Colleges, Norfolk Southern paying lump sums for HRT rides

NORFOLK

Students and faculty at Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University and Eastern Virginia Medical School will be able to ride light rail, buses and ferries for free. So can Norfolk Southern Corp. employees.

Hampton Roads Transit leaders are making deals around town: Pay us a lump sum and your people don't pay.

So far, 33,000 qualify for the freebies.

HRT has ample room for them - about 80 percent of seats on buses are empty. And with The Tide's light-rail launch on Aug. 19, there have never been more options for mass transit in Hampton Roads.

To Philip Shucet, HRT president and CEO, the transit agency can't lose: Carrying more passengers doesn't cost anything extra.

"Anything we do to put one more person in an empty seat is good for the region, in my opinion," Shucet said. "Our service is more efficient, we're taking cars off the road and we're transporting more customers.

"And we're getting some money - though it's certainly not the high point of the deal."

HRT is charging educational institutions $6.50 per head for students, faculty and employees for one year of free rides. For businesses of 500 employees or more, it's $75 a head. HRT is still working on numbers for smaller employers.

So far, contracts have been signed with the three schools and with Norfolk Southern. HRT is talking to others, including Tidewater Community College.

Combined, the four are paying HRT $251,000 for a year.

"We thought it was a great idea," said John Rathbone, Norfolk Southern executive vice president. "It will provide some flexibility for our employees and their ability to get around. We have several hundred employees downtown who face traffic congestion, so this gives them one more option."

"We saw it first and foremost as improving our accessibility," Regina V.K. Williams, an NSU interim vice president, said, "but it also increases our opportunity to be out in the community as well."

Williams, a former Norfolk city manager, said with two light-rail stations next to campus, students will have better access to internships and jobs. The program also helps reduce the need for parking, which Williams said NSU has been challenged to provide.

ODU already pays for its students to ride on HRT buses, but this program is broader.

"We've always had a very good partnership with HRT," ODU spokeswoman Jennifer Mullen said. "We're pleased with the opportunity they brought to us, and likewise, with what we can do to help them."

For now, riders covered under these contracts just need to show their school or work ID to board. Eventually, HRT hopes to adjust fare boxes so that they read the identifications.

"Right now, we have all supply, which is not good from an economic point of view," Shucet said. "We want to create some demand. If the problem we end up facing is that our system is jammed, that's a problem I'm willing to have."

Currently, about 32,000 people take about 54,000 trips a day on HRT's buses and ferries. Light rail is projected to carry 2,900 riders a day in the first year.

The latest census shows that about 1 percent of Hampton Roads residents ride transit. Shucet figures that means HRT can expect that out of the 33,000 who can ride for free, an extra 330 will ride on any given day.

"We're hoping for more," he said.

If only 1 to 1.5 percent of the 33,000 ride each day, HRT will make a little money on the deal.

"If more people ride, we're increasing ridership on public transportation at no additional cost," Shucet said. "If we're wildly successful, then the rates go up when we re-up the contracts.

"The revenue here is not unimportant to me. But these deals are about exposing a larger population to public transportation in a way that the individual rider is not concerned about the cost."

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com