The RVA Coalition for Smart Transit represents 11 neighborhood organizations and civic groups. We are Richmond voters, residents, taxpayers, business owners and bus riders from every demographic. We vigorously support improved public transit in Richmond, and that is precisely why we are so concerned about GRTC’s bus rapid transit as it is currently planned.

The more we learn about this bus concept called “the Pulse,” the more it appears to be fundamentally flawed. According to GRTC’s own million dollar study, 47 percent of Richmonders have no bus service where they live. According to a Harvard University study, Richmond ranks 92nd out of 100 metropolitan areas in public transit service.

As proposed, the Pulse does virtually nothing to budge those numbers because it is a bus route aimed at “choice riders,” meaning people who don’t ride the bus on a route where we already have buses. It does nothing to serve the thousands of people who need bus service but don’t have it.

GRTC estimates that the Pulse will attract 30 new daily riders. However, in public meetings, GRTC raises that figure to 500 new riders. No data are supplied to validate an estimate 17 times higher than the original. But these estimates are critical because this is how we estimate the annual deficits that this single bus line will incur. It appears that the annual deficits will be between $2 million and $5 million as best we can tell. Where will this unknown sum come from in a very tight city budget? Will it come from the schools? From reductions in the already meager bus system? From law enforcement? Parks and recreation? We have asked, but have received no answers.

Among the many unintended consequences of this bus route, the most disturbing would be quashing the renaissance on Broad Street. It seems likely that very few of the small businesses in the corridor will survive the disruptions of a years-long construction project. Any businesses that survive the construction may find their prospects will shrink along with a Broad Street diminished by the loss of about half the parking, most of the loading zones, many of the left turns and the loss of two lanes of traffic.

In terms of economic benefit as well as social justice, the Pulse fails to deliver. Indeed, the risk of failure is very high, but we have yet to see a cost/benefit analysis. What does failure look like? A $54 million bus route that attracts few if any new riders, with a huge ongoing annual cost. That’s failure, and it will preclude the development of a comprehensive system that the proponents promise.

The RVA Coalition is certain that Richmond must and can do better. That’s why we ask everyone to join us in calling on Richmond City Council to slow this project down and work with us to tailor a transit project that really works for all of us.

Our slogan is UNITE THE CITY! Instead of putting our good name on a boondoggle that costs millions a year for something that seems likely to fail, we ask people to unite with us — work with us — for a plan that we can all be proud of, and from which we all derive multiple benefits.

JONATHAN MARCUS

The writer is president of the West Grace Street Association and chairperson of RVA Coalition for Smart Transit.