Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 13, 1994 TAG: 9407220063
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Harvey and Musser suggest Mayor David Bowers is dreaming if he thinks the city's railway heritage could ever be parlayed into a major tourism attraction.
Referring to the mayor's proposal for a railside linear park linking the historic City Market with an enhanced Virginia Museum of Transportation, Harvey says: "I kind of raise an eyebrow whenever I hear David propose something new because I haven't seen much that he's proposed come to light yet."
Right. It ought to be an impeachable offense. The mayor's been in office two years and 13 days, and Roanoke is still Roanoke.
Says Musser: "I've had a number of people tell me that trying to bring tourism into Roanoke is a joke, that it's not going to work. We don't have a natural draw like the beach or something like that."
Right. And if Roanoke ever found a way to get a beach, you can bet naysayers would be on hand to drop a wet blanket on it.
Let's get a couple of things straight.
In the first place, it's reasonable to suppose that Harvey and Musser might judge any idea more harshly if it issues from the mayor's well-exercised jaws.
Bowers, after all, assisted in the closing of his fellow Democrats' political careers. And the two former councilmen aren't the only Roanokers to suspect that grand pronouncements may be intended to draw attention to the proposer as well as the proposal.
The irony is that Bowers, like any politician, is pushing ideas mostly conceived by others. He's long had a thing for the transportation museum, which needs improvement. But arts promoters have talked of an "art walk" along the rails between the market area and the train museum - a fantastic idea. Preservationists, worried about old Norfolk Southern buildings, are hoping tourism can prove their salvation. City staff are looking for their next big project after the Hotel Roanoke reopens.
Which is not to denigrate the mayor for promoting an idea. That's his job. The point is to judge the idea on its merits - and not belittle it because its promulgator's penchant for grandstanding is more developed than his consensus-building skills.
In the second place, criticisms of Bowers' exaggeration are themselves exaggerated.
No, developing the city's rail history as a visitors' attraction won't convert Roanoke into the tourism mecca of the Western World. The proposed $3 million in initial spending won't buy Baltimore's Inner Harbor or duplicate Norfolk's waterfront Nauticus complex. No one said it would. It's doubtful, to say the least, that anything on a scale approaching those projects' would ever be built in Roanoke. But so what?
As the case of Explore reminds, a concept can still be valuable if the ultimate potential is never realized. Preserving the land for a state park was a great idea, no matter what becomes of the Explore project. Similarly, some sort of linear park along the tracks is a great idea, whether or not it ever includes computerized interactive exhibits. An art walk alone would be grand.
And no tourist facility on any scale was ever built in a day. In Roanoke, it could take decades. It might never happen. So what? "It's not going to work" for sure, if no one's willing to get started on some dreams and schemes.
Thankfully, the new City Council isn't so negative. Monday, it approved a $23 million bond package that includes $1.5 million for the first phase of a boardwalk along the tracks. Because Roanokers will vote on the bond issue in November, they can decide for themselves whether their government is better off sticking with trash collection and leaving big thoughts to bigger cities.
by CNB