July 26, 2002
As McLean matures and Great Falls approaches build-out, concern about roads and transportation climbs to the top of the public agenda.
A draft environmental study was released recently on a proposal to extend rapid rail transit to Dulles Airport, with hearings scheduled later this month.
Several public hearings addressed options for widening the Beltway/I-495.
And although federal funding for a study for a third Potomac River Crossing between Maryland and Virginia has been withdrawn, residents in Great Falls continue to watch for the proposal to resurface.
Even if funding were available, neither widening the Beltway nor rail to Dulles could be completed any sooner than 10 to 20 years.
But all three proposals hold the attention of residents in McLean and Great Falls who would be directly affected.
Indirectly, the absence of new roads means that traffic gets more and more congested as residential development increases in Great Falls and density at Tysons Corner continues to build.
The pressure of traffic volume is building in McLean, located in the center of a triangle defined by the Potomac River, the Beltway, and Route 7.
"It is really going to be a bleak 10 years. Nothing on the drawing board, or even conceptually, can be completed in 10 years," said John Adams, president of the Georgetown Pike Association and a member of the McLean Citizens Association (MCA) transportation committee.
"There will be more people and more commercial development, but no major roads or rapid transit completed in 10 years."
IN A RESOLUTION it passed on July 10, the MCA observed that McLean is divided by the Beltway, which has five interchanges between Route 7 and the American Legion Bridge across the Potomac River.
Widening the Beltway to 10 or 12 lanes would impact several McLean neighborhoods and destroy houses.
The MCA asked for more facts and alternatives to the proposed widening.
"Given the too-narrow scope of alternatives considered in the environmental impact statement, adequate information is not yet available to determine what is the best alternative for improving the Beltway in conjunction with other kinds of transportation improvements," says the resolution.
The MCA’s transportation committee also faces a voluminous study on the environmental impacts of proposed rapid rail transit through Tysons Corner from I-66 to Dulles International Airport. The project's impact on McLean neighborhoods would be deleterious.
"We are right at the place where they would elevate it," said Clark Tyler, president of Hallcrest Heights, Inc., the homeowner association for a townhouse community at the intersection of Chain Bridge Road and the Dulles Toll Road.
"We support the project, but we want some way to mitigate the impact of the noise and vibration on our neighborhood.
"They would start to elevate before it hits Chain Bridge Road and then it sort of winds to the left [towards Tysons Corner]," he said.
"We’re not dumb enough to think we can change the alignment, but we are interested in mitigating the impact," he said.
Hallcrest Heights has hired an acoustical engineer to make recommendations for sound walls. His report is due on July 22, and Tyler will use it when he testifies at a public hearing on July 29, he said.
"THE DULLES CORRIDOR Rapid Transit project will be the big news," Tyler said. "That has not only political momentum, but funding momentum. Given a few hundred million dollars, it will happen. We don’t want to be a funding casualty," he said.
"We want the kind the kind of sound walls that every community has between the Beltway and Dulles Airport; 20- 25-foot high cast-concrete walls with absorptive coating. It’s like driving in a canyon when you look at those on both sides. They run them down the off-ramps to protect the communities with a wrap-around," he said.
The draft report on the environmental impact of rapid rail to Dulles Airport consumes three volumes and 2,000 pages. Copies are available for public review at the McLean Community Center, the McLean Government Center, and the Dolley Madison Library.
THE CONVERGENCE of such issues demands the time and attention of citizen groups such as the MCA to study them.
Representatives from the MCA testify at public hearings on transportation projects, even when, like the Beltway widening, they appear unlikely to be realized because of funding shortages.
When the new "techway" crossing was proposed for the Potomac River north of the American Legion Bridge, Great Falls dentist Ralph Lazaro and the North Seneca Citizens Association (NSCA) in Great Falls rallied in protest. Within months, a federally-funded study of alternative crossings was scuttled.
But NSCA and other citizens’ groups remain vigilant.
Both the MCA and the Great Falls Citizens Association (GFCA) meet regularly to review such proposals and voice citizens’ concerns.
"Don’t be voiceless. Stay in the play," said Adams, who keeps an eye on any proposal that might affect Georgetown Pike.
TRANSPORTATION IS affected by other public projects, too.
In Great Falls, citizens are raising money for a $3 million fire station that the Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) wants to build on the land it owns at the central crossroads in Great Falls. If they are successful, the new station will impact traffic flow, because a "cut-through road" between Georgetown Pike and Walker Road that cuts across VFD property will have to close.
And the School Board is building a new elementary school on Towlston Road just south of Route 7 where McLean, Great Falls, and Vienna converge.
The school, now known as the Andrew Chapel site, will ease overcrowding at four other elementary schools: Spring Hill in McLean, Westbriar in Vienna, and both Forestville and Great Falls Elementary Schools in Great Falls.
But some parents are concerned about school buses from the north side of Route 7 crossing to the south side at rush hour before school in the morning.
Others say that with Route 7 so clogged with traffic, collisions are unlikely, because the flow of traffic is slowed by its volume.
Both viewpoints are likely to emerge this fall, when the Fairfax County School Board schedules public hearings to set attendance boundaries for the new school. The process is expected to continue from November, 2002, through March, 2003, with the new school opening in September, 2003.
Citizens are also watching for budget problems in the next year.
Funding formulas for transportation and schools at the state level have caused the availability of public money to drop. Road projects have dropped off the "to-do" list and schools are dreading the next budget cycle.
PTA representatives from Great Falls last year lobbied to increase the percentage of funds that come to Fairfax County from the State of Virginia, saying they should more closely match the ratio of population and contribution into the state’s coffers.
NEWCOMERS WHO WANT to get familiar with local issues are invited to attend public meetings of both citizens groups: the MCA and the GFCA. Both have committees that study current issues and recommend stances for the full membership to take at public hearings.
The MCA meets at 8 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month at the McLean Community Center, 1234 Ingleside Drive in McLean.
The GFCA meets at 7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month at the Grange meeting house, 9818 Georgetown Pike in Great Falls.