The Tide Light Rail

[MrFSS]

The Tide light rail will extend 7.4 miles on an east to west alignment from the East Virginia Medical Center through downtown Norfolk, continuing along the Norfolk Southern right-of-way, adjacent to I-264, to Newtown Road. Eleven stations will be constructed along the route with four park and ride locations that provide access to major areas such as Norfolk State University, Tidewater Community College (Norfolk Campus), Harbor Park, City Hall, MacArthur Center, and the Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

FULL STORY

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I've been looking through this overview.

Page 5 lists what hours of the day it will run (6 AM to midnight, 7 days a week) but doesn't estimate headways or runtime from one end of the line to the other. Isn't that basic information that you'd expect someone asking to spend a quarter of a billion dollars to include in their project description?

Page 7 talks about some of the running being in city streets. The illustrations suggest that except at crossings, the light rail tracks will be isolated from everything else, but they never explicity say so.

Harbor Park Station is kind of odd in that they plan to have over 1000 parking spaces, and no regular bus service. My initial reaction was that if this is such an excellent location to drive that many cars to, wouldn't it also be a great location for some bus service? But it looks like Harbor Park isn't in a great location for bus service in that the nearest bridge to the south is a railroad bridge, and that parking lot capacity is based upon what the stadium already has.

On page 27, with Brambleton Avenue / NSU station, I'm a little surprised the plan is to offer access only on the east side of Brambleton Ave. They could very well save passengers from the west side of Brambleton Ave from having to cross Brambleton Ave by having stairs and an elevator on the west side as well, perhaps with a two or three car long island platform with its ends above the two sides of Brambleton Ave. If there are pasengers who'd be coming from the west side of Brambleton Ave, anyway, which I can't really figure out one way or another from looking at the map.

The lack of escalators is also something I find a little surprising given my experience with the typical MBTA subway station. There is no way elevators of the size the MBTA uses could handle all the passengers the MBTA carries.

Are they considering expanding beyond Newton Road in the future? (That might get from Norfolk into Virginia Beach; what Google Maps is showing me doesn't obviously indicate where the border between cities is.)

Has there been any investigation of the possibility of commuter rail along the rights of way that run perdendicular to this light rail system?

The lack of Amtrak connections is disappointing. Would it be possible to run a train from Norfolk to Suffolk, and then from there take the tracks that mostly parallel US 460 to get to Richmond? What's the current condition of those tracks?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

The lack of Amtrak connections is disappointing. Would it be possible to run a train from Norfolk to Suffolk, and then from there take the tracks that mostly parallel US 460 to get to Richmond? What's the current condition of those tracks?

Near as I can tell from looking at Google Maps, the tracks from Suffolk to Petersburg along 460 are significantly straighter than the Richmond to Newport News tracks. They're an excellent candidate for upgrading an existing ROW for high speed operation. If that ROW is wide enough for quad track and only has two tracks now, maybe two new tracks could be added for passenger service, perhaps with Amtrak buying the currently unused portion of the ROW from the freight railroad. Or maybe if 460's ROW is wider than it needs to be, that could be used for high speed tracks.

Around Petersburg, things get a little more complicated. If the goal were direct high speed service to Richmond, adding tracks that bypass Petersburg might be desireable. On the other hand, if stopping in Petersburg was desired, it looks to me like there is no way to get from those tracks along 460 to the existing Petersburg station without backing up, given the current track configuration, so if the train to Norfolk were going to go through Petersburg, a small amount of track construction would be desireable.

I also couldn't figure out from looking at Google Maps why trains going between Petersburg and Richmond don't stop at both Richmond stations. Do the trains that bypass the Main St station follow the tracks along I-195? It does look like south of Main St station, there's track via Mayos Island that ought to be usable to reach Petersburg (unless it has been abandonded).

 

[George Harris]

I also couldn't figure out from looking at Google Maps why trains going between Petersburg and Richmond don't stop at both Richmond stations. Do the trains that bypass the Main St station follow the tracks along I-195?

