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Welcome Governor-Elect Tim Kaine! (Thank you for your Transportation Town Halls!)
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Introduction
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Transportation needs for Northern Virginia must take into account the intense development occurring in Fairfax County and throughout the region. Major increases in density in Tysons Corner, the Dulles Corridor, and at the Vienna and Dunn Loring Metro stations will have a profound effect on our quality of life. Smaller developments also must be evaluated for their collective effects on traffic, schools, and the environment.
Citizens groups concerned about Fairfax County development policies and a County process that often brushes aside legitimate community questions have joined together to create this website, to allow residents in all parts of the County and beyond to discuss their concerns about the direction and effects of growth. The Network is founded on the principle that citizens must have both input and influence in the evolution of the County. It is our community.
Member groups are non-partisan, and represent individuals across a wide political spectrum. Member groups are not "anti-growth," but rather advocate responsible development, taking into account regional and infrastructure needs, and employing a process that respects citizen voices. We invite you to explore our website.
Network members are expanding a dialogue that flowered dramatically this past Spring with two town hall meetings. The first attracted nearly 600 citizens to Oakton High School, the largest citizens' meeting on general growth issues in Fairfax in at least 20 years. Over the past six months, citizens engaged in community affairs through the Network have flocked by the hundreds to hearings and meetings across the County.
What follows is a brief thematic presentation of the issues of primary concern to Fairfax citizens, followed by a one-page overview briefing of several currently pressing local matters that implicate these themes. While a number of the matters addressed may not be subject to remedy at the state-wide level, we want you to understand the full context of our concerns in evaluating options for those that are. All of the land-use issues of concern to us intersect at some level with the transportation problems and challenges facing Northern Virginia.
Thank you for your time and attention, and for your service to the citizens of Virginia.
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Themes
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Focus on Infrastructure and Environment First - Spot-planning and zoning is outpacing regional planning and infrastructure development. We need to give broader attention to roads, watersheds, sewers, transit, schools, parks, and air and water quality - before authorizing expanded development.
Development in metro areas should be analyzed comprehensively for its impact on the public good (broadly defined to include economic impact, service facilities capacity, environmental protection, time value (a cost of traffic), recreation, education, etc.)
If the existing infrastructure cannot support today's population, even "smart growth" harms the community.
Current policies force local taxpayers to bear the costs of both inadequate public facilities (crowded schools, traffic gridlock, overcrowded Metro trains, deteriorating water quality) and higher taxes to pay for infrastructure improvements.
To address the impacts of development, local jurisdictions should be given the option of enacting impact fees or an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance to analyze development requests for their impacts on existing public infrastructure. See, e.g., FLA. STAT. 163.3202.
Should Virginia seek to increase density in competition with the District of Columbia that has considerable infrastructure in place and is seeking population growth?
Should Virginia focus increased density in areas actively seeking revitalization through retail and commercial businesses and upscale office space class, such as the Route 1 corridor, or Baileys Crossroads?
Transportation is Key - How to move people is a critical question, but one that should focus on what works for the populace, and not just for developer profits based on speculative real estate investments. Given the timetable necessary for transportation improvements, these issues also must be evaluated in tandem with growth and land-use issues, or the new systems will be outdated before they are even fully implemented.
Start at square one and really evaluate all options on the merits and economics, including both their degree of improvement (measured on multiple criteria) and cost-effectiveness.
Take a close look at Bus Rapid Transit. Metro alone cannot solve our problems. We have a complex transportation problem that requires a multi-faceted approach.
Evaluate extending the Yellow line Metro from Huntington to Fort Belvoir or Lorton.
Evaluate Service Level Agreements for transportation projects that set forth hard performance standards for each project and require funding to be canceled for any project that fails to deliver the level of service improvements promised in exchange for funding.
Make WMATA Accountable to the Public - Development decisions involving WMATA need to be open to public scrutiny. WMATA is not subject to any federal or state FOIA or open government laws. WMATA must be made subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act. Barring that, Virginia should work with Maryland and DC to reach agreement on a set of disclosure laws and administrative procedures to govern WMATA under the interstate compact.
Be True to Transit-Oriented Development - What we are getting is density at - or simply near - transit nodes, not "smart growth." MetroWest (Vienna Metro) and Hunter Mill Road (near Reston) and the newly proposed development at the Dunn Loring Metro station are prime examples.
Establish (with community input) a set of carefully defined parameters for "transit-oriented development." Prevent the morphing of "transit-oriented" development into a loose "transit-friendly" concept.
Transfer development rights from areas located away from transit nodes to those within mile of such nodes, to ensure a net benefit and not just increase density everywhere.
Carefully evaluate ridership projections and parking needs, particularly at terminus stations.
Enhance secondary transportation modes to allow those living in transit-oriented developments to travel easily to nearby Town Centers, shopping and recreation areas without cars.
Ensure Citizen Inclusion and Influence in an Open Process - Process problems are interfering with trust in our local government. Examples: hand-picked special Task Forces, enforcing and changing rules for the use of public parks by private organizations, loss of protection for Chesapeake tributary streams. We need to make the County decision-making process more transparent and responsive, and build in accountability.
