Posts about Walkability

Parents were upset that the changes came without much notice. The process was a serious problem, and this episode also highlights how a singular focus on buses versus no buses doesn't effectively serve all Arlington residents.

The APS transportation department website reveals almost no information beyond how the buses are operated and who is eligible to ride them. Even a document with the encouraging title of "Transportation Demand Management" is mostly about the parking at schools, and has only a short list of vague phrases about how to help students get to school any way other than driving or riding the school bus.

These statements and documents reveal that the transportation plan for APS is essentially a bus plan and little else. In the 21st century, a mid-20th century school bus plan is insufficient. A good transportation plan should address the transportation system as a whole and every student's transportation mode, whether it's bus, bike, skateboard, car, or shoes.

It should also address issues of traffic, environment, and even land use. A comprehensive plan should look forward in time, set goals, and put in place strategies to meet those goals. If it proposes changes, it should look at the effects of those changes on traffic, environment, timing, and safety.

Those are all things that the Arlington government (as distinct from the schools) has decades of experience with. Arlington's transportation department is often held up as a national model for how jurisdictions should develop and implement long-term transportation plans. At least 40 years ago, the county was already planning for transportation and land use in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

Arlington has effectively managed enormous growth in commercial development and multi-family residential development with virtually no increase in traffic for several decades. Now, similarly, the schools are experiencing rapid growth in student population and APS needs to plan for that growth to continue. It's time for APS to call Arlington's transportation department and request their expertise in developing a real, 21st-century transportation plan.

The homes in each photo were built at Maple Lawn, a New Urbanist planned community north of Burtonsville in Howard County, by local builder Miller & Smith. The bottom photo is of the Foxhall model, which they sold between 2005 and 2007. (Miller & Smith tends to name their homes after urban neighborhoods or themes.) It measured about 3,400 square feet, not counting the basement, and it sold for upwards of $800,000.

Here's how Miller & Smith described it on their website:

The Foxhall Collection features 10' high ceilings, a gracious two-story entry foyer, formal living room and dining room with butler's pantry, spacious great room, 21st century kitchen and sunny breakfast room. Tucked away, the hobby/tech room makes an excellent study or children's homework area. Outside, enjoy your own private courtyard - perfect for entertaining! Upstairs, there is a sumptuous master suite with sitting room and luxury bath: plus 3 more bedrooms. Expansion options include finished lower level and bonus room. Over 3,400 sq ft of living space for today's active families!

The top photo is of the Fells Point and Gramercy Park models, which are for sale now. These homes have about 2,300 and 2,800 square feet, respectively, not including the basement. And they're much cheaper, each selling for less than $600,000.

From the descriptions, you can see how the interiors of each house have changed:

Fells Point: An open floorplan connects the great room and dining room to a fabulous kitchen with Infinity Island. Upstairs there's a dreamy master suite with luxury features including two walk-in closets.

Gramercy Park: A dramatic, open design with a stylish kitchen including an Infinity Island and the opportunity for a plenty of natural light. A separate dining room and study complete the main level.

Six years ago, Miller & Smith emphasized the Foxhall's two-story foyer and formal living and dining rooms, spaces that look good but are rarely used and require extra maintenance. Today, they stress the "openness" of the Fells Point and Gramercy Park.

Visiting the models of both houses last weekend, I was surprised to find almost no walls on the ground floor. The Gramercy Park has a formal dining room but no living room, while the Fells Point has neither. The master bathroom, which architectural critic Witold Rybczynski once called "America's latest status symbol," is reduced to a sink, toilet and shower.

These houses are 1/3 smaller and 1/4 cheaper than what was built before, but the hardwood floors and granite countertops are still there. Buyers can save money and reduce their energy use, but without sacrificing comfort or luxury.

However, smaller homes aren't just a Maple Lawn or even a DC-area phenomenon. New homes are shrinking across the country.

Part of the trend may be coming from younger buyers, who just don't want or care about all that extra space. Nancy, the sales agent I met at the model house, pointed out that her visitors include a lot of older couples seeking to downsize from a larger home, but the ones who actually buy are young families. The current buzz is about young singles wanting in-town apartments, but when they outgrow the studio, the interest in smaller homes may persist.

That said, buyers are willing to give up space within their home for amenities outside of it. A study from real estate consultants RCLCO found that buyers will sacrifice a larger house to have a shorter commute. Maple Lawn puts residents within close reach of schools, shops and even jobs. You don't need a movie theatre in your house when there's stuff to do outside. And when your house faces a common green, you can make do with a smaller yard, which in turn makes the house more affordable.