Yes

It does look like south of Main St station, there's track via Mayos Island that ought to be usable to reach Petersburg (unless it has been abandonded).

The track that crosses the river just south of Main Street station is the former Seaboard Air Line main. It is now a 30 mph or maybe less line. There have been studies by VaDOT concerning upgrading the lines necessary to get a fairly fast run via Main Street Station for the trains to Petersburg and south, but so for, no money, only paper.

 

[JeffConn]

I've been looking through this overview.
Page 5 lists what hours of the day it will run (6 AM to midnight, 7 days a week) but doesn't estimate headways or runtime from one end of the line to the other. Isn't that basic information that you'd expect someone asking to spend a quarter of a billion dollars to include in their project description?

As far as i've been able to find out from local press, it's a 20 minute run from one end to the other, with trains running every 15 minutes during peak hours.

Page 7 talks about some of the running being in city streets. The illustrations suggest that except at crossings, the light rail tracks will be isolated from everything else, but they never explicity say so.

Most of the run will be isolated from traffic, as it's on an old Norfolk Southern right-of-way. The parts in downtown Norfolk will be running WITH traffic.

Harbor Park Station is kind of odd in that they plan to have over 1000 parking spaces, and no regular bus service. My initial reaction was that if this is such an excellent location to drive that many cars to, wouldn't it also be a great location for some bus service? But it looks like Harbor Park isn't in a great location for bus service in that the nearest bridge to the south is a railroad bridge, and that parking lot capacity is based upon what the stadium already has.

Harbor Park has 1000 spaces already for the baseball stadium. And there's really nothing else there, so a dedicated bus stop wouldn't make much sense.

On page 27, with Brambleton Avenue / NSU station, I'm a little surprised the plan is to offer access only on the east side of Brambleton Ave. They could very well save passengers from the west side of Brambleton Ave from having to cross Brambleton Ave by having stairs and an elevator on the west side as well, perhaps with a two or three car long island platform with its ends above the two sides of Brambleton Ave. If there are pasengers who'd be coming from the west side of Brambleton Ave, anyway, which I can't really figure out one way or another from looking at the map.

There have been changes to the NSU station. The current president of NSU was complaining about the station, that it would bring crime to the school, and she didn't want a view of the station from the president's house. (Swear to God!)

The lack of escalators is also something I find a little surprising given my experience with the typical MBTA subway station. There is no way elevators of the size the MBTA uses could handle all the passengers the MBTA carries.
Are they considering expanding beyond Newton Road in the future? (That might get from Norfolk into Virginia Beach; what Google Maps is showing me doesn't obviously indicate where the border between cities is.)

The Tide stops at the Norfolk/Va Beach border. Plenty of discussion about expanding it into VB, but VB has been dragging its feet.

Has there been any investigation of the possibility of commuter rail along the rights of way that run perdendicular to this light rail system?

None that i know of, yet.

The lack of Amtrak connections is disappointing. Would it be possible to run a train from Norfolk to Suffolk, and then from there take the tracks that mostly parallel US 460 to get to Richmond? What's the current condition of those tracks?

There are studies about a Richmond/Hampton Roads commuter line. Early in the discussion now.

http://www.rich2hrrail.info/

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I've been looking through this overview.
Page 5 lists what hours of the day it will run (6 AM to midnight, 7 days a week) but doesn't estimate headways or runtime from one end of the line to the other. Isn't that basic information that you'd expect someone asking to spend a quarter of a billion dollars to include in their project description?

As far as i've been able to find out from local press, it's a 20 minute run from one end to the other, with trains running every 15 minutes during peak hours.

Page 7 talks about some of the running being in city streets. The illustrations suggest that except at crossings, the light rail tracks will be isolated from everything else, but they never explicity say so.

Most of the run will be isolated from traffic, as it's on an old Norfolk Southern right-of-way. The parts in downtown Norfolk will be running WITH traffic.

Are the automobiles going to be running in the same lane as the streetcars in places that aren't intersections? The illustrations suggest that the answer is ``no''.

