Hallsboro
Store served as a community center for much of rural
Chesterfield County in the late 19th century. The
handsome, two-story building, capped by a slate roof and ornamented with
bracketed eaves, stood at the center of what we
might call today a small "mixed use"
district. The structure housed a general store and post
office. The proprietor lived on the second floor.
Employees of a nearby tannery and lumber mill
used it as their commissary. Located on a rail line
radiating out of Richmond, the store functioned as a
transportation junction as well. Travelers would
patronize the store while waiting for the train.
Passenger
service ended in the 1950s, the store closed in 1962
and the railroad depot standing adjacent has been torn down.
In recent years, Hallsboro was renovated as a private
residence. But its newest owners, developers of the
massive Roseland mixed-use project, would like to
restore the building to its original use as a train
station -- a train station that serves commuter rail
traffic to downtown Richmond and points beyond.
"Here’s
a resource right in your back yard," says Casey
Sowers, general manager of Roseland, a 1,400-acre
project bordering Rt. 288 that would build some
5,140 residential units and 1.5 million square feet
of office and retail space. "This station and
the line aren't going anywhere. They've been here
for over a century." The Norfolk Southern rail
line is still active but only two or three freight trains
use it per day, suggesting that ample capacity
remains for passenger rail. Says Sowers: "It's
an opportunity you can take advantage of."
Commuter
rail in Chesterfield County? The very idea sounds
outrageous. Chesterfield, the sprawling,
fast-growing county southwest of the City of
Richmond, is one of the most auto-centric
jurisdictions in Virginia. Development is spread
out, land uses are strictly separated, and
interconnectivity between cul de sac subdivisions
and retail/office pods is poor. Outside of the small
community of Chester, there are few interconnected
sidewalks or bike lanes. No one walks in
Chesterfield, other than for exercise, and very few
ride the bus. The county has steadfastly resisted
efforts by the Greater Richmond Transit Company to
expand its bus service there.
In
sum, very few of the proper conditions exist to support a
viable commuter rail, which requires dense nodes of
inter-connectivity and walkable development around
train stations to support passenger volume. A 2003
report commissioned by the Richmond Metropolitan
Planning Organization scored a Midlothian rail line
through Chesterfield County only sixth among the 10
regional scenarios for commuter rail or light rail
studied. And that, remember, was the sixth best
project in a metro area where there is so little
interest in rail transportation that there is not a
single rail project under active consideration.
The
main virtue of the Midlothian route, which in the
Richmond MPO study stops short of Roseland, is that
the rail line already exists -- it does not have to
be built. As long as a transit
authority could negotiate access to the rail line,
the up-front capital investment of $81 million (in
2003 dollars) would be relatively modest. On the other hand,
based on the demographic and land use
characteristics around the stations along the route,
the study projected that the rail line would
generate only 1,700 boardings per week. That equates
to 340 boardings per workday. Assuming most
passengers ride both ways, that's 170 passengers per
day, or about 30 passengers daily per station.
This
map shows the path of the proposed east-west
Midlothian commuter service. This route stops short
of the Roseland project, which lies off the
left-hand margin of the map, just beyond Rt. 288.
By
no stretch of the imagination would it be cost
effective to invest $81 million and cover roughly $1 million a year in operating
deficits to
take 170 drivers daily off the Richmond metropolitan
road network. Even with increased monies flowing
into state rail projects as a result of The
Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform Act
of 2007, there are too many other rail priorities
for anyone to fantasize that the Midlothian commuter
rail described in the Richmond MPO study might one
day qualify for state and federal funding.
But
that's not the end of the story. The Richmond MPO
report made key assumptions that severely limited
the latitude of anyone who might think of providing rail
service in the region. First, it assumed no changes
to the disconnected, low-density human settlement
patterns along the route. As the study acknowledges:
Most
... projects develop Transit Oriented Development
(TOD) overlay districts to apply to the planned
station areas. In these locations, higher density
development is often permitted with a subsequent
reduction in the amount of required off-street
parking. The intent of TOD planning is to create a
higher density, walkable transit node with a
variety of land use types (office, residential,
commercial) within close proximity. Research has
documented the positive effect this type of
station-area land use planning can have on transit
system ridership.
