWash, and RVA Magazine.