Maple Lawn's not perfect. These are still large houses; my parents live in an 1,800-square-foot house that comfortably fits a family of 4. The neighborhood's layout isn't totally ideal for walking, and it displaced working farmland in an area with no transit where residents will have to drive to leave the community. And it's 3 miles from an existing town where 70% of the stores are empty.

However, it shows that buyers will sacrifice space to live in even a semi-walkable neighborhood with amenities close at hand. That's a good sign for places that are already walkable or are trying to become so.

One of the targets for redevelopment in this area is the Greenbelt Metro station site. Currently a sea of almost 4,000 parking spaces, it's a prime site for transit-oriented, mixed-use development. The transit hub is home not only to the Metro, but also to MARC trains and several bus lines. The plan also leaves open the possibility for the site to develop for a GSA tenant like the FBI.

The plan also targets Beltway Plaza and the Greenway Shopping Center for redevelopment. Both of these auto-oriented retail centers are along Greenbelt Road, a major suburban arterial corridor. This wide roadway forms a barrier separating neighborhoods.

The plan notes that major roadways like Greenbelt Road have created "significant barriers to connectivity and pedestrian and bicycle safety, effectively separating the sector plan area into isolated sections." Greenbelt has been split into several pods over the years by freeways like the Capital Beltway, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and Kenilworth Avenue, and citizens spoke out about the divisions these roadways have created.

As a result, the plan seeks to address the problems created by decades of investment in auto infrastructure and years of underinvestment in alternative modes.

"The sector plan area is characterized by major highway intersections and freeway interchanges that directly and negatively impact pedestrian and bicycle mobility and access."

The plan proposes to transform the area to "maximize pedestrian and bicycle accessibility, mobility, and safety." It calls for completing a continuous network of sidewalks, bikeways, and trails; for reconfiguring Greenbelt Road to include dedicated bike facilities and wide sidewalks; for coordinating transit services to increase ridership; and to enhance safety for all users.

All of those improvements are terrific ideas, and they've been needed for years. Unfortunately, it sounds like the plan isn't really serious about these improvements.

Plan counteracts its own solutions

Seeming to have forgotten about all the problems created by bigger and wider roads, the plan calls for widening several arteries in the sector plan area. Most notably, the plan calls for adding a lane in each direction to Greenbelt Road in front of Beltway Plaza and Greenway Center. It supports widening Kenilworth Avenue and the Capital Beltway. The county also proposes widening a 2-lane section of Hanover Parkway to 4 lanes.

The plan still includes a proposal to spend several million dollars reconfiguring the Greenbelt Road/Kenilworth Avenue interchange into a "diverging diamond," which will be even less friendly for non-motorized users.

It's especially ironic that these elements are in the plan, since at the community meetings planners talked about the exact opposite: road diets.

And in this case, road diets are probably warranted. A traffic study conducted as part of the planning process found that none of the roadways in the sector plan area was failing. Neither were any of the intersections.

So, despite a lack of congestion; despite talk of road diets; despite wanting to increase walking and bicycling; despite all of that, the plan still calls for widening roads.

It's almost as if, having decried the unintended consequences of the transportation policies of 1975, the plan says: there's nothing wrong with solving those problems with the same solutions.

Widenings confound positive changes

What's most baffling about these highway widenings is that they'll not only counteract the solutions proposed make walking a true option in this corridor, but they'll also make the mixed-use vision less likely to come to fruition.

A walkable node at Beltway Plaza is all well and good. But how well will it be connected to Berwyn Heights on the south if it's separated by a 10-lane road? Putting bike lanes on Greenbelt Road sounds nice. But how safe will it be to bike alongside 10 lanes of traffic? Completing the sidewalk network is long overdue. But how pleasant will it be to walk alongside one of the widest arterials in the region?

Speeding trips through Greenbelt will also encourage more suburbanization in the less-developed sections of the county. That will take office and retail demand away from the parts of the county where the infrastructure already exists to serve it.

No, the plan will not enable the future it envisions, because it still clings to the infrastructure changes that created the divided, pedestrian-hostile environment it seeks to fix.

