Tide Naval Station Extension Plans Edging Forward

[Anderson]

http://www.gohrt.com/nsntes/

http://www.gohrt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Alignment-Concepts-maps.pdf

HRT is moving ahead with studying alignments for the Tide extension to NNS. Right now they're looking at eight options and about 16 total variants. One of them seems to replicate the old streetcar line that went to Ocean View, another runs by ODU, and a couple of them run some very odd places (such as one that goes down I-64).

There are some upcoming public meetings and links to public comment forms on the first site as well.

Edit: The biggest problem is that the #1 and #2 locations that people want the line to serve are Norfolk International Airport and Old Dominion University. In the longer-term plans, both more or less get their own lines (those plans basically comprise alignment 1 for ODU and alignment 6 for the airport). There's no way to hit both locations with one line.

 

[blueman271]

While this is all very exciting it doesn't look like any of the lines will actually enter NSN itself. The map is a little misleading in that not all of the grey area marked Naval Station Norfolk is actually behind the base gates. A good portion of it, specifically the alignment of the Tide, is outside the security perimeter. IMHO, the best alignment would be one that combines a stop at the NEX or pass & I'd ( ie outside of the gates depending on the direction your coming from) and then continues onto NOB after going through the required security checks. While this would be a bit of a hassle HRT has experience doing it with their bus routes and this is the only real way to get sailors out of their cars and using public transportation to get to work. Add in a few park and ride locations at the opposite end of the lines and run the trains early enough to allow sailors to get to work between 0600 and 0700 and this could be a real way to alleviate the traffic problems that so often hamper NSN.

 

[Anderson]

It's just my opinion, but I'd be inclined to do a "Pentagon-style" setup, where you'd run a circulator on-base, run The Tide right up to the gate, and folks would make a quick transfer through the security gate between the two. It isn't ideal, but the risk with doing anything else is that the gate issues would kill timekeeping.

 

[Ryan]

Agreed, as long as you could run the circulator such that it was waiting at the gate when the Tide showed up and left shortly thereafter.

For me (or at least the me 10 years ago when I lived there (holy crap, that's been 10 years?)), the attraction from the extension would be evening trips the other way from my house in Colonial Place to downtown.

OK, technically the drunken trips from downtown back to the house.

 

[Anderson]

RyanS, on 20 Feb 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:
Agreed, as long as you could run the circulator such that it was waiting at the gate when the Tide showed up and left shortly thereafter.

For me (or at least the me 10 years ago when I lived there (holy crap, that's been 10 years?)), the attraction from the extension would be evening trips the other way from my house in Colonial Place to downtown.

OK, technically the drunken trips from downtown back to the house.

Well, taking the two extensions together, you now have a whole range of options opened up. The big ones are ODU/Naval Station Area-Downtown and ODU/Naval Station Area-Oceanfront, but remember: The Tide as extended from the Oceanfront to NNS has the following major traffic generators/destinations (ignoring the obvious suburban traffic from folks who don't want to drive the whole way somewhere):

-The Oceanfront

--Laskin Road Shopping Center (assuming this alignment is chosen)

-Virginia Beach Town Center

-Norfolk State University

-Harbor Park/Downtown

-ODU (again, assuming an ODU-connecting alignment)

-Norfolk Naval Station

There's room for a lot of traffic on different segments; I don't see there being much end-to-end traffic, but I do see there being a lot of traffic on different sub-segments.

 

[Anderson]

Just a further thought, but I believe that both Granby St. and Hampton Blvd. hosted streetcar lines at one time. Alignment-wise, Hampton Blvd. would probably be the easiest to run, since you could avoid having two lines meeting one another in odd places and forcing a transfer. If we eventually need transfers, so be it, but it is probably better to avoid doing so as long as you can avoid doing so operationally.

Edit: While I'm at it...

An NNS-Beachfront line would total somewhere around 27 miles. On the one hand, this is a bit long for a single light rail line; on the other hand, as noted, not many folks would be going end to end, and there's no reason to "break" the line if it can be helped...insofar as it goes into downtown and out the other side, it is no worse than most of the DC Metro lines...and at least here, there are good anchors on the ends.

This does, however, bring to mind a long-term issue: Any lines spreading off of the main core line are going to run into a bottleneck of some sort. Either there will be a forced transfer between lines outside of downtown (which is fine if handled well), there will be a second line into downtown (also fine, but may get expensive), or you'll have to handle part of both lines on the same tracks (which is likely to trigger capacity issues).

To be fair, I can see a time when downtown Norfolk has 3-4 lines covering it in a network that spreads out in several directions...but that would be an expensive proposition for the redundant coverage involved.

 

[Anderson]

I attended a presentation on this on Wednesday night. Suffice it to say that 1C has a backstory, but also that the HRT people are throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to, as near as I can tell, work out the "vision thing" for the Tide going forward.