Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
Remaking Tysons Corner into the second city of Washington will take a lot more than a new Metro line and a downtown of tightly clustered buildings designed for walking. It will take almost $15 billion in new roads and public transportation.In the coming months, planners expect to outline which roads would be built first -- and whether developers can start reworking Tysons before that happens.
That jaw-dropping sum, a preliminary estimate released by Fairfax County planners this week, will be crucial to a redevelopment that envisions more than twice the 44 million square feet of offices, malls and housing now in Tysons -- a commercial and residential hub intended to draw thousands of new workers who will leave their cars at home. But planners fear thousands more will drive and overwhelm the area's already clogged road network.
The costs include $2.6 billion allocated for the first leg of the Silver Line, now under construction to Wiehle Avenue in Reston. Seven billion dollars for roads, bus service and two additional rail lines would not be spent until after 2030. And it's assumed that landowners who stand to profit from dense development near the four Tysons train stations will donate property for much of a planned grid of narrow, city-like streets.
But that still leaves billions of dollars for roads, sidewalks, interchanges and new bus routes over the next 20 years that have no source of funding and are crucial to the success of what Tysons is planned to become.
The sheer cost of reworking the transportation network, combined with earlier talk of scaling back the ambitious plans for Tysons, make us wonder, once again, what to expect for redevelopment efforts in Reston. If the county winds up spending $15 billion there, by our count that would leave approximately $2.94 and whatever change they can find in the couches in the RA headquarters to address infrastructure improvements here. That may not sound like a lot, but at least it'll pay for an air freshener for the car you'll be endlessly sitting in!
The reason this is so expensive is because Fairfax County planners can't wrap their mind around the fact the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor has seen no measurable increase in auto traffic since it became became way more dense. By the way if you look at zoning codes the corridor in places is more than 10 times as dense as the Reston Town Center, yet Wilson Boulvard (Arlington's Reston Parkway if you will) moves much better than Reston Parkway.
ReplyDeleteIts time for planners to stop planning for automobiles and plan for the people that need to get from point a to b instead. One sure way to make Tyson's more clogged is to widen roads (making the environment even more inhospitable to those using transit). However if they remove parking minimums and put in a good bus system we can see Arlington's same success.
The floor-to-area ratio, FAR, for the Arlington Ballston corridor is less than 2.0. Tysons' FAR will go up to 7.8 near the stations.
ReplyDeleteThere is no mass transit planned that can support a FAR of 7.8. It will be utter gridlock on local streets around Tysons.
The FAR of the planned development at Wiehle Station is almost 4.5. Patti Nicoson of Dulles Corridor Rail Assn was asked how people will get down Wiehle during rush hour she said, "More people will be walking." Sure they will.
The only way densities at the level planned can work is if nobody ever drives a car in Tysons or Reston. I like my car. I need it to drive to the store, the library, the doctor, to visit my family, friends. Before we had cars we had horses. Lots of horses. The RIBS bus is not a substitute for my car. I do like horses though.
They have so many alternate N-S routes beyond Wilson Blvd: Route 29, Route 50, Route 66, and Shirley Highway.
ReplyDeleteYou might find this to be an interesting subject for your next blog entry. Like Reston, Columbia, Md is in the process of redoing their master plan to revitalize their urban core.
ReplyDeletehttp://mddailyrecord.com/2009/10/29/some-say-it%e2%80%99s-now-or-never-in-quest-to-remake-columbia%e2%80%99s-downtown/
The blog, Greater Greater Washington has a discussion (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3935) of the $15B figure in the Washington Post. As the blog posting notes, $5.2B of this amount is for the extension of the Silver Line to Loudoun. The extension of the Orange Line to Centerville is also included in the $15B amount, which should be excluded since it will serve communities other than Tysons.
ReplyDeleteWho exactly is paying this $15 billion price-tag?
ReplyDeleteIf Fairfax County is considering paying even $.01 for this project while they threaten cutting education is a madness.
BTW,
Interesting results from the community feedback meetings. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Fairfax Co. residents are willing to pay higher property taxes to keep enrichment programs.
Hickory, that was what I heard at the meeting I attended...
ReplyDeleteThere is a LOT of waste in the public schools. They throw money at feel good programs that then languish and eventually the materials are discarded.
I wonder exactly what percentage of students in FFCTY overall are served in Language Immersion or GT programs. I haven't been able to find it on the FCPS website.
And are those parents still willing to pay higher property taxes if the enrichment program only benefits the neighbor's kid if their kid didn't get into it? Might be a different answer.
