Will you ride light rail? (Norfolk, Newport News: organic, statistics, garages)

[Emrak]

Originally Posted by xsthomas

Yea, Im going to drive to a station, pay to park, pay to ride the train, possibly have to get a taxi to get to my location. Get another taxi back to the train and pay again for train ride, if I didnt get a round trip ticket. Yea, thats going to happen!

No one would drive to a light rail station. That defeats the whole purpose.

[papilgee4evaeva]

Originally Posted by Emrak

No one would drive to a light rail station. That defeats the whole purpose.

I'd be more surprised to find a light rail system that DIDN'T have any Park-and-Ride lots.

And even though they're not light rail, most if not all of the suburban Metro stations in the DC area have parking lots. So it's not unheard of to drive to a rapid transit station.

It wouldn't make sense with the starter line, though, since it's gonna be contained within Norfolk city limits. Once it expands to other cities, that will be more of a possibility.

[Emrak]

DC is not a valid comparison. There is a clear core to which people commute back and forth. No such core exists here. The only reason someone would want to drive and park and ride a train in this area would be to avoid true traffic bottlenecks, such as traveling from NN to Norfolk. Otherwise it makes little sense to me.

Let's be real. Light rail in HR is about growing the region from a (mostly) collection of suburbs to...something else. Whether that "something else" will work as the visionaries hope is anyone's guess. If you're an optimist you think it will, if you're not, you think otherwise. Tale as old as time.

[papilgee4evaeva]

I'll easily grant you that about DC being a defined core, which Norfolk is not (at least anymore).

Avoiding bottlenecks is a VERY good reason to park and ride, though. I'd do it.

Personally, even though I'm used to how the area is (I grew up there), I'd love to see HR become "something else" not so much for growth for the sake of growth, but more for the purposes of more efficient travel within the region.

[cityboi757]

DC is just like Hampton Roads. Just on a smaller scale.

Think about Reston, Tyson's Corner, the District, Arlington, etc. All of those places are major job centers.

Hampton Roads has few MAJOR activity centers that people commute to and they are centralized too. Downtown Norfolk, Greenbrier, Naval Station Norfolk, Oceana, Town Center, the Oceanfront, Old Town Portsmouth, Langley/NASA, DT Hampton, Wlliamsburg.

If you think about it. the majority of these could be hit with two or three lines. Portsmouth to DT Norfolk to Oceana to Town Centr to the Oceanfront is one line. Greenbrier to Naval Station to DT Hampton to Langley to Williamsburg is another line.

[papilgee4evaeva]

I'm gonna see if I can flesh out your statement, cityboi757...

Norfolk ~ Washington (easy comparison... old city, most urban part)
Virginia Beach ~ Fairfax County (VERY easy comparison, heavily populated but not that dense and therefore a pain to drive around)
Portsmouth ~ Arlington or Alexandria? (I'd vote for the former... fewer employment centers)
Chesapeake ~ Prince George's County (MD) (some really nice parts, some really crappy parts, some really rural parts)
Suffolk ~ Prince William County (included, but a bit far and less developed)

The big difference is that there isn't a five-mile-wide river bisecting metro DC (crossing the Potomac doesn't take nearly as long as crossing the James), so the Peninsula has taken on an identity of its own outside of the Southside. Like someone alluded to in another thread, I'd say that HR is somewhat of a cross between DC and the Bay Area (but thankfully not nearly as expensive or congested as either).

I'm going to draw a map some time as to potential corridors for light rail. It will include the airports too.

[papilgee4evaeva]

Hey, I just found a page on a light rail plan for the Peninsula from a few years back...

gohrt.com | Hampton Roads Transit | Serving Hampton Roads, Virginia (http://www.gohrt.com/developmentproject/peninsularapidtransitproject.html - broken link)

It'd be nice if this goes somewhere too.

[cityboi757]

Originally Posted by papilgee4evaeva

Hey, I just found a page on a light rail plan for the Peninsula from a few years back...

gohrt.com | Hampton Roads Transit | Serving Hampton Roads, Virginia (http://www.gohrt.com/developmentproject/peninsularapidtransitproject.html - broken link)

It'd be nice if this goes somewhere too.

That plan is still in the works. Basically they told Newport News to build dense developments such as City Center @ Oyster Point and then they can proceed with the process.

[Emrak]

We'll have to agree to disagree on the DC/HR comparison. I don't think they're in the same ballpark. Hell I don't even think they're in the same league, maybe not even the same sport. hahahah

Unrelated, but as a resident of Va Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, York County, and now Newport News, I can definitely say that the Peninsula is way, waaaay more organized and unified than the Southside. Has anyone else noticed the same?

There's very little of the back-and-forth politicking and infighting that is so common south of the water. Ironically, I think the Southside is responsible for it. In order to counter the regional might of the individual southside cities, the Peninsula has had to clump together. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see the Peninsula being the creme-dela-creme of the HR area in 50 years...but only time will tell I guess.

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by Emrak

Unrelated, but as a resident of Va Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, York County, and now Newport News, I can definitely say that the Peninsula is way, waaaay more organized and unified than the Southside. Has anyone else noticed the same?

If there were jobs in Newport News, Id move there without a thought over the southside.