Norfolk Light Rail and Transit

[Up2313]

Hampton Blvd will continue to have major truck traffic until they build patriots crossing. Only then will they fix capacity issues. 

[Qdeathstar]

On 10/7/2019 at 10:09 AM, vdogg said:

"Because it backs up anyway" is not a good argument for further reducing the capacity of a road through speed reductions. If there is an issue that causes a road to drop to speeds below the posted speed limit, then address that issue through capacity increases, reconfiguration of the traffic flow, transit, or all of the above.

a speed limit change is a reconfiguration... the main thing it addresses is gps routing...

On 10/7/2019 at 5:13 PM, baobabs727 said:

Why wouldn't you just ban trucks and let the rest of us drive 45? Not saying I support that idea either, but....

I got no problem banning the trucks.

[BFG]

Multimodal transportation plan presented at tonight's Work Session. The presentation starts at about the 12:00 mark. Over the next few months, the immediate plan is to meet with stakeholders, collect data, hold public meetings, and offer a transit redesign workshop in February. Sounds like this process will go for the next year and change. One of the presenters said about 20 months.

 

[BeagleAccountant]

12 hours ago, BFG said:

Multimodal transportation plan presented at tonight's Work Session. The presentation starts at about the 12:00 mark. Over the next few months, the immediate plan is to meet with stakeholders, collect data, hold public meetings, and offer a transit redesign workshop in February. Sounds like this process will go for the next year and change. One of the presenters said about 20 months.

 

Sounds like they're kicking the can down the road again. What was the point of the east and west side studies?

[Norfolk757Kid]

The goal of these people, and HRT too, seems to be to create a better bus system. Not one mention of light rail. Is Tide expansion off the table? 

[BFG]

As far as I know, they're still finishing up one of their many studies. Since they decided not to create a Hampton Blvd./Park Place route, they're now looking at the Military Hwy. corridor, then looping back to the base.

I hate how our city is laid out in such a convoluted fashion, and that we couldn't use the old streetcar routes.

[urbanlife]

On 11/6/2019 at 4:15 PM, BFG said:

As far as I know, they're still finishing up one of their many studies. Since they decided not to create a Hampton Blvd./Park Place route, they're now looking at the Military Hwy. corridor, then looping back to the base.

I hate how our city is laid out in such a convoluted fashion, and that we couldn't use the old streetcar routes.

This right here, it is odd to me that the entire Tide system is designed to only handle one car length trains rather than be designed to handle two or three car lengths. With designing a system that is just one car length, it would have made more sense to go with more streetcar style trains similar to the Portland Streetcar, and design a streetcar rail system that best fits Norfolk since it is probably just going to be a rail system for the city of Norfolk only. That way those trains could have been planned easier to run on old streetcar routes.

 

[virginia pe]

9 hours ago, urbanlife said:

This right here, it is odd to me that the entire Tide system is designed to only handle one car length trains rather than be designed to handle two or three car lengths. With designing a system that is just one car length, it would have made more sense to go with more streetcar style trains similar to the Portland Streetcar, and design a streetcar rail system that best fits Norfolk since it is probably just going to be a rail system for the city of Norfolk only. That way those trains could have been planned easier to run on old streetcar routes.

 

This before-and-after study of the Tide by the Federal Transit Administration from 2015 seems to imply on page 11 that the Tide was designed to handle two-car length trains, if needed.  The platforms can be easily lengthened to accommodate two-car trains, except at MacArthur Mall and NSU, where any future lengthening of the platforms would be particularly disruptive.  These two platforms were constructed as two-car platforms.

https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/funding/grant-programs/capital-investments/115196/2015-virginia-norfolk-tide-light-rail-project.pdf

 

[urbanlife]

On 11/13/2019 at 7:49 AM, virginia pe said:

This before-and-after study of the Tide by the Federal Transit Administration from 2015 seems to imply on page 11 that the Tide was designed to handle two-car length trains, if needed.  The platforms can be easily lengthened to accommodate two-car trains, except at MacArthur Mall and NSU, where any future lengthening of the platforms would be particularly disruptive.  These two platforms were constructed as two-car platforms.

https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/funding/grant-programs/capital-investments/115196/2015-virginia-norfolk-tide-light-rail-project.pdf

This is where I am confused with the design of the light rail because it made no sense for them to put in two stops that couldn't be expanded or not just building each stop to handle two length trains already, even if the city was only running one train length right now. It would have made it easier to upgrade to longer trains without the need to do major construction at each stop and have two stops that would basically have to be completely redesigned.

 

Actually, looking at both stops again, I stand corrected, there is enough room for a two train length train at MacAuthur stop, and the NSU stop would only need a small adjustment to extend the platform to handle a two car train.

Edited November 15, 2019 by urbanlife

[Norfolk757Kid]

https://whro.org/tv/30-tv-highlights/4892-mvng-hpt-rds WHRO brought together the heads of HRT, VDOT, Norfolk and Newport News airports, and the HR Planning Commission. It was pretty short and not really much detail, but some interesting things were brought up. I'll try to give some key takeaways:

- Automobile infrastructure spending has shot through the roof over the last couple of years (new tunnels, highway expansions, interchanges, bridges etc) while HRT still has no dedicated funding source. 

- William Harrel, President and CEO of HRT, got a good amount of mic time and made a decently compelling case that ridership will increase with better service and increased access. He seemed cautiously optimistic about transit extension within Norfolk to the base, and mentioned a "rubber tire" solution to connecting ODU to the Tide (so maybe BRT down Hampton), but did not give any time frame. It seems like HRT will make moves to secure a more stable source of regional funding in the near future. Large parts of HR are still rural, so besides the suburban/urban dynamic, you also have a rural/urban divide, and this, Harrel said can be a challenge.

