Richmond's mayoral race has put Robert J. Grey Jr. in an unfamiliar seat.

The attorney with Hunton & Williams and former president of the American Bar Association has been riding city buses for the first time in 40 years while he makes his first bid for elective public office.

Grey, who last regularly rode a bus as a student at John Marshall High School, has been traveling GRTC Transit System routes that are proposed to be cut because of high fuel costs and low ridership.

The experience has bolstered his belief that the city should be expanding, not reducing, bus service in light of high gas prices. He called transit a critical link between residents and jobs and services.

For Grey, riding the bus and running for mayor are all about connections.

He said running for mayor is "an opportunity . . . to give back to this community, to be a person who could help build a connection for this community to communicate with each other, to work with each other, to live with each other.

"This part of me is part of what goes to the core of my being," he added. "And that is Oliver Hill, Sam Tucker, Spottswood Robinson, Henry Marsh, Doug Wilder, Lewis Powell, so many people, have worked very hard to make sure that the next generation would be in a position to provide leadership that would help strengthen and create harmony among the different groups, the races, the socio-economic categories of this city."

Grey grew up in North Side's Battery Park, a son of Robert J. and Barbara Grey. His mother was a longtime city school principal who later served on a commission set up by Wilder and retired U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., a former mayor of Richmond, to look at the switch to an elected mayor. Grey's late father was director of the Richmond Urban League and community-relations manager at A.H. Robins Co. Inc.

Grey said he'd thought about running for office before but had other priorities.

He jumped into the mayoral race after Wilder announced he would not seek a second term. Grey has been widely viewed as Wilder's chosen successor.

"I had told him that . . . a lot of people had been asking me to consider this," Grey said. "He said, 'It might be a good idea for you to do it, but it's your decision, and you need to think about it,' and I didn't ask for his support, and he didn't offer it."

It's questionable whether Wilder's coattails would help. Polls have suggested his popularity has fallen after clashes with the City Council and the attempt last fall to evict the school system from City Hall.

While he's promised to continue the change that Wilder started four years ago, Grey also has kept some distance. He's said he hasn't always agreed with Wilder's tactics and has promised to be a consensus-builder.

In late 2005, Wilder called on Grey to help salvage a downtown arts-center project that had stalled.

He led a yearlong, mostly private process to rework and scale back the project, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009 as Richmond CenterStage. While the center has its critics, Grey cites it as a model public-private partnership for the city.

Grey's campaign had raised $96,100 through mid-July, with some large donations from business leaders who backed Wilder four years ago.

Attorney Lawrence H. Framme III, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, has known Grey since law school at Washington and Lee University.

"He's got leadership capabilities, but he also exercises it in a way that is very bridge-building. Rather than meeting that objective through conflict, he leads by patiently bringing people around to his goal so they become invested in it," Framme said. "That's something that the city really needs right now."

If elected, Grey pledged to hold city staffers accountable and to make sure the city operates efficiently, as well as to offer a vision for the city and region. He also promised to involve people who haven't been part of city government.

As he's campaigned, Grey has been forced to defend being one of 26 business leaders who signed a letter last summer calling for a return to an appointed School Board as a way to improve schools. The idea was roundly criticized and dropped.

Grey said he accepts that the public wants an elected School Board and pledged to work with it and the next superintendent.

He called the letter "an expression of frustration and interest" -- frustration over the school system's problems and interest in solving them.

"That, to me, is how you discuss issues," he said. "That's how you raise the level of discussion, not just about that issue but about the problems that exist and then what do we do about it."
Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones@timesdispatch.com.