It's time for Newport News and Hampton to return to rail!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- It's time for Newport News and Hampton to bring rail transit back into the picture! This video details my proposal for what a modern light rail line connecting these two cities could look like!
Additionally, this is my submission to the Classy Whale "One Line More" contest!
Line map/MetroDreamin': metrodreamin.c...
Many line maps in this video were made, at least in part, with MetroDreamin’s map creation tools.
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Historical photos used, in order of appearance:
Historic American Engineering Record. “Photocopy of Postcard (Pentran File), Photographer Unknown. Hampton’s Old Point Comfort Electric Trolley in 1921. - Newport News & Old Point Railway & Electric Company, Trolley Barn & Administration Building, 3400 Victoria Boulevard, Hampton, Hampton, VA,” Photos from Survey HAER VA-46, 1968, www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.va1452.photos/?sp=47&st=image. Accessed 12 Jan. 2025.
Historic American Engineering Record. “Photocopy of Postcard (Pentran File), Photographer Unknown. Hampton’s Old Point Comfort Electric Trolley in 1921. - Newport News & Old Point Railway & Electric Company, Trolley Barn & Administration Building, 3400 Victoria Boulevard, Hampton, Hampton, VA,” Photos from Survey HAER VA-46, 1968, www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.va1452.photos/?sp=47&st=image. Accessed 12 Jan. 2025.
Historic American Engineering Record. “Photocopy of Photograph (Pentran File), Photographer and Date Unknown. Shows Trolley with Trolley Barn and Administration Building in Background. VIEW NORTHEAST - Newport News & Old Point Railway & Electric Company, Trolley Barn & Administration Building, 3400 Victoria Boulevard, Hampton, Hampton, VA,” Photos from Survey HAER VA-46, 1968, www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.va1452.photos/?sp=41. Accessed 12 Jan. 2025.
Griffith, Ellis Parker. “Hilton Village, West from D and Warwick, February 1, 1919,” Newport News Public Library Photograph Collection, 1 Feb. 1919, image.lva.virginia.gov/VDLP/Newport_News/Hilton_Village/images/154.jpg. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025. This is the photo used in the video thumbnail.
---. “Photocopy of Photograph (Pentran File), Photographer Unknown. Bus Garage to Left Now Demolished. Trolley Car Drivers, Maintenance Personnel and Management Staff in 1915. VIEW SOUTH - Newport News & Old Point Railway & Electric Company, Trolley Barn & Administration Building, 3400 Victoria Boulevard, Hampton, Hampton, VA,” Photos from Survey HAER VA-46, 1968, www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.va1452.photos/?sp=38&st=image. Accessed 12 Jan. 2025.
This collection has some cool old maps of where the NNH&OP Railway used to run: cdm15904.conte...
Full works cited: docs.google.co...
Thanks for 757 transit content.
Of course! There will definitely be more in the future!
WOW! This is a fantastic proposal and video. Everything was effectively presented and justified. Not to humble myself, but this actually seems like something that could happen, unlike my fantasy dream world scenario
There are so projects you can tell are a labor of love. I feel that here
I’m glad you liked it! I tried to err on the side of realistic optimism (not that there’s anything wrong with imagining even better transit lines)!
I’m also glad you liked the presentation! I don’t think I would have been satisfied with it if it were any shorter, since then I’d have to cut some stuff out!
@@tyleralberico Thank you for saying that!! It means a lot! This very much started as such a project but towards the end became somewhat of a burden with the contest deadline (moreso, I just bit off a little more than I was expecting to chew). Nonetheless, I regret nothing about making the video. I actually biked the entire line to get footage and it was 100% worth it. I got to see things on a human scale and not just blaze past them on the 107. It was a cool way to explore, and I think I enjoyed the filming process for this video more than most of the other videos I’ve filmed!
@@29downtheline I totally get liking the process more when you’re out shooting a lot! I took CNU’s beginner photography course and did my final project on documenting the Newport News’s built environment from downtown to the reservoir. I spent so much time on it that it became such a rewarding process in the end
Sounds like a fun class if that was the final project! Filming, at least for me, is definitely more rewarding when you have an idea in mind for what you want to do with it!