It's not too late for Prince George's to build the foundation for a more walkable and sustainable Greenbelt. But the Planning Board and County Council need to urge changes to the plan. Without the uncalled-for widening of the roadways in the area, the plan has a chance of creating the mixed-use nodes and increasing walking, biking, and transit use in the planning area.

The Prince George's County Planning Board and County Council will be holding a joint session public hearing at 7 pm Tuesday in Upper Marlboro. If you're a resident of Prince George's, write the Council or come to testify. Tell them that positive change requires taking a different approach than ones past.

However, the study doesn't automatically equate "urban" with "center city," as most of the WalkUPs are outside of the District. The WalkUPs fall into 6 categories, ranging from "downtown" and "urban commercial" neighborhoods in the District to "suburban town centers" and "greenfield" communities outside of the city.

"Suburban" WalkUPs include historic towns, like Alexandria and Frederick, that later became suburbs, and newer communities like Tysons Corner that are being "retrofitted" with more urban features.

Jonathan O'Connell recently questioned whether you can "export" city life to the suburbs, with some calling the new "town centers" "plastic" or "artificial." But as Leinberger points out, there's a growing consensus that the recession and demographic shifts will change the way we arrange our lives and our communities. As a result, the demand for urban living has surfaced outside of center city neighborhoods. If done well, and with the proper support, suburban town centers can become cherished, authentic places and integral parts of Greater Washington's urban ecosystem.

To determine a WalkUP's success, Leinberger uses economic and social indicators to rank each one as "Copper," "Silver," "Gold," or "Platinum." The study notes a strong correlation between a community's economic performance and its Walk Score, job density and education levels.

Though they take up less than 1% of the land in Greater Washington, WalkUPs already have a third of the region's jobs. They contain nearly half of the region's "income properties," or offices, apartments, hotels and retail space, up from just a quarter in 1992. Office rents and home values in WalkUPs are each over 70% higher than elsewhere in the region. Not surprisingly, WalkUPs tend to contribute more in tax revenues than the amount of land they consume.

Meanwhile, Leinberger measured social equity performance based on housing and transportation costs, unemployment levels, racial diversity, and transit accessibility. Over three-quarters of the WalkUPs are close to Metro stations, reducing transportation costs, but housing is often far more expensive.

The study found that many economically successful WalkUPs, like Georgetown, often failed to create or sustain a diverse population. Almost all of the WalkUPs are located within Greater Washington's affluent "favored quarter," generally to the northwest of the city. They're far from much of the region's working class, many of whom lack cars and must endure long transit rides to job centers.

WalkUPs are now appearing outside of the "favored quarter," bringing jobs and other amenities closer to low-income households. While some are successful, others like University Town Center and Wheaton have struggled to develop. Leinberger highlights Silver Spring for seeking economic and social parity. It "walks the tightrope in attempting to achieve higher economic returns without gentrifying and detracting from its unique and diverse character," he notes.

To ensure the future economic success and social cohesion of the WalkUPs, Leinberger calls for public policies that direct more development to them through zoning and investment in infrastructure, like more pedestrian-friendly streets. In addition, he says more must be done to provide affordable and workforce housing in WalkUPs, both through subsidies and simply building more housing to meet the demand. He also stresses the importance of building neighborhood support for walkable urban development, which happened in White Flint.

While The WalkUp Wake-Up Call is encouraging to anyone who cares about creating great urban neighborhoods, many of the trends Leinberger highlights have taken hold only in the past few years. Some of the places in the study may be years or decades from becoming truly walkable or urban; meanwhile, a large portion of the region's development still takes places on the suburban fringe, where it's less sustainable. On top of that, the benefits of pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented development have yet to reach the people who need it the most.

The real "wake-up call" isn't about how far we've come, but how far we still have to go.

To [Christopher] Leinberger, a developer himself, the shift for apartments and offices is a function of the market: Developers are getting higher rents in denser areas, leading to rising values compared with typical suburban-style development. "That's the market telling you, dramatically, build more of this stuff," Mr. Leinberger said. "There's pent-up demand for walkable urban."

Leinberger identifies include 43 "walkable urban" places, which are both "regionally significant" and meet a set of criteria for walkability. The places span everything from Columbia Heights in the District to inner suburbs like downtown Silver Spring and even satellite cities like downtown Frederick. As The Atlantic Cities notes, these "walkable urban" places take up less than 1% of the land in Greater Washington but already have a third of the region's jobs.

