Board weighs eliminating Metro stop at Dulles, Washington Examiner, January 18, 2012

You just can't make this stuff up!  Yes, you read that right:  An MWAA Board member proposed eliminating the Dulles Metrorail station in the "rail to Dulles" project.  This utterly ridiculous comment has already garnered nationwide attention--and well-deserved embarrassment for MWAA. 

This Washington Examiner article (click to link) by Liz Essley has the best coverage of the comment and its context.  Here's how the article begins:

The airports authority in charge of building the Metro rail extension to Dulles International Airport is considering eliminating the Metro station at the airport.

Instead of stopping at the airport, Metro's new Silver Line would drop airport passengers off along Route 28 in Fairfax County. Riders would then have to ride a bus or a light rail train another 1.5 miles to the airport, according to a proposal discussed Wednesday by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

An interesting side issue raised in the article is private financing for the line, an idea first raised as an idea to explore by MWAA CEO Jack Potter at a November meeting of the Dulles Corridor Advisory Council (MWAA, VRPT, Fairfax, & Loudoun leaders).  Here's where it's at now:

The authority on Wednesday also weighed an offer by a Chinese company that wants to help finance the rail line. Board members have talked about seeking a private investor to help reduce the public's cost of the project, but board members said Wednesday that they believe private financing may end up being more expensive than loan deals being offered by the federal government.

"I think we're off on a wild goose chase to be quite honest with you," airports CEO Jack Potter said, adding that private investment wouldn't be worth the risk.

Well, that was a quick change of thinking by Mr. Potter, not that he was all that enthusiastic about the idea in November.

Who knows what the MWAA Board will think of next???

The 8 to 80 Problem: Designing Cities for Young and Old, John Lorinc, Atlantic Cities, January 18, 2012

Penalosa travels the world with a trenchant question that arose out of those experiences: how do we create cities in which both 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds can move about safely and enjoyably? "We have to stop building cities as if everyone is 30 years-old and athletic," he says.

A girl walks next to an elderly woman selling plants at the entrance of a pedestrian subway in Kiev, Ukraine. (REUTERS/Konstantin Chernichkin)

“We have to stop building cities as if everyone is 30 years-old and athletic”

His 8 to 80 litmus test involves imagining a public space, but especially a busy city street or intersection, and asking whether it is suitable for young and old alike. In all too many locations – signalized crossings on wide suburban arterials, narrow bike lanes, over-taxed sidewalks, etc. – the answer will be no.

By way of solutions, Penalosa’s group has advised cities like Seville and Guadalajara on the importance of more accessible surface transit, improved cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and more programmable park space.

 But in many aging societies, where the proportion of seniors will grow as much as four-fold over the next two decades, public space improvements alone won’t make large urban areas, especially car-dependent suburbs, more suitable to the needs of older residents. Indeed, one of the most difficult questions facing urban areas is how they will go about making themselves more age-friendly.

 Click here for the rest of this article, including some solutions.

Steven Pearlstein: For development, all signs point inward, Washington Post, January 14, 2012

Business reporter Steven Pearlstein provides a regional overview of future growth in the Washington metropolitan area that, as he says, "the next phase of growth in the Washington region will focus on these underdeveloped areas in the eastern quadrants of the District and some of the region’s older, closer-in suburbs."  The excellent article is available here.

Here are a few key thoughts I took from his piece: 

It’s not just smart-growth planners and anti-sprawl activists who think (that the focus will be in DC and east per above); most developers I’ve spoken with in recent weeks agree. The models for the future, they say, can be found in Pentagon City rather than Dale City, along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor rather than the far reaches of the Dulles corridor, in the NOMA area near Union Station and the downtowns of Bethesda and Silver Spring. The pressure of development now points inward toward the Capitol, not outward toward Germantown, Gainesville, Waldorf and Laurel.

(Comment:  If true, this bodes ill for development along the Dulles Corridor--including Reston--and runs contrary to Fairfax County leadership thinking, planning, and investment.)

