On election day, voters in Virginia Beach will be asked to vote on the proposed Virginia Beach to Norfolk light rail line. Promoters claim that light rail could carry the equivalent of six to eight freeway lanes, suggesting that traffic congestion would be reduced.

But the reality is much different. A number of cities around the nation have built light rail. Municipal politicians and local newspapers admire the cute trains as they ply along downtown streets. But in none of these cities has the promise of reduced traffic congestion been delivered --- not in Portland, not in St. Louis and not anywhere else. Indeed, virtually none of the planning studies prepared around the nation to justify light rail have predicted any material relief from traffic congestion. Communities seeking to reduce traffic congestion by building light rail would be as well served to increase the frequency of garbage collection or to extent the hours of street lighting or any number of other unrelated policies. There is simply no connection between traffic congestion and light rail.

Hampton Roads is no different. But that doesn’t stop the overzealous light rail missionaries, who continue to repeat the misleading claims, which would be banned if the Federal Trade Commission regulated transit advertising. The proponents mix capacity up with demand. It is possible, for example, to build an NFL sized stadium for each high school in the area. But since the demand for high school football games is a fraction of the capacity, most of the stadium would be empty.

So it is with light rail. The Hampton Roads Transit (HRT, formerly TRT) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) indicates that light rail would have a very limited impact on traffic volumes. HRT studies further indicate that the percentage of people riding transit in the light rail corridor would increase from 0.7 percent presently to 1.1 percent with light rail. Even if these projections are met, it would still leave the percentage of downtown Norfolk workers using transit at under six percent. This contrasts with transit’s market share of more than 50 percent to the large downtown such as New York and Chicago. What the promoters do not perceive is that Hampton Roads is not New York or Chicago, and it never will be.

There are two fundamental reasons why light rail has been so ineffective as a traffic reduction strategy. First; too few people are going to the same place at the same time. Once the rider leaves light rail, it is necessary to either walk to the destination --- few people with automobiles will tolerate waiting for a connecting bus. Moreover, light rail is slow --- average commute times are double that of the automobile. HRT optimistically projects that speeds would be 50 percent faster than average for new light rail systems and equal to the fastest subway systems --- claims that can only be labeled unbelievable. As elsewhere, light rail will be slower than cars. Only when people are seeking transportation that doesn’t take them where they want to go and takes twice as long to do it will light rail attract meaningful numbers of drivers out of their cars.

And then there are the costs. The cost to attract each daily commuter out of automobiles is sufficient to lease a Chevrolet Suburban in perpetuity (this is not a proposal, it is used only to indicate the absurdity of spending so much to get people out of their cars) --- a cost nearly equal to the per capita income of the Hampton Roads area. Worse, it is likely that costs will rise to levels well above present projections. The $525 million light rail line is unlikely, given the experience in other cities, to cost less that $750 million. This means new taxes --- heavy new taxes.