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Hampton Roads Transit misled Virginia Beach about the study to extend light rail to the resort area and to Norfolk Naval Station. The transit agency told city officials last year that they weren’t responsible for contributing to the $6.6 million cost.
The study, now under way, is supposed to identify and compare the benefits, costs and impact of light rail and its alternatives on the city and its neighborhoods. Beach leaders have said they can’t move forward with rail — or any transportation option — without seeing the results of the study.
But now HRT says some of the money for the study requires a local match. At a time Virginia Beach, like every local government, is struggling to find money to meet its budget, the city is being asked to write a $245,000 check to an agency that hasn’t accounted for the money it has spent.
It’s impossible for the City Council not to be angry. But members cannot allow this money to sabotage their long-term transportation strategy.
Phil Shucet, the new head of HRT, is roundly respected by government leaders and tax watch groups as a straight shooter and talented fiscal manager. Since taking over Feb. 1 — after cost overruns and secrecy led to CEO Michael Townes’ resignation — Shucet has been forthright about the agency’s problems and has acted quickly to fix them.
The match needed from Virginia Beach — 20 percent of a $1.2 million federal grant — represents 3.6 percent of the total cost of the study, which mostly concerns the Beach and is scheduled to be completed next year.
The money, while not insubstantial, is a small investment in a deeper understanding of the transportation and development options the city will face as it maps its future. Light rail is a key part, but just one part, of the integrated transportation system that will be necessary to get people to work, to colleges and hospitals, to the airport and military bases in the next quarter-century.
It also is critical to understand how those options would affect the city’s drive to redevelop the area along Virginia Beach Boulevard.
The city has wisely made much larger investments in that corridor. In a unanimous vote last year, the council agreed to spend $10 million to purchase the Norfolk-Southern right of way, a move that will give the city control over the straight east-west path from the Norfolk border to the Convention Center, blocks from the beach.
No matter what type of transportation goes there — rail, a dedicated transit lane or a bike path — the 10.6-mile-long property is an important piece of Virginia Beach’s future.
The other major investment last year, $5 million for the old Circuit City property by Town Center, also was a unanimous vote. The decision gives the city 3.3 acres by the railroad tracks on Independence Boulevard, enough room for a rail station and parking — or a transit center for buses.
So far, members of the City Council have made these politically tough decisions not by simply considering the needs of the next few months but by looking at the Beach’s needs years into the future. Our sprawling, aging suburb, so reliant on the automobile, will need alternatives to the car.
Opponents of light rail have seized this latest HRT request, for $245,000, as a way to kill the idea of rail in Virginia Beach. They shouldn’t be allowed to succeed.
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And what about...
What Pilot, no mention of the fact a study was performed already? And available online?
And I quote:
"http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/studies/files/SHREnvironmental-Task2.pdf"
"The use of existing or abandoned railroads throughout the HSR corridor is expected to avoid altering regional land use patterns. Land use development patterns are more likely to be influenced by the amount of land available for development or redevelopment; regional and local markets; and comprehensive land use and development plans and zoning ordinances of local governments."
Holy cow! A pilot read who actually can state, yes, there are one or more studies already performed... SO WHY PAY FOR ANOTHER... that would be "Plagiarism" something any news agency is very, very aware of.
W/R
Kirk
Crazy Idea
We have private investors looking to build bridges and highways and then charge a toll to users.
Let the private investors/developers, build LRT with THEIR money and then charge a toll/fare to the people who ride it.
How's that sound mr. developer? Willing to put YOUR money where your mouth is?
You really don't get it, do
You really don't get it, do you. The first and largest beneficiary of redevelopment of land in legacy uses, to new, multi use, high value uses, is the city government. They are first in line, they get paid whether the project is successful or not, and they can use this increase in tax revenue to reduce the tax rate. Now a private developer can risk their capital hoping that a proposed new use will be successful, but if it is not, they bear the consequences. So in these cases, when public improvements can lead to private investment, it is the public that benefits. One of the best examples is the "Atlantic Avenue Beautification Project" that was done back in the 1980's. Yes, the City paid for right of way improvements and putting the utilities underground, but the private investment that followed was extraordinary. The public reaps this benefit, and so may the private developer, but it is the developer who bears the risk.
uh huh
So I take it that's a no. Your willing risk taxpayer dollars but not your own.
money
Safety first Virginia Beach. Acquiring the light rail corrider will be expensive, redeveloping Virginia Beach Blvd. will be expensive, analyzing the buses and the bus traffic and relocating those buses to a reconfigured Euclid Road will be expensive. However building and operating a mag-lev gizmo means we have to try to make these accomodations.
