THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604070085
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL AND MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
It's the year 2015, and traffic on Route 44 is again at a standstill. Driving to downtown Norfolk from Virginia Beach now takes several hours.
Avoiding this nightmare is why the region needs a light rail line, say Tidewater Regional Transit officials, who this week are unveiling a new transportation effort that would include a commuter rail line.
The vehicle for this effort is a $1 million study, to be presented Wednesday to the board of TRT, that will lay out the cost and projected ridership as a bid for federal and local funding.
The line would initially go from downtown Norfolk to Pembroke in Virginia Beach and the Oceanfront but could eventually stretch to the Norfolk Naval Base and across the water to Williamsburg and Richmond.
The basic argument in favor of the line comes down to numbers that will steadily stack up against the region if nothing is done, officials say. They say the line would improve quality of life and give the region another draw for businesses and residents. Opponents' main argument has been the cost of a light rail line.
The arguments for it are:
The expressway between Virginia Beach and Norfolk already handles 200,000 cars a day in some places, says Dwight Farmer, transportation director at the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. Traffic on that road will stop at rush hour without an alternative.
Light rail, though not a cure-all, could make the difference between moving and stopping, Farmer said.
``If you took away the Washington Metro, you would shut the interstate down,'' he said. ``It's the incremental effect that allows everyone else to move at some modest speed.''
Route 44 - up to 10 lanes wide - cannot expand any more without tearing into houses and businesses. But a train can handle, in terms of volume, up to four lanes of interstate traffic each way, TRT officials say.
A light rail line is predicted to handle 11,000 to 15,000 passengers a day initially. Although not a huge number, it is enough to make a difference, Farmer said. Over time, this figure should rise as building, living and travel patterns change to take the rail system into account.
14 of the region's 20 major employment centers would be within walking distance of a line from the resort to downtown Norfolk, and down Hampton Boulevard to the Naval Base, said a TRT consultant.
This kind of land-use pattern would more easily allow jobs, homes and shops to build up around station stops, which is what makes transit work in the long run.
It's cheap - relatively speaking. Because TRT would use the right-of-way and tracks now owned by Norfolk Southern, building a light rail line would cost in the hundreds of millions, rather than in the billions as with other cities.
The major hurdle to building the line, TRT officials say, is convincing people of the peril that awaits them on the roads if nothing is done.
``This is reality,'' said Brad Face, a member of TRT's study committee, and president of Future of Hampton Roads. ``We don't have any real chance if we want to move people down that corridor unless we look at rail. These are major issues in the community that must be addressed now, or we will get so far behind the curve we will not be able to catch up.''
Several cities have begun light rail lines in the past decade and ridership has been strong, say TRT officials. Riders on the new St. Louis rail line have been triple initial estimates.
TRT hopes to build the Hampton Roads line by getting federal dollars and then getting the state and localities to help pay operating costs. One problem with mass transit is that, unlike with highways, few established funding mechanisms exist to pay for it.
But the line appears to stand a better chance politically than in 1988. Then, the efforts to build a rail line were halted when the Virginia Beach City Council voted 6-5 not to pay for a $500,000 study on light rail.
But the composition of the council has changed since then, and absent are several strong opponents. In addition, the business leadership of Hampton Roads in both cities appears solidly behind the rail effort, Face said.
The latest attempt to build a commuter railway began early last year when TRT launched the $1 million study to find ways to lessen congestion along the Route 44 and Interstate 264 corridor. The study, a preliminary and mandatory step toward getting federal money to pay for the project, was financed completely with federal dollars. On Route 44, high-occupancy vehicle lanes, or HOV lanes, have helped curb congestion, but problems persist.
TRT already has begun promoting a light rail line, but officially the TRT board has made no decision. On Wednesday, the TRT board will be asked to choose among four options to ease traffic congestion, ranging from doing nothing, to fine-tuning the present system, to expanding bus service, to building a light rail line. These options are part of the formal framework of the federally funded study.
Both cost and ridership projections for a rail line are expected to be more favorable than in past studies, say officials. Consultants have designed the line so that the expensive crossing at Broad Creek can be done without building a second bridge. Estimated ridership - important for winning federal money - is expected to be higher because federal formulas allowed figuring in potential tourist, shopping and recreational traffic, which in other cities have been high.
No one wants to predict what board members of the Tidewater Transportation District Commission will decide, though consultants are almost sure that the only long-term alternative is light rail.
``We are really painted into a severe corner here in Hampton Roads,'' said TRT's executive director, James C. Echols. ILLUSTRATION: Map
JOHN EARLE/The Virginian-Pilot
KEYWORDS: TRT NORFOLK-VIRGINIA BEACH LIGHT RAIL LINE PROPOSED by CNB