THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701210422
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: City Report
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 67 lines
A plan to upgrade Oceanfront trolley service this summer is headed for the City Council, complete with a provision to pay for it with $300,000 in special tourism business taxes.
The proposal, several years in the making, was approved last week by the Resort Area Advisory Commission, a citizens' panel appointed by the council to oversee resort improvements and activities.
The plan calls for:
Extending the trolley route from 42nd Street to the Virginia Marine Science Museum on General Booth Boulevard, south of Rudee Inlet bridge.
Increasing the frequency of trolley service along Atlantic and Pacific avenues to the marine science museum.
Dedicating a traffic lane - alternately - on Atlantic and Pacific avenues for trolley service during peak summer months.
Providing supervisors with two-way radios to maintain trolley service consistency.
Providing customer service training for trolley drivers.
Provide incentives - meaning pay hikes - for drivers.
Use tokens for trolley service. These can be obtained at resort hotels or businesses.
Increasing trolley service visibility through improved signs and vehicle color schemes.
The advisory commission is asking council to set aside $300,000 a year for the first three years to pay for the upgraded trolley service. The funds would come from the Tourism Growth Investment Fund, a special revenue pool made up of special taxes on restaurant and hotel rooms.
Advisory commissioners want the council to push for the completion of a resort area parking and transit plan, a document that could provide a blueprint for future traffic and parking strategies.
The plan approved last week is aimed at keeping as many cars as possible off resort streets while shuffling masses of people around the strip.
Tidewater Regional Transit trolleys have served the Oceanfront for almost a decade, but their failure to maintain consistent schedules has frustrated resort business operators.
TRT customers are now charged 50 cents to ride anywhere along the Oceanfront, and the fee is viewed by resort planners as another obstacle to increased ridership.
A revised version of a resort transportation plan released last month by BRW, a consulting firm based in Florida and Minnesota, was viewed last month by the Resort Area Advisory Commission.
Using the BRW study as a guide, the commission developed a short-term strategy that members would like to implement this summer.
City Council approval of the revised BRW plan in the next month or two is needed to put it into action by mid-May. Advisory commissioners need a nod from resort business, civic and municipal groups by the end of February before forwarding the proposal on to the council.
Two major hurdles have yet to be overcome. One arises from dedicating lanes on Atlantic and Pacific avenues, where traffic is heavy May through September, especially at night.
The second involves finding a funding source for a drastically overhauled trolley service and starting it up in the spring. This could be solved, temporarily, by dipping into TGIF.
The narrowness of Atlantic and Pacific avenues at various points precludes reserving more than one lane for trolley service and in some spots may even prohibit lane dedication altogether, but commission members suggested altering the course of dedicated lanes in and out of one or two Oceanfront side streets.
KEYWORDS: TRT TROLLEY