Official calls light rail solution to region’s traffic woes

Hampton roads will not get any money to fix our roads next year. Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer says the solution to our crisis is light rail.

“To have dense development around the stations – that would allow people to maybe have one less car to cut down on the number of trips in half,” says Homer.

But right now V-DOT’s six year plan is only to pay for light rail in Norfolk, which will only help people in downtown Norfolk and around Newtown Road

In fact, even though HRT has started its study to plan for light rail in Virginia Beach, V-DOT has not budgeted for the next six years to pay for it.

“Certainly the availability of funds is of critical concern,” says HRT’s James Toscano. “But really that’s the second step in the process. The first process is really digging in and going through a study process to find out what the cost might be. You really can’t worry about if you have the funds to cover the costs until you know what those costs will be.”

Those costs will be hundreds of millions of dollars.

HRT is still figuring out exactly how much light rail in Virginia Beach will cost, and once the price tag is determined HRT officials say it will be at least four to six years before construction would even start.

So the solution some transportation officials are counting on is still only a possibility, while right now there are no funds to solve the problems drivers deal with every day.

HRT plans on completing their light rail study by fall of next year. At that time Virginia Beach city officials will decide if they even want a light rail system in their city.

Public comment will continue on this study. The next meeting is scheduled for March.