Norfolk4Life

Amen Its better than our local politicians STILL argue.

we can get e-food, delivered via email

it has always perplexed me as to how you could argue that criminals would ride from norfolk to virginia beach on the train. this might have been a possibility many years ago when downtown had more crime. everyone who sticks to this argument should look up actual crime statistics. Town Center and Downtown Norfolk have THE SAME numbers of violent crimes - 12 in TC and 11 in DN (which is saying something, considering the number of clubs in Downtown compared to Town Center). Both Town Center and Downtown fare better than the Oceanfront, which had 19 including 2 rapes in the same time period. VB needs to realize that the center of their city is becoming urban whether they like it or not. It has to. VB has run out of room to expand the suburbia of the past. They must either increase density or sit idle. Everyone knows that when a city idles, it decays. Nobody wants VB to decay. I don't, you don't. Come on Beach, keep moving.

Is this from the Pilot's Article? The draft has an entire section called Funding Policies and lists current and future funding possibilities. It does not give price tags but it does give funding options. Dis the Pilot read the whole thing or just look at the picture?

I have posted my response to the Draft plan on by blog. It was much to long to put on this forum. Please visit my blog and read my response at http://www.757hr.com When they do these reports, they are supposed to try and make it work with conservative numbers. the more liberal your projections, the higher rate of failure that you have.

i think most of us were hoping for distinction. we would like to get buildings that are unique to DT, not copies of others.

absolutely behind you on that. I'll keep my eye out for a request on the council docket. I would oppose that.

Hopefully these guys can build better than they can proofread.... Multi-million dollar project and we get acors (instead of acres) and the Sentara Heart Hopspital. Also, their "view looking east" pic is facing southwest and taken from alost over Hampton Blvd, and the "view looking west" pic is facing southeast

If they tried to run any vehicle down the tracks without completely reconstructing the tracks, it would derail. The old tracks are loose, warped, etc. Somewhere someone made a comment wanting to know why Norfolk couldn't reuse the old rail bridges. The answer to that: they would collapse. They creaked when you wanked on them let alone if you tired to run a train across. Bottom line: to run a standard passenger train would cost the same or more than to do LRT. Either way gets rails rebuilt. a standard train would need fuel. It would need its own maintenance yard since it couldn't share the Tide's. It would be a waste.

i hope so. it would be EXTREMELY beneficial to the entire region and would certainly help VB's new Pembroke plan

For those who havn't been by the Brambleton overpass lately and were wondering about the size of those beans they put in, here are a few pics to put them into perspective:

I don't think the mall food court is a good place for a CCF anyway. the food court should be made up of fast food type restaurants. A place like CCF should have a spot, say, on the ground level of the Well Fargo (formerly Wachovia) Center. Same thing if we could get a Panera's or something downtown. They should be in high visiblility, high foot traffic locations for passerbys to see, not in the mall.

that is also on the Chesapeake 2050 Master Transportation Plan > http://cityofchesapeake.net/services/depar...MTP_adopted.pdf

if it is nothing but , then why would it say . I really have nothing against VB, they just need to be a bit stricter on the TC restaurants. I have eaten there before. Id like to eat there again, once I see a few less violations. In fact, I would love to be able to ride the Tide from my house to TC and eat there more frequently.

umm... that is light rail. shared ROW light rail is nearly the same as this streetcar you speak of. Instead of creating some kind of loop, why lot extend a light rail line north, following Independence? It could make a left down Kellam, a right on Broad, go to the north of Pembroke Mall, and turn left on Constitution where it can follow Indep. north. That would encompass most of that area and its potencial. I don't think it needs to go on the east side of Pembroke at all. Unless Cox HS is moved to make way for development, there is no further expansion there.

it has nothing to do with the type of transit. if LRT went from downtown to the ocean front, HRT would need to get approval from BOTH city councils to increase/decrease frequency of trains or to lengthen/shorten operating hours. If one city fails to approve HRT's request? well, you cant operate every 10 minutes in virginia beach and every 5 in norfolk or v/v. Even if we had maglev or flying-super-high-tech-transporters that ran between cities, each city would have to agree independently.