At
this stage, there are no TODs planned for any of the
potential Richmond corridors, the authors note.
However, if
the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County
permitted TODs and re-development spurred ridership, the economics of the
project would look very different.
Second,
the transit study assumed that capital funds would
come from the public sector. Under traditional
heavy/light rail financing schemes, state, federal and local governments pay the
full freight, so to speak, for new construction. However, mechanisms now
exist in Virginia law -- Community Development
Authorities (CDAs) and Tax Increment Financing (TIFs)
-- to issue bonds to cover the up-front capital
costs, extract some of the increased property values
through Tax Increment Financing, and pay down the
bonds.
Indeed,
it is possible to conceive of developing a commuter
transit corridor with no assistance from the state
or federal governments whatsoever. The process would
look like this:
-
Plan
the commuter service along an existing rail
line, thus avoiding the costs of acquiring right
of way and constructing the line. In the case of
Midlothian commuter rail, Norfolk Southern would
be engaged as a partner.
-
Create
Community Development Authorities around each
station. The CDA districts would extend 1/4 mile
from the station, encompassing the rail line,
commercial property owners and residential
property owners who opt in.
These CDAs would be
empowered to issue bonds and underwrite
improvements in the districts such as rail
stations, parking decks and streetscape
improvements, while also chipping in to cover
the capital cost of the commuter rail service.
-
The
CDA bonds would be paid back by means of a
special tax levied upon property owners within
the CDAs. (Theoretically, some landowners could
be incorporated into a CDA against their will. I
would argue that participation should be purely
voluntary, and that unwilling landowners should
be exempt from participation.)
Such
an arrangement would have several virtues. First,
the project would not proceed unless the funds could
be raised through the private sector, protecting
against politically driven boondoggles. Second, it
would liberate the project from the budgetary
vagaries of state and federal government,
eliminating major obstacles that might prevent it
from moving forward. Third, by financing the project
through taxes on private property owners, it would
sidestep the scandal of generating windfall profits for
politically connected landowners, as appears to be
taking place in the Rail-to-Dulles Metro rail
project in Tysons Corner.
This
point cannot be emphasized enough: The project
would not proceed unless it created enough economic
value to make it a win-win for everyone -- the City
of Richmond, Chesterfield County, Norfolk Southern,
and private landowners -- and if it offered
sufficient protections to preserve the quality of
life for nearby residents.
That's
a tall order, of course. It's entirely conceivable
that the numbers won't work out. If that's the case,
I would argue, the project doesn't deserve to be
built.
But
if the numbers do work out, the project could
represent a boon to the City of Richmond and
Chesterfield County -- at very little expense or
risk to local governments. At a time when state and
local governments are starved for road-building
funds in the Richmond region, privately funded
Midlothian commuter rail could create new
transportation capacity to keep the region moving.
A
hundred years ago, the wealthy bankers and
industrialists of downtown Richmond created the
suburb of Bon Air south of the James River. They
sent their families there during the summer, and
they traveled back and forth by train, says Joan
Girone, a commercial real estate broker and former
member of the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors, who
resides in the leafy Bon Air community today.
Bon
Air was just one stop among many along that rail
line at the turn of the past century, Girone says.
Richmonders used the rails to commute back then, and
she thinks they can again. "I think the Richmond
region is the only region of a million people in the
country that does not have a transit system,"
says Girone. "We don’t have a regional bus
system. We don’t have a train system."
That's
all the more remarkable when you figure that
Richmond was the first city in the world to build an
electric trolley-car system, that commuter rail prospered
a century ago, and that the city, a major transportation
junction in the 19th century, sprouts rail lines and
rail right of way in all directions.
Girone,
who has devoted herself tirelessly to promoting
passenger rail in Richmond, is enamored with the
idea of Midlothian commuter rail. She envisions a
line running from sparsely populated Amelia County
through the giant Watkins Centre and Roseland
developments off Rt. 288 circumferential highway,
through the Robious Road/Midlothian intersection,
through Bon Air, old Manchester and downtown
Richmond, and then spinning out to the Richmond
International Airport east of the city. The
population is growing, traffic congestion is getting
worse, and it's impossible to widen roads fast
enough, she says. The Richmond region needs to
consider a new model -- nodes of transit-oriented
development around commuter rail stations -- that
enable people to get around without driving
everywhere in their cars.
