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Banking on positive feedback about The Tide and heavy voter turnout in the November election, some Virginia Beach leaders are suggesting that the city place light rail on the ballot.
As much as it makes sense to use this election to gauge public support for bringing light rail to Virginia Beach - the Nov. 6 election will draw more voters than any in the next four years - it's a bad idea.
The long-awaited feasibility study, delayed while researchers gather data on The Tide's ridership numbers in Norfolk, will not be finished until mid-2013. It will evaluate the rail extension from Newtown Road, as well as alternatives to rail. It will provide estimates on light rail's cost, number of riders, placement of stations and the effect of the system on neighborhoods and the environment.
In short, the study will provide specifics vital to a decision on extending rail to Town Center or to the Oceanfront.
Opponents have long pushed for a referendum, saying Virginia Beach shouldn't spend another penny preparing for light rail until voters have approved it. When public support for Norfolk's line dwindled in 2009 as evidence of mismanagement at Hampton Roads Transit mounted, opponents clamored to put the issue to Beach voters immediately.
Now that public support for The Tide is rising, and ridership numbers are far higher than expected, those same people are urging a delay until the study is complete. Their intellectual flexibility and attempts to game the public's mood haven't gone unnoticed.
The city is in a bit of a quandary: The study is critical to attract federal funding for light rail, but if Virginia Beach waits for the study, federal money may have gone elsewhere.
Still, it's pointless to ask citizens to decide on light rail - a system that wouldn't begin for at least eight years - without knowing the details.
Once the facts are out, if Virginia Beach's leaders support moving forward, they must publicly make the case for it. If city leaders don't support light rail, they need to find other solutions to the city's traffic problems and convince citizens of the urgency in solving them.
If the council is going to ask for a referendum - and this page has argued that Virginia Beach elects its leaders to decide the city's direction and its spending priorities - it should be about getting the best information to the public and engaging them.
Nearly a dozen years ago, the council abdicated its responsibility and put light rail to voters with no recommendations and too little information.
That should not happen again.
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VBTA position
Our position is:
1. This is an expensive tax matter that requires a referendum to pass prior to Council voting on the matter.
2. The next referendum should not be held until after the current study is completed, submitted to the FTA, and the public has sufficient time to study the study, debate its findings and the pros and cons of light rail, and we are prepared to vote on the question.
Clearly Mayor Sessom's recent tactic to rush this issue to a referendum BEFORE the study is completed, available, reviewed, and vetted is premature and unwise.
There is no hurry to jump on board this expensive proposal.
As it stands right now, the citizens of Virginia Beach have already voted to reject light rail. That vote should be respected.
Still, times have changed since 1999. The VBTA supports a new referendum to ask Beach taxpayers if they are willing to assume this new expense and pay for it.
So
The same people who were out collecting signatures in 2010 trying to force a referendum then now suddenly believe a referendum prior to the SDEIS coming back would be premature? The same people who demanded a referendum prior to another cent being spent now suddenly want tens of thousands of dollars spent to complete the SDEIS?
The V-P notes their "intellectual flexibility". That's a polite way of calling them two-faced hypocrites.
Since the suspension of the study, I've noted a referendum shouldn't be held until after we have a LPA, which would be no earlier than 2014. (Most recently, on Bearing Drift.) However, the extremist VBTA needs to be called on their utter dishonesty on this issue. Ironically, the extremist VBTA makes The V-P Editorial Board's case on not putting LRT to referendum: if you think they're dishonest now, imagine the lies they'd tell during a referendum campaign.
More lies from HRT employee & light rail shill
HRT employee Henry Ryto has a long history of making nasty false statements about those standing in the way of his quest for light rail. Once again he tells another lie about the VBTA. His latest lie is ironic because he is telling a lie when he implies that the VBTA is "dishonest now" and he "imagines" the VBTA will tell "lies" in the future. The VBTA is not dishonest. For light rail activists guys like Henry Ryto, it is the honesty of the VBTA when exposing the truth about light rail that makes them so worried. Their “campaign” for light rail has been exposed by the VBTA for its many deceptions.
Henry wrote about the VBTA: "if you think they're dishonest now, imagine the lies they'd tell during a referendum campaign."
A great many lies have been told about Tidewater's latest light rail line, but not by the VBTA. They were told by HRT. That is a fact. HRT engaged in a institutionalized pattern of lies when they kept two sets of books and reported false financial information to their all-appointed governing body - and to the public.
What is really laughable about Henry's latest false attack on the VBTA is that he agrees with our position! Henry asks readers to “imagine” a referendum campaign. Who would “imagine" that Henry Ryto, the Pilot editors, and the VBTA would all agree that the next referendum should not be held until the study is completed and voters have had adequate time to review the study's findings?
Bus Rapid Transit is Better than Rail (BRT is BTR)
I urge the city to post a referendum question that would state, “Will you support the recommendations of the Virginia Beach Transit Extension Study (VBTES) and Alternatives Analysis (AA) for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).” I predict our $6.6 million feasibilitystudy will ring in with a BRT system that is better, faster, and significantly less expensive to build and operate. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) facts - screens announcing arrival time, pre-pay kiosks, stations protecting waiting riders, platform boarding, in-bus wide screen TV, sliding doors for quick access, clean natural gas vehicles, 100% right-of-way green light switching, smooth ride tires, non-lurch feature, system much less costly to expand or change roots, and best of all - ten minute pickup times (five minutes during rush hour). If interested I have collected facts and figures @ http://1bob1.blogspot.com/2008/05/brt.html
Perplexed and disappointed
Once again your editorial leaves me perplexed. Frankly, again, you state all the reasons why we should go forward, but then back away. If you truly believe the voters should speak and advise, but that Council is the decider on the specifics, there is not one good reason why the vote should not be held. After all, a vote this November will show whether the citizens want light rail or not, and Council will finally have the view of the majority of our citizens. We have failed to move forward on the basis of a referendum that was decided with far less facts and experience than we have now, so what is to be lost? We know the cost will be plus or minus $60 per mile, we already own the ROW, we don't have 400 years of past use like Norfolk did so surprises should be kept to a minimum, the route is flat, cleared, intersections are already there, and we have ridership numbers not just estimates, and Newtown is the biggest stop in terms of usage. Frankly, we voters are smarter than you give us credit for. A vote in November is imperative to see if their really is as much support for light rail as the polls have consistently said. The opposition is well organized, but now there are organized support groups as well. Frankly, bring it on, and I'm very disappointed at failure to see the big picture.
The world accoring to Mike
Lord Runneymede pronounces: "If you truly believe the voters should speak and advise, but that Council is the decider on the specifics, there is not one good reason why the vote should not be held.
(1) Mike, Council works for us, not the other way around.
(2) In the United States government was created with the understanding that government can only perform with the consent of the governed. The governed already vote on the matter of light rail. They said "no".
(3) You state there is "not one good reason why the vote should not be held". You're right, their are MANY good reasons why the referendum should not be held this November. One good reason being the light rail study is not done and critical information is not available to make an informed decision.