Virginia Beach Light Rail and Transit

[wrldcoupe4]

The Pocahontas Pkwy is now privately owned... I see benefits to it, as long as the companies follow strict regulation about the quality of the roadsurfaces.

[vaceltic]

Unless we find a permanent solution to our aging infrastructure, America will collapse under the weight of maintaining the existing and expanding for growth. The more sprawl there is, the more miles of roads, water mains, and sewer lines there are to maintain. In addition, the more buildings are needed to make public services (schools, fire/rescue, libraries, etc.) accessible to distant residents. Something has to give: either pay more taxes or change our lifestyles.

The irony of it all is that mass transit is responsible for this sprawl. In the days of horse and buggy, sprawl was limited by the distance a horse could reasonably travel. Only the wealthy could really afford living away from the city. Then came trains which brought about suburbs making it easier for the wealthy and upper-middle class to move out of the city. With the advent of tramways, the middle class could flee to the burbs. When cars became affordable, all those who relied on trains and trams/streetcars switched to cars. The financial problems of these train companies allowed GM and other bus companies to buy the train companies out and replace them with buses and cheaper cars creating a need for more roads. All this culminated in our lovely interstate system which turns 50 years old this year.

Railroad companies own the rails and the trains. Railroads are maintained by the company however their construction is partially subsidized by the government. Maybe we should approach our highway system in the same way: privatize it. City streets would still be government owned but highways would be privately owned with some public subsidy for construction, or at least privately operated and maintained.

Thats funny Hoobo. I wrote a paper in transportation planning class on that subject. You weren't in my class were ya?!

[hoobo]

Thats funny Hoobo. I wrote a paper in transportation planning class on that subject. You weren't in my class were ya?!

Only for the ladies.

[johnk812]

I'd like to see more sidewalks and bike lanes. Good for your health and good for the roads. And all this business about "aging infrastructure" brings up a good point. Our love affair with all things new has created sprawl too. I know a lot of people who want to live in the newer burbs just so they can have a new place with new windows and new HVAC and that open kitchen with the new granite counters. Though, a lot of people are moving downtown Norfolk for the new condos and apartments. In this atmosphere a city such as Norfolk has little choice but to constantly build newer and better to keep people coming staying and coming back. It's like retail. Everyone always likes that new mall or that new car or that new movie better. Think about Charlotte or Dubai. That's just a bunch of people who prefer it new. New, new, new. It's lame, but it's the game and Hampton Roads and everywhere else has little choice but to play it. The momentum of Norfolk is new. The challenge will be to keep it fresh so it lasts and feels new so we don't have to build roads further into the Suffolk countryside in search of more new.

[vdogg]

A lesson over the line

Virginia Beach made two fateful decisions in the 1990s on transportation, first by killing the tolls on the expressway and then by quitting a light rail partnership with Norfolk. Both have come back to haunt the Beach now, severely complicating its ambition to remake the center of the city using the lessons learned at Town Center.

Ending the tolls left it without a source for the $1 billion in I-264 improvements recommended recently to keep traffic circulating along the city's midsection. By voting itself out of a light rail project with Norfolk in a 1999 referendum, the Beach eliminated a mass transit alternative for getting back and forth along the same corridor, which already contains some of the biggest people-magnets and traffic-makers in South Hampton Roads.

[vdogg]

This is probably the best quote i've heard about this issue thus far.

"The logic for light rail in Virginia Beach was persuasive in 1999. Today, it is inescapable."

[vdogg]

Most of the comments about light rail in the recent articles have consisted of Beach residents wringing their hands that the city missed an opportunity, or should be voted on for striking this down. How quickly people forget that it was residents of our fair city that voted this down, not the city council. We really have to fix this short term memory problem. Everyone seems to have all the regret in the world now that this things actually been approved. It'll be interesting to see what the topic of discussion will be at the next few budget meetings when transportation comes up.

[erdogs]

Most of the comments about light rail in the recent articles have consisted of Beach residents wringing their hands that the city missed an opportunity, or should be voted on for striking this down. How quickly people forget that it was residents of our fair city that voted this down, not the city council. We really have to fix this short term memory problem. Everyone seems to have all the regret in the world now that this things actually been approved. It'll be interesting to see what the topic of discussion will be at the next few budget meetings when transportation comes up.

Now that most of the trees are gone in VB, the residents can now see the forest! While there sitting on 264.

[rusthebuss]

Most of the comments about light rail in the recent articles have consisted of Beach residents wringing their hands that the city missed an opportunity, or should be voted on for striking this down. How quickly people forget that it was residents of our fair city that voted this down, not the city council. We really have to fix this short term memory problem. Everyone seems to have all the regret in the world now that this things actually been approved. It'll be interesting to see what the topic of discussion will be at the next few budget meetings when transportation comes up.

These might be citizens that actually voted for it. The city still has the final decision. They don't listen to the residents on other things so why did they start or did the city really not want to partner with Norfolk(or the element). There are projects that are going on now, TC, that alot of residents opposed but yet its being built.

[urbanvb]

I posted this under another thread but thought I would mention it here also.

Transportation Changes Come to Beach At Least in 25 Years

Proposals include dropping Independence Boulevard underneath Virginia Beach Boulevard, allowing the two multi-lane roads to avoid direct connection. Kimely-Horn engineers envision pedestrian bridges, more green space and a calmer traffic system. The Pembroke plan might make the automobile less a king in Virginia Beach and more just a prince.

story

[vdogg]

All three of the options include some kind of light rail line running along the railroad tracks just north of I-264, and all three note an additional need for a "transit circulator" that would loop around what Nash described as a quadrant created by the imposing Virginia Beach and Independence Blvd. intersection.

