Livable Harrisonburg

We love the new separated 🚲 lane on Federal Street, but it looks like we're going to need bigger bollards 😬

Hello all! Our regular meeting this month is taking place next Monday at 5:30pm at the downtown Massanutten Regional Library, as space was not available today. Have a great week!

Livable Harrisonburg is a Strong Towns affiliated group in the Central Shenandoah Valley focused on advocating for safe streets, abundant housing, and a sustainable future for our city.

Join us at our monthly Monday meeting at the Massanutten Regional Library, or stop by and say hi at our monthly casual meetup at The Friendly Fermenter.

More info at https://livableharrisonburg.org/

Safe Routes to School is essential to a good community! Thank you Harrisonburg, VA - Government for putting kids and walkable streets first!

Are you passionate about programs that allow K-12 students to safely walk and/or bike to/from school? If so, the City of Harrisonburg's Public Works Department has an exciting new opportunity that may interest you! The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Coordinator position allows you to coordinate, encourage, and enable active transportation by students within the Harrisonburg City Public Schools! You're the ideal candidate for this position if you have an enthusiasm for walking, biking, and/or multimodal transportation and have the ability to build and maintain relationships.

For more information or to apply visit https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/harrisonburg/jobs/4563897/safe-routes-to-school-srts-coordinator?page=3&pagetype=jobOpportunitiesJobs

Want to learn more about how the city works? Applications for the 2024 Harrisonburg Citizen Academy are due by Aug. 9.

Applications open for 2024 Harrisonburg Citizen Academy - Rocktown Now The 13-week program allows participants to visit City of Harrisonburg departments and partner organizations to learn about the services, programs and events available to community members.

"In your imagined future city, people live closer to the places they need to go. Holding their children’s hands, they cross the street. Bigger kids cycle safely on a network of paths, stopping to grab a few raspberries dangling over the pavement. You can almost see them."

Developments | The Harrisonburg Citizen “The Friendly City” is a weekly column about walking in Harrisonburg that will run during 2024. Each week, your friendly correspondent, writer and teacher Sofia Samatar, will reflect on a walk in our city.

Turns out, parking lots aren't a good investment for cities.

Millsap updated one of last week's memes to be even better 😂
An oversized parking lot is a great example of a project that increases cities' debt.

(Credit for the altered meme template to u/Not-A-Seagull on reddit.)

Excessive parking drives up the cost of rent by up to hundreds of dollars a month.

We need more affordable housing for people, not cars.

How much is a parking space in Harrisonburg actually worth? What if we subsidized self-storage units the same way we do cars? How could parking spaces be repurposed to make our city more resilient?

Something to chew on, from Mercy House. We need affordable housing.

"Festivals like Best.Weekend.Ever. can serve as a reminder that our built environment doesn’t have to be this way. If we’re willing to reimagine who and what streets are for, traffic-restricted festivals like this can become prefigurative prototypes of what we want our city to look like."

Traffic-restricted festivals help us reimagine our city What if we prioritized people instead of cars on our downtown streets more often?

Today is the last day for early voting, from 9:00am until 5:00pm.

If you can't vote today, you can vote at your Election Day precinct on June 18th between 6am and 7pm.

More info here: https://harrisonburgva.gov/june-18-2024-primary

The Transit Strategic Plan is out:https://www.harrisonburgva.gov/sites/default/files/Transit/hdpt-tsp-document-2024-05-24.pdf

The summary from "The Shortline" is:
"The current large, one-way routes and stop times are inefficient and not rider-friendly. The preliminary service redesign scenarios are aimed at streamlining and simplifying the transit network (from loops to lines) and would replace areas with lower ridership demand with app-based on-demand microtransit zones."

You can read the whole article here: https://brentfinnegan.substack.com/p/the-shortline-6-7-24

Time to vote! For Democrats, there are 3 City Council poisition to be filled, for Republicans, a Senatorial Candidate. Go vote today!

