Virginia Beach is ready to buy NS line

Fifteen years after Virginia Beach, Va., officials agreed that the city's transportation future was tied to the 66-foot-wide rail path between Norfolk and the resort area, the City Council is poised to buy the right of way, The Virginian-Pilot reports.

After a last-minute snafu
over how the corridor can be used – the $20-million state grant specifies that
the city pursue light rail as its long-term strategy – lawyers for Norfolk
Southern Corp., the state and Virginia Beach have negotiated a deal and set
closing for Sept. 24. Now the contract needs the council’s approval.

Last year, before a
federal appraisal valued the 10.6-mile corridor at $42 million – and before
public confidence waned because of the substantial financial problems at
Hampton Roads Transit – the council unanimously agreed to spend $10 million of
the city’s money, along with $20 million from the state and $5 million from
HRT, to buy the old rail line for a total of $40 million.

Council members
recognized then that owning the straight east-west corridor between Newtown and
Birdneck roads would allow the city to chart its future rather than cede it to
individual property owners.

Last week, Councilwoman
Barbara Henley reminded her colleagues that the city no longer has the option
of using the old rail line that ran south to rural Munden Point because the
right-of-way had been sold off, piece by piece. The same should never be
allowed to happen to the right-of-way between Norfolk and the Oceanfront, she
said.

Under the most recent
contract, the city will purchase the utility easement for $5 million, which
will provide nearly $100,000 a year in rent. That money will be used for
transportation projects such as road resurfacing and bridge repair.

Some council members
worried that the state’s stipulations tie the city to light rail before a study
of rail and other transit alternatives is finished in December. They wanted
assurance that if the study determines that a dedicated bus line makes more
sense than extending Norfolk’s light rail line, Virginia Beach could use the
right-of-way for buses, for a bike path, or for any other transportation use.

The state grant, a city
attorney said, precludes the city from building anything in or along the right-of-way
that prevents its eventual use as a rail line. But there’s no deadline for
building rail; the contract’s language allows the city flexibility as it
decides its transportation future.

The sliver of land is a
critical investment. It starts where the Norfolk Tide ends at Newtown, goes
past Town Center, past Hilltop to the resort area.

"It’s a spine through the
city," Councilwoman Rosemary Wilson noted. "We need this…. It’s for our future."