lammius

I was doing some youtube surfing and came across some great highway videos from the 1980s. These were really special finds for me, because this is about the time when I was growing up that I was just getting old enough to be aware of what Norfolk was and looked like, etc. Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway, 1986. This video shows a couple stretches of 44/264, including the old toll plaza (remember that 25-cent toll?) and Norfolk skyline. You can see Dominion Tower under construction! I barely barely barely remember that building being constructed. Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, 1986. Vid begins with weather report on Star 97 FM! Wow! That triggered memories! I remember listening to Star in the late 80s, and had totally forgotten about it. And, of course, you see the bridge-tunnel as a single two-lane span. That's the way it was during many childhood trips to see fam in Philadelphia. To me, driving out onto the bridge past those houses on Chicks Beach was the moment you realize you're leaving "home" and are in for a very long trip! Anyway, cool stuff!

I think initially it will have great success as a circulator within downtown. So carrying workers, visitors, downtown diners, etc. from one end of downtown to the other. Or carrying office workers from satellite parking to office areas (if there are any office areas which don't have a surplus of parking on or near site). People who work at City Hall will take it up to Granby St to get lunch, rather than walk. Tourists will take it to get from the Chrysler Museum back to their hotel on Main St. It will carry a few people to festivals at TPP and Tides games. Serving these types of trips, I think the LRT will be a huge hit. And this may be enough to get the LRT close to meeting its ridership projections, which would be great! But the outer ends of the route will probably not be too busy, IMO. At least not until the LRT connects major activity centers--the places people come from and go to, outside downtown Norfolk. So once the LRT is extended to Va Beach, in other words. OR until parking becomes so constrained downtown that people find it easier or cheaper to park at a park and ride on Newtown Road and use the train. OR when transit-oriented redevelopment opportunities within the City of Norfolk are seized. Then LRT will serve a real, useful transportation purpose outside the urban core. On that note, I saw a remark previously about the relocation of the Military Highway station. The previously-planned location for the station west of Military Highway would have put LRT within walking distance of some of the office buildings in that corporate park. However, the corporate park is an automobile-oriented development. It has a ton of surface parking, wide open spaces between buildings, etc. Not that many office spaces are within 1000 feet of the LRT station. NJ has a ton of these types of parks, and after transit came to some of them, the mode split didn't change much. Auto oriented facilities attract autos. They're not fun places to commute to via transit, mostly because of the experience of walking from the station to the desk. They need to be redeveloped, and that's hard to do when you have viable business going on in the existing park, and you have zoning limits, and you need to keep water retention on site and can't design additional development within your envelope. Moving the station east of Military Highway, provides the opportunity to redevelop what is an (did someone say vacant or partially vacant??) industrial park into something that would actually tie into the LRT station, with walkable spaces and the office/residential/whatever spaces concentrated closest to the LRT station. Some real TOD. And in the mean time, a park and ride could be developed, which would probably induce much more ridership demand than the old commerce park anyway. The auto-oriented corporate park across the highway can run a shuttle over to catch the 12 workers who may use the LRT instead of parking in front of the office, or encourage workers to bring folding bikes on the train.

Wow... adding $1.5M to do it the wrong way. NSU has everything to gain by bringing LRT to campus. I just don't understand what they're thinking.

That's Inglewood. And it is not mentioned in that song (Ice Cube is from South Central L.A.), but in "California Love" by Tupac. "Inglewood, yeah Inglewood always up to no good." Or Dr. Dre's "Next Episode," "Clip in the strap, dippin through hoods (what hoods?) Compton, Long Beach, Inglewood!" Just FYI

Those plates are priceless! The piece, sans plates, is a great public art piece. To me it looks like a theme on unity, something you could display in city hall as a city motto.

^ more like 25 years ago!

But those systems which offer express services also have 4 tracks or at least frequent passing sidings. The Tide starter line will not have either, correct? Even if the LRT were to skip stops, it would still be a tremendously long trip. The route from VB to NOB via downtown Norfolk and Hampton Blvd has lots of chokepoints where the LRT will be running in mixed traffic. It will not be time-competitive with the driving trip via I-64. An alternative is to run a rail service in the I-64/564 ROW. Such a service would truly be just an express from VB to NOB, and would not serve the function of an "urban metro" within Norfolk. Is there enough travel demand to justify the expense of such a service? If not, then buses remain the best option. It would be my hope that HRT would change some of its bus service schedules and routes to make good connections to the light rail. HRT would likely cut services on its Va Beach Blvd route to Norfolk, and add circulator buses to pick up riders who live/work/etc beyond walking distance to the LRT stations. Hopefully those circulators/jitneys would be scheduled so that they'd be at the station within a minute or two of the arrival of the train (seamless transfer), and would run as late as the train runs. Also, it's likely that local cab drivers will gather at train stations to pick up passengers who can't use the bus to get to where they're going or who don't want to wait for a bus if there's a long wait. It's HRT's responsibility to make LRT work by making it as easy to get to and use as possible! Let's hope they don't let us down!

Indoor ski slopes are old hat. We have them in the U.S. too, ya know. What we don't have are islands shaped like palm trees! Maglev would be great, but it's far from being on the market. It'll be years before it gets developed to the point that it is (A) the LPA anywhere and (B) receives any FTA New Starts $. It's tough enough to convince Feds that a proven transit technology would work here. Imagine asking them to finance an even bigger gamble!

