THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996 TAG: 9606040094
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 60 lines
Another people mover is making the rounds and it's ferrying passengers to and from shops, eateries and inns along a 4-mile loop from the Oceanfront to Birdneck Road and back.
The vehicle itself is nothing new. It's your basic Tidewater Regional Transit System trolley, the kind you see plying Oceanfront streets year-round.
What is new is the service, called the Entertainment Express, which is aimed at after-hours patrons - the kind who like to eat, shop and pub crawl between dusk and the wee morning hours.
For the next four months, the express will give them a chance to do just that seven days a week from 5:30 p.m. to 2:20 a.m.
The charge is 50 cents a ride, and the tab may or may not be picked up by over 20 shops, restaurants and night spots that were responsible for its creation.
The express route begins at 19th Street and Pacific Avenue. From there, it continues to make a clockwise swing from 19th Street to Birdneck Road to Laskin Road and back to Pacific Avenue.
On Pacific, the route proceeds south to the foot of the Rudee Inlet Bridge, where it branches right onto Winston Salem Avenue. From Winston Salem, it continues westward to Mediterranean Avenue, swings right and continues north to 19th Street to complete a circuit in about 30 minutes.
The idea was conceived by a handful of Oceanfront restaurateurs and merchants, headed by Harry Smithson, formerly co-owner of the Beach Pub on Laskin Road.
``Basically, it all started because nobody could get a cab,'' Smithson explained. ``Some people were having a few drinks at the Pub one night and decided to take a cab home. They waited and waited and no cab came.''
Smithson and fellow restaurant operators like Carter Turpin, of Rudees Restaurant and Raw Bar, and Bill Gambrell of Tautogs Restaurant, decided that a short trolley loop linking businesses along the north side of the Rudee Inlet basin, Birdneck Road and Laskin Road was the answer to late night transportation woes.
``TRT came on board and gave us a route,'' said Smithson. ``At first, I thought we'd get more sponsorship, but a lot of businesses didn't want to join because it (the trolley) wasn't going to go down Atlantic Avenue.''
There were three reasons for starting up the route, said Smithson. One was to reduce drinking and driving on resort streets; second was to keep more cars off the road and thereby reduce summertime traffic snarls at the resort and; three, to give locals an opportunity to enjoy the Oceanfront during the tourist season without having to drive.
``The ultimate goal is to get enough ridership to get TRT to continue the route,'' said Smithson. ``Any business that wants passes can get them through Bill Gambrell of Tautog's Restaurant, 422-0081, or Stan Belson, Belmarc Enterprises, 491-1541.
More than 20 Oceanfront businesses have purchased $500 worth of trolley passes to hand out or sell to customers, said Belson, who is handling the public relations end of the program.
Trolley patrons can connect with any other TRT trolley routes touching the Oceanfront. For instance, said Belson, riders can connect with trolley runs to Lynnhaven Mall, the Virginia Marine Science Museum or the Atlantic Avenue loop that includes stops at North End streets. by CNB