The Post probably included the cost for the Beltway HOT lanes also. That's supposed to cost $1.9B, but only about 10-20% is funded by the state.
ReplyDeleteThe current amount spent on language immersion is only 1.4 million for the entire county, but that is a large overestimate because the people in charge of the FFX budget office didn't know that Floris's program is being phased out. They also didn't factor in that some of the kids will be moved to ESL if the immersion programs close. Further, some of these kids will also move to GT programs. So some amount of the "savings" from eliminating these programs will just be shifted to other programs.
ReplyDeleteIt's unclear how the 1.4 million number was arrived at in the first place. The budget office is refusing to disclose the specifics, but we know it's wrong because they included the budget for Floris in their figures. We just don't know how many other mistakes were made in arriving at that figure.
Hickory Cluster, whether you like it or not this is something that needs to be done, regardless of how massive the tax increase will be. You have the horrific urban planners of a prior generation who didn't care about what a mess Tyson's Corner would ultimately disintegrate into as long as they could make a quick buck to blame for the huge tax whammy coming our way. Perhaps if people in the 1960s-1970s were a bit more forward-thinking and actually envisioned the way our county would have turned out in 2009 instead of being so selfish we wouldn't be having these issues today? I currently work in Tyson's Corner, and lately if I leave my home around 6:45 AM and hop on Route 7 I can get to work just before 7:30. 40-45 minutes to go approximately 7 miles is absolutely ludicrous, but, alas the Fairfax Connector bus doesn't run frequently enough between Reston Town Center and Tyson's Corner to enable me to use mass transit given my work schedule, and the train that SHOULD have been in Reston ages ago still isn't chugging along, so I have no choice.
ReplyDeleteFor all of those who oppose spending one dime in Tyson's Corner (or on the Silver Line for that matter), what is your ultimate solution? Surely if you're anything like me then you're embarrassed to show out-of-towners Tyson's Corner as the "premier downtown" of Fairfax County. It's absolutely MISERABLE to walk around Tyson's Corner with all of the wide streets with traffic zooming by, and I could only imagine how much more awful it must be to actually have to LIVE there.
I agree with Mr. Joshua Davis. Why are so many in Reston always so terrified of hearing the word "Arlington?" That county (that most people from Reston confuse as being a city) has won all sorts of critical acclaim for its urban planning initiatives and consistently ranks HIGHER on "Best Places" lists than Reston for a reason, you know. If I wasn't earning the salary of a part-time hot dog vendor I would have gladly moved to Clarendon or Court Hourse in a heartbeat over Reston when I came down here from the North. This place, despite all of its appeal to people with children, really grates on your nerves after a while as a young professional who wishes to minimize the use of a car. When all of your friends are "hitting up DC" you have to make sure you leave the District by 11 or 11:30 to be back to the West Falls Church Metro station before the last Fairfax Connector bus leaves for Reston Town Center OR not have anything to drink and then drive.
I'm sorry, but Reston Town Center will always feel more like an "afterthought" in my eyes and will never mesh into a true "downtown" for Reston---especially since most people have to drive to it anyways and since 90% of the tenants are national or regional chains. It should have been built at a much higher density and should have had a greater depth and variety of businesses and housing options. What many of you in Reston don't seem to realize is that "higher density" doesn't necessarily equate to "more traffic." As someone else already pointed out Arlington is MORE DENSE than Reston and, at most times, even has less traffic than many roads in Reston during rush-hour. Give people the ability to live without a car, and they'll do it. Many in the District own a vehicle, and that trend is spreading into the inner suburbs. Right now how many could say that they could easily live without a car in Reston? You can't. If you ever want the traffic congestion that plagues Reston to ease, then you have to SPEND MONEY. People back North didn't seem to have issues with taxing themselves to vastly improve their family's quality-of-life, so why is this always such a hot-button issue here? Isn't spending 30 minutes less in the car everyday and instead using that 30 minutes to sit down with your family WORTH an extra $50/year in taxes? Judging by the plethora of luxury vehicles in Reston this community isn't exactly broke (well, besides me! LOL!) :-)
BICO,
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you are saying. However, to expand the spending in areas like the redevelopment of Tyson's at the expense of education is folly. One of the main reasons all of the companies that have moved to Fairfax county in the past 20 years is because of the quality of life the area has to offer which includes the premier first class education system that we are lucky to have in Fairfax County.
Cutting that education by eliminating programs which have been in place for 20 years (the immersion program for one) is not a long term solution to solving the county's budget problem. In fact it could have a reverse effect.
