Norfolk city employees can ride The Tide for free

Posted to: News Norfolk Traffic - Transportation
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By Debbie Messina
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 14, 2011

NORFOLK

City employees are the latest group to get free rides on light rail, buses and ferries.

The city signed off on a deal Tuesday to pay Hampton Roads Transit up to $75,000 to cover rides from January to June for its approximately 6,000 employees. Employers with 5,000 or more workers can pay HRT $25 per employee to ride HRT services for free for a year.

Because the city subsidizes transit costs not covered by fares and state and federal funds, the city is basically paying itself or getting the deal for free.

Norfolk joins Tidewater Community College, Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk Southern Corp., Portfolio Recovery Associates and Glasser & Glasser as participants in HRT's GoPass 365 program. The program allows employers and educational institutions to pay a per-head fee that varies based on the number of workers or students.

Including city workers, nearly 70,000 people are covered in the program. In exchange, HRT collects nearly $500,000.

The City Council on Tuesday authorized up to $75,000 to cover the expense for the second half of the fiscal year.

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A 90% taxpayer subsidy isn't enough????

Submitted by Reid_Greenmun on Thu, 12/15/2011 at 6:57 pm.

Really ... A 90% taxpayer subsidy isn't enough to bribe peoploe to ride this SLOW 7.4 mile train wreck?????

Wow! When will HRT begin to PAY PEOPLE TO RIDE this slow 7.4 mile train???

Gotta inflate those ridership numbers anyway they can if HRT wants to have a shot at ripping off billions more in Federal transportation funds that should have been used to take care of the roads.

Light Rail.

Submitted by damewolf on Sat, 12/17/2011 at 12:03 pm.

I have used the light rail from end to end. There are some areas where it is slow, but all in all I have found it to be a good tool to get to and from some areas I frequent.

Spin

Submitted by arnative on Wed, 12/14/2011 at 8:00 pm.

The VP did a good job with this headline to attract readers by using the Tide. See, the deal if for all forms of transit run by HRT, but everyone seems to forget that fact as soon as they see that one word "Tide". Had the headline said, "City of Norfolk reaches transportation agreement for city employees" most people would have just skipped right on by. Judging by the comments here, it worked. A lot of posters seem to act like they are automatically adding all of the employees (and others with agreements) to the official numbers for the Tide, when in fact they may use the buses and/or the ferry and never set foot on the Tide. This is to encourage public transportation using a group discount, much like many firms do to attract new business.

Parking

Submitted by LadyC on Wed, 12/14/2011 at 6:08 pm.

Parking lots are expensive and ugly. If this incentive reduces parking demand than it saves Norfolk taxpayers (including me) money and provides a cool benefit for Norfolk employees.

2 ladyc about Parking

Submitted by lilpinkfeet on Wed, 12/14/2011 at 8:55 pm.

Norfolk taxpayers are not burdened with the cost of parking. Only those who use city parking facilities pay for parking. Parking is very reasonably priced. Taxpayers will pay for employees to park downtown and taxpayers will pay for employees to ride HRT.