A Richmond jury awarded a research librarian at the Library of Virginia $8 million in damages yesterday, the full amount sought by her lawyers after the woman was struck by a GRTC Transit System bus and severely injured. Meikiu Lo, now 34, suffered spinal and shoulder damage and multiple hip and pelvis fractures that resulted in chronic pain after a GRTC bus making a right turn struck her as she crossed North Eighth Street beside the library two years ago.

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

A divided Richmond City Council last night appointed three members to the GRTC Transit System board. The council voted 6-3 to tap the city’s former chief administrative officer, Sheila Hill-Christian, as well as Linda Broady-Meyers and James M. Johnson for one-year terms on the GRTC board of directors. Broady-Meyers and Johnson currently serve on the board.

A divided Richmond City Council tonight appointed three members to the GRTC Transit System board. The council voted 6-3 to tap the city’s former chief administrative officer, Sheila Hill-Christian, as well as Linda Broady-Meyers and James M. Johnson for one-year terms on the GRTC board of directors. Broady-Meyers and Johnson currently serve on the board.

A law that was not followed in the case of a Richmond bus driver who later was charged in the death of a pedestrian was one of 884 pieces of new legislation that took effect in Virginia in July 2008. The law would have applied in the case of Teresa L. Jones, who was erroneously allowed to have a previous reckless-driving charge dismissed by attending driving school.

Even if everyone had done the right thing, Loucendia Reed Lambert still might have been hit and killed by a GRTC bus. But people failed to act properly in several instances, which makes Lambert’s death all the more painful. Bus driver Teresa L. Jones did not follow GRTC policy by reporting to her employer that she had been charged with reckless driving and a seat-belt violation while driving in a private car in May.

The General Assembly in 2008 passed a law that forbids those who have a commercial driver’s license from using driving school as a means to having a driving charge dismissed.

The GRTC Transit System bus driver charged in the death of a pedestrian last week faced another reckless-driving count for a separate incident in a personal vehicle less than five months earlier. Officials with the agency said they were unaware until contacted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday that Teresa L. Jones had a previous reckless-driving charge before Wednesday’s accident that took the life of Loucendia Reed Lambert.

The GRTC Transit System bus driver charged in the death of a pedestrian last week faced another reckless-driving count for a separate incident in a personal vehicle less than five months earlier.

The driver involved in Wednesday’s fatal GRTC Transit System bus accident in downtown has been charged with reckless driving, Richmond police said last night. Police identified her as Teresa L. Jones, 46, of the 100 block of West 22nd Street. Loucendia Reed Lambert was struck and killed shortly before 8 a.m. at North 14th and East Franklin streets.

The operator of a bus that killed a state worker in downtown Richmond earlier this week has been charged with reckless driving, police said Saturday. Police confirmed that the Richmond commonwealth’s attorney’s office charged the driver with the Class 1 misdemeanor in the death of Loucendia Reed Lambert. No further details, including the driver’s name, were released.

The campaign started yesterday, but there is still time. Citizens who ride a GRTC bus today or tomorrow will receive a button proclaiming, “I Tried Transit Today.“ The pin will allow them to enjoy a free lunch and concert tomorrow at Kanawha Plaza from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Chick-Fil-A will provide the eats, the Ray Pittman Project the tunes.

A fatal crash in Richmond yesterday and Friday’s wreck that killed two people in Henrico County brought this year’s statewide total of highway fatalities to 454, compared with 522 at the same time in 2008. Yesterday a driver was killed after she crashed a minivan into a GRTC Transit System bus that was stopped at a bus stop about 6:30 p.m. near Fairfield Avenue and Kane Street in Richmond’s East End.

The federal Transportation Department awarded Virginia public-transit agencies $41.3 million in economic stimulus funds for buses, vans, equipment and other transit improvements. Richmond’s GRTC Transit System received $12.5 million to buy 38 paratransit vans, 11 regular 40-foot buses, bus stop signs and vehicle surveillance cameras, and to pay for preventative maintenance work.

Thanks to Hanover County, Keith Watkins isn’t confined to his home. Watkins, 19, has an intellectual disability and a language impairment. He is a Patrick Henry High School graduate and has a job at Ashland’s Kentucky Fried Chicken. A few days a week, he gets picked up by a Hanover County Community Services Board van and taken to work and then home after his shift.