The
Richmond MPO is well advanced in its Regional Mass
Transit Study, which should be complete by the end
of the year. Until publication of that document, the
only authoritative study of rail in Richmond is the Richmond
Rail Transit Feasibility Study, published in
2003. That report lays out the key elements of
Midlothian commuter rail.
The
15-mile rail line would have six stations:
-
Downtown
Richmond, either at the Main Street Station or a
spot less than three blocks away.
(Linking the Norfolk Southern rail line to the station, a major inter-modal hub
in downtown, would require repairing an
abandoned railroad interchange.)
Presumably,
the follow-up study will recommend extending the
rail line to Roseland and Watkins Centre, if not
farther.
Given
the modest level of ridership anticipated, the service
would require only two trains with a locomotive and two
coaches each. The trains would operate four inbound
trips during the morning peak, four outbound trips
during the afternoon peak, and perhaps one round
midday trip to provide continuity of service. If all
went smoothly, the trip would take approximately
half an hour. There would be no service on weekends.
Operating
costs would be extremely low: about $1.6 million
annually (in 2003 dollars). Fares would generate
about $600,000, leaving a deficit of about $1
million a year.
The
biggest nut to crack is the up-front capital cost.
This includes not only purchasing the trains but
repairing the link to Main Street Station in
downtown, building stations and park-and-ride lots,
adding "passing" sidings where passenger
trains pull over and allow freight trains to
pass, and a layover-maintenance facility to park the
trains.
Anticipating
no change to land use patterns, the Richmond Rail
Transit Feasibility Study expects nearly all
passengers to arrive at the stations by car, where
they will park either in park-and-ride lots or in
existing retail parking lots. The fact that everyone
must arrive by car is one of the main reasons why
ridership is expected to be so low, about 170
passengers per
day.
The
key to making commuter rail work, says Girone, is to
plan for Transit Oriented Development around the
proposed rail stations -- something that
Chesterfield has yet to do. "Here's my
point," she says. "Identify the sites on a
land use plan. Then, when you do the six-year
transportation plans, plan to have the money to buy
the site, just like you do for libraries and parks.
It's called long-range planning."
Casey
Sowers and his father George B. “Buddy” Sowers,
Jr., founders of GBS Holding Ltd., see Roseland as
an antidote to what ails Chesterfield County.
Located near the intersection of Rt. 288 and the
Powhite Parkway, the project will be well served by
highways. But GBS is not simply exploiting the
project's proximity to the new roadway. The goal is
to create a community where residents drive less,
and where they can meet many of their needs locally
-- without hopping onto the county's overloaded
transportation arteries in the first place.
Roseland
will embrace New Urbanist planning guidelines:
mixed uses, clustered housing, preservation of open
space, a grid-like network of streets and
pedestrian- friendly streetscapes. "Vertically
mixed" buildings will contain offices and
stores on the first floor and apartments above.
“At Roseland," says Casey Sowers, "someone
can leave his or her home in the morning, have
coffee at the corner café, go to work, go for a run
or bike ride, go out to dinner, all without ever
getting into a car. This should be the model for any
large new development in our county, to reduce our
dependency on the automobile.”
The
Roseland project. The Rt. 288 interchange can be
seen
in
the upper right-hand corner. The rail station would
be located in the commercial cluster seen in the
upper-left.
Commuter
rail would help wean Roseland residents from their
auto-centric lifestyles, Sowers maintains. He thinks
there's an untapped market for people to ride to work in a train,
reading the newspaper or checking e-mail on a
laptop, instead of fighting the rush hour crush into downtown
on the Powhite Parkway. The train trip would take
little
longer, and commuters could spend their time
productively.