This week's roundup housing and transportation news is below! Here's a couple highlights:

-In some places, accessory dwelling units are allowed to be constructed by-right, or without seeking local permits in residentially-zoned areas. Rockingham County, for example, allows this. About 90 ADUs were built in the county over the past seven years, allowing housing for a range of people, from farm workers to students and tourists, who can rent them when needed. (Virginia Mercury)

-Harrisonburg City Council approved the city’s FY 2024-2025 budget this week, which includes an increase of the real estate tax rate by 5 cents per hundred dollars of value. (Daily News-Record)

brentfinnegan.s

We love this great addition to downtown!

This was a lot of fun! Thanks Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC)!

Bike Everywhere Day is this Thursday! Get out and enjoy the great outdoors, along with bagels and coffee on Court Square 7-10am. Hope to see you rolling in!

We are celebrating Bike Everywhere Day THIS THURSDAY at Court Square in Harrisonburg from 7 am-10 am!

Can you think of a better way to start your day than FREE and breakfast ft. .jsbagels, fruit, and treats?
✔️ Breakfast + Coffee
✔️ Bike Safety Checks
✔️ Community Partners
✔️ Giveaways from our local bike shops
✔️ Connect Our Schools yard signs and info
✔️ Group Ride to follow

Bike, Walk, and Roll your way over to take part in our last event for Bike Month! 🚲👟🛼

Thanks for making downtown an even nicer (and cleaner) place to be!

We love to see more bike racks, and responding to community feedback! Thank you!

We just love Harrisonburg Public Works! Making streets safer for people walking or riding bikes, particularly kids, shows that they've got their priorities straight. This is how we build a better city.

City seeks to put safe streets effort into motion In an effort to improve Harrisonburg’s road safety, the Public Works Department hopes to assess its roads, pedestrian and bike ways, as well as school routes, as part of a $750,000 initiative…

- Harrisonburg Public Works updating Harrisonburg’s bicycle and pedestrian plan, creating the city’s first safe routes to school plan, and developing a complete streets guide for the city
- HDPT- Harrisonburg Department of Public Transportation has extended the hours for transit routes from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The Shortline 5-17-24 The beginning of a Safe Streets plan for Harrisonburg • Leesburg eliminates by-right data center zoning • Minneapolis zoning plan injunction lifted • The end of American-made sedans

A transformation for Liberty Street is in the works! So glad to see such an exciting project for a part of town that's getting better all the time!

Press Release: Harrisonburg to receive $14.3 million in federal funds for Liberty Street project

The City of Harrisonburg will soon receive vital federal funding to allow a key infrastructure improvement project to move forward in Downtown.

The offices of U.S. Senator Tim Kaine and U.S. Senator Mark Warner announced Monday afternoon that Harrisonburg would receive approximately $14.3 million in federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability & Equity (RAISE) grant funds to support the City’s Downtown Harrisonburg Streetscape & Mobility Transformation project. The project will create safer routes for travelers in Downtown, enhance area streetscape aesthetics, and increase transportation and trail connectivity for community members and visitors.

A very competitive grant opportunity, the funding supports 100 percent of the project’s current estimated cost with no matching City funds necessary at this time.

“We are grateful for the hard work and consideration of Sen. Kaine and Sen. Warner as they continue to find ways to support the people of Harrisonburg,” Mayor Deanna Reed said. “This grant will make our Downtown even safer for all visitors, no matter if they are walking, bicycling or driving. We thank them both for all that they do for the people of The Friendly City.”

The Downtown Harrisonburg Streetscape and Mobility Transformation project details include:

• The transition of one lane (starting at Noll Drive at Kratzer Avenue, moving south down Liberty Street to Main Street) into two-way separated bicycle lanes, also known as a two-way cycle track, protected by a median separating the bike lanes from traffic. The median spaces may allow for green space use (installation of grass, gardens, etc.) in various locations supporting City environmental initiatives and programs.
• Installation of a connecting section of path from Grattan Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Way, where the Bluestone Trail begins and runs through James Madison University to Purcell Park.
• Upgrades at intersections, including replacing crosswalks and signal poles with decorative crosswalks and poles.

