Photo credit: Amtrak Acela train at South Station in Boston by Brian Snyder (Reuters)
by David Bernd and Jack Ezzell
The elected officials of cities and counties in Hampton Roads don’t get enough credit when credit is due.
On behalf of the Hampton Roads Partnership, a big thank you goes to our region’s elected officials who are working hard for the citizens of Hampton Roads.
We especially applaud the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization’s (HRTPO) decision to speak with one voice for the benefit of all communities of Hampton Roads on the alignment of High-Speed Rail. We commend your dedication to the ultimate stakeholders, the citizens of the communities you serve.
This decision will help maintain Virginia as a “Best State to Do Business” and further align Hampton Roads as the gateway to the world that our seaport assets have historically established. Our connection to the expanding high-speed rail network is vital to our region’s, and each citizen’s, economic future.
Today’s leaders of South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula have agreed to push for bringing much-coveted and much-needed high-speed trains to ALL of Southeastern Virginia. The vote was unanimous. Even those mayors from the Peninsula cities who could not attend the meeting endorsed the vote via letters of support.
The vote at last month’s HRTPO special meeting endorsed our “High-Speed Rail Corridor” as new routing of passenger trains from Richmond/Petersburg south of the James River through Suffolk and terminating in Norfolk, which will also provide intermodal access with the region’s first Light Rail. Also endorsed were improvements to the existing conventional passenger rail service on the Peninsula as our region’s “Emerging High-Speed Rail Corridor.” Win-Win.
Speed is not as doable on the Peninsula as it is on the Southside. Frequency of trains and on time reliability of the existing service is what is most important to the Peninsula. That is exactly what this agreement provides and in time to qualify for the federal rail-designated stimulus monies.
The HRTPO also agreed to pursue hiring a long term consultant to guide the Board through the process of development of a High-Speed Rail strategy which would include intercity rail planning, too. Win-Win-Win.
This is not about one side of the river or the other, but about making the region more competitive and sustainable. Our assets, such as the Port, military and federal establishments, tourist attractions and venues, arts and culture, healthcare facilities, and educational institutions, while impressive alone, mean so much more when leveraged together.
We are a powerhouse region-in-the-making. What we choose to do with our assets now, together, will determine the fate, and the fortunes, of our future.
The HRTPO’s unity on the high speed rail decision speaks to a bright future for Hampton Roads. We and the entire Partnership membership pledge to support the continuation of these collaborative efforts for the good of all citizens … and ask you to do the same. Credit is due, and we thank you for getting “ALL ABOARD.”
David Bernd, President of Sentara Healthcare, is Chair and Jack Ezzell, President of ZEL Technologies, is Vice-Chair of the Hampton Roads Partnership, a 115-plus member organization including the chief elected official of all seventeen communities, leaders from private business, higher and secondary education, military, and labor from both South Hampton Roads and the Virginia Peninsula.
1 comment
HR Partnership
December 26, 2009 at 4:04 pm (UTC -4)
Where the newspaper (Daily Press) stands:
December 9, 2009
On rail and roads, the focus should be on what’s best for the region, not what’s best for the Peninsula
When it comes to transportation, it can’t be a case of “us” versus “them.” It has to be “all of us” if any of us in Hampton Roads is to do well.
But that face-off mentality is encouraged by the region’s geography, with the harbor and rivers separating the Peninsula from the cities — Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Chesapeake — of South Hampton Roads.
There’s a tendency to draw lines, and recent developments threaten to pit those who like to do that against each other. The latest arrived in the form of an announcement by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation that the most cost-effective way to improve passenger rail service, and connect Hampton Roads with Richmond, Washington and points north, is by upgrading service that runs down the Peninsula, not by focusing on a high-speed line to Norfolk.
The agency didn’t recommend among the options, but it seems to have skipped the part where cost calculations are checked against common sense. Because it would point this way: While rail service to the Peninsula would be retained, the focus for high-cost, high-speed upgrades should be on the southern and western part of Hampton Roads, where two-thirds of the residents and most of the economic powerhouses are found.
To arrive at its conclusion, the state rail agency had to make some assumptions that don’t square well with reality. The first is that enough people from Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and Chesapeake will travel to downtown Newport News to pick up a train to justify the hundreds of millions of dollars that rail upgrades will cost. The agency figures that service ending on the Peninsula would attract an astonishing 2,460 riders a day, compared to about 430 today. The underlying assumption is that they’d find it easy to get to the Peninsula, thanks to a new third crossing of the harbor.
That house of cards falls apart quickly, because the third crossing is speculative and far off.
The route that makes sense runs south of the James into Norfolk, where it connects to light rail. Clued-in Peninsula leaders see that, fortunately, and backed that option as the area competes for federal rail funding. It’s unfortunate that, by giving the Peninsula option undue credibility, the new report will encourage folks with a provincial outlook.
Another place where the regional tug of war always plays out is at the table where decisions are made about where road money will be spent. Balancing competing interests requires strenuous horse-trading, a lot of compromise and a focus on what benefits the region as a whole. Fortunately, the regional road-planning group is tackling something it had previously refused to do, prioritize the big projects. A test run of a computer model gave top ranking to two projects important to locals —widening I-64 from Newport News to Williamsburg and expanding the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. They would make life easier on this side of the water and there’s a strong case for either one in regional terms, too. But look wider, as the region must, and other projects — that third crossing for the sake of the economy, expanding the Midtown Tunnel choke point for southside commuters, upgrading Route 460 to expand the southerly approach and reroute trucks — may be more important.
You can love living on the Peninsula and still recognize that many of the region’s major job engines, hotbeds of innovation, and premier health and cultural resources are south of the harbor. Things that connect us make the entire region stronger. Things (and attitudes) that separate us can hold us back. “Get ours first” won’t serve us as well as “We’re all in this together.”
Copyright © 2009, Newport News, Va., Daily Press
http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-ed_region_edit_1209dec09,0,2145682.story