Parents and those who are going to be parents should be concerned about ALL the programs at Fairfax county schools. When your kid is trying to get into college and the admissions board sees that your kid went to Fairfax County schools, should that be an asset or a detriment?
These budget cuts will partly determine the answer.
Raising property taxes to pay for things that makes our community better is money well spent.
A modest raise in property taxes will account for the shortfall in revenue which can pay for ALL the programs at Fairfax county schools and help the county retain the talented teachers who are not getting raises.
The county has enough property tax money. What they need is someone who is good at math and skilled at balancing the books.
ReplyDeleteBiCo, you should find another job that pays more so you can go live in Arlington if that's where you heart is. The planning and redevelopment of Arlington was done with a great deal of community participation to preserve stable residential neighborhoods. In most of the Metro station areas there is only 7 to 8% open space. People in Arlington are looking at Reston with envy and wonder why they don't have more open space.
We are waiting to see how much community participation our county supervisor will allow Reston residents as the plans to redevelop Reston move ahead. Stay tuned.
If the FFX county schools go sour, it will affect EVERYONE, NOT just those with kids. Our local schools are one of the major carrots that employers use to lure workers here. If they no longer have that, new businesses may look elsewhere to start up. The educational system effects the economy for everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:38
ReplyDeleteYou wrote succinctly what I was trying to communicate in a lot more words, thank you.
QFT
"The educational system effects the economy for everyone."
Anyone who thinks they can't live without a car in Reston isn't trying. I can walk to the grocery store, I can get to EVERY shopping center along a bus line, I can get to my job in the District by bus and train (and soon I'll be able to do it by bike and train). I can get to the my doctor's office, dentist's office and my kids' school either by foot or by mass transit.
ReplyDeletePeople who think they can't get by without a car (or, more realistically, with greatly restricted car use) are just Fat Ass Prima Donnas. For most such people, if they have to walk any farther than the distance from their front door to the their parked car, then it's too inconvenient. If they have to arrange their schedule so that may have to wait on average 15 minutes (Yes, that's the average wait for a bus that runs on a half-hour schedule. I'm a mathematician. I know these things.), then it's too inconvenient. If they have to ride in the same compartment with other people, especially those who may be of a lower caste, then it's too inconvenient.
Wake up people. I'm not walking, biking and using the bus system just so that you can take your Fat Prima Donna Ass to the Dairy Queen in your friggin' 10 mpg Gas Hog SUV. I'm doing it because there's going to be a sea change in how we think about transportation and that's going to happen the next time that the Arab's decide to slam us with an oil embargo.
I have a doctor in Leesburg. It took me many years to find her. I am too arthritic to walk more than about half a mile. For the same reason I haven't been able to ride a bicycle for twenty years. I live two miles from the nearest grocery store. Not everyone can choose to give up driving a car. I have friends in this community confined to wheelchairs. I don't appreciate the "Fat Prima Donna Ass" comment. It's ugly.
ReplyDeleteI have 17-month old twins who do not yet walk well. How, exactly, am I supposed to ride a bus? I can't take the stroller on the bus, so when I get where I'm going I would have to just carry both of them. My husband's work is nowhere near any mass transit of any kind, bus or otherwise. Believe me, we've looked as it would save us a lot of money, time, and hassle. I also have elderly relatives who live in Reston who can't walk to the nearest bus stop.
ReplyDeleteCalling people dirty names is what immature, uneducated people do when they can't make a real arguement. You will also win over no converts by being a self-righteous jerk. Is your aim to try to get more people to use mass transit, or just to make everyone else see how superior you are? Based on your tone, I would assume the latter. There is a famous quotation, "first, seek to understand, then to be understood." If you fail to do the former, no one will care about anything you have to say.
Anon 4:56 is just trolling to see if he/she/it can get a rise out of us. He/she/it did this once before on this blog with the same comments about lazy-assed SUV drivers. It was old then, and it's even older now. Makes me want to go out and buy a Hummer!
ReplyDelete"As someone else already pointed out Arlington is MORE DENSE than Reston and, at most times, even has less traffic than many roads in Reston during rush-hour. Give people the ability to live without a car, and they'll do it."
ReplyDeleteArlington actually has a lower population density than Reston. They happen to have a high-density core area along the Metro line which happens to run under Wilson Blvd. Most people who don't live AND work on the Metro don't need to use Wilson Blvd. Hence most of the commuter traffic actually flows out through 210/1, 29, 50, 66, and GW Parkway. There's much more to Arlington than just the Metro line.
