East End bike-lane blues

On the afternoon of April 18th, Joseph Carlisle was riding his bike north on Mosby Street, as part of his daily commute downtown, when he almost got run over. The driver of a FedEx Express van swerved abruptly into the thoroughfare’s unprotected bike lane. Carlisle managed to dodge disaster by braking hard to avoid the van on one side and the curb on the other. Then, he almost got into a fist-fight.

“When I knocked on the window to alert the driver, he got out of the vehicle, screamed at me, and threatened to assault me,” he told The Lookout in a recent phone interview. After some yelling, Carlisle extricated himself from the exchange without coming to blows with the belligerent box-jockey. Then he cycled around the block, coming back around to snap a photo of the van from afar in order to file a complaint with FedEx.

While Carlisle’s near-impact with the FedEx van’s bumper—and then, with the FedEx driver’s fists—in the East End was a terrifying incident, it’s hardly an isolated one. Data from the Virginia Department of Transportation analyzed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch indicates that there were ~450 accidents involving cyclists in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield between 2019 and 2024, or around 90 each year. (Those figures likely represent just a fraction of the actual number of car-on-bike crashes in the city, as these too-often-fatal collisions are notoriously underreported.) In just one recent high-profile example across down, Mary Munford Elementary School’s principal was hit while cycling by the driver of a vehicle on Paterson Ave. back in March 2025. After a touch-and-go stint in the ICU, he’s recovering in a wheelchair.

I spoke with Carlisle, a Church Hill North resident who has lived in various parts of Richmond for 12 years and has been riding here for about eight, a week or so after his incident, and have been in touch with him by email and text ever since. His description of the near-miss on Mosby St. was adrenaline-pumping scary. His description of the experience since, as he’s tried to get community leaders to address or even acknowledge the imminent dangers of cycling in the East End, has been grindingly frustrating.

In the immediate aftermath of his mid-April incident, he sent emails to City Councilmembers Cynthia Newbille and Ellen Robertson (of the 7th and 6th Districts, respectively), and Captain James Killingsworth of the Richmond Police ’s First Precinct. (He circulated this note to the Church Hill Association, the Church Hill Central Civic league, and several media outlets.) He also went to the First Precinct in person and tried to file a police report. As with previous outreach attempts, his goal with these actions was to demand more protections for cyclists.

“It makes me upset,” he said, referring to the lack of urgency he perceives around substantive improvements to Richmond’s bike infrastructure. “I wish they would do more.”

In the wake of this particular incident on Mosby St., nobody seems to have done much of anything. Newbille did not respond to Carlisle, nor to The Lookout’s request for comment. Robertson had suggested a meeting between him and somebody at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School to talk through ideas to keep cars out of the bike lane, but the idea fizzled, he said. (The school’s principal, Inett Dabney, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.) Despite Carlisle taking time out of his day to make his complaint at the First Precinct face-to-face, the RPD appears to have made no record of it. James Mercante, RPD’s director of public affairs, told The Lookout via email that the “takes roadway safety seriously,” and “issue[s] citations for parking infractions, including violations of parking in bike lanes.” (The city’s Department of Public Works also contracts a third-party vendor to issue what he described as “the majority” of citations.) At publication, Mercante was unable to confirm whether Killingsworth had received/read Carlisle’s email, or locate a report or a record of Carlisle’s visit to the precinct.

(FedEx, for its part, told him couldn’t identify the driver in question despite all the details he provided in a formal complaint to the company, which included the photo he took, plus date, time, location, etc. I’ve reached out to FedEx for comment and will update this story if/when the firm responds.)

What Carlisle wants Richmond’s leaders to do is the basic-but-important shit that turns cycling in a city from a life-and-death proposition into a transcendent, environmentally friendly transit option for work and play. RPD could station an officer on Mosby St. to direct traffic and issue tickets during pick-up and drop-off periods at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. City Council could prioritize more and faster funding for hard infrastructure—jersey barriers, curb bump-outs, etc.—that prevent FedEx vans from swerving into the bike lane on a whim, and adopt a sense of urgency around building out Richmond’s spotty bike-lane network throughout the city.