I might have to do more adventuring throughout the city since, I’m realizing, it would be cool to do a fully-fledged video on just the history of transit on the Peninsula. I’m always of the opinion that HRT/Hampton Roads in general doesn’t get talked about enough (positively) in transit circles, so I feel like there’s a lot of history that hasn’t really been documented all in one place. Considering HRT’s only 25 years old, there’s a lot to cover! Maybe that’ll have to be another project like this one, but we’ll see!
This is an awesome proposal. Especially with the use of a completely separated lanes from traffic. I also like the borrowing of WMATA and SEPTA ideas to make way-finding and timing easier for potential riders.
Also Tide, Breeze, CBART, and Connecting Chesapeake can go hand in hand out-shining NOVA’s metro lines. 🤯
Glad you liked it!
And yeah, if all those lines are built (or expanded, in the case of the Tide), Hampton Roads’ transit network would be pretty phenomenal!
One thing that could help something like this along at the state level is we need the va code to be amended to allow HRTAC to use regionally generated transit funds on rail. Currently the law says they can’t be spent on light rail outside Norfolk.
Simpler/better funding methods would be great. The current funding structure is very odd, and HRT even says in one of their own documents that their current system of asking each individual city for funding is not the most effective process. The agency is at least already aware of this flaw in their funding structure, and it appears they have some interest in shifting to more regional funding, so hopefully the state will realize this issue too and amend the state code accordingly!
This sounds like a great and realistic proposal at not too high of a cost. Great job!
Thank you! Glad you like the proposal! Thanks for watching!
Made it just in time 😂 great video!
Indeed! Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed!
Great video! I have a very similar proposal that follows more of a residential route, but either way, its very similar!
I appreciate your explanations as to why you put the line where you did.
Thanks for watching! Glad you liked the (probably overly in-depth) explanations as well!
Great video! The best part about the northside of Newport News is that it has a lot of empty land that was previously rail infrastructure.
The CSX/Chessie/C&O line was originally double-tracked from Newport News up to Richmond. There where also a lot of large yards for storing coal hoppers. Most of this infrastructure slowly started to be ripped up by Chessie System in the 1980s due to the decline of coal and changes in how it was transported.
Now most of the coal traffic heading to Newport News is export coal. This traffic is declining at a slower rate that either energy coal or metallurgical coal, but it is still going away. This means the way things are going, the line has decreasing importance to CSX. Perhaps a deal could be struck to buy much of the unused ROW, similar to other deals made in the country.
All that extra space is definitely part of the reason I think this line would be pretty easy to build! If CSX does sell the right of way, I would additionally suggest restoring Amtrak service all the way to downtown and restarting the connecting ferry service to Norfolk!
I never have thought that in-depth about coal, so I appreciate the insight! Thanks for watching!
If this line had existed when I lived near Port Warwick/Oyster Point/City Center, I would've used it all the time!
Totally agree on the pedestrian crossings. Newport News is a city riven by the CSX line, or perhaps never fully merged from when Warwick was a separate city. Ped crossings might help improve how the city is bridged together
It also doesn’t help connectivity that some railroad crossings were removed altogether with no replacement. More pedestrian crossings would also stop some people from just walking over the tracks where there isn’t a crossing , because they wouldn’t have to go way out of their way to cross safely! Thanks for watching!
You and Tyler for co-President of CBART (or whatever it becomes)!
I definitely think we could come up with some good ideas (just based off what we’ve already put forward)! But we’ll have to see if rail transit makes a return to the Peninsula. It has been proposed in the past, but nothing has ever come out of it. So for the time being, it looks like we’re stuck with just Amtrak and buses! Hopefully, if Newport News and Hampton actually focus their growth on certain corridors, we could maybe see some more official proposals in the future.
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That would be amazing, but as someone who lived in Hampton Roads for a couple years, I don't imagine the NIMBYs, BANANAs, or any other acronym for those people would ever allow it to happen. They turned down a $0.02 property tax increase for the Tide Extension into Virginia Beach...despite it already rising $0.06 for roads. A western extension of the Tide would have been perfect up Colley into Ghent (with one intersection being closed to through traffic in Ghent to foster a walkable area that keeps transit service reliable), and then parallel along the NS Tracks to elevate and cross the ROW ending up onto Hampton BLVD past ODU and up to the Naval Station.
