Del. Bob Tata is on the right track but headed in the wrong direction with his legislation to extend light rail nearly to the Oceanfront in Virginia Beach.
The bill, introduced in this week's special session on transportation and on a fast track in the House, would create a public-private partnership to build the line along the Norfolk Southern right of way. The move surprised Virginia Beach leaders as well as the president of Hampton Roads Transit, two groups that have been negotiating for years to buy the land.
Good for Tata for seeing the need to get going. Every plan for Virginia Beach's future relies on light rail linking the Oceanfront with downtown Norfolk, yet the city still doesn't own the right of way.
Tata nurtures only a faint hope that his bill will pass, and it shouldn't. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
The bill does not identify a way to pay for the rail, other than suggesting the state could partner with private industry.
Setting up a process that has private companies competing for the contract - but shutting city and HRT leaders out - is bad public policy. So although Tata's focus is well-placed, his solution - any solution - needs buy-in from the City Council and HRT.
Citizens burning $4 a gallon gas never have been more supportive. So if the intent of Tata's bill is to spur Virginia Beach to pick up the pace on its light-rail time line and lead the community toward a commuting solution, he's done his job.
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Light Rail Is the Future
Light Rail, for all of you who say it will not work, has proven itself time and time again. Recently Charlotte, NC system opened to a lot of the same arguments all of you have been presenting. However, the system has operated with loads exceeding what was predicted, and people in the city have come to love it. The only way to operate rail is with the help of the government, as can be evidenced world wide. In England where train service was turned over to private industry, it has become nothing but a disaster, where as in most European nations, as well in all cities in the United States that have rail transit, rail transit is operated by government agencies to great success, perhaps those of you who moan about the tax burden should look at the tax burden placed on you for road construction, which is far higher, and mainly benefits private industry (through the operation of long haul trucks) and yet cre
It's about the traffic
It's about getting people out away from driving their cars and using another form of transportation - like light rail. Light rail stands a better chance of accomplishing something and getting built and operational long before the squatters in Richmond get around to figuring out a way to pay for new road improvements in the state.
Private sector should provide passenger rail, not taxpayers.
First off, passenger rail service should be a private enterprise, not taxpayer subsidized service. The Pilot editorial gets it wrong when it asserts that government (HRT), especially unelected regional government, must be the only transit provider. Secondly, the low capacity Light Rail proposed by HRT and rejected at the ballot box by Beach voters in 1999 is far too expensive and does nothing noticible to reduce traffic congestion. Anyone that studied this issue knows this NS ROW LRT is really about more DEVELOPMENT, not about traffic congestion relief. Del. Tata is right to solicit private investors and a private firm to risk their capital, thus avoiding the Liberal-Socialist SOP to stick taxpayers with the bill. The Liberal-Socialist Pilot gets it completely wrong - again. Lastly, since voters rejected this same LRT plan in 1999, a new referendum should be conducted to ask Beach taxpayers if they now want to "partner" in a Public-Private Partnership to bring LRT into our city.