I should note here that the city recently hit 80 miles of bike lanes, which is good! But as Carlisle’s experience shows, all bike lanes are not created equal. “Sharrows” and paint/bollard-delineated lanes offer very little actual protection to cyclists compared to bike lanes separated from car traffic by a floating row of parked cars—or better still, hard permanent barriers.

“Paint doesn't mean protection,” Carlisle told The Lookout. “Plastic bollards that you can easily roll over could mean some protection, but when they're spaced out [as far as they are on that stretch of Mosby St.] they're not preventing or deterring anyone from parking in a bike lane or going into the bike lane.” Like me, he is encouraged by the Richmond DPW’s’ “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper” initiative, which recently installed street murals on that stretch of Mosby St. to complement its bollards, calling it “a good start.” Also like me, he believes those adjustments must be urgently followed by systemic and permanent infrastructure upgrades—which will require more attention and buy-in from community leaders than he’s been able to elicit thus far.

As an experienced cyclist, Carlisle is already back in the saddle after last month’s FedEx fiasco. “I'll continue biking, but without an actual dedicated, connected network of [protected] bike lanes, you'll have people who are a little more hesitant to bike, or choose not to bike at all,” he said. “And then that's another car on the road.”

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

⚖️ The Lookout Interview with Colette McEachin, Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney

Since mid-2019 by Colette McEachin has served as Richmond’s Commonwealth’s Attorney, the city’s top prosecutor. The one-time Church Hill precinct prosecutor is running for reelection this year, and faces a challenge in the Democratic primary on June 17th from trial attorney and Church Hill resident Tom Barbour, who previously lost the Democratic nomination to her in 2021.

“Richmond needs someone with perspective, with experience, with a depth of relationships that can be used to protect all of Richmond and to provide safety, second chances, and accountability,” McEachin told me in a phone interview earlier this month. “That’s the difference between me and Tom Barbour.”

That’s not the only difference, as you’ll see if you compare our conversation to the one I had with Barbour last month. McEachin and I spoke for more than 40 minutes about her perspective on the surge of violent crime Richmond saw in the first quarter of 2025, the use of Flock Safety cameras in our community, and what the Commonwealth’s Attorney can (and can’t) do if federal agents try to detain people in Richmond’s courthouse like they did last month in Charlottesville. Plus much more.

🎥 Stoney’s awkward ad location

As The Lookout reported, former mayor of Richmond Levar Stoney was out filming a series of campaign spots for his lieutenant-gubernatorial bid at Libby Hill two Thursdays ago. Above is a screenshot from one of those ads, which have since hit the airwaves in northern Virginia, Richmond, and Norfolk as part of a promotional push that cost “well into the six figures,” per his campaign’s comment to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. McAuliffe money printer go brrrrr, and all that. But take a closer look at that frame above, Lookouts. Does anything about it strike you a bit… awkward? Inappropriate, even?

As one eagle-eyed tipster pointed out, Stoney filmed the ad’s monologue on more or less the exact spot where the tree that fatally crushed DPW worker Derrick Christian in September 2023 once stood. That tree had been previously flagged for removal going back to 2015, but never was; the Department of Labor and Industry's Virginia Occupational Safety and Health later found the city had violated a handful of safety requirements leading to the tragedy, issuing a $15,000 fine. And don’t forget, Stoney’s administration also fought to withhold documents showing what the city knew and when, only fulfilling WTVR’s public-records request the night before the parties’ scheduled court date in November 2023. Having been at the helm for all that, you’d think the guy might choose a different place to preen. Stoney’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• Block party of the century: ChildSavers is celebratingn its 100th anniversary with a neighborhood get-together tomorrow (5/17) from 12-5pm over by its iconic building on N. 22nd & E. Grace Sts. Details here. 

• Sunday fun-day -evening: Union Market has live music from Gina Sobel on Sunday (5/18) from 6-8:45pm. The flyer is here. 

• Let’s CHA-cha: The Church Hill Association’s monthly membership meeting is Tuesday (5/20) in St. John’s Church’s parish hall. Social hour at 6:30pm, meeting at 7pm—and I’ll be speaking at it! See you there?

• Alewife is hiring: For the back of house! Send your resumes to [email protected].

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.