The project was originally identified in the Harrisonburg Downtown 2040 Plan, which looked at ways to improve Harrisonburg’s Downtown for the future.

More information on this project will be available as it moves forward. Design work will begin in the coming weeks, with construction currently estimated to take place in 2027.

The news release from Senator Kaine and Senator Warner is available by visiting https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/warner-and-kaine-announce-over-38-million-in-federal-infrastructure-funding-for-northampton-accomack-chesterfield-rockingham-fairfax-counties

Thank you, Our Community Place for helping to house those that need it most!

Our Community place to open ‘efficiency apartments’ After two years of renovations at their location on Reservoir Street, Our Community Place will officially open its two new “efficiency apartments” on Friday.

Come out this weekend and have a great time in a pedestrianized downtown Hburg!

There's a bunch of fun to be had on Saturday, June 17 for Best.Weekend.Ever. but we are excited to share our "must-see" picks for this event. You can view more details and an event map now at bestweekendever.org. We look forward to seeing you at this FREE summer festival!

BEST.WEEKEND.EVER. MUST-SEE ACTIVITIES:
🎨 Third Annual Arts Incarnate Artisan Festival (11 AM - 4 PM)
💃 Any Given Child Shenandoah Valley Silent Disco (12 - 3 PM)
🚜 Explore More Discovery Museum Farm-to-City (12 - 4 PM)
🚸 Weiler Orthodontics and Invisalign & Horizons Edge Sports Campus KIDS ZONE Activities (12 - 5 PM)
🚧 Lantz Construction Company Construction Play Zone (12 - 5 PM)
💚 Old Dominion Realty Low Sensory Zone (12 - 5 PM)
🎵 Live Music at Steven Toyota, Cross Keys Studio, & Court Square stages (12 - 6 PM)
🥤 Sip & Stroll (12 - 6 PM) thanks to Dirty Dog Carpet, Surface and Duct Cleaning & 360 Painting of Central VA
🦩 Liberty Street Lawn Party (12 - 6 PM)
🐾 Pale Fire Brewing Company Dog Days of Summer (12 - 6 PM)
🗺️ CWS Harrisonburg World Refugee Day (3 - 6 PM)

"Yes, it is possible to swap your car for an ebike, provided you live close enough to safe bike routes that take you where you need to go. For parents that need to transport children, there are ever-proliferating electric cargo bike options. Going car-lite (one car, one ebike) saves not only carbon but money in the long run."

Supporting and using safe bike routes saves money and makes more fun for everyone!

Community Perspective: Can you replace your car with an ebike in Harrisonburg? Possibly. A contributed perspectives piece by Brent Finnegan

SVBC knows what's up - redesigning streets is how we slow cars and make our streets safer in the long term. But let's do everything we can to make it better, especially for kids!

Speed cameras to go up in school and construction zones New speed monitoring cameras aimed at protecting road crews and students in the city will begin to pop up across the city next month.

Stop by today to learn more, and give input, on the future of transportation in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County!

The Harrisonburg Rockingham Metropolitan Planning Organization (HRMPO) is hosting a public meeting to discuss and review the draft 2045 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP).

Drop by the County Administration Center on Thursday, May 4 any time between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. ET. HRMPO staff will be on hand to review the document and answer your questions. All are welcome!

Sign up to join the discussion online for transportation projects across the area tomorrow, April 25!

For an in-person option, mark your calendar for HRMPO’s public meeting on May 4, 2023 in the Community Room at the Rockingham County Administration Center between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. HRMPO staff will host an in-person Public Meeting for anyone wanting an opportunity to learn more about the Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) 2045 Update.

The Harrisonburg Rockingham Metropolitan Planning Organization (HRMPO) is offering two webinar sessions April 25 to review the draft Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), answer questions and get feedback. Register in advance for either Session One at 12 p.m. ET or Session Two at 7 p.m. ET.
If you can’t attend live, be sure to watch the webinar recording on the HRMPO website after the sessions.
https://www.hrvampo.org/articles/webinar-sessions-overview-hrmpo-draft-2045-lrtp