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: Comprehensive Plan Education Project Chapter 8:
The following report represents the view of the individuals
who served on the review committee and should not be interpreted as the
view of the League of Women Voters or of the boards and commissions on
which the committee members serve.
The Vision Maureen Budetti Bob Perry Rob Puentes Ed Strait I. PREFACE The City of Falls Church is uniquely situated in the Washington metropolitan area. It is an older suburban community that in many ways is located in the center of the region. Falls Church is close-in and convenient to the District of Columbia and the concentration of jobs, services, cultural amenities, etc. that the central city has to offer. In addition, Falls Church is finding itself in close proximity to emerging job and retail centers on the newly expanding suburban periphery as well as amenities like airports, and regional recreation opportunities. Falls Church also has convenient access to the nation's most state-of-the-art rail transit system, multiple bus routes, regional bicycle and pedestrian trails, as well as interstates, and other state and local roads. Travelling within the City is very convenient as Falls Church is extremely small (in fact, one of the smallest jurisdictions in the nation according to the U.S. Census). Walking is a viable option that is facilitated by a high quality network of sidewalks. In short, we are a very mobile society made possible by an integrated transportation network in the City, and throughout the region and the nation. Transportation is also an important part of our past. The city itself grew because it was situated near the intersection of two old colonial roads. Major transportation decisions with regard to interstate highway routes and transit lines not built have also shaped the City in profound ways. Today, transportation permeates American life perhaps like never before. The number of miles we travel as Americans continues to increase year after year, for highways, transit as well as bicycles and pedestrians. Although we have serious concerns about regional transportation, it is often neighborhood traffic problems, safe routes for children and pleasant places to walk that dominate the Falls Church transportation focus. This review of Chapter 8 ("Transportation") of the City's Comprehensive Plan (the blueprint for the future of Falls Church) is intended to serve as a progress report, and by educating the community on the basic elements of the plan in terms of its content, to guide the update of the document next year. It should be stated from the outset that Chapter 8 is excellently written
and clearly well thought-out. It is also extraordinarily visionary
for a document of its type. Rarely do transportation plans reflect
anything more than how to facilitate travel by car. This document
sets up bold connections to land use, transit and other transportation
alternatives, traffic calming and innovative partnerships. While
all of the goals and objectives have, of course, not been fully achieved,
they provide a useful framework to guide our thinking. If every jurisdiction
considered their transportation network in ways consistent with this chapter,
transportation problems would be greatly diminished.
II. OVERALL REVIEW Chapter 8 provides background on growth of transportation modes and vehicular traffic in Falls Church, defines the existing road system and lays out five general, but related, goals: maintaining the existing system, ensuring impacts on residential streets are minimized, focusing on our City's role in terms of the regional network, managing parking needs, and encouraging alternative modes. For the most part, these goals cover the major challenges and opportunities facing the City today. Specific comments about the goals and objectives are discussed in the next section. Following are a few overall comments on the chapter. 1. A common thread through most of the goals is the issue of safety and access. Roadways and sidewalks must be maintained so they continue to provide adequate support for movement and transport and do not present hazardous conditions. Traffic should be calmed to provide a balance between vehicles and people. Other safety aspects permeate the chapter. This is important and appropriate because the most fundamental role for any city government is to protect the health and safety of its citizens. It is essential to maintain this concomitant goal when considering the role of transportation to other goals such as economic development. So while safety is an important part of the chapter as currently written, this review recommends that a separate goal be added that focuses explicitly on the health and safety of residents and those within Falls Church from a transportation perspective. This should emphasize the safety of those not in a motor vehicle and should explicitly address the special needs of children and the elderly. 2. The chapter takes advantage of 1990 Census data to support some assertions and policies throughout. This is a very helpful and fitting way to set up these issues. However, this review recommends that any update of this chapter be delayed until these facts and figures are updated with the latest data from the 2000 Census. Although fundamental demographic changes are not expected, important information about commuting patterns, location of jobs and number of vehicles may be dramatically different. 