VIRGINIA BEACH
If you’ve ever wondered what’s “light” about light rail, the city’s Web site has the answer, and more.
Comments stemming from a September forum on light rail are posted on www.vbgov.com, under the heading, “Hot Topics.”
Some of the remarks logged at the forum have no answers. “Cities need to work together to achieve regional goals,” one of the 100 who attended September’s session observed. “Ride the Tide all the way to the beach!” another said.
And: “There will be a lot of opposition to this if there is no referendum.”
There was, in fact, a lot of opposition in 1999 with a referendum. Fifty-five percent of voters rebuffed it. The city hasn’t said whether light rail, which is under construction in Norfolk, would be put to a referendum again.
In September, officials said they’d find answers to questions posed by citizens, but many answers have been deferred. Those issues will be addressed in an upcoming Environmental Impact Statement, including issues that seemingly have little to do with environmental impact.
The deferred questions include: How can LRT be funded? When would LRT be constructed in Virginia Beach? How long will it take?
“You might want to call it an 'Environmental and Feasibility Study,’” said Mark Schnaufer, the city’s transportation planning coordinator. “We’re looking at both the impact to the natural environmental, and also at the budgetary impact on the community.”
Schnaufer said the study, which will be done by a consultant, should begin in early 2009 and take about six months. He said the next public forum will come after the report is released.
“This study might come out and it might be unfeasible to do it,” he said.
The two biggest obstacles, he said: Location and money.
“We have a luxury many cities don’t have, a corridor that runs border to border, east to west,” said Schnaufer, referring to the abandoned Norfolk Southern rail line. The transportation company hasn’t sold the right of way to the city.
Schnaufer said the Web site will be used to post updates on light rail, including the environmental study.
Regarding the light vs. heavy rail question: Light rail systems are above ground, sometimes on the street, using electric vehicles with smaller capacity. Heavy rail systems are on dedicated right of ways, often sharing freight rail tracks.
John Warren, (757) 222-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com
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To Urbanbackwater: Congradulations! You have discovered that not one lightrail project breaks even in cost...Now take an economics class and find out why! Because it's purpose is not to turn a profit! It's monetary payoff is seen something called Transit Oriented Development(TOD) which increases real estate values surrounding stations. SEE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development
This is a concept that takes forsight...LRT is not a form of welfare, its a way to economically/logistically diversify a city. Creating a economy free to develop with half the initial construction and planning cost necessary when you have to provide parking for your labor force.
Maryland's Light Rail Ridership Numbers
To Habaka,
I couldn't find this earlier when I wrote my other post, but have since found the numbers. An average of 30,000 people ride the light rail every day in Baltimore, more than half of them using stations on the northern end of the line.
So there is no way that those trains are empty if 15,000+ people board north of Baltimore everyday.
Light Rail not a Mistake and it does not - crime
To Habaka,
I’ve been on Baltimore’s light rail and not during a baseball game, and the thing was packed. In fact I had to let one train go by and board the second one last March, and it wasn’t during rush hour either, it was around 2:00 PM. And I rode that train out to Hunt Valley and back. There were at least 40 people still on the train near the end of the run, and probably 20 to 30 had boarded by the time got back to Timonium. And my experiences have been similar every time I’ve ever been on the light rail.
As for the bit about crime, I’m not going to argue that crime might not be up in your area. I don’t know the numbers and I’m not going to go looking for the numbers. But one thing I can tell you for sure is that crime isn’t up because of the light rail. No criminal takes a train to commit a crime, unless that crime is going to occur on the train itself. Criminals want a fast getaway after they commit their crime, they don’t want to be standing around at the station waiting for their “getaway” train.
This is true even in NYC, where the only criminals found on the subway are those committing crimes within the subway system itself. No one
No Virginia Beach may not be
No Virginia Beach may not be NY/NJ and places like that in the north. But Virginia Beach does have a population of over 435,000 people. Salt Lake City Utah, where they love their cars every bit as much if not more, has a population of just over 178,000 people. Yet Salt Lake City (SLC) already has several light rail lines and one commuter rail line in daily operation. And they can't build new lines fast enough.
They are currently either building or about to start building 4 new light rail lines. They just ordered over $270 Million dollars in new light rail cars, with an option for another $432 Million dollars worth of light rail cars. They have also broken ground on an extension to the current commuter rail line, and are drawing up plans to further expand commuter rail.