The "work within each city differently" is the reason why HRT is so dysfunctional. Instead of HRT operating like any other reasonable entity that just does their job, they have to get each city on board to make a change. For example, HRT wants to increase the hours that VB's buses operate. VB, however, doesn't want to pay for that. If HRT wanted a new route to connect, say, VB TCC with Ches. TCC, they would need approval from BOTH VB and Ches. The President of HRT has a great vision and does a great job. Try working somewhere that every year your bos increases your work by 10% and decreases your pay by 20%. Thats what HRT has to do, because they do not have a steady income. If every city had a 2 cent sales tax to fund transit, we would have an excellent system. If, at minimum, each city paid a flat rate per passenger that originated in the city, it would be better. Instead, instead of running on one consistent budget, they operate on at least 7 (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk, State of VA). AND the state's portion is assembled out of funds from a variety of different departments that each have their own respective budgets.

That is the type of people that would ride the line. If they are willing to be seen drive to work in old probably "beater" car to save on gas, then they would surely consider using the LRT.

since im tired of people speculating about stops for an NOB-bound LRT, Here are some maps that might clear it up: This is the most likely route that LRT would take to NOB: This is the NOB Loop that was suggested and approved by NOB that would replace the current shuttle: These are accurate as described in the 1999 Alternatives report distributed by HRT

I have a couple of issues with what you have said, scm. first, Actually, I do not know many civilians on base. The people that I have spoke to were NAVY SAILORS. They did not know that the program existed. Next, I'm not sure where you are getting your info, but the extension that is most liked by HRT, Norfolk, and NOB runs from Military Hwy Stop through JANAF and then proceeds to follow I-64 all the way to the base. It would take (according to Norfolk's study back in 1999) 33.3 minutes to go from Pembroke to Fleet Park. Also, according to the report, there would be no shuttle. It would be replaced by a LRT loop that would make a complete loop every 15 minutes. As for the Greenbrier idea, you have to talk to Chesapeake to get a study done. It is in their MTP to use the rail right-of-way that touches the west side of Greenbrier but they have done no studies.

Before they merged, the HRPDC was formerly the Tidewater PDC and the Peninsula PDC. Now, the HRPDC is such a useful organization *cough* that it is under federal mandate to reform of be dissolved and replaced.

We have something like that. It is called the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. Along with the Transportation District Commission, they are required by federal law to give a regional approval and support for all major transportation projects. The problem we have here is history. In HR, the cities used to be Norfolk, Portsmouth, and South Norfolk. Virginia Beach was but a small beach town. Princess Anne County and Norfolk County made up what is now VB and Ches. After integration of the schools, the wealthier white moved out of the city and into the suburbs of the counties. This drained Norfolk's 350,000 residents down to less than 150,000. Norfolk did what any city would do and began annexing land. Fearing that they would be taken back into Norfolk and in response to Norfolk's threats to cut off their water, Princess Anne County merged with the city of Virginia Beach and Norfolk County merged with South Norfolk, becoming Chesapeake. The older residents in our area that moved out in the 50s and 60s HAVE NOT BEEN BACK to Norfolk since. They believe that Norfolk is still a crime-ridden city with a downtown full of vacant lots. It is these older residents that have their voices heard. Older people have a higher voter turnout and usually have more time on their hands to talk to their city councils. The young people of our area want and need a regional city. Contrary to popular belief, young people WANT to be able to ride transit. Unfortunately, in today's fast-paced world, you can't afford to spend 3 hours on a bus each way to work.

It is not HRT's place to think about it. It is the city that the line would run through. HRT has already started the EIS for a line to go to NOB. They are using the old EIS to revise for an extension into VA Beach. Virginia Beach has the line in their Master Transportation Plan (MTP). Portsmouth and Chesapeake also include light rail corridors in their MTPs. It is more of a matter of getting an offical green light from the city along with a financial committment so that HRT can begin lobbying the feds for money.

In speaking to a number of navy personnel it is my opinion that the Navy does not advertise this service as well as they should. I have talked to dozens of navy people that regularly commute to the base that had no idea that the program even existed. That number 270 was the total ridership for the old express busses, which had more stops than HRT's new MAX service. Due to increased stops along the way, the ride took much longer than driving. In addition to that, busses remain in traffic just like everybody else. Finally, Virginia Beach never followed the suggestions of the plan, which called for express service stops at Hilltop, Lynnhaven, and Military Circle. I will acquire ridership stats to date for the MAX and post them up here. Also, I guarantee that if we had a lane designated just for busses, the ridership would spike, mainly because the trip would take quicker than driving.

If you completely read that study, it notes that there are 70,000 trips per day to NOB. This means that the 29% that come from VB equals 20,300 people. 29% sounds small but not when it comes out of 70,000.