The $15 billion price tag in the WaPo article was mostly fabricated by the reporter. Greater Greater Washington explained, last week:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3935
Chris, thanks for the link. Pretty thoughtful conversation going on in the comments on that article.
ReplyDeleteI think at some point people glaze over with all the numbers and statistics being thrown at us (at all levels of government) and just shudder, take a deep breath and ask, "can I afford to live here long enough for my kids to finish school and then where do I go because I certainly won't be able to afford to live here in retirement."
I'm not advocating that everybody give up their vehicles now. There are plenty of good reasons to have a car. In fact, I own two. But for many if not most people, they aren't even trying to find alternative transportation methods. Their attitudes seem to be that sacrifice is something that other people do so that I can maintain my standard of living.
ReplyDeleteTo the person with severe arthritis. I understand your plight. I have an elderly parent with ambulation problems as well. I have no choice also when taking her to the doctor. It's either drive, order a cab or get an ambulance.
As for the lady with the 18 month twins, well, maybe you've got an exception as well. But in another few months, they'll certainly be able to get around well enough that you can use the bus.
I would point out that if you ride any of the local buses, you will see plenty of people bringing strollers on the bus and some of them have very young children too.
As you drive your fuelish Hummers around look around and ask yourself the question, "How many of these people could have walked, biked, car-pooled or rode the bus except for the fact that it was just inconvenient for them to do so?" Also ask yourself the question, did I consolidate this trip with other chores or is this trip even necessary?
While you're at it, ask yourself what you're going to do when Israel bombs the daylights out of Iran, pissing off the rest of the Arab world who decides to stop selling oil to Israel and the US. If you think traffic around here is already terrible, wait until you have to set in line at the gas station for several hours just so that you can tank up. I'll be the one walking past you thumbing her nose and laughing.
First off today is my birthday, and I'm exhausting my lunch today at work to read this fine "filthy web log" so please don't crucify me! LOL! :-)
ReplyDeleteWith that vignette aside I would just like to say I HAVE investigated the prospect of living car-free in Reston, and it would be nearly impossible for me to do so without extreme hardship. I live in Charter Oak, so I'm an easy 10-minute stroll over to the Reston Town Center transit station (perhaps 15 minutes if the stupid light never changes at the busy Reston Pkwy. @ Temporary Rd. intersection where I feel like I'm playing a game of Frogger half the time when I cross).
First off is my commute to work in Tyson's Corner.
Let's assume I wake up at 4:15 AM in order to leave the house by 4:50 AM to catch the 5:10 AM Fairfax Connector (FC) 574 bus. I will get to the Westpark transit center at 5:42 AM and then have a 15-minute walk to my office building, putting me off the elevator and right at my office door to start work at 6 AM. Getting to work just took me over an hour (10 minutes to walk to the transit center in Reston, standing around to board the bus, taking the bus to Tyson's, and walking to my office building). Normally if I leave my home at 5:35 AM I can get to the office for 6 AM, which is a 25-minute commute. Can I live with spending an extra 45 minutes or so each morning to help save the planet? Yes. I would gladly do so.
Now let's take my ride home into consideration. Assuming I got in for 6 AM I'd be leaving at 2:30 PM then walking 15 minutes to the Westpark transit station. I'd stand around from 2:45 PM to 3:02 PM waiting for the bus to arrive and then ride that back to Reston for 4 PM, followed by another 10-minute walk home. It just took me an hour and forty minutes to get home after I left work. If I drove it would have been another 25-minute commute at that early afternoon hour. Could I stomach an extra hour and fifteen minutes to get home everyday to save the planet? Yes. I would be glad to.
What, then, is the problem? Would I be willing to spend an extra 2+ HOURS each day on my COMBINED commutes just to prove a point and "make a forward-thinking statement?" No. Sitting on the bus in the afternoon for an HOUR between Tyson's and Reston seems very silly to me when I could be home in less than half the time if I drove.