The same fate (as closure of White Flint's Bloomies and the vacancies in Georgetown Park) is in store for the suburban office park that, not so many years ago, was the bread and butter of the commercial real estate business in Washington. Workers no longer prefer to work in them, companies no longer want to occupy them, banks no longer will finance them, real estate investment trusts no longer want to own them and planning boards have become reluctant to approve them. In the future, developers say, offices will be part of mixed-used developments, with shops, restaurants, schools, day-care centers and doctors’ offices, preferably within walking or biking distance of condos, townhouses and Metro stops.

(Comment:  This is consistent with goals the RTF--and Tysons TF--are pursuing, although the term "mixed-use" is much more office-oriented in developers' eyes than in citizens groups views.  "Mixed-use" is one of those terms that means very different things to different people.)

Traditionally, one advantage of the “infill” development is that it can leverage existing infrastructure — roads, Metro, street lights, water, sewer, parks — without the need for new investment. But today, adding significant density in many instances may require expanding the capacity of that infrastructure, which can get pretty expensive and generate plenty of community opposition.

(Comment:  From an RCA Reston 2020 perspective, the Reston 2020 very much wants--no, insists--that the infrastructure be expanded to handle the increased density in Reston transit-oriented development (TOD) areas.  We do not oppose re-development within reason linked to complementary infrastructure development.  As outlined in its planning principles, sustaining (if not improving) the infrastructure on a "per capita" basis in Reston is imperative to sustaining the community's excellent quality of life.)

 Virginia and the District probably don’t need such heavy-handed intervention (as in Prince George's County), but they should consider the possibility of special taxing and redevelopment districts, such as the one used to finance the extension of Metro to Dulles International Airport. It is reasonable to ask landowners who will realize windfalls from infrastructure to help pay for these public investments, and in the current political environment it is folly to think that other taxpayers will agree to do so.

(Comment:  RCA Reston 2020 couldn't agree more.  We are pleased that Fairfax County has taxed businesses along the Dulles Rail route to help cover the costs of that endeavor, although we are concerned that the cap on those taxes may be inadequate to cover the costs.  On the other hand, the County is now trying to force about 2/3 of the cost of infrastructure development in Tysons on to the public, rather than on to the businesses that will profit from the business that new infrastructure will bring.)

100,000 Reads!

We don't usually flaunt the audience for this blog, but every once in awhile we hit a major milestone of one kind or another.  In this case, the documents Reston 2020 has posted on scribd.com--its document archive or library--have been read 100,426 times as of this afternoon.  Sometime in the last week, we passed the 100,000 "reads" threshold.

Contributions by Reston 2020 (as opposed to the writing or presentations by others we often post) have been among the most popular "reads" by scribd users.  Here are the top half-dozen Reston 2020 original posts and the number of reads:

"Reston Transportation: Meeting the Needs of a 21st Century Planned Community," Transportation Work Group, RCA Reston 2020 Committee, June 1, 2010 1,107 "A Strawman Proposal for the Wiehle Transit Metro Station Area," Bill Penniman with Residential, Urban Design, & Livability Work Group, RCA Reston 2020 Committee 1,098 "Parks, Recreation, & Public Facilities: Needs for a New Master Planned Reston," Parks, Recreation, & Public Facilites Work Group, RCA Reston 2020 Committee, June 1, 2010 1,052 Proposals for Parks in North Town Center, Guy Rando & Kathy Kaplan, with Residential, Urban Design, & Livability Work Group, RCA Reston 2020 Committee, June 1, 2010    979 "Sunrise Valley Nature Park: A Suburban Wetlands Park," Environmental Work Group, RCA Reston 2020 Committee, June 1, 2010    Proposed Planning Principles for Reston Master Plan Special Study     880  913 Check out these items.  And thanks for all your support! Terry Maynard

Retrofitting the Suburbs to Increase Walking, Marlon G. Boarnet, Kenneth Joh, Walter Siembab, William Fulton, and Mai Thi Nguyen, ACCESS: The Magazine of UCTC, Fall 2011

This article suggests that some California planning researchers have recently been channeling Robert Simon's "village center" concept, although they never use the word and they really don't push that far.  In brief, their article suggests developing sufficient residential infill around "walkable" business centers that are also well served by public transit.  Nothing quite as rich as Bob Simon's "gathering place" idea for village centers, but, based on their research in southern California, the core idea of a walkable center is similar--and workable as well as walkable.