"Almost all people believed transit is part of Virginia Beach

[erdogs]

I posted this under another thread but thought I would mention it here also.

Transportation Changes Come to Beach

[rusthebuss]

But does the plan include connecting to Norfolk's line??? That is what is important.

[vdogg]

Are they going to dig a tunnel Under VB Blvd.? Or build an overpass onto VB Blvd. ?

The way it sounded they want to tunnel under it.

[urbanvb]

But does the plan include connecting to Norfolk's line??? That is what is important.

I think so.

The plans assume a transit line between the Oceanfront and Newtown Road, with some kind of connection to Norfolk

[vdogg]

Southeastern Parkway moving forward?

A $2 toll on the proposed Southeastern Parkway and Greenbelt might not be the most expensive in the region, but the environmental costs to build the highway could pack a real punch.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is expected to call for setting aside 3,255 acres to offset the effect to woods and wildlife habitat lost to construction.

The 21-mile highway, intended to ease traffic in fast-growing Greenbrier and Princess Anne, is expected to chew up 172 acres of wetlands. However, because some are deemed "high quality," federal environmental regulations call for more compensation than what is actually lost.

[mikefaceless]

Southeastern Parkway moving forward?

I love watching all the people who post comments on the pilot cry about their precious "swamp land". I'd rather be doing 65 flying by all that swamp land than to be stuck in 10 mile per hour traffic smelling swamp gas and getting eaten by horse flies. Build this highway already!

[vdogg]

I love watching all the people who post comments on the pilot cry about their precious "swamp land". I'd rather be doing 65 flying by all that swamp land than to be stuck in 10 mile per hour traffic smelling swamp gas and getting eaten by horse flies. Build this highway already!

Yeah, but you gotta admit these comments are priceless!

"Why not simply pave all of Tidewater, place a giant floor drain in the center of it and cut down the very last tree ? Joanie Mitchell sang a song concerning the "paving of paradise and putting up a parking lot" over 35 years ago, and I thankfully escaped the introduction of southeatern Virginia's renovation into New York South before Meyera Opensore and the rest of the "Tidewater" scalawag yankeephiles managed to clearcut the very last vegetation remaining.

- william forlines - Corpus Christi "

[mikefaceless]

Yeah, but you gotta admit these comments are priceless!

"Why not simply pave all of Tidewater, place a giant floor drain in the center of it and cut down the very last tree ? Joanie Mitchell sang a song concerning the "paving of paradise and putting up a parking lot" over 35 years ago, and I thankfully escaped the introduction of southeatern Virginia's renovation into New York South before Meyera Opensore and the rest of the "Tidewater" scalawag yankeephiles managed to clearcut the very last vegetation remaining.

- william forlines - Corpus Christi "

Indeed priceless. Maybe these "NIMBY's" should all move to Montana. I hear they have trees there.

[metalman]

I hadn't seen this until yesterday...

They have 3 interchange proposals for 264 at Independece on http://www.downtownvb.com/ . Which do you prefer?

I like C, but I wish they could get rid of the stoplight.

http://www.kimley-horn.com/projects/downto...ternative_A.htm

http://www.kimley-horn.com/projects/downto...ternative_B.htm

http://www.kimley-horn.com/projects/downto...ternative_C.htm

Edited January 4, 2007 by metalman

[Former Resident of HR]

OMG that will be an absolute riot! I am sure that they will be building that for 2-4 years while traffic is supposed to be moving through the area hah hah. Mercury Blvd^10.

I think anything that gets the cars out of that underpass mixing bowl would be nice. However, a couple of overpass bridges that aren't linked to 264 would be good too. 264 acts like a huge wall blocking traffic on either side and splitting the city in two.

[Padman]

Most of the population gains are south of 264, meaning that S. Independence and Holland Rd. contribute more and more of the congestion, both during am and pm peaks. For that reason, I like the flyover options in A and B best, with B being my favorite (obviously more costly). Another way to go places flyovers either well east or west of the interchange and runs into big real estate issues, but by now you guys have seen those options.

[mikefaceless]

Random thought:

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a ferry that went from the Lynnhaven Inlet near shore drive all the way to Town Center around Columbus Street?

Has anyone ever thought of this?

[vdogg]

I-264 motorists tangled in the weave

It happened so fast there was nothing they could do.

Hal Gwyn and his wife, Terrie, were trying to exit Interstate 264 at Independence Boulevard in Virginia Beach, but traffic was backed up.

It was evening rush hour, and the Gwyns were stopped on the bridge over Independence, as cars and trucks roared by a few feet away.

A Jeep Cherokee suddenly entered the eastbound ramp and accelerated. The driver, a 17-year-old apparently distracted with the radio, slammed into the back of the Gwyns

[vdogg]

Red light cameras may return to beach

A two-year effort to reinstate red-light cameras in Virginia Beach may be on the verge of success.

The legislation this winter has been routed around a House subcommittee that killed the measure last winter.

"I think it stands a very good chance of passing," said Del. Bob Purkey, R-Virginia Beach, the sponsor of HB1762. "The public is being heard."

Virginia Beach posted cameras at four busy intersections during a nine-month test that ended in June 2005, when the authorizing legislation expired. Owners of cars photographed running red lights were mailed $50 tickets.