Roads
Fairfax needs a street grid, but more than an island
Fairfax City just enacted a new commercial real estate tax dedicated to transportation, and plans to use the money to facilitate redevelopment on Fairfax Boulevard. The area surrounding Route 123, branded as "Northfax," will be the first priority for large-scale redevelopment. While the plans are still in a very early stage, and redevelopment proposals have not yet even been formally submitted, a dedicated funding source makes it likely that redevelopment in Northfax will move relatively quickly.
Fair Lakes Market Commons.
The Fairfax Boulevard master plan recommends a "8/10/10/8" design of new local streets: 8 feet for on-street parking on each side, a 10 foot travel lane, and wide sidewalks. The recommended design would resemble the street pictured above, at the Market Commons development in Fair Lakes. It would create a pleasant place to walk, ride your bike, and spend money at local businesses.
It would be great to have new walkable streets in Fairfax City in places that are currently taken up mostly by surface parking. Doing this, though, will be easier than implementing the main aspect of the master plan: taming Fairfax Boulevard itself. The recommendations in the master plan call for a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly boulevard with five travel lanes and two access lanes for local traffic. The "5-2" design would make Fairfax Boulevard a much more pleasant place to walk along. It would also make the street easier to cross, so that local residents could more easily get to places on the Boulevard on foot or bicycle rather than adding to the traffic.
Top: Fairfax Boulevard today. Middle: The Boulevard with the "5-2" design.
Bottom: The 5-2 design plus future street-oriented development.
Images from the Fairfax Boulevard Master Plan.
But the City Council and key developers working in Northfax are skeptical about the 5-2 design. "You want drive-by business," Randy Kenna of Archstone said at a City Council work session last year. Local access lanes, Kenna argued, create an "unwelcome distance" between cars and the retail destinations.
Without a more ambitious redesign of the Boulevard focused on all users, the local streets will be nice places to go... by car. Like Market Commons and many other new developments in Fairfax County, they will be islands of livability surrounded by inhospitable wide roads. Fairfax can and should choose a better route.
Douglas Stewart is a nonprofit consultant and smart growth advocate in Fairfax County. He also writes about land use and transportation issues at Fairfax Suburbanista. Douglas has worked on land use and transportation reform since 1999, most recently as development and communications director with 1000 Friends of Maryland.  |
Comments
@ggwash
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by ksu499 on Aug 4, 2009 1:11 pm
or perhaps they just envision the access lanes taking away from their developable land.
The local access lanes - as long as they include parallel parking, act as a facilitator to welcome cars and people and bikes to the storefront, not impede. The access lanes also provide an importatnt safety buffer between pedestrians and the higher speed traffic too - to make visitors feel comfortable on the street (in old town Fairfax where they took away the on street parking, one can see what it's like without the parked-car buffer)
Lastly, there are probably graphical studies that can effectively show that the access lane - as long as they provide parking, will INCREASE the developer's usable land as they will not be required to provide as much circulation and parking on their site.
by stevek_fairfax on Aug 4, 2009 3:33 pm
by stevek_fairfax on Aug 4, 2009 3:35 pm
by BeyondDC on Aug 4, 2009 3:56 pm
by Chris R on Aug 4, 2009 3:57 pm
Why didn't you go to VCU then? Get rejected? ODU woulda been a great urban choice.
by MPC on Aug 4, 2009 4:58 pm
I've been really tolerant of your comments which often border on trolling, but this one really crosses the line. Please restrict yourself to actual discussions of the topics or I will have to remove your privilege to comment.
by David Alpert on Aug 4, 2009 5:13 pm
I think you need to take "opponents-skeptics" over to Shirlington, as that is an easily accessible and understandable example of where this master plan is trying to take the City of Fairfax. And you don't have to scare them off by bringing them all the way into the city...
Mr. Stewart, you might be interested in these ULI reports, if you aren't already familiar with them:
- http://www.uli.org/ResearchAndPublications/Reports/~/media/Documents/ResearchAndPublications/Reports/TenPrinciples/TP_BusinessDistricts.ashx
- http://www.uli.org/ResearchAndPublications/Reports/~/media/Documents/ResearchAndPublications/Reports/TenPrinciples/Tp_SuburbanStrips.ashx
- http://www.uli.org/ResearchAndPublications/Reports/~/media/Documents/ResearchAndPublications/Reports/TenPrinciples/TP_TownCenters.ashx
Even though the reports are "about the suburbs" the general points they make about urban design are fully relevant to most any setting, in-city or suburb.
by Richard Layman on Aug 5, 2009 9:31 am
by Douglas Stewart on Aug 7, 2009 12:40 pm
Many of the stores along Fairfax Boulevard have signs that are barely decipherable to passing motorists. It's a sea of car dealerships, ethnic food markets, and tiny businesses that are obviously aimed at nearby residents. I'm a local so I go to these businesses - but I can assure you that other drivers on the road are mostly interested in getting the hell out of Fairfax.
by Cory on Oct 23, 2009 4:23 pm
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