Richmond, Virginia

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Richmond, while established in 1737, has only a slightly larger population than Amarillo, at around 221,000 people as of 2022.  Richmond, while looking at transit options, has three, except one has been converted into a restaurant, one is being used for wedding receptions, and one is being looked at for solely light rail connections to small regional townships.

However, Richmond has a plan (Vision Richmond 2040), which provides the conceptual framework for redeveloping the urban center, and making it an attractive place to visit.  By 2040.  Generally fitting within this scheme provides the potential for establishing a connection prior to the city's planned growth.  In many cases, small city growth can be oriented expressly around transit centers.  This is accomplished by building on the vertical, making use of air rights, buying substantive amounts of adjacent land for redevelopment into residential and mixed-use accommodations, and funding projects through the speculative selling of such properties.  These initial outlays are offset by the eventual sales, and help to cover any potential operating losses during any transitional period.  There is also an incentive for the city to fund and permit such development, in furtherance of their vision. 

In such an old city, new large scale urban redevelopment provides exciting opportunities to rethink the central urban landscape and incorporate modern infrastructure improvements under roadways and derelict buildings, providing for the kinds of connectivity that individuals and businesses are looking for in a modern city.  The infrastructural scheme of the rail corridor system (facilitating high-quality power, fiberoptic communications, and water sourcing) makes such an integration a compelling proposition for a multitude of reasons.

As the city plan for 2040 is a fairly rough draft, there are a few potential site plans proposed for an urban transit hub.

While Richmond is at an approximately ideal distance for a MAGLEV connection, the primary aim would be establishing a route where perhaps the station could be "modularized" and expandable, so that the station would fulfill the aims of the city.

VCU, despite the status of its buildings, is a highly reputable medical education system set just north of Richmond's city center.  One or more of its dormitories has been closed due to the state of the buildings and their infrastructural components.  There are some sections of this property that are aligned slightly better than the Coliseum site, and, as the site is set against the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, would provide for co-located transit routing.

A number of the buildings making up the urban core are actually very old governmental buildings, focused on social services and the judiciary and other local services.  The setup is low density, with, in some cases, unsightly buildings as the fixtures of that core.  For that reason, some amount of shuffling could be done to move and consolidate city services, and do something similar for VCU, while keeping its critical buildings (Medical Centers) intact, and its dormitories nearby.

As both the Coliseum proposal and the VCU proposal are "Urban Redevelopment" schemes, with an orientation around a "master plan" for that development, the scope of the plan goes beyond merely constructing a station and gets into the business of community development, local transit features, residential, commercial, and retail offerings, and public use facilities such as parks or other natural features.