lammius

I like Chicago a lot. It would be on my short list if I had to leave here for some reason. I also agree about Dallas. Seemingly endless suburban sprawl. Houston isn't much (any?) better, really. IMO the only thing that makes Houston a little more interesting than Dallas is ethnic diversity. TBH, I'm not really a fan of Austin either. Haven't been to San Antonio yet, but something tells me I'd probably like it more than the other major TX cities.

FWIW, Norfolk should do this along its existing line as well, but so far they have not outside of downtown.

There's less funding than there is need, so the funding has to go to where there is demonstrable need. If building a new LRT line will cost a billion or two (IDK what the actual cost would be), and it'll cost $80 million/year to operate it, why make that investment if nobody's there to ride it? There are thousands of projects that can demonstrate a better return-on-investment. You say that Greenbrier is a fast-growing area. So there may be more demand in the future. Chesapeake has an opportunity to demonstrate that by upzoning to >100 units/acre density and dropping/reducing parking minimums where this line would exist. That sounds like a lot by Hampton Roads standards, but in rail transit situations, that's not very much. From a transit service perspective, this is a chance for Chesapeake to prove a market. From Chesapeake's perspective, this is an opportunity to continue growing in a focused, intentional, and more sustainable way.

A light rail line using the bridge Amtrak uses from downtown Norfolk, then cuts over to the rail line that eventually ends up behind Sams and close to Dollar Tree HQ could work in this area. However, the population density is so low along this corridor. You'd need to be willing to upzone virtually all of it to encourage transit-focused development and population growth.

Yeah, got a job in Midtown at a leading firm in my field after grad school. Love the city, and have become addicted to living car-free. Jersey City offers more space for the dollar than NYC, but i can still get around easily and freely without a car. Nothing wrong with the cities on your list, but they're not my speed.

You and I are the same age. I grew up loving Norfolk and even during college thought of living an urban life downtown or Ghent. But there weren't opportunities for me in HR and I left. I've been gone almost 20 years now and yet I still regularly check out this board because I want to see the area grow up to the potential I thought it always had.

Looking at those charts, it seems it's really a story about population growth in Northern Virginia driving the state's population growth trend from 1990-2019. Hampton Roads has been growing at less than half the national rate of growth and is losing share to other regions of the state (especially Northern VA) and to other parts of the country, which are growing much faster than HR (especially other metro areas, as most US popn growth is in major metros). That doesn't mean that HR is "losing population" but you could argue (and pull some data points to show) that it means HR is dropping down the ranks of relative importance among metro areas, which has a variety of economic and other implications.

Complacency.

How about Norfolk to Norfolk Island?

Great. So a fortified bunker downtown?

"Virginia's busiest airport not counting Virginia's busiest airports" ?? lol

Love a good New Haven style "abeetz"

Yeah, it was always "Monti-sell-o " when I lived in Norfolk. But that's been nearly 20 years ago. Monti-chell-o was some house near Charlottesville.

The part of Downtown that Waterside Drive goes through was bulldozed in the 1950s and re-built in the 1960s-90s. It indeed was developed for another era of trying to make cities look and feel like suburbs. That era is over, and Waterside Drive should catch up.

Yeah, Waterside Drive is a monstrosity that should not exist in a modern downtown district.

Maybe they can't get the financing they need for the full build. I'm sorry but that temporary casino looks like a sad shed I'd never want to set foot in. On another note, in many cities, the parcel between an intercity passenger rail (Amtrak) station and your metro transit system (in this case Tide) would be the most valuable development parcel in the city. Here it's a parking lot and potentially a gamblin' garage!

Never seen a place try so hard to be a small backwater town.

Nassau + Suffolk = 3+ million people, so it's a fairly large market area in its own right.

If it was well underway in December 2020 as the pics above showed, it was probably completed by mid 2021. Streetview from September 2022, it looks done: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.8797562,-76.3,3a,75y,237.3h,96.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYqvJvLRqVS3lIJ0-F7-q4A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Visited Norfolk for Labor Day weekend. I traveled down using Amtrak and brought my bike aboard. Did some riding around Norfolk, ERT, some of the bike-laned streets, and hit up some restaurants and breweries along the way. It was fun to experience Norfolk this way, as I've never considered it a "bike city." It really was a pleasant experience, until I rode out to the airport to pick up a rental car for a side-trip to the OBX. That was legit dangerous lol. Two min ride re-cap video: https://twitter.com/clammyfresh/status/1565901356900155393?s=20&t=NYzdiGS-ogrWZ3Wo5s5F7w

Not even close. Norfolk: 4,468 ppsm Baltimore: 7,428 ppsm

I think Scope is a cool building, it's just a question as to how useful it is as a venue and as a use of prime downtown land going forward. There's so much wasted space and development potential downtown (Snyder Lot, MacMall, Gateway, St Pauls Quad, etc.) that should see (re)development first, IMO. With so much developable land and not much pressure to build up, I'm not in a rush to demolish Scope. I'd rather see everything else get developed and filled, and for downtown to be bursting at the seams and in need of a complex of four 50-story towers at that site.

Cars taking up more space than families

I agree that all of this is true. In addition, there are some perspectives that are overrepresented in today's public planning process. I'm very involved in my local community and serve on the board of my community/neighborhood association. We perform an annual community association survey. The respondents to that survey, when compared to the Census demographics of the neighborhood, are very different. For instance, 70% of the survey respondents say they own a car. But in our neighborhood, 64% of households do not own a car according to the ACS. If the voices of folks who come to community meetings are the only ones being heard, we could inadvertently develop the wrong kinds of transportation policies. If the city's transportation planner came to our community group and said "what do you need?" 70% of our members might say "more parking," or "get rid of the bike lanes" but that feedback wouldn't capture the needs of the 64% who don't drive, and who might need safer crosswalks, or bike access, etc. The city could take that info and make a "wrong" (as in, it works against the interests of most ppl) policy decision. In general, community associations and planning meeting-goers tend to be older, wealthier, more likely to own a car (or multiple cars), more likely to be a homeowner, and whiter than the population of the area. That's true in my community here in NJ, and I'd bet most across the country. That's not to say their opinions don't matter (they do!), but there are other opinions not making it to the table. That can--and does--skew outcomes. Achiving more balanced representation in these types of planning conversations is needed.