As Sharon Hrynkow looks off her deck at the shrinking tree line, she can see the construction vehicles clearing a path for the new Long Branch Creek Trail. Although she's been involved with the project from the beginning, starting with early meetings with Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D-Braddock), she didn't realize the extent of the tree and underbrush clearing.
"They've already cut a lot more trees than expected," Hrynkow said. "We put this deck on so we could enjoy the woods. Now I feel I have the path on my deck."
Dave Rabadan lives across the street. Although his back yard isn't affected, he sees the operation while walking to the bus stop on Guinea Road.
"It's remained a noise buffer from Guinea Road," Rabadan said, of the now absent trees. "The story they gave us was they need to build a bridge to get a pickup truck over for maintenance purposes.
Both homeowners remember that the plan included replanting a line of trees between their neighborhood and the trail, but from what they see now, it doesn't seem like it will help.
"That's what they said they'll do," Rabadan said.
Bulova worked with the community when they came up with the plan and agreed that the initial shock of the preliminary clearings was hard to swallow for the homeowners. When things start coming together, it will be better than they think, Bulova said. In addition to the Fairfax County Park Authority clearing the trail, Bulova said Virginia Power and Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) were currently working in the same area, clearing some undergrowth as part of their regular maintenance plan. That made the trail project look bigger.
"Once the trail is built," Bulova said. "It's going to be much better than what they're looking at. The construction phase is messy. It's going to be a beautiful trail."
Park spokesperson Judy Pederson has heard concerns while trails are under construction before.
"People always get concerned in the construction stage of the trails. The buffer areas are all specified in the plan," Pederson said.
ALTHOUGH THE COUNTY is piecing together a "cross county trail," connecting parts of trails here and there until a bicyclist can go from one end of the county to the other, this Long Branch Trail is not part of it. According to Bulova, this trail connects Wakefield Park with the rest of Long Branch Trail.
Rabadan is familiar with that wooded area and said that a better route would have been along a sewer easement, where the trees have already been cleared. That path would also lead to an existing traffic light, making a crossing over Guinea Road safer.
"This is a sewer easement, it's clear and wide," he said. "They wouldn't have to cross the stream."
The trail crossing Guinea Road is unavoidable, Bulova said. In order to build trails in Fairfax County, roads have to be crossed at one point or another, she said. They will install pedestrian crossing signs along Guinea as well. Bulova said that a bigger bridge was chosen over a foot bridge to prevent it from being washed out.
At the bridge where Guinea crosses Long Branch, high-water-measurement signs border the road, which is a signal that high waters are common through there.
"If you don't put in a substantial bridge, it gets washed out," Bulova said.