3. This chapter, and indeed the entire Comprehensive Plan, provides useful information that should be made readily available to City residents and businesses. This most efficient way to do this is to make the entire Comprehensive Plan available on the City's web site in a suitable and useful form. Accordingly, this review recommends that the updated Comprehensive Plan be made available on the City's web site immediately after completion. The rest of this review discusses progress in achieving the vision and the five existing goals. III. VISION The vision is bold, insightful and worthwhile. Unfortunately, it has only partially been fulfilled. Below are the four sentences taken directly from the vision statement, broken out for review and critique: ? The City will have an efficient, safe, accessible and high quality transportation system that is consistent with its land use policies." The transportation system meets this vision. Safety is a paramount issue but probably will never be addressed completely given the fundamentally dangerous nature of the motor vehicle. But the system is reliable, efficient and high quality. Efforts to strengthen the connection between transportation and land use are generally consistent. ? "Traffic on city roads will flow freely, but at a moderate speed with minimal disturbance to residential neighborhoods." Vehicle traffic does flow freely throughout the City most of the time. Speeds may often exceed the City's 25 mph limit but measures have been taken to deal with this on arterials that are heavily residential (e.g., utilizing authority to levy $200 fines in these areas). Balancing flow and speed is a problem throughout the region. The disturbance to residential neighborhoods is uneven. Judging from complaints by Falls Church residents, it is a problem that is probably getting worse. ? All areas of the City will be accessible both internally and from the region via a range of public and private transportation alternatives Falls Church enjoys a high degree of accessibility and transportation alternatives. A circulator bus system could improve internal mobility within the City. Efforts should be made to focus to accommodate routing and timing needs of children and the elderly and those using regional public transportation. ? The City will encourage and facilitate safe and convenient access to pedestrians and other forms of non-automotive transportation to decrease congestion and contribute to the improvement of local and regional air quality. The City has established an excellent network of transportation options
(e.g., transit access and service, bicycle and pedestrian facilities).
Unfortunately, the vast majority of trips are taken in the private automobile
and do not take advantage of these options, and as a result congestion
and air quality continue to get worse. The City could do more to
encourage the use of such options both for the residents and the businesses
of Falls Church. The second part is, by far, the most difficult to
achieve as congestion and air quality problems are not unique to Falls
Church and require regional solutions. The City does enjoy excellent
representation on regional boards and commissions with regard to these
issues.
IV. GOALS AND STRATEGIES This section lists each of the transportation goals from the Comprehensive Plan and provides a brief overview and assessment: GOAL 1 ENSURE THAT THE CITY'S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM IS ADEQUATELY MAINTAINED. This goal charges the Environmental Services (née Public Works) Department with making sure that the existing transportation infrastructure does not fall into disrepair due to neglect and become inefficient or a safety hazard. The City does a very good job in this regard. There are few streets that suffer from neglect and only a few sidewalks that require attention. The goal of reviewing scheduled street maintenance (1-B) should be continued. There are cost savings to be realized by avoiding excessive repaving of City streets. But in addition, streets that are in safe condition but still in less-than-interstate-quality, can provide some traffic calming efforts by preventing fast speeds. GOAL 2 PROTECT RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS FROM COMMUTER AND COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC. The City does a good job preventing excessive commuter parking on residential streets. This is generally an issue for the neighborhoods in closest proximity to the Metrorail Stations. City staff and the Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation (CACT) do a good job in responding to complaints if and when they occur. The most important issue raised in this chapter is that of traffic calming measures in residential areas. Of comments and concerns forwarded to City staff and the CACT, now operating jointly in this regard as the Transportation Task Force, by far the biggest complaint concerns (at least the perception of) unsafe conditions on residential streets. At present, the City is doing all it can to respond to such complaints in a responsible manner. However, without a comprehensive citywide plan to provide a framework for addressing these issues, the problem will never be sufficiently addressed. The development of a comprehensive plan for citywide traffic calming is explicitly outlined in the transportation chapter, but has not been fulfilled. As cited in strategy 2-D, the City needs to develop a comprehensive plan for citywide traffic calming. A piecemeal approach forces traffic to other streets, causes confusion with regard to understanding how these issues are to be addressed and simply does not solve the problem in a manner that emphasizes a solution that benefits the whole City, rather than one street. The additional fine for speeders is a very good approach to encouraging traffic calming. It should be continued. The biggest irritation on our neighborhood streets may be cut-through
traffic as identified in the chapter. Certainly some of the traffic
on the streets is from origins and destinations outside the City.