HRT spends on a new Admin building & high salaries
Get real! HRT is spending what? $50M on a new building for its staff to have fancy new offices in? How much HRT need fancy new buildings when the abandoned Ford Plant is serving their needs just fine? HRT spends our tax money like a Political Action Committee - on lavish trips and memberships to APTA and other lobby organizations. HRT is top heavy with senior staffers like Jane Whintney - senior staffers and Public Relations staff. Surely HRT van find $250K toi trim from their budget? HRT needs to keep their commitments for funding the new light rail study. The days of going to the well to keep sticking it to the taxpayers are supposed to be over - right? Now that Mike Townes has been lavished with a Golden Parachut and Phil Shucet is hired at a cost of more than $300,000 a year! HRT is supposed to be a transit rpovider. Sell all those company CARS (Crown Victoriea") - that should go a long way to raising the funds HRT lacks. HRT executives should take their own buses to commute - and set a good example by walking the walking, not just talking the talk.
Not Again!
The Vice Chairman/Transportation Chairman of the extremist VBTA butchers the facts again:
1. On the planned new headquarters building:
a. the portion of the Ford Plant is on a short term lease and couldn't be purchased outright as such. In addition, only Operations (no Administration offices) is there.
b. the new building would replace a century-old streetcar facility and a former Cadillac dealership, both inadequate and outdated for their missions.
2. Reid and his VBTA attack HRT for lack of oversight...then he attacks hiring Staffers to do exactly that? (Say what?)
3. You couldn't simply trim the Budget and give money from the other six cities to a seventh (Virginia Beach).
4. The only permanently assigned company car was one that Michael Townes formerly had. No one else on Staff has one. (There are Supervisors' vans and a small pool that can be signed out for specific tasks.)
However (hold the phone!), Reid and I do agree on one mass transit point: HRT administrators don't ride their own bus system enough. I've been shocked at how ignorant some of them can be at times.
Highly paid HRT staffers provided what oversight?
Henry, my dear HRT shill - those highly paid HRT staffers sure did a great job providing oversight on the hundreds of millions of our tax dollars spent on a 7.4 mile low capacity light rail system in Norfolk, right? Not. Now we suddenly "discover" (Thanks the Phil's digging) that those same high paid HRT staffers, like Jane Whitney for example, apparently were not up to the task of actually doing their jobs, but instead blew the budget for the Norfolk light rail project by hiring outside consultants to keep track of the Tide. Phil Shucet wants another $250K from Beach taxpayers to pay for a study that HRT promised HRT would pay for; surely firing a few of the senior staffers at HRT that failed to keep track of the light rail project by outsourcing their responsibilities can save $250K from HRT's budget? Sell Mike Townes' taxpayer-funded CAR and add a new expensive PARKING FEE for all HRT employees that drive to work and park on HRT property and the $250K short fall for the study should be made up with money to spare. BTW I am glad to see that you and i agree that HRT staffers should ride the buses they operate.
Wrong Again, Reid
The reason HRT Staff didn't sound the alarm over the cost overruns earlier is that they were under specific orders from Townes not to do so. It wasn't them not doing their jobs, but fearing they'd lose their jobs. Shucet got things done as quick as he did because they knew exactly where it was all along, and we able to point it out to Phil right away.
You continue to make the same mistake: neither cuts nor a parking fee could be dedicated to a single city, but would have to go to all seven.
Hilarious that you want to attack HRT Staff for driving to work and the new HQ building at the same time. The biggest reason that administrative Staff cites for driving to work is having to make meetings at multiple locations (Monticello, Plume, and Victoria) in short time frames. They can't move between them by bus fast enough. Consolidating as much of administration as possible at the new facility would help negate that.
What will happen to the
What will happen to the street car facility? Seems like something that someone will demolish, although it sounds like a great historical piece. Then again I have not seen it.