Reston Spring

Reston Spring
Reston Spring

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Draft Urban Design Guidelines for Tysons Corner, November 30, 2011

Fairfax County has published draft urban design guidelines for Tysons Corner that are open for comment until December 29, 2011, at tysons@fairfaxcounty.gov.   The 235-page printed document discusses at length:
  • The Pedestrian Realm
  • Site and Building Design
  • Urban Parks
  • Interim Conditions
I have just discovered this document and so have just barely skimmed it.  Some quick reactions:
  • The word "bicycle" appears only seven times, "bicycling" appears once, and the word "biking" not at all in the document.  It suggests that bicycling has been given minimal attention despite the best efforts of our colleagues at Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB).  
  • Although the draft states "Care must be given to the design of safe and frequent pedestrian crossings and bike paths through intersections," grade-separated pedestrian street crossings are not discussed at all.  There are NO transit-oriented pedestrian safety standards so far as I can see, simply generic statements, adherence to state requirements, and some banal "design suggestions."
  • The section on Urban Parks begins this way:
 
  •  In the Interim Conditions section, it notes that "some parks will be built on structures and could be partially phased with the associated structures."
In general, it appears that the guidelines are written to satisfy developer interests and not to serve the needs of the public, including the people who will live and work there.  

It is quite likely that similar, if not identical, urban design conditions will be imposed on Reston as the Reston planning process proceeds.  It is incumbent on Restonians to read and comment to the county (see e-mail address above).  Reston 2020 would welcome your comments on the  draft urban design guidelines which we will post here if you wish.

Here is a link to the draft Tysons urban design guidelines.  

1 comment:

  1. I disagree with your points on satisfying the interest of developers. While it might be the case that the term bicycle itself is only used a handful of times, if you look at all the road sections and graphics provided there is significant design analysis for bike pathways. Additionally I believe the goal of this document isn't a zoning or ordinance purpose it is instead to provide design cohesive concepts to multiple parties in order to assure that at boundary conditions there is not an abrupt change of styles and looks that would affect user functionality. I wrote up a similar review of this at www.thetysonscorner.com specifically looking at the pedestrian realm portion of the guidelines to start.

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