THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996                 TAG: 9604190006
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   35 lines

HAMPTON ROADS ONCE HAD LIGHT RAIL

The editorial (April 14) in favor of a light-rail line was welcome, if 50 years too late. Such installations used to be called streetcar lines. Norfolk had three superb lines - one out Hampton Boulevard to the Naval Base and two from downtown to Ocean View, one directly out Granby Street, the other through Norview.

In the stampede to ``modernize'' transportation after World War II, however, these lines were abandoned, as were almost all others in the United States. It should have been obvious even then to a traffic engineer that traffic, not streetcars, was the cause of congestion, but the streetcars got the blame.

Now the mistake is being recognized. Incidentally, the proposed right of way along Virginia Beach Boulevard was once a streetcar line, which connected with one up Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach, then via Shore Drive to Northampton Boulevard, where high-voltage lines presently occupy its right of way.

Last year I drove a friend through Norfolk to an appointment with a doctor. At a stoplight on Northampton Boulevard, we counted nine cars with only the driver as occupant. Not one car in our line of sight contained a passenger. Gridlock, anyone?

W. E. WILKINS

Cape Charles, April 15, 1996 by CNB