If you want more people to take the FC bus between Reston and Tyson's then try expanding service so buses run every 30 minutes instead of every HOUR and/or pave a dedicated "bus lane" for Route 7. If my commute each way takes me 25 minutes by car and possibly $1 worth of gasoline or over an hour by bus with a $1.25 SmarTrip fee, then do you think any NORMAL person would pay $0.50 more each day and waste two hours more each day just to "prove a point?" For God's sake I'm an annoying, sprawl-hating, environmentalism-oriented, tree-hugging, yuppyish hippie, and if I won't do it then how many others will? In the mean time I'm going to try to find a carpool group. I see Hugh "Mac" Cannon has the same commute I do, judging by the 10,000 flyers he mailed to me, but how many others from Reston typically go into work at 6 AM in Tyson's? The Loudoun County Prozac-doped soccer mom in SUVs brakelight Cha-Cha line on Route 7 starts backing up through Baron Cameron around 6:30 AM, so I'd have to find other like-minded folks who'd want to leave even EARLIER to avoid that. It would also be nice if SOME cul-de-sac buddies in Loudoun County would carpool as well. I mean, if they're going to oppose the Silver Line, then perhaps taking it upon themselves to CARPOOL could be part of their alternative solution? (Or do the anti-Silver Line people just not care about Tyson's commuters?)
To the 10:27 AM anonymous, it's hard to have much sympathy for many people anymore. I thought the massive fuel price spike we all endured not too long ago would have begun to permanently change the way we, as a society, thought about the way we consumed natural resources, but sadly now that gas is under $3/gallon everyone has gone back to their old foolish habits. I read an article online recently from a newspaper in my native Pennsylvania in which car dealers said that SUVs were "flying off the lot" and that people had largely grown complacent again about the "pain at the pump." Sure, you may look stylish in your Hummer, Excursion, or Navigator as you wear your sunglasses on cloudy days, pretend to be yammering into your cell phones to your imaginary stock traders, and drive solo to get your nails done or to sit with your thumb up your rear-end all day at the office, but the more and more of you who continue to rush out and buy these things, the higher the pain at the pump wil be for all of us in the long-run.
ReplyDeleteWhat, exactly, are auto-centric places like Reston going to do if our supply of crude oil suddenly got disrupted and we RUN OUT of gas, even temporarily? Would mass panic ensue? Would people in Ashburn or South Riding start eating their offspring to stay alive? We don't have President Bush in office anymore, so the answer obviously won't be to just find another country to invade for our convenience.
There's an old adage: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!" Those who bought gas-guzzling SUVs in the early-2000s might have been able to plead ignorance when the gas prices actually spiked a couple of years ago, but what will the excuses be for the people who are buying these things NOW when gas prices spike again, perhaps in 2012? Those of us who drive fuel-efficient vehicles will once again resent the fact that we have to pay a higher price for gas to make up for the others who WASTE it so flagrantly.
Cash for Clunkers has distorted the marketplace by incentivizing buyers to purchase smaller cars and depleting the inventory of used trucks and SUVs. Prices for the used trucks are up 25-30 percent. It's more economical to buy new trucks and SUVs which were the subject of the CFC stimulus.
ReplyDeleteBiCO, I was with you until you made the comment about the "The Loudoun County Prozac-doped soccer mom in SUVs". Again, the name-calling is just immature and undermines your arguement.
ReplyDeleteI think carpooling is great, and it would make sense for the local government to encourage more of it. Why not give people using the HOV lane on the toll road a break on the tolls?
Have to agree with 1:09PM. BiCO has an extreme case of verbal diarrhea and turning a year older seems not to have helped much. Prozac-doped soccer moms in SUVs?!? This is not exactly Dave Barry stuff.
ReplyDeleteHey, 1:09, why is it that you would think that NAME-CALLING and SNARK are mutually exclusive ideas, you intellectually challenged hobgoblin? Do you think that calling me or BiCO immature and uneducated is going to make us anymore mature or educated? Or do you just like pointing out the obvious to people?
ReplyDeleteThe reason not to give the drivers in the HOV lane a break on the toll would be that they already have a lane all to themselves. I would, however, extend the HOV lane all the way through the left-most lane at the main toll plaza, maybe even all the way to/from I-66. (It would make more sense though for the airport authority to allow the carpoolers to use the damn Access highway instead of allowing all of that empty pavement to go unused.)
Happy B'Day, BiCO! You win the rant of the week. Not only did you make some excellent points including about the poor bus service from Tyson's to points West during the mid-day but you also managed to piss off our collection of "The Loudoun County Prozac-doped soccer moms in SUVs". Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteIf you drive an SUV just because you like looking over the tops of all of the rest of the cars, you should be ashamed of your fat, lazy, gas hog ass.