Zoning decisions must be made on an administrative, rather than on a legislative, basis, based on record evidence with notice and opportunity for hearing, findings of fact and conclusions of law that are responsive to testimony as well as electronic and written comments, and subject to judicial review.
Applications for rezoning must address the impacts on public infrastructure and the public fisc. The analysis must include both new revenues, including developer contributions, and new costs. Citizens should have standing to challenge these analyses.
Planning and zoning decisions must be free of the appearance of bias or conflict. Disclosures should be made at the initial -- and critical -- stage of amending the Comprehensive Plan, and not just in connection with re-zoning applications. Criteria for assessing conflict and bias should take into account employment with landowners that stand to profit from development under review.
The Magisterial system in which each Districts Supervisor essentially makes a unilateral decision on projects within his or her District to which other Supervisors then defer needs to be re-evaluated and re-vamped. A rolling election cycle should also be considered so that the record of each Supervisor can be evaluated on a comprehensive and County-wide basis.
Preserve Green Belts - Fairfax County has a plan for areas of substantial growth (including some blighted and failing areas), areas which will be maintained at low density, and strategic buffer/greenbelt areas to separate urban cores, which we should adhere to and protect. Affirmative plans for protecting green space are needed in all areas subject to development pressure.
Reconsider Active Growth Advocacy - Does it make sense to spend $6.8M annually just in Fairfax to advocate business migration to the County? Northern Virginia is on auto-pilot with growth policies from a decade ago that should be re-examined. Growth must be managed, not simply invited at all costs.
Give the Town of Vienna and Similarly Situated Localities a Seat at the Table - While growth must be evaluated and managed based on its regional as well as local impacts, the decisions should not all be made at state and regional level; there has to be room for our highly-valued small communities (which provide the quality of life we love) to have both input and influence.
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Issues Briefings
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| Dulles Rail/Bus Rapid Transit |
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Bus Rapid Transit and Heavy Rail in Suburban Virginia
Background:
The Washington region is expected to attract nearly 2 million more residents by 2030. Finding long-term sustainable transportations solutions for the region is critical to its future success.
Dulles Rail is the single most expensive project in the regions long-range transportation plan. It is one of the most expensive public works projects in Virginia history.
Originally projected to cost $1.45 billion in 1997, current estimates exceed $4 billion. The first half of the project (Phase I) is expected to cost at least $1.8 billion alone.
Project studies show that Phase I will attract roughly 15,000 daily new riders to transit. A recent analysis showed that the number of daily trips generated by the redevelopment of Tysons Corner will far exceed the number of new daily trips attracted to rail.
In fact, rail may accommodate no more that 5 percent of the trips of a redeveloped Tysons Corner, meaning that traffic is very likely to get much worse after rail is built, not better.
The US Transportation Research Board (TRB), an arm of the National Academies of Science, issued a report concluding that bus rapid transit (BRT) can perform as well or better than rail, but at a fraction of the cost.
A paper accepted for presentation at this years TRB annual meeting found that BRT could attract as many new transit trips in the Dulles Corridor as rail, but for 1/3 or less of the cost per trip. The savings could be used to build a much more extensive high quality transit network.
The alternatives analysis for the Dulles Corridor failed to examine BRT in a meaningful way. As shown in the attached chart, the analysis appears to have been rigged to make the rail option look good and the BRT option to be less desirable.
Comparison of Metrorail and BRT Alternatives Considered
In the Dulles Corridor Draft EIS
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Attribute |
Metrorail |
BRT |
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Number of stations |
10-13 stations per alternative, depending upon the alignment |
1-5 stations per alternative (plus a few low capacity stops) |
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Station location |
Multiple stations in the heart of Tysons corner, providing convenient access to significant office, retail, and residential land uses |
No stations or stops in the heart of Tyson corner, preventing convenient access to significant office, retail, and residential land uses |
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Station capacity |
High capacity stations that are 600 feet long, capable of handling eight-car trains of 120 persons per car |
Lower capacity stations that are 260 feet long, capable of handling four buses of 61 persons each |
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Operational Frequency |
Frequent operations of six-minute intervals during peak hours and 12-minute intervals during non-peak hours |
Less frequent operations, with up to 24 minute intervals during both peak and non-peak hours |
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Right-of-way |
Dedicated rights-of-way for the entire system, including elevated, at-grade, and underground tracks and stations |
Virtually no dedicated rights-of-way, requiring operations almost exclusively in general traffic |
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Technology Investments |
Significant built-in technologies to enhance performance, such as a control center and passenger information systems |
No built-in technologies that could enhance performance, such as signal prioritization, queue jumping, and vehicle tracking. |
Recommendations:
Please consider the following two recommendations.
Immediately request that an objective, unbiased analysis of alternatives be conducted for the Dulles Corridor. It is unconscionable to spend billions of dollars without first understanding what else that money might buy.
Immediately request a BRT study for all of Northern Virginia, not just the Dulles Corridor. There are many opportunities for BRT be a solution in Northern Virginia. Even if Dulles Rail is built, we need BRT, because rails own studies show that it will do nothing for congestion.
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View Topic History
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