Now whether or not the line is being built in the right place might be a subject for debate, but one thing that cannot be debated is that light rail is a success where ever it is built, even in cities with smaller populations.
As for empty buses, I also can't debate that as I haven't researched the numbers. But light rail isn't a bus. In all cases where a light rail line was built that replaced a par
Light Rail = BIG MISTAKE
I live North of Baltimore and we had Light Rail shoved down our throats about 8 years ago despite the objections of people in this area. It runs North-South from below Baltimore through the city and up to here, roughly the same distance as from Norfolk to VAB oceanfront. This train has been a HUGE waste of money. The ridership is very low except for baseball games. As we predicted, crime has greatly increased all along the route, with the worst criminal element coming up from the city and robbing and assaulting citizens in formerly very safe areas. Even the extra police patrols haven't helped. The at-grade crossings tie up traffic worse than ever during rush hour even though we were promised that the trains would be timed for "minimal" disruptions. The crossing gates themselves frequently break in the down position, making the problem even worse. For VA Beach to even consider connecting to Norfolk with Light Rail is INSANE! Don't you have enough gang problems at the Oceanfront already? Do you wan't to provide a cheap easy route for the criminal element to get to the oceanfront. Do you have that much extra money to waste? Wise up and check the experiences of other similar mistakes s
The Fact Of The Matter
Contrary to Suzan's comment, HRT Route 20 (Virginia Beach Blvd.) carries 1.1 million passengers per year. In Virginia Beach, Routes 25, 29, and 36 also do well. The big problem is the lack of service on the outlying routes in the evenings.
In Dallas, DART got cowboys out of their pickup trucks. Light rail can work here, too, with a well-drawn plan.
...and to all you LRT foamers...
There is not one LRT system ANYWHERE in the WORLD that turns a profit...such systems are just accepted as a form of society welfare as they eat tons of money. The NYC subway breaks even, which is rail rapid transit, not light rail. Even if folks love their LRT, its still a money pit, and I can't help it that they have too much money in their pockets. If I want to ride the train everywhere with strangers instead of my warm, fast car, then I'd just move north of Fredericksburg, and call it a day.
It won't work here in Hampton Roads
Last time I checked, its Va Beach VA, not Va Beach NJ/NY/MD/CT. Va Beach is not the "progressive" "new" south. We are still a sleepy backwater where the old southern ways will always persist, including independent mobility via the automobile. Rail transit is a foreign language to folks here - they don't speak, and won't learn. If there is ridership, it will be just for the novelty of that its a train...funny if something runs on rails and has cars stop for it behind crossbucks, folks then foam over it, such as in Charlotte where LRT is totally unnecessary, but has high ridership despite Charlotte having no traffic, a ghost town compared to the great cities of the Northeast in "Yankee" country. I say "Yankee" because I got family from NJ that constantly put down this area because it has no railed transit. I say its because we spend our money on better things, cause its not in our blood, and they say that HR needs light rail right this second, cost be damned, because you "backward Rebels" here are still living in the plantation era. I say $500M to go 10 miles?, and they say "so what, that's cheap." Moral of story: beauty (acceptablity of the pricetag) is in the eye of the beho
To Those Opposed To Rail
Will you support tolls on I-264 and the tunnels? Without public transportation, demand on our existing infrastructure will continue to increase. I think you'll agree our local highways are already in need of repair, expansion and upgrades. It will only get worse without a light rail or similar solution.
Gas prices are down now, but still volatile. Will your opinion change when gas returns to $4/gallon? $6/gallon? $10/gallon?
I have to ditto Suzanne. A
I have to ditto Suzanne. A waste of money, it will go over budget, it won't pay for itself, and HRT will get rich off of it.
No thanks.
Light Rail
In light of the 81 million dollar shortfall in the budget, don't you think it would be a sensible idea to put the light rail idea on the back burner??? If you look at how few are riding the buses currently on Virginia Beach Blvd, (generally the same route at the light rail) it makes absolutely NO sense to waste time, money or anything else on such a worthless project. The general population in Virginia Beach do not live and/or work on that corrider. And to think that visitors to the beach are going to travel to downtown Norfolk that is just being unrealistic.
I strongly feel that the first cuts need to be made in the upper management tiers where we aren't getting our moneys' worth.