By Carolyn Caywood - Project Fellow

In attendance: Henry Ryto, Carolyn McPherson, Daniel Koach, Bruce Drees, Nancy Craft, Carolyn Caywood, Mike Aschkenas.

Mark Schnaufer, VB Transportation Planning Coordinator ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) joined us to explain how bus service decisions are made. Travis Campbell is another member of the VB staff who works on public transit. HRT does the primary route planning with City input. HRT then proposes a budget to the City with routes and prices and including suggestions for new services. For example, City staff has requested HRT look at a new route serving the base, the industrial park, and the corporate center. For FY2012, HRT proposed making a new route 28 express from Oceanfront to the Newtown LRT station for $600,000, now they're looking at alternatives for FY2013. The City makes the ultimate decision about the level of service.

The expectation is 20% fare recovery, with 31% funding by the City, 16% state, and 32% federal. VB currently contributes $4,370,000 for FY2012, compared with Norfolk's contribution in FY2011 prior to LRT opening of about $7,000,000. (figure corrected by Mark.) The money purchases “hours of service” as a way of calculating what service is available. Currently the frequency on most VB routes is hourly - “headway” is the wait between appearances of a bus on a route.

The basic fare is $1.50 for each bus taken – no transfers. This will include the Tide Thus a day pass for $3.50 is preferable if one needs more than one bus to get to a destination. For example, from Bayside Hospital to MacArthur Mall will require 2 buses and the Tide - $4.50 one way - unless one gets a day pass. Note: ask the driver for a day pass before depositing the fare. There is a senior discount. The Oceanfront service is only $1.00 because it is supplemented by the hotels. More information is at http://gohrt.com/ Day passes are sold at Farm Fresh and other locations listed on the HRT website.

The Tide has 9 cars and 6 will be running at any given time. Each holds 160 SRO with 68 in seats and has rack space for 4 bikes. While the cars could be hooked together the plan is to run them separately. HRT will keep routes 25 and 27 running till 10pm to meet the Tide at Newtown, and divert 20 to the Newtown Station. The Norfolk Naval Station is still the region's biggest employment destination.

The Service Efficiency Study is available at http://gohrt.com/about/development Routes were studied with the intent to shift service hours to more popular routes like route 20 to decrease “headway”or increase frequency without costing more. Route 37 serving Oceana, for example, is not sufficiently used. Population density is the drive in making public transit efficient. The elimination of inefficient routes yielded $440,000 and reinvestment of $250,000 in reduced headway on the most used routes still saved the City $192,000. Councilmen Wood and Uhrin are the reps to HRT. The Strategic Growth Areas represent a change in philosophy about public transit. The idea is to make existing routes more efficient and to create public transit-oriented corridors of development while leaving the single-family residential areas of the City intact.

A $100,000 grant from Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) will add bus shelters for inclement weather. The park-and-ride in VB is at Holland and Silverleaf, not near anything else. Planning distinguishes between people who are “transit dependent” and “choice riders.” Carpooling requires that the members have stable work schedules but public transit is more adaptable to changes that arise. Traffix is a HRT-sponsored approach to carpooling. If a bike rack is full, a rider must wait for the next bus – making an hour headway a major barrier and explaining why sometimes there will be a bike chained to the HRT signpost.

When citizens want to propose a change, they should contact both Mark and HRT. Mark suggests we look at the low-hanging fruit and focus on bus frequency rather than additional routes.

The next meeting of CVT would fall on Labor Day so Carolyn McPherson will check the availability of the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation office, (2400 Potters Road, Suite 300) on other dates, preferably Tuesday, September 6. The agenda will be discussion of what we heard from Mark, plus a look at how we can use the Envision Transportation website. http://www.envisiontransportation.com/ Future agendas may include asking someone from HRT, connecting with Complete Streets Coordinator, Ms. Jeryl Philips.

On September 2nd, VB2040 will be looking at transportation and anyone may attend as an observer. This is a change from the date mentioned in our meeting! Please see the revised Envision 2040 schedule HERE. The meetings are usually at the Strategic Growth Area Office, 222 Central Park Avenue, Suite 1050, Virginia Beach, VA 23462. If anyone plans on attending any of the meetings, Carolyn M suggests sending an email to Charleen M. Cooper This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it just so she has a general headcount. The meeting room is relatively small and if they expect a larger than usual crowd, they may want to change the venue. The presentations and meeting notes are online at http://www.VBGOV.COM/envisionvb2040. If you want to hear about other City news, you can sign up to get the press releases at http://www.vbgov.com/vgn.aspx?vgnextchannel=d90254cf18ad9010VgnVCM100000870b640aRCRD

Books mentioned at the meeting:

• Gridlock!: Why we're stuck in traffic and what to do about it by Randal O'Toole
  
  
• The Big Roads: the Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift
  
  
• The Roads Not Taken by Alex Marshall