Broad Street Green Corridor

Green Unity would like to collaborate with the VCU community, Richmond community, City of Richmond, and VCU Office of Sustainability to establish a trash-free, xeriscaped, green corridor with bike lanes or paths linking MCV and Monroe Park campus, hopefully extending well beyond those points in the future. The main goal of this project is to encourage Richmond community members and VCU faculty, staff, and students to use this green corridor for foot or bicycle travel rather than solely car travel.

Green Unity will build on its tradition of adopting blocks surrounding the Monroe Park Campus by encouraging members from both campuses to support this project though participating in the Adopt-a-Street program. We would like to see Broad Street become a cleaner place made more accessible to alternative forms of transportation, in hopes that this may attract more businesses and consumers to the area.

Xeriscaping, or planting native plants that require less water, fertilizer and maintenance than traditional landscaping aims to reduce non-point source pollution to the James River. This type of landscaping will not only improve ambiance, but is also effective at retaining and filtering rain water so that less untreated storm water travels through the combined sewer overflow system to the wastewater treatment plant, reducing the stress on the plant during high flow events. The improvement of water quality and other benefits of xeriscaping Broad Street will extend beyond the James River to the Chesapeake Bay.

To fully revitalize Broad St. and reestablish it as a community gathering place and commercial hub, this project suggests a dedicated bus lane and back-in angle parking. Making biking, walking and transit use easier, safer, and more attractive will improve traffic flow for vehicle and non-vehicle traffic alike. Not only will we be able to increase the total number of parking spaces using angle parking, but we would increase parking availability, opening Broad Street to as many methods of transportation as possible, while keeping it safe and organized.

Image courtesy of Ian Lockwood