Get ready to climb out of those ditches along Jahnke Road. Richmond is working on a plan to install sidewalks, curb and gutter, and a way to separate traffic on the heavily traveled two-lane road in South Side between Blakemore Road and Forest Hill Avenue. Currently, passengers on GRTC Transit System buses have to step over ditches as they board or disembark. Traffic accidents are up, especially at the intersection of Jahnke and Blakemore, near Lucille M. Brown Middle School.

Former Richmond Chief Administrative Officer Sheila Hill-Christian’s work for the city won’t end with her recent appointment to the GRTC Transit System board. She’s also partnering with a Texas-based consultant on an economic-development study for the city. TIP Strategies of Austin tapped Hill-Christian as a subcontractor to conduct interviews with local officials and business owners and to organize focus groups, she said.

To be eliminated or severely reduced, with number of average daily riders
No. 11 Laurel Street, 132
No. 13 Main Street/Church Hill, 333
No. 20 Northside, 31
No. 61 Broad Rock Shuttle, 18
No. 65 Stony Point Fashion Park, 73
No. 68 Lunch Time Express, 12
To be scaled back
No. 16 Westhampton, 641
No. 67 Chippenham, 148

The days of mostly empty GRTC Transit System buses barreling around Richmond could be numbered. Under a proposal scheduled for public hearings beginning tomorrow, the Richmond City Council will consider eliminating or severely reducing six routes and scaling back three others to help GRTC save about $1.2 million annually. Of the routes in question, the No. 68 Lunch Time Express has attracted the fewest riders—an average of 12 per day in fiscal 2008-09, compared with 641 for Westhampton. Overall, GRTC has about 40,000 riders per day on its 40 routes.

One of Mayor Dwight C. Jones’ top administrators is out of contention, but controversy still swirls over Richmond’s pending appointments to the GRTC Transit System board. The City Council is set to vote Monday to appoint former Chief Administrative Officer Sheila Hill-Christian, as well as current members Linda G. Broady-Meyers and James M. Johnson, to the GRTC board of directors. Chesterfield County, which jointly owns GRTC with the city, will tap the other three members.

Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones wants one of the city’s new administrators to help run the GRTC Transit System. But City Councilman Bruce W. Tyler is pushing back and expressing concern over a role the city could play in a sale of GRTC’s coveted headquarters property near the Fan District. Jones wants the 6.8-acre site to go to the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority for private development guided by the city through a review of proposals.

Richmond plans a public debate over the future of GRTC Transit System’s historic headquarters next to the Fan District, but the role of affordable housing in the project already is an issue. Affordable housing is listed as the goal of Mayor Dwight C. Jones and the mission of the Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority in a written proposal for the city to buy the property, which is appraised at up to $5.4 million.

Thomas Rogers came hoping to save North Side bus route 22. Until last night, it was scheduled to be eliminated. Now, it might still have a ray of hope. Without bus 22, Rogers’ only alternative is Chamberlayne route 37. “Bus 22 is a smaller, more personal” option, Rogers said, “not crazy and crowded like Chamberlayne 37.“