Duly noted, and I apologize for my careless and insensitive remarks about the people of Loudoun County. Actually, I AM sick right now so "verbal diarrhea" isn't out of the question as one of the symptons of what ails me! LOL! While chronically long-winded I'm not usually quite so venomous. I think I just got "on a roll" earlier and let loose, not really caring whom I offended in the process. I sincerely apologize. That was out of character for me. I'm sure not everyone in Loudoun County has a hopelessly pro-suburban mindset. :-)
ReplyDeleteWith that being said I still would LOVE one of the Loudoun County residents who is opposed to the Silver Line to please tell me what their alternative is to ease congestion on Route 7 besides just "make it 20 lanes" (crickets chirping).
Being an American gives me the right to drive what ever size,color or mpg vehichle i want!
ReplyDeleteGet a life and stay out of mine-
Oh, my! An intellectually challenged hobgoblin! Picked up a thesaurus, did we?
ReplyDeleteAnd, no, I don't think anything I could say would make you any more mature, obviously. But I do think our friend BiCo seems like a decent enough fellow who is mature enough to be called to the carpet for mindlessly insulting a bunch of strangers.
And, by the by, I don't drive an SUV and my ass is heaven.
Anon 2:30
ReplyDeleteYou certainly have a 'right' (actually driving is a privilege or didn't you know that?) to buy whatever jaloppy you wish.
But your American self will be whining when gas prices spike again: "its sooo unfair! waaaaaaaaaa!" when you have to pay $4.00/ gallon to drive your 1968 GTO around town blaring Toby Keith.
And perhaps if it is legislated it will no longer be your right to drive around (privilege actually) a vehicle which consumes more gas than is your fair share and produced more pollution than is your alloted amount.
Damn Straight, Hick. We should switch to rationing. Everybody gets 12 gallons per week. If you can meet your needs on that in your SUV, have at it. If not then get yourself a good pair of cross-training shoes so that you can work some of the lard off of that parking lot you call a butt.
ReplyDeletelosers
ReplyDeleteUmm...while you've all been busy screaming at each other (this post is getting almost as good as those highly intelligent flame wars you can find on YouTube's comments section), you may have missed a link right here in Restonian to a relevant story in the Loudoun Independent. Our neighbors to the west plan to start bus service next year on Loudoun County Transit buses from Leesburg and Broadlands to Tysons.
ReplyDeleteTo quote the great American philosoppher Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" ;-)
socialism is the only answer. go obama
ReplyDeletefascism is the only answer. go mcdonnell
ReplyDeleteBus service from Loudon will be paid for (less $3 each way) by the tolls collected from the Dulles Toll Road users, thanks to the MWAA.
ReplyDelete85% of the costs of the silver line will be paid by people in Herndon and Reston who use the toll road. 15% by those living in Tysons. Did you know that?
obama is above the U.S. Constituition. obama is too big to fail.
ReplyDeletethe solution is to redirect the road signs at the entry to Virginia from West Virginia. that will reduce route 7 traffic by 50,000 cars.
ReplyDeleteI had a good chuckle when BiCO said: "Surely if you're anything like me then you're embarrassed to show out-of-towners Tyson's Corner as the "premier downtown" of Fairfax County."
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but I'm pretty sure your out-of-town guests came to see the sites of DC (and/or Arlington Cemetery or Mount Vernon). If they want to go shopping I'll bring them to Tysons or Reston Town Center. But I would never, never, never say "oh hey, I live near our nation's capital but don't you want to see this fake city we are building in my county?" No matter what happens to Tysons over the next 10-15 years I doubt it will be something my out of town guests would prefer to seeing the White House or the U.S. Capitol or the National Zoo (and so on).
I took my out-of-town guest to Lake Anne after we spent an afternoon hiking through the Glade. (I always take my out-of-town guests to Lake Anne). We drove out Temporary Road and saw Town Center looming up in front of a beautiful pink and blue sunset. My guest said, "That's not Reston!"
ReplyDeleteWait until all the redevelopment projects are all done along Sunrise Valley and Sunset Hills, the shopping centers are remade to look like Ballston Commons, and our older townhouse neighborhoods are replaced with high-rise, mixed use, and Lake Anne itself is redeveloped. We'll have to show our out-of-town guests "old Reston" from our family picture albums.
Take a couple of pictures of some of the old growth forest out in Prince William forest. You can tell them that it's the really, really "old Reston".
ReplyDeleteFace it, folks. We're a suburb and we are just as guilty of sprawl and car-centric development of our skyline as well as our waistline as the rest of Northern Virginia.
500 million dollars in streetcars for Tysons Corner. Has Fairfax County called Krystal Koons yet?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Fairfax-to-seek-key-grant-on-Tysons-circulator-8651179-79098072.html