Whether or not you personally want to live in an urban neighborhood, this report is good news. Increased demand to build in areas with existing infrastructure can reinvigorate struggling communities. It can also save local governments a tremendous amount of money compared to development on the fringe where roads, utility lines, and schools may not already exist.

We know that there's an unmet demand for housing in neighborhoods with public transit and other amenities within an easy walk, so those people could get the opportunity to live in the kind of communities they want. Meanwhile, those who prefer a suburban or rural lifestyle will be able to have that in communities that may see reduced development pressure in the coming years. And as Leinberger points out, the glut of large houses in suburban areas built in recent years means that they'll be more affordable as well.

The challenge, then, is ensuring that everyone who wants to live in a "walkable urban" place gets the opportunity to do so. These neighborhoods are likely to have housing costs, and though they're often offset by low transportation costs, we have to make sure that renters and homeowners alike aren't priced out, even when there's substantial neighborhood opposition to new housing.

It's also important to make sure that our urban neighborhoods are the best they can be. We need to make sure they get high-quality public spaces that make up for the lack of private space and allow people to come together. The region's towns, cities and counties would do well to follow the District's lead and get developers and police officers together to ensure that new neighborhoods are designed for safety.

We also have to ensure that people of all ages, not just young adults, are welcome in our urban neighborhoods. These places have lots of potential benefits for kids, but only if they have the right amenities to draw families who may otherwise look to suburban areas.

Greater Washington isn't the only region in North America that's moving towards a more urban future, but it's probably the furthest along in shifting growth to urban places instead of suburban ones. Hopefully, this report will serve as a wake-up call to both the potential our area has and the challenges it will face.

Retailers in an urban area like downtown Silver Spring rely on foot traffic, not car traffic. They need lots of shoppers walking in front of their windows, because a few of them will actually come inside. But new storefronts in the area are often too far from the sidewalk or each other to let that happen.

Each of those three projects, like most new buildings in downtown Silver Spring are required to have a pocket park. Some are more successful than others, but most create gaps in the street wall, the part of the building that faces the street. Street walls need to be continuous, and they need lots of storefronts to work well.

Renowned Danish urban designer Jan Gehl notes that successful shopping streets have storefronts about 25 feet wide. This means that a pedestrian walking at normal speed will see something new about every 5 seconds, keeping their attention.

In addition, pocket parks placed directly in front of a building separate the shops from the sidewalk, discouraging pedestrians from wandering over because they can't see what's going on inside. If that pocket park is intentionally or unintentionally designed to repel people, no retailer can survive there.

If you don't believe me, just look at any successful retail street in Greater Washington, from M Street in Georgetown to Woodmont Avenue in Bethesda to Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria's Del Ray neighborhood. The shops all have narrow storefronts, there are few gaps between them, and they're close to the street. As a result, these streets can keep stores in business.

Not surprisingly, retailers moving to downtown Silver Spring are finding spaces next to the sidewalk. At the Veridian, an apartment building on East-West Highway, there's a small grocery store and a Papa John's on the sidewalk, but two other spaces facing a large and well-landscaped park have been empty since the building opened three years ago.

Of course, that doesn't mean that any space on a sidewalk will immediately get filled, especially if they're off the beaten path. Most of downtown Silver Spring's shops and restaurants are east of Georgia Avenue and south of Colesville Road; naturally, that's where the most activity is. Shoppers may be reluctant to wander even a few blocks away from that area, which in turn makes retailers reluctant to open there. That's a large part of why there are so many vacancies along East-West Highway and Cameron Street.

The key to making retail work in those places is to create a destination, even for people living in the immediate area. One way to do that is with a well-used park. A few weeks ago, I got an email from Eitan Gutin, who lives with his family in the Galaxy, a new apartment building on 13th Street.

Its pocket park, which is shared with two other buildings, "gets plenty of use," he wrote. "People often sit at the tables in the shade to eat or do work, and on the weekend the playground has at least one or two families for a good chunk of the day."

This is the kind of public space a shop wants to be next to. All three of the surrounding buildings open onto the park, meaning there's lots of foot traffic going through it. And the space is used for a variety of activities throughout the day—Gutin says a Jewish prayer group even has potlucks there—meaning it's busy at all times. Unfortunately, most of the Galaxy's ground floor is a parking garage, which was a missed opportunity for good retail.

How can create more successful retail space and public spaces in downtown Silver Spring? For starters, we should concentrate our open space. Instead of requiring that every building have a little park where nothing happens, we should encourage the creation of a few larger parks where lots of activities can occur. Fortunately, the county is already exploring ways to do this.