There would be opposition, for sure, but Newport News and Hampton are quite different from Norfolk and Virginia Beach. They’re kind of a blank slate for transit, in some ways. No northside transit project has really gone egregiously wrong (like the Tide’s construction/failed expansion) to my knowledge other than the Bland Blvd Amtrak Station construction (which was severely delayed, but that’s largely Amtrak’s problem, not HRT’s… for the most part), and there’s definitely ridership on existing buses in Hampton and Newport News that could quite easily be funneled onto the Breeze. There isn’t political will there now probably because nothing has been officially proposed (Northside HRT should really start thinking about more improvement projects). But I think it would be hard to gauge the level of support without actually going out and asking people about a specific proposal, though. I’m optimistic that people could be convinced, but perhaps I’ll someday stand corrected.
As for a western Tide extension, there are some nice, denser areas that could really benefit from it, but the main issue with an expansion up to NAVSTA Norfolk is flooding. It would be prohibitively expensive to build a line that wouldn’t flood whenever there’s a large storm, so I actually think buses would be a better option for northern Norfolk, only because of its flooding problem.
But if political opposition is the largest issue we’d face in building a rail line for the Peninsula, that’s honestly pretty good. Construction would be simple, HRT already knows how to do light rail, etc. And if cross-James ferry service works out well, perhaps residents would have a more favorable view towards other transit projects, such as a light rail line!
I disagree I think as a local what we need is a regional rail network. think of a mini s bahn type of network and have it link up with Ft Eustis, Williamsburg, and have it terminate in Toano. It could start with Dmu's and gradually work its way up all that would be needed is re doubletracking the peninsular sub and figuring out how to cut through the kinder Morgan yard but It could be done
I think a regional rail system would be great; I just think a light rail/interurban would be a little more feasible in the shorter term. Local transit on the Peninsula is not nearly as good as some places southside, so some sort of local transit improvement would probably be needed for a regional rail system to work well. Out of curiosity, if you were to design a regional rail system, how would you route service to serve parts of the region currently unserved by good transit?
@@29downtheline Light Rail does work but I disagree with the street running segments unless there is significant reworking of Jefferson Avenue towards Hampton. One of the biggest problems with the tide is the Downtown Norfolk segment where trains crawl through Downtown Norfolk. As someone who prioritizes trains need to be fast to be competitive with I 664 traffic from Hampton It’s going to add time and be less competitive to driving. I think the C and O right of way has more redevelopment potential than the breeze right of way. Keep in mind to be mindful that south Newport News area has a lot of lower income and I would be concerned about gentrification concerns so any development would need to be addressed first or the project might tank.
@@erikgustafson9319 I agree that the streets would need to be significantly reworked for the rails! As I briefly mentioned in the video, if we can’t get the sections along 27th/28th/Victoria up to speed, running along the C&O ROW from downtown Newport News to Hampton would be preferable. I totally agree that areas closer to Pembroke/I-664 have a better potential for redevelopment, and running the line along that part of the C&O ROW would allow for some really good TOD (and I think, in an ideal world, we’d have regional rail on the C&O ROW and local light rail in Wythe and the East End). I think running through the East End would simply give the area good transit again. I personally don’t think concerns about redevelopment (which are totally valid) should prevent an area from receiving good transit service, but I think there’s enough other empty space along this line that could be redeveloped first, before significant redevelopment along the line in the East End would even be necessary. I’d like to see a revitalized East End rather than a redeveloped East End, what with all the neat old architecture and charm in that part of the city. I think a better candidate for redevelopment is downtown Newport News. If we got rid of all those parking lots (or at least built buildings on top of them), downtown would be so much better! Downtown Hampton and Denbigh also have a lot of parking, which I would prioritize redeveloping over tearing down existing buildings. I think Newport News and Hampton are kind of uniquely situated because of all this surface parking. They could significantly reshape their downtowns just by building on top of parking lots. True, people can be displaced without having buildings actually removed, but improving a neighborhood without pricing certain people out of it is an extremely tricky problem. I really don’t have a fully thought-out solution to offer you here, but I think improving the city is better than leaving underdeveloped areas how they are now.