VIRGINIA BEACH
With string and push pins and a big map, Darcy Nelson and about 40 others plotted the future of the light-rail line Tuesday.
They went to Norfolk Naval Station and the airport, through Ghent and past Old Dominion University, to Wards Corner and Janaf Shopping Center. They were not restrained by budgets - which made the options essentially unlimited.
"It is hard to pick one corridor," Nelson said.
Their work was an exercise that will be repeated tonight and Thursday as Hampton Roads Transit and Norfolk gather opinions on how people would like to see The Tide get to the naval station, if an extension were built. The workshops are part of a study that is expected to wrap up by June.
When finished, the HRT staff hopes to have a handful of routes resulting from public feedback to present to the City Council, and a description of what residents think are the purpose and need of extending The Tide to the Navy base.
That would provide enough data to begin the next step in the long process of building a light-rail extension: a federal study of the environmental impacts. No funding has been identified for the study.
At the workshop Tuesday at the Holiday Inn on Greenwich Road, five groups of about eight each were tasked with coming to a consensus on three corridors to the naval station. Bob Batcher, Norfolk's communications director, encouraged them by microphone as the teams discussed their routes.
"I want to see you shake out those preconceived notions of where you think the string should go," he said.
After the groups presented their creations, Nelson, a 30-year-oldGhent resident, said she was impressed by the diversity of the participants and the transit planners' interest in their work.
Tonight's workshop is at Norview High School. Thursday's is at the Ted Constant Convocation Center. Both will run from 6 to 7:30.
Julie Timm, HRT's transit development officer, said civic and community groups can request to hold their own mapping workshops. Comments can be submitted online and information about the study is at www.gohrt.com/nsntes.
The residents' maps will be photographed and converted to digital versions that will help planners find the most commonly suggested corridors. Researchers will then narrow the options by dismissing those that run into fatal flaws, such as routes that would traverse cemeteries or require the demolition of numerous historic buildings.
Norfolk and HRT's research into the naval station extension is a separate initiative from the Virginia Beach Transit Extension Study.
Dave Forster, 757-446-2627, dave.forster@pilotonline.com