Fairfax City needs inviting public spaces, not just pretty ones

Public Spaces

Fairfax City needs inviting public spaces, not just pretty ones

by Douglas Stewart • September 18, 2009 10:34 am

Despite some artfully designed new residential developments, replete with moats, trails and gazebos, you don't see many people walking or just enjoying the public spaces in Fairfax City. The plaza in Old Town does attract a fairly broad array of people—old, young, parents and little kids, businesspeople and lawyers, etc. But the public spaces near Farrcroft and Gateway Fairfax, well designed as they are, attract very few people. I've never seen anyone sitting on the benches along the trail that runs by Farrcroft. Nor have I ever seen anyone at the cupola pictured to the left, at Gateway Fairfax.

Is this supposed to be a real public space, or eye candy for cars?

And maybe this, too, is by design. Are these supposed to be real public spaces — or just nice things to look at from your kitchen window, or out your windshield?

If the city were serious about creating more inviting public spaces, there would be benches and something to look at besides a pretty cupola at this space. A sculpture, perhaps. And there would be more places worth walking to. Students and residents might stop here on their way back from Bernie's Delicatessen to eat their sandwiches. The staff of the nearby Inova branch or Sunrise Assisted Living Center might eat lunch or drink coffee here.

The presence of more people would have a civilizing effect on Chain Bridge Road as it changes from a 55-mph highway to what Fairfax hopes to become the "southern gateway" into the city. That, in turn, might spur a redesign of this section of the road so it is easier to cross and a more pleasant road to walk along. The nearby recently renovated Fairfax County Public Safety Center, while not perfect, is now a much more pleasant place to walk along. The city, with cooperation from state transportation officials, could build on this to make Chain Bridge Road a more inviting pedestrian corridor.

To its credit, the city's Comprehensive Plan calls for a mixture of homes, stores and businesses in the area along Chain Bridge Road. However, a development proposal would amend the plan to place only homes on nearby School Street. If the city wants to create real public spaces and get more feet on the street, it should stick to its plan.

The redevelopment of Fairfax Boulevard will be the real test of the city's commitment to vibrant public spaces. The first major parcel to be redeveloped will likely be the Fairfax Shopping Center on the Boulevard. The draft master plan envisions breaking this parcel up into a street grid that would connect with Eaton Place and extend University Drive, creating a local travel lane similar to what already exists further west on the Boulevard, widening the sidewalk and bringing storefronts up to the streets. The developers have indicated a much more automobile-oriented plan, including a grass berm that would divide the boulevard from the stores. This would just be more eye candy. If the city wants to create a place where people will want to actually stop, enjoy themselves and purchase things, they should hew more closely to the draft master plan.

14 comments

Tags: Fairfax City, public spaces, Virginia

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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.

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I have always found it odd that Americans on average romanticize small towns while doing everything possible to destroy the ones we've got and salt the earth to ensure that no more will be created.

Ornaments to car-dependent sprawl are merely trinkets to help the sprawl-dweller not feel too bad about the fact that they live in a place where it is impossible to have a genuine community. They pine for the community of a walkable urban place. It is sad that they can't tell the difference between a community and trinkets designed to look town-ish.

It is even sadder when county executives do actions that prevent those who can tell the difference from being able to afford housing in walkable urban places because it is too scarce and banned from increasing.

by Cavan on Sep 18, 2009 12:07 pm • link • report

Cavan

Brilliant statement

by w on Sep 18, 2009 12:09 pm • link • report

Personally, I think the romanticization of small towns is proof that millions of American suburbanites don't actually like the suburbs very much.

It's just that in so much of America, there isn't much choice, and where there is, it's often too expensive.

by BeyondDC on Sep 18, 2009 12:11 pm • link • report

Are they actually functional? I just assumed they were Styrofoam and paint.
I'm sure if anyone hung out on their Disney props, someone would call the police.

by shy on Sep 18, 2009 12:12 pm • link • report

I used to live in Avalon and walked by there everyday. Then I moved down the street and was pissed when they closed school street to george mason blvd. Granted I can still work but I had to drive almost an extra mile just to get out of the neighborhood. Old town Fairfax needs more connectivity to break up the bottle neck at main/123/university and could do with converting all those municipal surface lots into parkland or more commercial buildings. The parking garage has more than enough space.

If I ran Bernies I'd tried to add a building to the lot next to mine for commercial use as well.

Also except for Bernies, it is only homes along school street except for that church and the school bus parking lot.

by Canaan Merchant on Sep 18, 2009 5:02 pm • link • report

^
You're right. Old town needs much more connectivity. There are far too many closed-off streets and unnecessary dead-ends. This is because one of the city's top planning priorities is minimizing cut-through traffic. It is an explicit goal of the city to put as much traffic onto the arterials as possible, in order to get as much of it off every other street as possible. Naturally, this makes traffic worse for everyone.

by BeyondDC on Sep 18, 2009 5:56 pm • link • report

More information needed, as I've never been here: Is the photo from car's-eye or ped's-eye viewpoint? If the former, what does it look like when I'm in it? And what's the noise like from the road?

