Virginia Beach touts light rail amid new economic realities

VIRGINIA BEACH

The city has a recent record of successes with second-go-rounds on unpopular projects.

When traffic engineers first pitched red-light-running cameras in the 1990s, the initiative was a failure with residents . Several years later, the City Council approved the measure, with little reaction.

Nine years ago, 55 percent of voters turned down a referendum for light rail in the Beach. Now the light-rail proposal is back. This time, city administrators aren’t banking on a new approach but a change in circumstances – the sagging economy, the price of gasoline and the growth of Town Center.

“These are legitimate reasons to have a linear transit system that goes up the spine of the city,” said City Councilman John Uhrin, one of two council members on the Hampton Roads Transit board.

Uhrin said polls by council candidates during the current election cycle have found overwhelming support for the project.

“There are so many families with only one car, children driving cars, living in rural areas,” Beach resident Eileen Teator said. “We need to develop a convenient mass-transit system.”

Teator was among about 80 people who attended a light-rail workshop Tuesday at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.

The workshop featured a video presentation on the proposed 11-mile Beach expansion onto Norfolk’s “Tide” project, a $232.1 million, 7.4-mile starter line that should be running in 2010.

At the session, Beach resident Eric Westhoff called himself “the anti-Tide guy.”

“I’m willing to pay more for something that really works,” said Westhoff, a 37-year-old father of two.

“With the city saying they don’t have enough money and Gov. Kaine saying we can’t meet our budget, where will this money come from?”

Westhoff said he fears the rail line will prove a drain on taxpayers similar to the St. Louis MetroLink. That city’s transit agency sued contractors for cost overruns and lost, then lost a countersuit.

Hampton Roads Transit Vice President Jayne Whitney said no cost estimates for the Beach line are being floated yet. First comes engineering and the permitting process.

“Having the experience from the Norfolk project will be helpful,” Whitney said. “It won’t be the first time we’ve done this.”

Uhrin deferred the question of whether light rail will come to a voter referendum again.

“I’d hold off until there are enough facts out there,” he said.

On Tuesday, Beach resident Kelli Stamm said a large group of her co-workers left Virginia Beach after work for downtown Norfolk, then returned to the Beach again.

“That’s 12 people who would have used light rail tonight,” she said.

John Warren, (757) 222-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com