VDOT seeks bids for new Midtown Tunnel, road upgrades

Not sure, because I may have misread, but didn't the courts determine the HRTA to be N/A? As in can't do anything because it is illegal? So Reid, no matter what was on the books or proposed or worked out before or illegally given by the state, there is no HRTA to deal with.

Reid, along with the rest of the VBTA, doesn't give a rat's you-know-where about transit (if it were up to Reid, there wouldn't even be the HRBT - not even the old ferry). So true about the Norfolk end of the tunnel is right next door to the future Medical Center Tide Station. One of the proposed extensions is to the Naval Base via ODU. If this were built, I would lobby for a "stub junction" built so that when (Reid: that's "when", not "if") The Tide is extended through the Midtown to Portsmouth, no need to disrupt the existing line as there's a junction already built ready to accept the extension.

Uhhh, Reid, you wrote, "There is no Light Rail funded or approved on either side of the Midtown Tunnel."

By golly, every time I've ever driven through the Midtown Tunnel from west to east, I have arrived in Norfolk, immediately adjacent to Norfolk General, no less. Hmm, isn't that exactly where the western terminus of the Tide starter line is going to be located? What, all of a mile from the actual mouth of the tunnel? Seems you got that one wrong, eh?

It's a pity that the most vocal activist leaders of this area cannot learn from our regions past failures to plan for the future instead of just solving for today. With fuel costs rising at record rates, the appeal for mass transit grows, and costs for construction now will be significantly less than waiting another 10 years before, like now, people look back and say "We should have done that 10 years ago."

The Federal government prohibits using revenues generated from existing mass transit to cover construction costs of new light rail. It's not what Henry wants; it's what the Federal government requires.

As for the Midtown Tunnel, you're simply wrong. Go read the Portsmouth City Council Resolution: it's light rail accomodations through the second tube, not a third tube.

Then for VBTAers, the law means nothing while Robert Dean's dictates mean everything.

Well, there you have it. The anti-tax wingnuts don't want any part of doing anything to relieve congestion anywhere. Folk, if it were up to people like Reid, we'd still be taking the ferry between Willoughby and Hampton (oh, wait, there wouldn't even be a ferry - guess it's a loop to Scotland for that ferry and back (no James River Bridge either), just to get from say Norfolk to Hampton). Think about it.

Reid: before I gave up driving, I would use the Midtown to get from West Ghent to Churchland all the time - and no I have no connections to the Ports

Reid believes the port is the main beneficiary of another midtown tunnel. I use the midtown tunnel daily. The main cause of the traffic jams in the morning and afternoon are the thousands of commuters, not trucks.

Tolls look like the only feasible alternative to build the new tunnel. Not including room for rail is short sighted. The argument that mass transit does not pay for itself is not a good argument. I hope that everyone realizes that roads to not pay for themselves either (unless they are toll roads). Our tax dollars pay for all of this.

1. So Henry, you don't want transit riders to cover the costs of their transit projects? I see. 2. Henry, the law prohibits tolling a roadway of tunnel if you do not make improvements to it, HB 3202 is a lame attempt to work around that law by magically claiming two tunnels many miles apart, built 10 years apart, are "one tunnel". 3. The cost of adding one underwater tube with two lanes to the Midtown Tunnel is a minimum of $500M and can cost upwards of $1.0B. To accomodate Light Rail we aren't discussing making the new tube for cars wider, we are discussing adding more tubes for Light Rail. The city is not going to take away the new lanes for cars and trucks to replace it with Light Rail later.

Reid states that the port would be the main beneficiary of a second midtown tunnel. I use the midtown tunnel daily. Although trucks do use the tunnel, the massive traffic jams in the morning and afternoon are due to thousands of cars, not trucks.

Its funny how people bash mass transit because it doesn't pay for itself. How many roads are paying for themselves? Our taxes pay for both of them. Drivers and mass transit riders would both benefit from a second midtown tunnel and the future expansion of rail into Portsmouth/Suffolk.

Heavy rail needs a more gradual slope. Light rail can do the same slope as a common vehicle tunnel.

Adding light rail to a tunnel system requires a great deal more than simply making it wider. Rail needs a longer, more gradual slope than auto traffic, which would require obtaining a great deal of expensive urban real estate in addition to a lot more length in the tunnel itself.