The section of the MBTA Green Line which is used only by the E branch trains has a mix of

1) subway running

2) running in the median, separated from automobile traffic except at cross streets

3) sharing the traffic lane with automobiles on a street that has one lane for moving traffic in each direction, and probably a parking lane on each side of the street

It looks to me like the Richmond system will most closely resemble 2 outside of the old railroad right of way.

And that old railroad right of way isn't fully grade separated.

The current president of NSU was complaining about the station, that it would bring crime to the school, and she didn't want a view of the station from the president's house. (Swear to God!)

I was eating ice cream in Davis Square once with a resident of Arlington, MA (he was the one who decided that we should have ice cream in Davis Square, I think), and he was commenting about how Arlington had been afraid that if the Red Line had continued into their community, they'd have problems with crime/undesireables. As Davis Square is one stop away from where Arlington decided the Red Line should end and Davis Square is actually a pretty nice area (it's certainly got the most expensive real estate in Somerville), this fear doesn't seem well grounded in reality.

 

[JeffConn]

If you want some in depth (and sometimes heated) discussion about the Tide, may i suggest heading over to urbanplanet.org's forums, specifically the Norfolk and Virginia Beach subforums? The Tide has been a major topic over there.

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Norfolk-...ans-t15925.html

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Virginia...ail-t19227.html

P.S. My apologies if it's considered bad form or against Amtrak Unlimited policy to tell folks to head over to another forum.

 

[zoltan]

I was eating ice cream in Davis Square once with a resident of Arlington, MA (he was the one who decided that we should have ice cream in Davis Square, I think), and he was commenting about how Arlington had been afraid that if the Red Line had continued into their community, they'd have problems with crime/undesireables. As Davis Square is one stop away from where Arlington decided the Red Line should end and Davis Square is actually a pretty nice area (it's certainly got the most expensive real estate in Somerville), this fear doesn't seem well grounded in reality.

This argument gets rolled out a lot, in various places.

One example is the ambitious possibility of and extension of the Baltimore Metro to Westminster, MD, where many residents talk about violent crime spreading to Westminster if the metro was extended there. They won't admit it, but I have a deep suspicion that the fears of some of the residents of Wesminster are grounded on nine out of ten users of the Metro at present being black, and it's very sad to consider that Westminster probably isn't the only place where this comes into people's perceptions.

 

[Ryan]

I heard the same arguments growing up in Frederick for both expansion of Metro and MARC (although less so for the MARC, I guess in the minds of the bigoted, black people don't ride commuter rail) into Frederick County when I was growing up.

It's good to see that the MARC finally made it into town.

 

[zoltan]

I heard the same arguments growing up in Frederick for both expansion of Metro and MARC (although less so for the MARC, I guess in the minds of the bigoted, black people don't ride commuter rail) into Frederick County when I was growing up.
It's good to see that the MARC finally made it into town.

As it happens, my first American train ever was MARC 895, the 6:30 from Union Station to Frederick! I have a friend in Westminster who picked me up at Frederick. I'd never experienced any carriages quite so basic, American-style low platform operation, locomotives constantly blowing long-long-short-longs constantly or such nice staff before, it was a lot of fun. I was quite overwhelmed by how the experience differed from my experiences in Europe!

 

[JeffConn]

Here's a video tour of the construction that's going on now for the Tide. It shows the route and, for me, makes it a lot easier to visualize the Tide.

http://hamptonroads.tv/hrtv.php?id=2859662

By the way, earlier i said that the Tide would be running every 15 minutes during peak times. Actually, its supposed to run every 7 1/2 minutes during peak times.

 

[user 2160]

Here's a video tour of the construction that's going on now for the Tide. It shows the route and, for me, makes it a lot easier to visualize the Tide. http://hamptonroads.tv/hrtv.php?id=2859662

By the way, earlier i said that the Tide would be running every 15 minutes during peak times. Actually, its supposed to run every 7 1/2 minutes during peak times.

aha.. 10 years later.. after pushing for this.. it's finally happening.

I can't wait go go back home in a year or so and see how things are progressing