In turn, we need to concentrate retail activity. New retail space should be located near existing stores and restaurants, so they can form a more substantial destination. We should also make sure that existing shops aren't displaced by buildings with no stores in them, which puts gaps in the street wall.

In an urban area like downtown Silver Spring, successful retail and successful public space can go hand in hand. The key is making sure that they're both designed and located to get people using them.

There are many causes for these sidewalk traffic jams.

One major cause is simply poor street design that doesn't consider pedestrians' needs. There are countless examples of this throughout the city. In one instance, the sidewalk on the northwest corner of 16th Street and L Street downtown is about the size of a dining room table, which frequently jams up the busy intersection. Another trouble spot is the sidewalk right outside the Cleveland Park Metro, where frequent floods limit the space even further. Another is the sidewalk on Wisconsin Avenue near Brandywine Avenue, where a parking ramp and electrical pole narrow the usable sidewalk to less than 3 feet wide.

Construction is also frequently a problem. When construction crews in need of working space are faced with the choice of temporarily removing one car lane from a street versus removing the sidewalk, the sidewalk is almost always the loser. For example, DC Water will soon remove the sidewalk for a stretch along M Street, SE, in order to maintain a full complement of 4 through lanes for cars.

Other times construction crews will leave a sidewalk open, but narrow an already tight space. That's what is happening now in Columbia Heights, just a block over from the busy DC USA retail complex. Construction tarps have pushed up against a bus shelter, leaving less than 2 feet for pedestrians.

Then there's neglect. The sidewalk along M Street between South Capitol Street and Half Street, SE, is a prime example. As noted by a GGW contributor: "It's super narrow and uneven, studded with signs, and bordered by vacant lots, which are fenced off. I wish the District would use eminent domain to take 6 feet of the vacant lots and widen the sidewalks. It's especially bad before and after Nats games."

To DC's credit, the city has embarked on fairly ambitious sidewalk expansion projects in several places around the city. There's the seemingly never-ending project along 18th Street in Adams Morgan, as well as recent or ongoing work on 17th Street NW, U Street NW, and H Street NE. These are good projects, but they are just a start. We're far from where we need to be.

While it's true that street space is limited and trade-offs are always necessary, sidewalks have been the loser too often, for too long. Recent improvements are good, but as the DC Water example shows, sidewalks are still often treated poorly.

These problems don't happen by accident, but rather through choices that devalue the pedestrian experience. That needs to change.

What sidewalks do you think are too small? Share your experiences and pictures in the comments.

This isn't surprising, since Briggs Chaney is far from the county's major employment centers, meaning driving may be the most practical way to commute for many residents. However, even though light rail may not ever be built here, the neighborhood will be served by Montgomery County's proposed Bus Rapid Transit system. And people who may use it in the future, along with current residents who don't drive, must deal with a neighborhood that was designed and built for cars.

Briggs Chaney is chopped up into self-contained, fenced-off developments whose streets don't connect, making it really difficult to walk from one part of the neighborhood to another. The few connector streets that exist, like Robey Road, are wide and straight, making it easy to speed and putting pedestrians in danger.

There are also lots of awkward, unused public spaces behind apartment buildings or between complexes that invite loitering and crime, creating an atmosphere where residents don't feel safe. Though much of the neighborhood is within walking distance of Greencastle Elementary School, it doesn't participate in International Walk to School Day and students have to play inside.

How can we fix this? First, the streets must be redesigned to discourage speeding.

Last fall, Montgomery County installed bumpouts, medians and crosswalks along Castle Boulevard, one of the neighborhood's main arteries. According to a study by the county Department of Transportation, 21 percent of drivers on this road drive over 40 miles per hour even though it's signed for 30.

The bumpouts and medians will make the road narrower, slowing motorists and hopefully making them more aware of what's going on around them. They'll also give pedestrians a safe place to wait for a bus or to cross the street.

This may not change residents' perception of the street, however. For much of its length, Castle Boulevard is lined by fences, parking lots, and the backs of apartment buildings. These are the awkward, unused spaces that invite disinvestment and crime; in turn, they make the street susceptible to disinvestment and crime as well.

To change that, we have to orient buildings to the street. Castle Boulevard would be a livelier, and thus much safer, place if it was lined by front yards or other semi-public spaces. It's a lot easier to commit illegal activities if you're not directly in front of somebody's front door.

