Light Rail: Truth or Dare in Va Beach

The truth about light rail is a falsity. The falsity is that the prevailing truth is false. But the prevailing truth is that Norfolk's 7.4 mile light rail line, The Tide, is a starter line. It is not. It is a fiction.

“Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves,” wrote G.K. Chesterton.

The Tide ebbs and flows in Norfolk, and Norfolk's citizens pay quite a bit of money each year to operate and maintain it.

If you want to hear the “good, bad and ugly about bringing a light rail trolly to Virginia Beach,” you might want to attend this town hall meeting this Thursday, Oct. 16, 7pm, at the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center, second floor auditorium.

The event, featuring Cato Institute transportation expert, Randal O'Toole, is sponsored by the Tidewater Libertarian Party, Hampton Roads Tea Party, Virginia Beach Taxpayer Alliance and the Slipper Brigade.

The Cato Institute promotes “an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations.” In other words, it abhors taxes, excessive government and extravagant government spending.

The title of the event is “The truth you never hear about the failure of light rail and its exorbitant costs.”

Libertarian Robert K. Dean sent this notice in an email with the following tag line.

So, you think you want light rail? At any cost? Even if there’s no traffic congestion relief?

And you’ll accept real estate higher taxes and fees to bail out Norfolk?

This message is being sent to Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms and Virginian-Pilot Editorial Page Editor Donald Luzzatto inviting them to a public discourse with Randal O’Toole to share their commitment.

A Virginia Beach referendum in 1999 to extend light rail to the ocean front failed. Opponents cited the costs to operate and maintain light rail and not so much the initial costs, which are shared by the federal government, state and local governments. A recent study says that it might cost $1.3 billion to extend light rail from Norfolk to the oceanfront, higher than an earlier estimate of $800 million.

What has opponents seething are the ongoing costs to operate and maintain light rail each year of its existence.

The cost to build The Tide was $338.3 million and of that total Norfolkpaid $66 million while the rest was divided between state and federalsources. 

Meanwhile, the operations and maintenance costs continue to rise. Norfolk is expected to pay $5.3 million for light rail this fiscal year, up from $4.2 million for fiscal year 2013, according to Hampton Roads Transit, the region's transit authority.

Tax conscious citizens such as Dean and tax conscious organizations have seen what happened in Norfolk and they don't want the same thing to happen in Virginia Beach.

They fear that taxes will rise to pay for the costs. Their fear is palpable.

In May, 2013, Norfolk City Council raised the real estate tax four cents, from $1.11 per $100 of assessed value to $1.15 per $100 of assessed value, ostensibly to pay for the construction of four new schools.

How much of that tax increase is shifted to light rail costs is lost in budgetary legerdemain. City officials reveal little or nothing about how much it spends and how much it collects every month.

“Light rail is a giant hoax that makes rail contractors rich and taxpayers poor,” O'Toole said in an article on the Cato Institute website. 

Hyperbole aside, O'Toole's reasoning is sound and not full of fury. Simply, light rail is expensive and if not for the federal government, no city would attempt it alone and no politician would even suggest such an expensive wager.

The truth isn't how much light rail costs. The truth is how much politicians and city officials are willing to spend of your money.

Writer and philosopher Ayn Rand would have shrugged in her grave.

The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those somewhat more intelligent who are trying to explain our failure.

G.K. Chesterton