Graphic by Vivienne Lee and Sarah Barton
It’s Friday morning, and Stafford London is waiting for the GRTC Transit System’s Route 73 bus to pick him up after his night shift at DuPont’s Spruance plant. The textile plant of 1,800 employees is right over the Richmond line in Chesterfield County, and the 73 bus is one of a few routes that dips into the county to take people north. London, 30, who uses GRTC as his main mode of transportation, lives about 4 miles up Jefferson Davis Highway off Hopkins Road. He wishes the 73 ran more frequently, but his main question is why it doesn’t go farther south.
“I’d like to go to that shopping area, over there by [West Hundred Road] and Jeff Davis,” London says. That’s a growing sentiment in Chesterfield. The county is dabbling with plans this year that might bring more buses — GRTC or otherwise — to its roads. Meanwhile, Henrico County held public meetings in October about its recently completed Transit Choices Report, and next year will see the completion of the Pulse bus rapid transit line through Richmond.
Like Henrico, Chesterfield was included in this year’s RVA Transit Vision plan, put together by the GRTC, the state and the Richmond Regional Transportation Planning Organization. The report, released in March, envisions an integrated network of mass transit across the region and recommends bus rapid transit lines along Hull Street and Midlothian Turnpike, as well as local service along Jefferson Davis Highway.
Chesterfield’s Planning Commission is working through drafts of a Northern Jefferson Davis Special Area Plan, which proposes land use and infrastructure changes to revitalize the corridor, including expanded transportation choices. And in April, the county asked the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to analyze demographic data and present options for transportation in the corridor with an eye toward the Transit Vision plan. The federally funded study is expected by the end of 2017. Jefferson Davis Highway runs 13 miles in eastern Chesterfield. Transportation Director Jesse Smith identifies the 7-mile stretch from the city line to John Tyler Community College — right past the shopping crossroads London wants to reach — as a priority. The corridor goes through some of the county’s poorest neighborhoods, with low rates of car ownership. A July study from Virginia Commonwealth University highlighted the area as a place where modest-wage jobs were not particularly accessible from the housing those workers can afford. “That’s where we have the greatest need,” says Dale District Supervisor Jim Holland.
The rapidly growing number of people living at or below the median income in Chesterfield and the aging population make transportation choices an imperative, transit advocates say. Access Chesterfield offers $6, door-to-door rides for seniors, the disabled and low-income residents. And there are employment services, operated by a different department, that help people with disabilities get to their jobs.
But studies and plans do not directly translate into buses. The Transit Vision plan has its eye on 2040 — with a generation of change in between. The special area plan is a revival of a 1993 version that led to little action. And the county’s Board of Supervisors would need to fund any transit option presented by the state study.
The sprawling municipality of 335,000 residents started Chesterfield LINK in 2001 — four local routes and two express routes in conjunction with GRTC. But the local routes disappeared over time, and the board voted to discontinue the Route 81 Express last year. The lone GRTC bus driving deep into Chesterfield now is the Route 82, which rides the Powhite Parkway to the Commonwealth 20 movie theater — the county’s only official Park-n-Ride.
Outright opposition to expanding bus service is scarce, but the Jefferson Davis corridor is in the Bermuda District, represented by Dorothy Jaeckle, the Board of Supervisors chairwoman, who’s skeptical of the cost-efficiency of fixed bus routes. She supports transportation funding for residents without access to a vehicle, but she wants the state study to explore car-based services, such as Lyft or Uber, as well.
“Many of those that need transportation work in fields that have very scattered locations and, many times, nontraditional hours,” Jaeckle says.
"We don’t see the cost of folks not being able to get to work.” — Nelson Reveley, RVA Rapid Transit
Though it owns 50 percent of GRTC, Chesterfield gets an invoice from GRTC for the cost of the remaining express route. And Smith notes that any new routes would require pedestrian accommodations, such as sidewalks and shelters. “There is no profitable transit company in the United States,” he says. “All are subsidized.”
But RVA Rapid Transit Board President Nelson Reveley says that car ownership is “extremely subsidized,” too, in the form of roads. “All we see is the price tag on the bus,” he says. “But we don’t see the cost of folks not being able to get to work, nutritious food or the doctor.” Maintaining a vehicle can run thousands of dollars a year. And bus advocates point out that the ride-sharing services Jaeckle suggests are dependent on access to smartphones.
In the meantime, Holland has proposed extending GRTC’s 73 bus, creating a 23-mile loop down Jefferson Davis, west along Route 10 to the county’s government complex and back up via Chippenham Parkway to the Food Lion near DuPont. GRTC estimates the annual cost to the county for a weekday-only, 12-times-daily loop at $477,329. Holland, the board’s most vocal transit advocate and the lone member to affiliate publicly as a Democrat, says transit isn’t political. “It’s to fill the need of my constituents,” he says. “We have the resources to do it. The question is whether we have the commitment and will.”