Otherwise it looks like someone made off with the bandstand.

by ThresherK on Sep 18, 2009 6:04 pm • link • report

@Thresher K
It looks as it was taken from the corner of school st. and chain bridge. School Street has very little traffic (which made it nice to bike down and Chain Bridge which is a major road since its the most direct route from GMU to 66 and points north and west of Fairfax. I'm inclined to believe that this "park" was built buy the people who built the townhouses in the back of the picture. Of course its blocked from the houses by a wrought iron fence so I could be wrong.

by Canaan on Sep 18, 2009 6:46 pm • link • report

Sorry I didn't bundle this with my last comment,

@beyonddc - I can easily name a dozen places around the city of fairfax/gmu area that could easily be connected and would get people like me off of 123 and university drive unnecessarily.

by Canaan on Sep 18, 2009 6:48 pm • link • report

Canaan,

Thanx for the info.

by ThresherK on Sep 19, 2009 12:37 pm • link • report

old town fairfax is a case study on the importance of on street parking.

bundling all the old town parking into that monstrous garage between university drive and chain bridge serves to make the North Street development act more like a mall, and also serves to bring people into said development like rats.

on street parking is something often overlooked in new urbanism in the effort to hide cars. not that we shouldn't encourage mass transit, walking, and biking, but a certain percentage will drive. and why not engage as many of those drivers with the street as possible to liven things up?

as an added benefit, on street parking serves as a fantastic "natural" safety buffer for pedestrians from traffic, and further serves to slow down street traffic and make the road less of a "thruway".

in old town fairfax they have benches that sit right up against the street (literally inches) and then you have cars going by at 30 MPH. no one sits there because it's so uncomfortable, and no amount of expense on wide sidewalks can encourage a leisurely sidewalk chat as people just want to move off the street and away from the speeding cars.

as to how that relates to douglas' point, north street used to have on street parking, and the city went through quite a bit of effort (and $$) to turn it into a prettier two-way street, putting in new lamp posts, bricking the sidewalks, and reworking the north street for two-way traffic. The ration was to "slow folks down" with the new traffic pattern and streetscape, but the removal of on-street parking has more-than mitigated the well-intentioned effects of the new traffic pattern and costly ornament.

a better way to spend the city's money would have been something like this:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&ie=UTF8&t=h&msa=0&ll=38.84646,-77.304955&spn=0.008924,0.013797&z=16&msid=113262488393877820698.000473faabf54b3b6defe

the enlargement of the old-town grid via adjacent parking lots would have (and still could) allow for enough dispersal of traffic to allow on street parking everywhere in old town fairfax. reworking north street as one-way, and aligning a new "south street" on sager avenue (and demoing the 1950s extension of the 1799 courthouse) would create two one-way street to bypass main street, relating exactly like prince and cameron streets to king street in alexandria.

similarly, a new "west street" should be created to separate route 123 traffic into two one-ways. instead of cramming 4 lanes of traffic onto chain bridge, the pavement could be repainted to allow 2 lanes of traffic, one of parking, and reserve the left side for a light rail or reserved bus lane to connect to a larger north south bus or light rail up 123 into tysons.

thoughts?

by stevek_fairfax on Sep 20, 2009 12:42 am • link • report

Interesting concept, Steve. I'd take it slightly further, though, with a few modifications. Namely...

- extending both Whitehead St and your new Willard St over to southbound 123 (new "West St").
- realigning the new North, South, and West Streets to minimze ROW impacts.
- extending Judicial Dr not just to University Dr/Ratcliff Rd, but beyond, connecting back up to Main St.
- from Courthouse Dr/West St, extending the "new Sager Ave" not just to University Dr, but also along existing South St and Holbrook Ave to my extended Judicial Dr.
- realigning the east end of the new Willard St to tie directly into the entrance to the townhome development across University Dr.

Unfortunately, both of our ideas would require a good bit of new right-of-way and some costly building demolition. In particular, the "new North St" would separate Truro Church from its parking lots, both requiring church land for the street and requiring church-goers to cross said street. Also, the 1950-70s courthouse extension would require partial demolition to a building that I'd hazard a bet is being used for county offices.

So to separate traffic and create enough room for on-street parking, while minimizing right-of-way and building demolition impacts, I see this being more realistic...

by Froggie on Sep 20, 2009 9:01 am • link • report

@steve k. - For West st. that be a serious drop in elevation because thats a hardcore drop. I like the idea of extending Sager ave. and adding on street parking to that part of sager would be an even bigger boon. Lastly then you could encourage enough ped. traffic to change some of those surface parking lots to a park or build on it.

by Canaan on Sep 20, 2009 5:46 pm • link • report

Steve, Froggie and Canaan -- Now is a good time to propose these ideas since Fairfax City is updating its comp plan. It might be heavy lifting but at least we can raise the issue for better traffic circulation and how it would help improve foot traffic and business in Old Town, and more advocates will come out of the woodwork. The public hearings on the comp plan should be scheduled soon.

by Douglas Stewart on Sep 21, 2009 11:11 am • link • report