And that's exactly what local builder Craftstar Homes is doing at Woodlake, a new townhouse development being built around an existing garden apartment complex of the same name. This project provides more owner-occupied housing in a neighborhood where almost two-thirds of the households are renters, giving it more stability. It also treats Castle Boulevard with respect, placing front yards and shared courtyards along the street.

Unlike most townhouses being built in East County, these homes have rear garages on alleys. The front of these houses is actually the front, where you'll see people, not just cars. That creates "eyes on the street," further discouraging destructive behavior. It also means there's actually a front yard with grass or landscaping, which is generally more attractive than a line of driveways or a tall fence like those at another recently-built townhouse development across the street.

Of course, there aren't a lot of opportunities for new construction in Briggs Chaney, and it's unlikely that the neighborhood will get redeveloped any time soon. But many garden apartment buildings have entrances on both sides or patios facing the street, making it easy to for residents to "claim" those spaces as yards as well.

Together, these road improvements and new homes are a step forward for Briggs Chaney. Not only do they make it easier and safer to walk there, but they will help knit together many disparate parts into one coherent neighborhood.

Among the assets cited by residents were:

• The diverse population of Seven Corners, including diversity of cultures, ages, and incomes
• Plenty of affordable housing
• The history of the area, including events from the Civil War and the first shopping center in Northern Virginia
• The proximity to Washington, DC
• A variety of shopping and dining options
• Stable, established neighborhoods nearby

Challenges that need to be addressed:

• Route 50 and Route 7 are major barriers and make it extremely difficult to walk through the area
• Too much litter and too many illegal signs
• There is no chamber of commerce or other organization of business owners
• The schools are overcrowded and need renovation
• The larger Seven Corners area is divided among different jurisdictions—Arlington and the City of Falls Church, as well as Fairfax County

Just about everybody cited the traffic congestion as a huge challenge. The ideas that emerged for addressing it included improving the synchronization of traffic lights, totally redesigning the Route 50/Route 7 intersection, and providing an express bus to DC.

Other ideas mentioned for improving Seven Corners, some of them long-term:

• Improve the streetscapes
• Provide more community gathering places, such as parks, outdoor cafes, and farmers' markets
• Create a public/private partnership to spur revitalization
• Add an escalator to connect the two levels of the Seven Corners Shopping Center
• Provide streetcars to connect Seven Corners to the East Falls Church Metro station and other centers, such as Tysons and Alexandria
• Get rid of the large parking lots and create a central plaza
• Attract more young professionals, while also retaining a diverse mix of cultures, ages, and incomes
• Add amenities, such as bike trails, parks, soccer fields, a movie theater, more trees, open space, and public art
• Build mixed-use developments combining housing and retail

Binh Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce for the Greater Washington, DC area, said many of the Eden Center business owners had been thinking of leaving the area due to the declining economy and civil rights issues—even though some 70,000 people come to that shopping center every weekend.

But the possibility of revitalizing Seven Corners is a hopeful sign. "We want to be a part of this great community," he said, adding that Vietnamese businesses are interested in contributing to the development of a new community center.

Alejandria Caballero of the Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services reported on the concerns of some of the apartment residents. They want more parks, more police patrols to make the streets safer for evening walks, more family-friendly restaurants, and a more accessible health clinic. They said the Willston Multicultural Center needs to be renovated and the pedestrian bridge over Route 50 needs to be cleaned up.

The biggest problem is traffic congestion, said Iqbal Khaiy, who also mentioned the lack of walkability, the overcrowded schools, and the need to create "a sense of place." She said it's important to "retain the character and diversity of Seven Corners and give it a facelift."

Jeff Longo said that even though he lives and works in Seven Corners, he can't walk to work because it's impossible to cross the street. The benefits of the area include convenience, diversity, variety of restaurants, and proximity to Arlington and DC, but there is "too much concrete and not enough green."

Debbie Smith called for "smart development that doesn't strain natural resources." And several people mentioned the need to retain the unique character of Seven Corners and not copy Ballston or Tysons Corner.

The OCR will prepare a summary of the comments to share at the next workshop, which will be held June 18, 7 pm at the same location, 6245 Leesburg Pike.

Meanwhile, a major clean-up effort to get rid of the litter and illegal signs, is tentatively scheduled for June 23.

Cross-posted at Annandale VA.