Breakfast links: Only in Fairfax

by Erik Weber • November 8, 2010 8:10 am

Photo by Haole Punk on Flickr.

Ped killed where crosswalk unmarked: A pedestrian was killed Friday night in Fairfax at Richmond Highway and Buckman Road, where there is no marked crosswalk. (Post) ... Fairfax County wants to fix this intersection for pedestrians, but the project is just in the scoping phase.

Why not Fairfax County Avenue?: A Post story on Fairfax County Parkway laments that bus stops, cross walks, and intersections detract from the "spirit of a parkway." Instead of spending $70 million to convert it to a highway couldn't they just rename the road? (Joshua D.)

Fairfax looking to add bike lockers: Bicycle commuting is on the increase in Fairfax County and bike lockers are in short supply. Charlie Strunk, the county bike coordinator, discusses the demand for more lockers and his plans for their installation. (Reston Patch)

Write-in results still weeks away: 31 of DC's 299 ANC races had no listed contenders. Preliminary write-in results for these races will be released today, but the official count won't be done before Nov. 22 due to absentee ballots. (TBD, Eric Fidler)

Teacher arrest highlights problems in and out of school: A teacher at Rock Creek Academy charter school was arrested for punching a student who was messing around. Other students and school volunteers sympathize with the situation and say the incident highlights problems students have both in school and at home. (WUSA9)

Why are bus fares lower?: Dr. Gridlock defends bus fares that are lower than rail fares when a letter writer asks why we subsidize bus more heavily. Besides the arguments he gives, there's the fact that other systems give you a bus and rail trip for free, whereas here riders have to pay separately for both with only a small discount. (Post)

WMATA will inspect all escalators: Following the discovery of faulty brakes in escalators at L'Enfant Plaza and Gallery Place, Metro has ordered an inspection of all 588 escalators in the system. Is it a good move or just "safety theater?" (Dr. Gridlock)

And...: Prince William County schools have won an award for outstanding nutritional options in their school meals. (WTOP) ... Vince Gray has some work to do to make DC "One City." (Post, Eric Fidler) ... Apple spent $4 million renovating a decrepit CTA station across the street from their newest Chicago retail store. (ASLA)

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10 comments

Tags: ANC, bicycling, buses, charter schools, Chicago, commuting, crime, DC, education, elections, escalators, Fairfax, Fairfax County Parkway, fares, food, links, Metro safety, pedestrian safety, Prince William, roads, schools, Vincent Gray, Virginia, WMATA

Erik Weber has been living car-free in the District since 2009. Hailing from the home of the nation's first Urban Growth Boundary, Erik has been interested in transit since spending summers in Germany as a kid where he rode as many buses, trains and streetcars as he could find. Views expressed here are Erik's alone.

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....and that's why I moved from Fairfax to Arlington.

by OX4 on Nov 8, 2010 9:52 am

I don't find much wrong with real parkways, as they were intended (scenic roads to or through parks, designed to be enjoyed, along with the park ... usually on weekends and such).

But so many parkways today have become commuter highways. Rock Creek Parkway is an obvious example of this, as are many parkways in New York.

I'm not too familiar with the Fairfax County Parkway, but it doesn't seem like a parkway at all. It seems much more like an expressway.

(Then again, I-66 in Virginia within the Beltway is also called "Custis Memorial Parkway," and it's most definitely not a parkway.)

by Tim on Nov 8, 2010 10:09 am

GGW's petty contempt for the FCPW just seems so below the intelligent and well-thought out nature of this site. It's unbecoming and at worst, distastefully arrogant. It's far from a perfect road, and the Fair Lakes area is obviously a disaster in planning, but the site's "let them rot in traffic" attitude to anything involving roads in Fairfax is not its best hour.

by Jordan on Nov 8, 2010 10:23 am

Changing the name of the Fairfax County Parkway will in noway change the perception of what the road is to the people that use it.

Changing Fairfax County Parkway to Fairfax County Avenue would be akin to changing Pennsylvanian Avenue to Pennsylvanian Street. The only difference would be what is displayed signs and shown on a maps.

by Sand Box John on Nov 8, 2010 10:36 am

I'm not sure having a road called a "parkway" in any way indicates that it's only to be used for Sunday drives. The GW parkway is a great example of what a parkway is supposed to be but it certainly is also a major commuter route. Parkways are limited access like a freeway but don't generally use the kind of interchanges and prominently marked exits like a freeway. They limit signage of all kinds, especially commercial signs. They make heavy use of natural landscaping and natural materials (think rocks) in retaining walls, dividers, etc. Generally, you don't see a parkway with more than four lanes. I think 66 inside the Beltway is sort of a weird hybrid. It has the big green signs and exits like a freeway, but attempts are made to use more natural landscaping, it meanders like a parkway, and obviously has only four lanes. Views of the surrounding neighborhoods are limited.

I guess maybe part of the point of having a blog is to provoke commentary. But I find implying that safety inspections of Metro escalators is "safety theater" to be obnoxious. Safety theater is something like taking off your shoes at the airport - inconveniences everyone while protecting no one. Given the recent failures, how is inspecting escalators the same? If you buy four tires for your car, and one blows out and you then learn that it was possibly a manufacturing defect - do you dismiss an inspection of your other three tires as "safety theater?"

by Josh S on Nov 8, 2010 10:52 am

It's "safety theater" if they find faults, and WMATA takes no action to repair them, which seems to be the current policy, as Unsuck uncovered a few documents showing that Metro knew about some of these problems before the L'Enfant accident.

by andrew on Nov 8, 2010 11:12 am

I've said before. Fairfax county parkway (or 7100) being freeway like isn't necessarily the problem but its the land use around it. If I were a billionaire I would look into trying to figure out a way to redesign Fairlakes so that the thousands of people who live their don't all have to get in a car just to get to Bloom and Wal-mart that is less than a mile away for most of them. Thats the real issue behind the congestion at Fairlakes, not people traveling through to other destinations.

by Canaan on Nov 8, 2010 11:58 am

Fairfax County Parkway is precisely what it says on the tin, according to Virginia nomenclature for limited-access, sub-expressway roads. If it were in California, it would be called an "expressway", to distinguish it from a "freeway", but in Virginia "expressway" and "freeway" are interchangeable terms.

Some parkways in Virginia are totally limited-access and more freeway- or expressway-like, such as Chippenham Parkway and Powhite Parkway in greater Richmond. Others are much more like boulevards, like Lynnhaven Parkway and Greenbrier Parkway in southeastern Virginia. On rare occasion it's a scenic route that would classically be considered a "parkway", like the Blue Ridge Parkway and Colonial Parkway. And some exist as a hybrid of all of these things, like George Washington Parkway.

Calling it Fairfax County Boulevard is unnecessary - parkways in Virginia exist to a wide variety of standards, and any number of configurations to Fairfax County Parkway would fall into it.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 8, 2010 1:23 pm

The FFC should have been built with garde speration in mind- grade seperation of the school of DuPont Circle, Barney Circle and even the Alexandria Orb, aka with underpasses below and park space atop.

One would think that the history of such things as DuPont Circle would have lead to more of such type of classier way of fitting freeways into the urban environment. But alas our crappy masonic government with its contempt for the profane (expressed in such silliness as no Arizaona Avenue Bridge) continues to get away with its elitism.

by Douglas A. Willinger on Nov 8, 2010 3:50 pm

Decked, you mean? And only in Reston, or...?

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 8, 2010 3:52 pm