Only in Richmond could you (sadly) be able to write a story that is a such a Mona Lisa masterpiece example of incompetence that represents just how broken City Hall has become under Mayor Stoney’s Administration. The fact that it is going to take more than four years to replace a 225-foot pedestrian bridge in the James River Park System is also the reason why the election this Fall of a new mayor and the appointment of a new Chief Administrative Officer are so important for Richmond.
In September 2022, Mayor Stoney made a big announcement about the Diamond District project whose centerpiece was a new baseball stadium that would be paid for by the revenues from all the surrounding development. In April 2023, the city announced the stadium project was a year behind and would not open as planned in April 2025. Then after more dithering, the Mayor announced in April 2024 huge changes to the original plan — the city would issue $170 million in bonds to build the stadium and infrastructure and take all the risk; but the stadium would be open by April 2026 come hell or high-water (or cost overruns) to comply with Major League Baseball’s veiled threat that if it wasn’t open by then, they would move the Squirrels’ franchise to another city.
Another announcement was also made in September 2022 that said the city was immediately closing the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks and canal that offered access to Texas Beach in the James River Park System. The city did not say how long it would take to repair or replace the bridge, but a few months later funds were designated from the American Rescue Plan Act in November 2022 to pay for it and begin planning how to reopen access to the north bank of the James River. But then in May 2023, the city announced it would take at least until the summer of 2024 to reopen the bridge, even with the money in hand.
Now here we towards the end of summer 2024 and Sierra Krug at WRIC recently reported that the city announced they were continuing “to work diligently to repair the Texas Beach bridge” and hope to “have repairs completed by December 2026.”
Do not adjust your screen — that is not a misprint.
It will take more than twice as long (more than four years) to replace a 225-foot pedestrian bridge in the city’s crown jewel of its’ park system than it will to build the new baseball stadium that will hold 10,000 people.
We wrote about this scenario in May 2023 as a joke: There is an age-old debate about which came first — the chicken or the egg? In Richmond, there is a similar conundrum: which will come first — a new Texas Beach pedestrian bridge or a new baseball stadium?
But it turns out the joke is sadly on the lovers and users of James River Park. Sometimes you can’t make predictions up, but that one was infuriatingly accurate and yet another sign of the incompetence that has befallen City Hall. A frequent visitor of the park system Nicholas Thornton was understandably upset and when told it will take at least two more years, and told WRIC, “I was expecting the bridge to be open this summer. This is the easiest access point to get to this side, with the rocks. So that pretty… pretty much sucks.”
Dennis Bussey, the organizer of the James River Hikers who have made various improvement efforts to the Texas Beach area over the years told the Times-Dispatch.
in May 2023 that “the crown jewel of the James River Park (System) is Texas Beach. So they have taken the super plum on the top of the cake in Richmond, Virginia, and they’ve taken it away from the public. It is the best part of the best part of Richmond.”
The RTD also noted in that article that despite the bridge being closed, people were still wading through the canal and crossing the railroad tracks (illegally) and taking their chances with fate. But it’s not like no one saw this coming.
Tyler Layne at CBS6 reported in December 2022 that a heavily redacted engineer’s inspection report from September 2022 showed there was no known structural analysis of the bridge or previous repairs that had been made; one critical immediate priority noted by the engineer was also redacted, and might have been the reason for the closure. Layne also found a 2018 inspection report of the bridge showed that the bridge was in overall “fair” condition, and recommended an in-depth evaluation to make some other repairs and consider replacing the decking.
Photo: WTVR
In May of 2023, Ralph White, the former manager (and still Godfather Emeritus) of the James River Park System, told NBC12:
“I was shocked. I mean, disappointed is a part of it because it doesn’t seem as though it was necessary,” White said after he learned it would take a while to reopen the bridge. “If you know what the problem is and you have adequate lead in time, fix it.”
So the city has known for some time that the bridge, used by thousands of river, nature, and park lovers every year, needed some measure of work, but now is okay with it sitting closed for more than four years. At his February State of the City speech and for weeks after, Stoney kept boasting, “We are about the fix,” but that apparently does not apply to Texas Beach (even with the money in hand) because an arena, casino, and baseball stadium were higher priorities.
In an interview late last week with VPM News, when asked, “What is your top achievable priority that you’d like to accomplish before you leave office?” Stoney replied that #1 was “obviously, delivering the Diamond District project with the groundbreaking;” #2 was “delivering on the City Center project,” and #3 was “to leave the next mayor in a better place than when I received it. So when the next mayor gets the keys on Jan. 1, they have a City Hall that is humming on all cylinders.”
City Hall these days reminds people more of a Yugo than a car humming on all cylinders (for you youngsters, the Yugo was voted “Worst Car of the Millennium” as well as “The Worst Car in History” and is a fascinating case-study in how things can go wrong — sound familiar?). There are also are a ton of timeless jokes about it like:
- What makes a Yugo go faster? A tow truck.
- What do you call a Yugo at the top of a hill? A miracle.
- What do you call the Yugo owner’s manual? The bus schedule.
City Hall these days is more Yugo than humming along, despite Stoney’s claims. There is simply zero excuse — as in none — for the Texas Beach bridge to take more than four years to get replaced. Thankfully for all of us, what will be replaced before the bridge are the “leaders” at City Hall with a new, competent Mayor and CAO that will hopefully commit to demonstrate the ability and desire to have the bridge replaced by next summer so people can once again safely enjoy a massive part of the park system that has already been closed for almost two years.
In the WRIC story, Nicholas Thornton said what could (and should) become a theme or slogan in the mayoral race for whomever wants to trade-in the Yugo and deliver a better and actually functioning government that is not in need of a tow truck:
“Let’s get it together Richmond,” Thornton said. “Let’s get these priorities handled!”
Amen.
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