Light rail will bring riders downtown. What will they see?

By Debbie Messina
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 29, 2009

NORFOLK

When light-rail passengers arrive in downtown Norfolk late next year, many will experience the city from an unfamiliar perspective – as pedestrians.

More folks will be on foot making their way to work, shopping, restaurants and entertainment venues. So, the Downtown Norfolk Council is exploring ways to make downtown more walkable and welcoming for them.

“The way people use downtown will change,” said Cathy Coleman, president of the council, a membership organization that promotes downtown. “People will be in places they’ve never been before.”

A committee charged with the task recently went on a walking tour.

They looked for improvements that will make a good impression on pedestrians, both regular visitors and newcomers.

To start, the committee, led by Donna Phaneuf, president of VIA Design Architects and vice chairman of the downtown council, is focusing on directional signs, landscaping and lighting.

People’s entry points to downtown have evolved over the past decade with MacArthur Center mall, the cruise terminal and more residences and marinas.

“People are spilling out from a number of different directions, and light rail will bring a whole different backbone to the system,” said Dick Gresham, vice president of construction company E.T. Gresham and a committee member.

Creating a sense of place in key areas is also important, so the committee is interested in using public art to showcase downtown.

“The whole idea is offering information nodes and looking at the gateways to downtown for someone on foot,” Coleman said. “You’re in a waterfront town, but if you get off light rail at the MacArthur station, you can’t see where the water is from there.”

Phaneuf suggested the approach should be somewhat whimsical because ordinary signs often add to the cluttered appearance of a city.

The group also believes that more landscaping will add color and vitality. They want to find a way to prevent the destruction of flowers and greenery that the city plants in tree wells along Granby Street but never seem to survive.

Adding more lights in trees and on significant buildings to highlight their beauty is another possibility.

The downtown council hopes to identify projects and have many of them completed when light rail starts carrying passengers in October. The improvements would be paid for with downtown council funds, which include a special tax on downtown properties.