Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Track to the Future

Along those lines, I'm looking at the planned light rail system for Norfolk, VA. There's a nice little interactive map. You can click on the proposed stations and get views of the local area. I don't know Norfolk at all, so I'm basing all of this on the information provided by the map, but given what I can see I'd say that light rail is probably a stupid idea unless it's accompanied by very different development around many of the stations. That could happen, of course, but there are lots of reasons that it might not happen, including existing zoning regulations and general NIMBYism opposed to change. The rail line itself imposed on an existing development pattern won't save the world, but if development patterns are allowed to adjust to the presence of the rail line then maybe we're getting somewhere. But the point is that a successful light rail line doesn't just provide another way to get people from A to B; a successful line will change the way the area is developed. The real question is whether people want that change or not.


...adding, local opposition to change is often an issue:

Hampton Roads Transit’s original plan was to run the train all the way to the Virginia Beach oceanfront, but Beach voters rejected the idea and the Beach council backed out. Norfolk decided to proceed on its own.