Fairfax $100 million transportation bond referendum

[dplasters]

In search of brief summaries of what these wonderful titles mean, I found this.

Which included this whopper:

Construct pedestrian bridge on the north side of Route 50 over I-495 from Gallows Road to Fairview Park Drive

Now that would be awesome. Its basically a huge shortcut in my commute. I am not holding my breath on it. I will take bike lanes on lee highway between Hilltop and Shreve Rd though… for substantially less than 8 million dollars… seeing as how the space is already there and it just needs some paint.

Very excited to see this though (and that it is on the bond referendum):

Enhance bicycle access to the Vienna Metrorail station and the adjacent Metro West Town Center, with improvements at Vaden Dr Bridge, Five Oaks Rd and Vaden Dr to Blake Lane, and Virginia Center Blvd. Bicycle facilities will be provided through lane and road dieting techniques. The project will also include bicycle wayfinding signage and shared lane markings

[Terpfan]

@mstone 98407 wrote:

I had forgotten that springfield isn’t in the springfield district. One more thing I can hate about the fairfax district system. :rolleyes: And in that case I have no suggestions, because McKay is one of the more pro-bicycle supervisors.

Here’s the map if anyone missed it: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/bond/transporation-bond-map.jpg

I don’t know if it makes you feel better to say that things could be worse.

Ha, not sure it could be much worse. I did convince the FFX PD to run red light running by my house once or twice. I considered that a huge accomplishment as it’s probably the most dangerous part of my ride sadly enough.

So the general consensus on the forum here seems to be vote yes for this bond initiative?

[mstone]

@Terpfan 98423 wrote:

So the general consensus on the forum here seems to be vote yes for this bond initiative?

They’re spending a billion dollars on roads, this is our best chance to get anything for bikes. If it passes with strong support that will send a message that people are willing to pay for bike & ped infrastructure, and if it loses that will send the opposite message and strengthen the position of those who only want to spend money on new roads.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@worktheweb 98405 wrote:

Unless it is something new, the Sherwood Hall bike lanes are already done….

That’s why I wrote “pedestrian items.” I wasn’t referring to bike lanes.

[mstone]

Given what I wrote above, I was not at all surprised to get the following from the Springfield supervisor:

Quote:

I have been a transportation advocate for most of my adult life and it goes against my DNA to vote against transportation funding, but I could not bring myself to support the bond referendum on the ballot*tomorrow. Of the $100M “transportation” bond referendum, $84M or 84% of the proceeds would go to fund bike and pedestrian projects, not congestion relief. In a world of unlimited resources, most of the projects in the bond referendum make sense and are good things. However, we do not have unlimited resources and major congestion relieving projects such as the Route 7 widening and the Route 28/I-66 interchange projects are not funded.

Herrity may have found it politically expedient to vote for the bicycle master plan, but he will do what he can to make sure it is never implemented.

When trying to decide how to vote, check how the anti-cyclist folks go and then do the opposite.

[dplasters]

@mstone 98650 wrote:

Given what I wrote above, I was not at all surprised to get the following from the Springfield supervisor:

Herrity may have found it politically expedient to vote for the bicycle master plan, but he will do what he can to make sure it is never implemented.

When trying to decide how to vote, check how the anti-cyclist folks go and then do the opposite.

How kind of him to worry about road widening outside his own district.

[americancyclo]

@dplasters 98416 wrote:

Construct pedestrian bridge on the north side of Route 50 over I-495 from Gallows Road to Fairview Park Drive

Now that would be awesome. Its basically a huge shortcut in my commute.

How long would that bridge have to be? It looks like there would be 8-10 road crossings to get from Gallows to Fairview Park on the north side of Route 50.
Why wouldn’t they just connect Fairview Park to Nicosh or Gatehouse over the beltway. not that much farther out of the way, and a much shorter and safer bridge.

@dplasters 98416 wrote:

I will take bike lanes on lee highway between Hilltop and Shreve Rd though… for substantially less than 8 million dollars… seeing as how the space is already there and it just needs some paint.

I thought the extra wide sidewalks counted as “bike lanes”

@mstone 98650 wrote:

major congestion relieving projects such as the Route 7 widening

Please tell me this isn’t the part of Broad St. that runs through Falls Church City. widening that would make it more of a rush hour nightmare than it already is. Heading west from the little city, Route 7 is plenty wide enough and way too fast as is.

[jabberwocky]

@americancyclo 98731 wrote:

Please tell me this isn’t the part of Broad St. that runs through Falls Church City. widening that would make it more of a rush hour nightmare than it already is. Heading west from the little city, Route 7 is plenty wide enough and way too fast as is.

I don’t know if its what he is talking about, but there has long been talk of adding an extra lane to the portion between fairfax county parkway and tysons (from Leesburg to fairfax county parkway it has 3 lanes each direction, but just past the parkway one lane ends and doesn’t come back until you get into Tysons). They actually are in the process of extending the lane that ends another mile or two at the moment.

7 is such an awful road anyway (tons of lights, tons of traffic) that I don’t know how much it would actually help. But I’m sure a lot of the loudoun folks who commute into Tysons or further think it would help.

[Kolohe]

http://virginiadot.org/projects/northern%20virginia/default.asp VDOT shows 3 different ‘Route 7 Widening’ projects in Fairfax county – over the Dulles Toll Road, between Rolling Holly Drive & Reston Avenue, and between Reston Avenue & Jarrett Valley Drive (and one in Loudoun, the climbing lane before Hillsboro)

(if anything, I see the portion of Rt 7 in Falls Church City itself being road dieted, though that would deprive the city of its nice little speed trap slush fund from people coming down the hill out of 7 corners)

[americancyclo]

@Kolohe 98736 wrote:

http://virginiadot.org/projects/northern%20virginia/default.asp VDOT shows 3 different ‘Route 7 Widening’ projects in Fairfax county – over the Dulles Toll Road, between Rolling Holly Drive & Reston Avenue, and between Reston Avenue & Jarrett Valley Drive (and one in Loudoun, the climbing lane before Hillsboro)

(if anything, I see the portion of Rt 7 in Falls Church City itself being road dieted, though that would deprive the city of its nice little speed trap slush fund from people coming down the hill out of 7 corners)

They need to set up a speed trap at Don Beyer Volvo to get the folks coming from Tysons that fly through the light at Shreve/Haycock at 50 mph. The highway speed of traffic there coupled with the downhill could result in big bucks. just not enough places to pull people over.

[jabberwocky]

@Kolohe 98736 wrote:

http://virginiadot.org/projects/northern%20virginia/default.asp VDOT shows 3 different ‘Route 7 Widening’ projects in Fairfax county – over the Dulles Toll Road, between Rolling Holly Drive & Reston Avenue, and between Reston Avenue & Jarrett Valley Drive (and one in Loudoun, the climbing lane before Hillsboro)

The first three are basically what I was talking about. Rolling Holly to Reston Ave is the part they are doing now (on the west end of the 2 lane section), the toll road is the east end (upgrading the bridge to accommodate the extra lane) and the Reston Ave to Jarret Valley is filling in between those two.

For all the complaining about how we can’t waste money on things that aren’t for cars from certain people, its worth noting that just the third phase of this single project is estimated to cost $300 million by itself, 3 times the entire package of improvements people are voting on today.

[culimerc]

Theres a bunch or road work going on right now between rt 50 and Woodburn Rd, right in front of the hospital.

[jabberwocky]

Looks like the bond passed rather overwhelmingly (71.8% yes, 28.2% no).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/local-election-results-2014

[mstone]

Yes, hopefully everyone gets the message

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