The Tide's momentum reaches the Beach

Maybe the people who came to a community forum last week got through to the Virginia Beach City Council on the importance of light rail to the city's future.

Maybe Councilman Ron Villanueva hit home when he said city leaders need more political will to make controversial decisions on development. Whatever the reasons, on Saturday, after two days of consensus- building, the council summoned up enthusiasm for putting a light rail line along the city's midsection.

It agreed that a top priority for the next year will be extending Norfolk's starter line, which will end at Newtown Road. The council now is on record favoring its extension to the Oceanfront, as well as to Old Dominion University and the Norfolk Naval Station. It's not a formal, official vote, but it's the next best thing, expressing the sense of the council. This is a positive change for a city whose prosperity has been fueled for the last four decades by cheap land and gas. It gives the city staff a green light to move aggressively into a planning stage that could last for years.

Since voters rejected light rail in 1999, council members have been squeamish to endorse The Tide as a transportation priority. They consistently hedged on what would be built on the Norfolk Southern right of way, assuming the city bought it. A commuter rail was certainly a possibility, but maybe a bike path would be better, they said, or perhaps a more developed bus system.

On Saturday, Councilman Jim Wood cut through the weeds and said what has needed to be said for years. Light rail or mass transit, "we can call it whatever we want," he said, "but we've got something that stops at Newtown Road, and it doesn't make sense to start something else."

But recognizing the obvious and overcoming the obstacles for getting The Tide from Newtown Road past Town Center to the Convention Center will require a commitment that must endure years of controversy and political ups and downs.

n Money. Virginia Beach and Norfolk Southern "continue to be a long way apart" on the cost of the right of way, City Attorney Les Lilley said. An environmental impact statement, which will address ridership, costs, subsidies and alternative transportation methods, will cost $2 million. Construction of the 11-mile route will cost hundreds of millions and require tens of millions from the state and federal governments.

n Legal issues. The city can't condemn the property until Norfolk Southern has abandoned the right of way, and that can't happen as long as the courts are still deciding ownership of a critical piece of it.

n Politics. As popular and as inevitable as light rail has become, significant pockets of opposition remain. Rather than shut down the skeptics, the council must start answering them and laying out the case for the kind of new transportation and redevelopment policies that will be needed to sustain the city's prosperity across the next four decades.

Now, the job is to get citizens on board. A good opportunity presents itself on Sept. 16 at the Convention Center. The council and Hampton Roads Transit host a town hall-type meeting on the future of transportation in Virginia Beach. It provides the council a splendid opportunity to start making the case.