Here is what they have to say about their work:

The tricky part is that the business concentration needed to encourage walking appears to be larger than most neighborhood residential populations can support. Given that, suburban regions should focus both on fostering pedestrian centers and on knitting those centers together with transportation networks, though such networks need not accommodate only cars.

We suggest both a land use approach and a mobility approach, and coordination between the two. A land use approach would focus on identifying and promoting walkable centers. . . Planners can develop pedestrian-oriented centers through densification and infill development, for example by offering density bonuses. Planners might reduce or remove minimum parking requirements or even limit parking.

A mobility approach would promote transit service, tailored to the context of the suburbs. Rather than the common approach of running underutilized central-city style buses, in a region like the South Bay transit might include high-frequency shuttle bus service between neighborhood centers. A more ambitious but possibly more appropriate approach would promote the use of small, fuel-efficient vehicles (such as neighborhood electric cars) and through carshare programs. . .

Overall, the first step would be to develop walkable nodes of neighborhood businesses that would then be connected through regional mobility networks. . . .

 If this sounds intriguing, read the rest of the article here.  
 

Agenda: Reston Task Force Meeting, January 24, 2012

                                                 RESTON MASTER PLAN SPECIAL STUDY
                                                                      TASK FORCE
                                                                  January 24, 2012
                                                                Task Force Meeting
                                                            South Lakes High School
                                                     11400 South Lakes Drive, Reston


AGENDA

7:00 p.m. Public Comment Period

7:10 p.m. Administrative Items – Patty Nicoson, Task Force Chair

7:20 p.m. Briefing on Metrorail Silver Line project

• Pat Nowakowski, Project Manager

 7:50 p.m. Proposed upcoming meetings to review impact analysis

• Heidi Merkel, Department of Planning and Zoning

8:00 p.m. Briefing on “Housing the Region’s Future Workforce” Report (October 2011)
published by George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis

• Lisa Sturtevant, Assistant Research Professor, GMU

9:00 p.m. Adjourn – Patty Nicoson

Reston P&Z Committee Agenda, January 23, 2012

THE RESTON PLANNING AND ZONING COMMITTEE

MEETING AGENDA

Monday, January 23, 2012 – 7:30 pm

Community Room

North County Government Center

12000 Bowman Towne Drive, Reston

1.      Discuss and vote on recommendations of the Membership Selection Committee; welcome new members and those reappointed.

2.      Election of officers for one year terms: chairman, vice chairman, secretary/parliamentarian. Nominations are to be made from the floor. Those nominated and those who are nominators must be members in good standing of the P&Z Committee. No absentee ballots or proxy votes are allowed.
 

  3.    Chipotle Mexican Grill application: Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., (the “Applicant”) requests approval of a Special Exception to permit a fast food restaurant in accordance with Section 9-601 of the Zoning Ordinance. The application property is located at 11160 G2 South Lakes Drive at the South Lakes Village Shopping Center in Reston, VA. The proposed Chipotle will be located in a vacant retail space within the existing shopping center, which was previously approved under site plan #4453-SP-03-02. The site is zoned Planned Residential Community (PRC) and the proposed Chipotle will require that a Special Exception Plat be submitted to Fairfax County for Zoning Evaluation Division review and approval. The Applicant will be the contract lessee for the retail space.

  

4.      Reston Association Seminar on “Sustainability Principles for Reston” scheduled for February 11, 2012, will be discussed by member Nichole Wynands.

5.      Committee discussion of any other business, new or old, and approval of previous meeting minutes.

6.      Approve next meeting date and adjourn.

Agenda subject to change without notice by order of the Chairman, David Vanell, (703) 904-9299, or Arthur S. Hill, Vice Chairman, (703) 264-1178.

 
January 15, 2012