Under
current plans, Roseland already has some elements in
place to encourage rail ridership. Plans call for a
shuttle service running from one end of the property
to the other, providing ready access to the train
station. Bicycle paths would link to the station,
and people could easily walk from a number of
apartment buildings nearby. Though still in the
conceptual stages, Sowers is toying with the idea of
integrating electric
vehicles into the transportation plan, with special
parking spaces where vehicles can recharge their
batteries. He also anticipates plenty of
retail parking for those who insist upon driving
their cars the short distance to the station. Peak
demand for retail parking and commuter parking tend
to balance one another fairly well.
If
Chesterfield County actively encouraged Transit
Oriented Development by approving increased density
within 1/4-mile of the station, that would increase
Roseland's range of options. The project could build even more
multi-unit condos and apartments near the station,
allowing more people to access it on foot, as well
as structured parking where people could park
right next to the station.
Instead
of treating the railroad as an undesirable land use,
Sowers cites the examples of other Southern towns
that have turned their railroads into an attraction.
"Tens
of thousands of people [in those towns] are coming
just to watch the trains going by," Sowers
says. "People bringing their kids. People
celebrating the trains. Combine the retail business
with some medium-density residential to support it,
and the convenience of light rail directly adjacent
to it.... Put three or four of those
things together,
and you can create a pretty charming place."
Demographic
trends support Sowers' notion. Reconnecting America,
a not-for-profit group promoting Transit Oriented
Development, forecasts that the number of households
near transit stations will reach 15 million by 2030.
The growth will be driven by a surge in the number of
singles and empty nesters who prefer to live in
smaller homes within walking distance of restaurants,
entertainment and other amenities.
Roseland
and nearby Watkins Centre are natural advocates of
commuter rail: They've already done much of the hard
work. They've consolidated the land around their
rail stations, and they don't have to tear anything
down. The challenge gets more complicated at other
station locations, such as Robious Road, Bon Air and
Manchester where the land is encumbered with
existing development.
That's
where the higher density comes in: Increase the
density enough, and local government can incentivize
local property owners to re-develop anything. Much
of the land around the proposed stations consists of
shopping centers and parking lots. With the right to
rebuild at higher densities, property owners
would happily buy out their tenants' leases and build
multi-story buildings and parking decks instead. The
transit vision for Chesterfield and Richmond would be to
replicate on a modest scale Arlington County's
highly successful strategy of spurring development
around the five Metro stops on the Ballston-Rosslyn
Corridor.
The
blue dot displays the approximate location of the
proposed Manchester station on the edge of the James
River (seen as the dark band in the center of the
image). A rail station there could stimulate the
re-development that is taking root in the decayed
urban neighborhood. (Image courtesy Google Maps.)
This
aerial photo shows development around the Robious-
Huguenot
intersection. The area could be re-developed at
higher densities without severely impacting nearby
residential neighborhoods. (Image courtesy Google
Maps.)
One
intriguing strategy for enticing Norfolk Southern
into the initiative would be to grant "air
rights" over its railroad right of way -- the
ability to literally build a structure above the
railroad tracks. Such a structure would serve the
added benefit of splicing together the development
on either side of the railroad tracks, improving
connectivity and improving pedestrian circulation.
Transit
Oriented Development around the rail stations would
dramatically alter the economics of the rail
commuter project. If CDAs were established around
seven stations between Manchester and Watkins
Centre, and if each CDA issued $30 million in bonds,
it should be possible to raise more than $100
million to fund the up-front capital costs of the
rail line, create a $20 million endowment to
subsidize the train's ongoing operating costs, and
leave $90 million to pay for improvements that make
the stations more accessible.
Here's
the million-dollar question: Will access to commuter
rail service, streetscape improvements and increased
densities create enough economic value to induce
property owners to join the CDAs and pay the higher
taxes? There's no way to know without undertaking
detailed studies of the route, identifying the
landowners and querying them directly. That job in
itself would take considerable resources. But it
should not be an insurmountable task to pull
together a number of stakeholders to underwrite the
effort.
There
are a number of foreseeable obstacles to pursuing a
private-sector version of Midlothian commuter rail.
Build
It and They Do Not Come. Many communities
have built rail projects in which the touted
passenger traffic never materialized. Many
Richmonders are committed to the flexibility and
freedom that automobiles provide, skeptics might
say, and Richmond may never come close to
replicating the
Arlington experience.