I guess Harborfest has gotten smaller since the days when my grandpappy tied his boat up at Banana Pier and we watched the relay races and volleyball games on vacant lots near the Pagoda. The days when Portsmouth's Seawall Fest occupied the vast parking lots surrounding the lightship, and the lines for the ferry at Portside backed up to the line for the ferry at High Street (pre High Street Landing). Does anyone remember the name of the park that used to be there? Home of the rocket fountain. I'm trying for the life of me to remember but can't. Funny, because my brother and I used to play there all the time when we lived in the Seaboard Bldg.

IDK if this has been provided already, but have you guys checked out metroscenes.com? Great photos of Downtown Norfolk and Town Center there! Metroscenes - Norfolk and Virginia Beach

I think what Waterside needs is a concept/identity that it can stick with. I feel that right now (err, 4 years ago the last time I went in there), it's hosting whatever it can get (clubs/bars, a couple of restaurants, a couple of shops, and a food court). I think Waterside could become a major activity center again if it BECOMES something. It could become a place for tourist-catering mega food/bar chains like Hard Rock, Planet Hollywood, ESPN Zone, Fox Sports Grill, etc. Think Baltimore Power Plant. Of course the place would have to see a major overhaul before it could attract such tenants. Or we could tear the walls off the thing, get some fresh air in there (literally and figuratively) and make it into something like Pike Place Market in Seattle. It could become THE destination in the region to get fresh produce, seafood, flowers, baked goods, and Norfolk t-shirts (do people buy Norfolk t-shirts?). Part of the problem is urban design. Waterside has HUGE advantages with Town Point Park and the marina being right there, but it's annoying for people elsewhere in downtown to cross Waterside Drive. The Waterside Drive area just is not an inviting or intimate urban environment. The building setbacks, driveways, etc. make it a strange place to walk around. I'd love to see Bank of America let go of its drive-thru (how many downtown banks need drive-thrus??) and something be developed between BOA and Waterside Drive that leads pedestrians toward and then across the Drive. It wouldn't have to be huge, just something there so you don't feel you're leaving downtown to get to the waterfront.

The plaza, as rendered, is HORRIBLE! Cheap, tacky, cheesy, feigning nostalgic town squares. I don't think preservationists would clamor for the clock tower. It's not historic. It's just cheesy. I'm all for creating great, open public spaces (especially in a park-starved city like Norfolk), but not something like this. The building-above concept could be great if it's done in such a way that the transit station isn't in a dark, dreary, frightening (especially at night) cavern. If it's in a spacious, airy, bright atrium with office space above or to the side that would be fantastic.

Ethel, grab your oxygen tank, we're going to see the jazz show at Dr. Newby's office!

Yeah the Ballentine site does have the advantage of rail in place to the north (what's the ownership/LOS?), but it suffers from being not tooo far from many, but close to none. In my dream world, when MacArthur Center turns south in a couple more decades, the thing will be demolished, street grid restored, and a rail station at the corner of City Hall and Monticello (with track underground heading out of the CBD). Perhaps you could send commuter trains or LRT out of Downtown/Harbor Park on the LRT starter line, and construct a flying junction to the line scm mentioned. You'd have stations at VB Blvd, 5 Points, Wards Corner, and as close to NOB as you could get (or another combination of stops to get you an MOS). All of this stuff I'm talking about is very pie-in-the-sky, but who knows, in 30 or more years our transportation priorities may very well change significantly and these types of projects won't seem so crazy.

Ideally this bus transfer center would be at the AMTRAK high speed rail station next to Harbor Park. You'd have a multi-modal center with connections available between high speed train, light rail, buses, cabs, ferries, heliport, whatever else you could bring in there. This would be the transportation hub for the region. You could even give it a cheesey name like Metro Center or City Terminal. How safe would it be to stand out there at Cedar Grove late at night waiting for a transfer?

It's also funny that the views looking east and west are reversed!

Nashville (BNA) is a very easy airport to navigate around and my car rental experience there was a breeze! The connections there will be a good asset to travelers originating in Norfolk.

Yeah there seem to be a few west coast fast food chains popping up in the east now. I'm waiting for In-N-Out Burger to come over!! I could go for a double double animal protein style! (2 patties, 2 slices of cheese, wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun). Is Janaf the first El Pollo Loco location in VA? I haven't seen any on the east coast yet.

Wonderful. Nothing says "Thriving Downtown" more than a 700-space(!!!) surface parking lot!!!

How about this place? (no cheats!) photo cred will come later...

I don't remember BYO being a big thing in VA. I've never done it there. There are a lot of restaurants in NJ that are BYO only. At first I thought it was kind of strange but now I love it because you can get the cheapest stuff you want to bring and not deal with restaurant markups on alcohol. Mmmm, nothing washes down a $50 Italian meal like a $5.99 bottle of wine from Rite-Aid!!! I remember the after-hours bars in VA too. I never went to Bugatti's but there was one in Charlottesville I went to once or twice. Club members were allowed in, and they could sponsor one or two non-members to come in w/ them. So if you're not a member and don't know any members you try to chat up and befriend people outside and get them to bring you in w/ them. I think last call laws are silly. The market can set the last call time. In New York most bars close at 4 because most people have gone home by then. There are really only a few places that are open later.

Exciting news indeed!

The skating rink will have a new home when NRHA demolishes the housing projects bounded by Brambleton/Monticello/Va Bch Blvd/Tidewater Dr to make way for Norfolk's "Central Park."

These pics of Norfolk are just plain sexy. More and more buildings filling in the shots all the time! I just keep imagining how hot a 600+ footer on the Snyder Lot would look in some of these shots!