THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040198
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
DATELINE: 940604 LENGTH: Medium
``The streetcars were and still could be the greatest thing that ever happened to people,'' he writes. ``You could go to a corner anywhere in your city and proceed to go anywhere. You could get transfers free to switch from here to there at no extra charge.''
{REST} Well, of course, he's right. You could board a behemoth and ride all day, if you liked, on a single fare. Further, you felt as secure as if you were in a steel cocoon.
You weren't in danger of a drunken fool barging into a streetcar because if he did he would nothing more than bounce off, leaving the side of the car dented and his own front end demolished.
No one ever heard of a streetcar blowing up or catching fire or spreading noxious fumes that laid a pall on the land.
``The ride was beautiful,'' Van writes. ``In the winter the cars were heated and in hot weather all the windows were open to breezes as the cars rambled through town.'' There was ``no sweating in traffic, no more of your car heating up, no more spending a fortune for parking once you got where you were going. That is, if you could find a parking spot.''
He suggests that cities hereabouts could have lines to all the bases and downtowns, ``everywhere that would help people on the bottom of the totem pole.''
Jim Echols, executive director of Tidewater Regional Transit, looks with favor on the idea of a light-rail commuter line. ``It would improve the transportation in this metropolitan area,'' he said Friday, ``and it would improve the cooperation among the cities.''
TRT is preparing to launch a study, funded by federal aid, to determine the feasibility of a light-rail system and whether there are less expensive alternatives.
That analysis will take at least a year. The light-rail project could use the 18-mile Norfolk Southern line running from downtown Norfolk to the Oceanfront, if Virginia Beach would agree.
More than four years ago the Norfolk City Council supported spending $500,000 to supplement a $3 million state grant for preliminary engineering plans, but the Virginia Beach City Council voted 6-5 against the proposal. The city councils of Chesapeake and Portsmouth approved the idea.
The vast bulk of the rush-hour traffic on the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway consists of Virginia Beach residents going to and from work in Norfolk.
Of a morning, some 30,000 Virginia Beach drivers head to Norfolk, especially to Norfolk Naval Base, but only 13,000 Norfolk drivers go to Virginia Beach.
Meanwhile, the region's population is increasing, as are the cars on the highways, as well as the costs of construction. The dawdling of more than a decade hurts far more of the residents in Virginia Beach than it does Norfolkians - something for the Beach people to ponder as they stew in the next traffic jam on the interstate. by CNB