- Both airport executives expressed interest in HRT extending bus lines to their airports, which neither currently have. 

- The head of the Hampton Roads Planning Commission seemed to carry the most weight in the room and kept harping on the new HOT or express lanes on 64. These lanes will be reserved for a fee and kept open to bus traffic. They should significantly cut bus travel times between cities. 

- Newport News Airport executive said that parking at Newport News shipyard is so bad that the shipyard rents out parking spaces at the airport for its workers. 

- There is a serious demand for construction workers to build these damn highways and bridges

[BFG]

Hopefully we'll see this sooner than later. I'm surprised Norfolk doesn't have a direct bus line to the airport from a few different stations.

[HRVA]

1 hour ago, Norfolk757Kid said:

 The head of the Hampton Roads Planning Commission seemed to carry the most weight in the room and kept harping on the new HOT or express lanes on 64. These lanes will be reserved for a fee and kept open to bus traffic. They should significantly cut bus travel times between cities. 

- Newport News Airport executive said that parking at Newport News shipyard is so bad that the shipyard rents out parking spaces at the airport for its workers. 

I-64′s new Norfolk toll lanes boosted rush-hour speeds, even in the free lanes, state study finds - VP

HRTPO released a study that found travel speeds headed east at 5 PM in the FREE lanes increased from 36 to 62 mph although travel speeds at 3 PM decreased from 55 to 37 mph and speeds increased modestly overall. 

The parking lots at the shipyard are an interesting situation. The shipyard owns most of the lots there but there are quite a few privately owned lots and they make a killing. Huntington Ignalls has a ton a contracts right now between the two carrier deal and everything else, so there is guaranteed work for years to come. Surprised there hasn’t been a push to build more garages as there is no land out there for more surface lots. It’s a sea of asphalt. It beat out LA for worst parking ‘crater’ in this Internet bracket: Parking Madness 2015.

[baobabs727]

So no mention of LRT? Eastern route study?  I watched a vid of a transit brief before  Council maybe a week or two ago and not one person in the room ever said the words "light rail." Interesting 

[BFG]

Here’s a more detailed article. Apparently Norfolk wants to take a cue from Richmond’s BRT success. Also, some sort of transportation linking the base to ODU is not off the table, a move I like a lot for many reasons. 

https://ggwash.org/view/74754/norfolk-plans-to-turn-the-tide-on-its-transit

[Arctic_Tern]

A Hampton BLVD BRT solution could connect the Tide (with the Eastern extension) from the Base through ODU, Ghent, EVMS, all the way to the Fort Norfolk stop. Would probably be cheaper/easier on that route than the rail, and would make for a nice and simple loop for the Tide system.

[vdogg]

Mostly about NoVA, but it appears that Amtrak service between Norfolk and DC will be getting another upgrade.

https://www.pilotonline.com/news/transportation/vp-nw-rail-service-dc-20191219-diqbvho4y5go5pb3hn6vf6pdye-story.html

[Norf Native]

Apparently there will be a third train out of Norfolk next year. 
 

https://www.wavy.com/news/virginia/new-routes-from-norfolk-newport-news-to-dc-part-of-3-7b-expansion-in-va-passenger-rail-service/

 

Edited December 21, 2019 by Norf native
Link

[vdogg]

Naval Station Norfolk transit corridor open house on February 19th.

https://facebook.com/events/s/naval-station-norfolk-transit-/205662643948666/?ti=as

[vdogg]

HRT has narrowed down the options. Also, the project now has a website that is included at the link. The options are LRT or BRT.

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/norfolk/hrt-narrows-down-boundaries-of-norfolk-light-rail-expansion-but-continues-looking-for-input-on-exact-route/

[BeagleAccountant]

49 minutes ago, vdogg said:

HRT has narrowed down the options. Also, the project now has a website that is included at the link. The options are LRT or BRT.

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/norfolk/hrt-narrows-down-boundaries-of-norfolk-light-rail-expansion-but-continues-looking-for-input-on-exact-route/

If you go to the project website, you will see the below map that shows the potential transit corridors highlighted in an orangish color.

[ONCE1stBlvd]

IDK bro... just seems so suspect

These route options do so little for the present infrastructure and population it's actually grotesque. 

I never thought I'd say this but at this rate I wish they'd never even built the thing

[BeagleAccountant]

39 minutes ago, ONCE1stBlvd said:

IDK bro... just seems so suspect

These route options do so little for the present infrastructure and population it's actually grotesque. 

I never thought I'd say this but at this rate I wish they'd never even built the thing

If they were really concerned about ridership, the next phase needed to go up Granby and over to ODU.

But this isn't about ridership. This is all about TOD on Military Highway.

One thing I wonder, if they had the foresight to know VB wouldn't expand it, would they have started with a totally different route? For instance, they could have picked a route that would have made it easier to build short spurs off of.

Edited February 20, 2020 by BeagleAccountant
Added question

[vdogg]

Both routes lead through the Military Highway corridor, which will be good for the Arena if that’s where they decide to put it. The other options were financially infeasible. I would’ve liked the Granby route too, but if they don’t have the money they don’t have it. As long as we eventually make it to the base and the airport I’ll be happy.

[BFG]

It's weird that HRT and the city didn't flesh this out more back in the mid-2000s when construction began. Many headaches could've been avoided had the starter line somehow ended at ODU or the base, one way or another. I do think Norfolk figured VB would eventually get on board, so ending right at the city border made sense. I don't see how any extension won't be a headache, but I'll just be happy if it's completed within my lifetime.

[Virginia City]

I think with the collaboration between Norfolk and VB for the potential arena deal I think that VB might end up expanding the Tide eventually.