The Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility (OETM) has launched its community engagement process to develop a transportation policy guide. Path to Equity: Policy Guide for Richmond Connects will articulate the policy framework for Richmond Connects, the multimodal transportation planning process set to begin this fall.

The policy guide will explain why the transportation plan needs to be equity focused, detail what the city means by equitable transportation, and lay a structure for how Richmond intends to center equity in transportation planning decisions.

The Path to Equity Policy Guide will reiterate the transportation goals and objectives developed in the master plan and develop new language to articulate the specific equity outcomes desired, called equity factors. These are outcomes that the city will use to assess how equitable Richmond’s transportation network is.

Richmond Connects, using the framework developed in the Path to Equity Policy Guide, will ultimately prioritize needs and recommend transportation projects and programs for the city. It will align a variety of recommendations from various plans around what residents see as the community’s top transportation needs.

Survey

As part of this effort, OETM has designed a digital survey to inform the policy guide and the Richmond Connects transportation plan itself. This survey is unique and in line with the mayor’s Equity Agenda, as it asks Richmonders to gauge their experiences of transportation injustices in the past and detail the barriers to accessing opportunity today.

Tacos for Transportation

For additional outreach, the city is hosting three outdoor COVID-19-conscious ‘Tacos for Transportation’ events. The events will feature an engagement team ready to guide residents through the survey. In exchange for their time, the city will provide a voucher for free tacos from an on-site taco truck (for up to 250 people at each event)! The first event will be held June 26 at the Calhoun Community Center, in conjunction with the Gilpin Field Day hosted by RRHA. The next event will be July 17^th at Byrd Park, and the final event will take place next to the Blackwell pool on July 31. All of these events will take place 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

If you can’t make it to one of these events, there are other ways to get engaged:

Online

The same survey will be available online Path to Equity | Richmond (rva.gov) , and OETM plans to have survey kiosks and paper copies available around the city. A kick-off webinar will also be announced and available on the webpage.

Ambassadors & Advisory Committee

Additionally, the city is hiring about 20 ambassadors to represent the diverse experiences and communities across the city on the planning committee for Path to Equity Policy Guide and Richmond Connects. These ambassadors, along with regional planning partners and representatives from social justice advocacy groups, will help shape the policy guide.

For more information on the Path to Equity Policy Guide or Richmond Connects, visit www.rva.gov/connects.

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