However, those who live, work and shop in Falls Church are just as guilty
of infractions such as speeding, as well as cutting through, and generally
contributing to increased volumes on all streets. Any strategy to
deal with cut-through traffic should focus on Falls Church residents as
well as those from outside the City.
GOAL 3 MANAGE TRAFFIC ON NON-RESIDENTIAL ROADWAYS WITHIN AND TO THE CITY. This goal focuses on the City's place in the region and recognizes that many of our transportation issues are regional in nature and can best be addressed regionally. There is little the City can realistically do about traffic outside its borders. The City should, however, continue to participate on regional boards and commissions to ensure the views of the City are represented. Falls Church has enjoyed excellent representation in the past on Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) committees. Such representation should be cultivated and maintained. It is not clear that the City is engaged in encouraging alternative means of transportation for those working, shopping or attending events or restaurants in the City. In fact, the primary connection between economic development and transportation seems to revolve around parking (see next goal). We need to continue to enforce traffic regulations within the City. Citizens from the surrounding areas should learn that the speed limits in Falls Church are strictly enforced. GOAL 4 MANAGE PARKING NEEDS WITHIN THE CITY. The City is currently working to address the challenges of parking. Adequate and properly located parking is necessary for economic development. The City should determine if the 1997 parking study needs to be reviewed. The study indicates there are several opportunities for shared parking facilities throughout the downtown area that should be utilized to their fullest extent. Another area for improvement would be for the City, perhaps through
the Economic Development Authority, to conduct aggressive outreach to businesses
downtown to encourage them to take advantage of the excellent transit connections
in the City. In fact, a leveraging point for economic development
should be such connections.
GOAL 5 ENCOURAGE THE USE OF NON-AUTOMOTIVE MODES OF TRANSPORTATION WITHIN THE CITY AND TO THE REGION. The City enjoys some of the best transit service anywhere. It is served by multiple bus routes and has two state-of-the-art transit stations just beyond its borders. There is also a high quality bicycle/pedestrian trail as well as a bicycle route through the City. Few communities enjoy such an array of alternative transportation options. Of course, here in Falls Church and elsewhere throughout the country, the automobile still dominates in terms of preferred mode for all trips. Breaking residents' and workers' love affair with the automobile will
be difficult to accomplish and is probably outside of the scope of this
plan. Falls Church does, however, have a burgeoning population of
children who should not be tethered to automobiles as most of their parents
have. The Environmental Services Department should coordinate with
the schools to ensure, at a minimum, that there are safe alternative routes
for children to walk or bike or take transit to school. This is not
addressed in the current pan but should be a key feature in the next update.
If children are well-conditioned to "think outside the car", perhaps they
can help set the context for our transportation network of the future.
V. CONCLUSION The bottom line is that traffic congestion, vehicle volumes and speeds
in and around Falls Church are dreadful. The automobile continues
to dominate, in terms of percentages of all trips, like never before.
Certainly no one is completely at ease with every aspect of our transportation
system. However, we are incredibly fortunate in Falls Church to have
multiple choices about how to get from one place to another. Clearly,
walking, bicycling, or taking transit is not appropriate for all trips
- but it is for some. The transportaation chapter of the Comprehensive
Plan is generally a good reflection of this balance between modes and a
proponent of choices. Th update must maintain this focus, while also
strengthening its focus on safety, particularly for pedestrians, children,
and the elderly.
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