Overhaul of Norfolk’s bus system rejected over concerns about effects on poor and Black residents

Norfolk — Amid concerns from Black members of Norfolk’s City Council that a proposed redesign of the city’s bus routes didn’t fully take into account the effects on poor and minority residents, the council recently rejected the overhaul on a split vote down racial lines. That means any updates to the system will be delayed by at least several more months.

Such a rejection is a rarity for Norfolk’s City Council, and comments at the meeting gave a peek behind the curtain of a public body that usually seems to prefer working issues out privately ahead of public meetings.

The redesign in question is a long-awaited update meant to make bus service quicker and more efficient. Efforts have been underway over the past year to develop the proposal and get public feedback. The draft plan would have cut some routes in favor of more direct routes with more frequent service, an attempt to reduce long wait times.

But when it came up for a vote at council in February, a pair of councilwomen — Mamie Johnson and Danica Royster — said some residents hadn’t had the chance to weigh in on the redesign. The two also said they were concerned about a lack of transparency and how the plan would affect bus riders who are disproportionately poor and Black.

Royster noted the bulk of transit users are from Superward 7 on Norfolk’s east side, which she was appointed to represent in January. She said the plan seemed to have been “rushed” and that more needs to be done to ensure it’s fair.

“There being a belief that there is segregation in the city of Norfolk … the last thing we want to do is vote on something that we find out is actually not equitable and it further drove the divide between different areas,” Royster said.

Mayor Kenny Alexander and Councilman Paul Riddick joined Johnson and Royster in voting no, resulting in a 4-4 vote that meant the redesign failed to pass.

Some council members were clearly rankled — and surprised — by the criticism and no votes.

Tommy Smigiel and Andria McClellan said there were plenty of opportunities for citizens to review the plans and that city staff members had made themselves available to give presentations to civic groups.

They also pointed out that changes had been made to the plan following previous equity concerns — for example, adding back a couple of crucial routes serving the St. Paul’s area (which includes most of Norfolk’s public housing) and the Sentara Norfolk General complex.

McClellan conceded “it’s not going to be perfect,” but said the proposed redesign would increase access to communities of color.

Smigiel, McClellan and Martin Thomas also chided the council members who hadn’t discussed concerns with them before the meeting.

“I’m kind of bothered this is being shot down on the night of the vote and there was no conversation about this sooner,” Smigiel said after the vote. “I wasn’t aware at all that there were any concerns from my colleagues on council. Nobody reached out to me and said they were concerned.”

McClellan agreed, as did Thomas, who emphasized the importance of moving forward with revisions to a route system that hasn’t been updated for decades.

“I’m disappointed in those on council who voted tonight ‘no’ without kind of talking to the rest of the council,” Thomas said.

Where the plan stands

As of now, the draft plan is just that, a series of lines on a map that won’t go anywhere for the time being. The city will go out for more feedback and may bring the draft plan back to council at some point. Or officials may decide the rework isn’t necessary, depending on what the community says, according to Amy Inman, Norfolk’s transit director.

Inman said city staff and Hampton Roads Transit spent the past year getting feedback, including about 1,500 in-person surveys with people riding buses around Norfolk. Inman said the surveys were “representative of communities throughout the city” and heavily weighted toward those who live in Superward 7. This summer, Inman said, they’ll do more outreach.

“We did hear from the people, we did hear comments loud and clear, we did make the changes we needed to make, and now we need to go back out and revisit it with the public and make sure we’ve got it right,” she said in an interview this week. “That’s what public process is about. We’re not here to say we’ve got it 100% right.”

The revised route plan was meant to create more straight-shot routes north to south or east to west. Inman said the curvier routes in use now cover more streets but mean longer rides and waits.

[ Previous coverage: Getting around Norfolk by bus could get faster. The city wants residents to weigh in. ]

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The redesigned routes would see riders waiting for, at most, 15 minutes between buses, but may mean they’d have to walk a little farther on either end because the bus doesn’t run down all the streets it used to.

“It’s really finding that right balance,” Inman said.

The plan rejected on Feb. 9 would also have remade the system downtown, where now the bus routes all terminate at the transit station on St. Paul’s Boulevard. For instance, the new route design would have included a stop at MacArthur Square.

Inman said her department has been working with constraints, including trying to remake the system without increasing the $20 million a year the city had already been spending on bus service.

But adding back in those routes the community told them were critical — to St. Paul’s and the medical complex — bumped the budget up by a little less than 1%.

“We were working within the resources we had … and now we’ve realized we maybe need to put a little more into it,” Inman said.

Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com