That's
why it may be necessary to create an endowment, or
fund of some sort, to cover potential
shortfalls in operating costs. A $20 million
endowment, invested to yield a five percent annual
return, could throw off $1 million a year
indefinitely -- enough to cover the deficit
projected in the Richmond MPO study. (If putting
transit-oriented development into place improves
ridership significantly, the operating deficit could
well be smaller.) Alternatively,
the CDAs could be restructured to pay an ongoing
revenue stream that would cover any operating
deficits, building up an escrow account if not
needed.
There
Goes the Neighborhood. Transit Oriented
Development in other communities has been delayed or
derailed by concerns that increased density would
intensify traffic congestion locally. NIMBYs don't
care if mixed-use development and commuter rail
takes drivers off regional arteries and connectors
if the increased concentration worsens traffic in their
neighborhood. One potential strategy is to require
developers, as a condition of receiving higher
densities, to adopt Traffic Demand Management (TDM)
plans to reduce localized traffic congestion --
encouraging carpooling, van sharing, telecommuting,
bicycling, whatever -- and to hold them accountable
if their performance measures aren't met.
NIMBYs
also fear the visual impact of high-rise buildings
in the TOD districts towering over their
single-family dwellings. That concern can be easily
alleviated by scaled zoning: permitting the highest
buildings above or around the rail stations,
mid-rise buildings a little farther away, and
smaller buildings on the edge of the district. The
result would be a tapering, pyramid-like effect that
creates no jarring juxtapositions with residential
neighbors. (See Ed Risse's treatment of Public Way
Rights and Pyramid development strategies for
Rail-to-Dulles in "All
Aboard", April 16, 2007.)
There
Goes the AAA Bond Rating. Chesterfield County,
like the Commonwealth of Virginia, is committed to
maintaining its coveted AAA bond rating. It has been
argued in other localities that CDA indebtedness
incurred would count against the county's
indebtedness, which would undermine its credit
rating. I have heard experts insist that CDA
indebtedness would not count as county debt.
A definitive legal ruling on this issue might be
necessary to persuade Chesterfield County and the
City of Richmond, which has a AA bond rating, to
approve the CDAs.
Even
in the absence of a positive ruling, a bond
downgrade is by no means inevitable. Higher
indebtedness could be offset by the increased value
of Chesterfield's tax base, with rail stations
acting as magnets for office development. According
to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal,
a University of North Texas study found that between
1997 and 2001, office properties near Rapid Transit
stations in suburban Dallas increased in value 53
percent more than comparable properties not served
by rail. Similarly, Arlington County found that land
values in the Ballston-Rosslyn Corridor grew 84
percent between 2002 and 2006.
On
the positive side, other foreseeable developments
might help Midlothian commuter rail. One
priority of rail enthusiasts in Virginia is
establishing a high-speed rail link from Bristol,
Roanoke, Lynchburg and Richmond. That would run
along the same Norfolk Southern rail line as
Midlothian commuter rail. If that project were ever
funded, the potential would exist to share
infrastructure along the Midlothian portion of the
route.
Similarly,
Midlothian commuter rail would benefit enormously if
other Richmond rail projects under evaluation by the
MPO were built. Rail lines comprise a network, and
like any network, the value to those who use it increases exponentially with the size of the
network. Running a rail line from Main Street
Station to Richmond International Airport would make
the rail connection even more valuable to Roseland
residents. The same could be said if riders could hop
on a train, change at Main Street Station, and ride
out to Ashland or Short Pump.
Chesterfield
County is the linchpin of Midlothian commuter rail.
If the county wants to avoid risk taking of any
kind, the rail project will never happen. But if
county officials ponder the future beyond their next
re-election, they'll see the necessity of taking
bold measures. The Southern Environmental Law Center
projects that the county of 300,000 residents could
add 125,000 housing units by 2030. Those people have
to live somewhere. And they will clog county roads
if given no transportation options. With few funds available to build new
roads, Midlothian commuter rail may be the only thing standing between Chesterfield
and gridlock.
--
July 2, 2007
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