The same amount spent on more lanes for the Mid and Downtown tunnels would do a great deal more to relieve congestion and even allow for bus traffic which does not need the extended grade.

If drivers are going to have to pay for the improvements, they should also benefit from them, and driving alongside mostly empty trains does not help them much.

Federal law prohibits hiking fares on exisiting mass transit to pay for the construction of new light rail lines.

For all of Reid's anti-light rail rants, it's telling that he's never read Norfolk's FFGA. There's a clause in the FFGA that specfically prohibits what he wants to do.

Then, facts and the VBTA are mutually exclusive.

First Reid notes that the law makes the Downtown and Midtown one facility for tolling. He then labels following the law a "a feeble attempt to work around the law." Say what?!?

He then claims light rail capacity in the Midtown Tunnel would cost "hundreds of millions of dollars". No, you'd simply have to build 18 feet or so wider for the rail line.

What would cost "hundreds of millions of dollars" is to follow Reid's line, which would require us to go back and build a third tube later for light rail. You can add such capacity infinitely cheaper by simply building the second tube wider.

First off, you know that I know that HB 3202 attempts to make the Midtown Tunnel and the Downtown tunnel "one tunnel", but face it, they are not one tunnel and that is feeble attempt to work around the law about tolling a roadway without making any improvements to it. Secondly, I realize that you support Light Rail and buses because you don't drive, but adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of more lanes in the Midtown tunnel for "light rail" that doesn't exist is another example of wasteful spending thrown into our transportation plans that needlessly drives up the costs. There is no Light Rail funded or approved on either side of the Midtown Tunnel. This is a back door attempt to force taxpayers to keep wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on low volume Light Rail that doesn't reduce commuter traffic congestion. If bus riders like you want Light Rail, then let's raise the fare on buses to pay for it, not change drivers for something they cannot use.

The Transportation Chairman of the Virginia Beach Taxpayers Alliance (VBTA) gets looney and disingenous with us again.

First, under Virginia law the Midtown and Downtown Tunnels are considered one facility for tolling. (He's the Transportation Chair and doesn't know that?!?) You can't legally toll one without tolling the other.

Second, to wait for a light rail line to be approved before working on tunnel capacity would at least quadruple construction time. (Then, he probably knows that, but just wants to kill LRT.) Since the Midtown is to be expanded anyway, best to do everything in one package.

"BTW - why waste the hundreds of millions to pay for tubes for Light Rail when there isn't any approved or funded Light Rail to connect to the tunnel?"

^^^So whatever happened to planning for the future? It is exactly this type of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. So your idea is to build the tunnel without rail capability, and then years later when we decide we need it (and we will) build another tube just for rail? That's what is going to have to happen if rail capability is not included with this tunnel, and the added cost would be staggering. It is far cheaper to do it this way. So long as we continue to just react to our transportation problems, instead of planning for them, we will always be a step behind.

Reid, the article explicitly states in the first paragraph that there will be improvements at the downtown tunnel as well. I imagine that the tolls at the DT tunnel will be for improvements to that particular tunnel. Same with the tolls collected at the midtown. At least no public funds (read taxes) are being used.

Whoever thought two streams of traffic crossing each other on the metal grating of a bridge was a good idea should be thrown off the bridge.

I264 traffic exiting the tunnel should have passed under I464 and entered from the right with only Norfolk traffic using the current ramp. That relatively cheap fix would eliminate the back-to-Poindexter backup every morning and let traffic exit the tunnel at higher speed as well.

Prior planning prevents... well, you know the rest.

So the plan is to toll the Downtown Tunnel to pay for the Midtown Tunnel - yet offer no improvements to the Downtown Tunnel? Gee ... that does not seem right. Isn't the PORT the main beneficiary of this project? What is the PORT going to pay?

If this project is being built by VDOT using a toll, then why isn't it taken out of HB 3202 and the Governor's plan?

BTW - why waste the hundreds of millions to pay for tubes for Light Rail when there isn't any approved or funded Light Rail to connect to the tunnel?

Since the state gave the HRTA the power to toll all of the tunnels in our region - with the power given to the HRTA - and that bill is still law (in HB 3202), how can VDOT do this?

Doesn't the HRTA need to vote to approve this? By law (HB 3202)?

Or .. did the state give the HRTA power it could not give in reragrd to tolls?