Category: Town of Vienna, VA

Post #211: Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, 3/26/2019

I attended the 7 PM 3/26/2019 meeting of the Town of Vienna Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC).  The BAC reports to the Town’s Transportation Safety Commission (TSC), and from there to the Town Council.

This BAC matters, in the context of MAC zoning, due to the Town’s much-hyped multi-modal transportation study, aka, the traffic study.  “Multi-modal” means that in addition to cars, that study will include travel by bus, bike, foot, and possibly other means.  Our Town government bike experts should matter in the ensuing discussion.

I recorded the meeting, and if you click this Google Drive link, your browser should open up an audio player.  (If not, you can download it and listen to it.)  Many parts are unintelligible as speakers frequently did not use microphones.  Click here to get to my index of that recording (what was being discussed, when) is in this post, below.

In theory, the Town will post its own recording, but if so, I have yet to figure out where they are going to post it.  Click here to see my final section on Town governance for a further discussion.

Otherwise, the first part of this post is about Capital Bikeshare. Continue reading Post #211: Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting, 3/26/2019

Post #205: Some data on assisted living

Edited 3/22/2019 to soften my conclusions about Sunrise and 100 beds.  Edited late 3/22/2019 to explain what all those eight-bed assisted living facilities are.

On this page, I assemble, map, and tabulate some fairly hard-to-find data on a) location of all licensed assisted living facilities in Fairfax County, and b) the base monthly rates charged by most of them (2017 data).

Surprisingly, the table of monthly rates goes a long way toward explaining Sunrise’s behavior at the last Planning Commission meeting.  When questioned about five floors in their building, they were prepared.  They whipped out several other sets of building plans, all of which had more-or-less the same number of beds as their original plan.  And now I see that the Sunrise buildings in Fairfax (or, at least, for which I could find monthly price data) mostly cluster tightly between 100 and 120 beds.  It looks like they build these for a standard operating model.  So, one way or the other, I would guess, they’re going to get their 100 beds.

Continue reading Post #205: Some data on assisted living

Seriously?

Seriously, we pay them to do this?  Part 2 (Part 1 is here.)

The Department of Planning and Zoning is going to have two “Community Workshops” on MAC zoning.  Originally, at the 2/11/2018 Town Council work session, these had been discussed as if they were, in part, legitimate attempts to gauge community sentiment about MAC.  But anyone who looks at the details of these workshops should realize that’s nonsense.  I’ve already covered that here. Continue reading Seriously?

“Public” meetings and a Town that still just doesn’t get it, 3/13/2019, updated 3/14/2019

This evening, I went to Town Hall to attend and record the 5:30 PM meeting of the “Maple Avenue Commercial (MAC) Design Guidelines Working Group“.  I am fairly sure this constitutes an open public meeting, under the definitions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And it was, in fact, announced on the Town Calendar.

Continue reading “Public” meetings and a Town that still just doesn’t get it, 3/13/2019, updated 3/14/2019

Reston rethinks increased density. Vienna doesn’t. 3/13/2019

Just in case you may have missed it, there’s been quite a controversy going on in Reston over increased building density.  The County was on a roll to rewrite the zoning there to allow higher density (more persons and dwelling units per acre).  They got a lot of pushback from the citizens.  And now, that plan for increased density has been indefinitely deferred.

It’s not clear at this point whether that deferral will be the sort of sham that the Vienna MAC moratorium is shaping up to be.  But there is at least the possibility that they may genuinely try to rethink higher density in Reston.  (See this page for my talk with a Board of Supervisors candidate Parker Messick, whose main platform plank is opposition to excess development in the Hunter Mill district.)

You may wonder why I call the MAC moratorium a sham. Well, there are a lot of reasons.  Unlike my usual writing, I’m not even going to provide citations as to source (links) here.   If you’ve been reading my website, you’ll know that I have been pointing out these facts (with a handful of guesses) for some time.

Continue reading Reston rethinks increased density. Vienna doesn’t. 3/13/2019

Board of Supervisors candidate Parker Messick, 3/7/2019

I had the privilege of chatting with Parker Messick earlier this week, at Caffe Amouri.  He’s one of four candidates seeking election to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from the Hunter Mill district, following the announced retirement Supervisor Catherine Hudgins.

This was a first for me, in many ways, so let me share a few things that I learned. Continue reading Board of Supervisors candidate Parker Messick, 3/7/2019

Somebody is confused about the Town’s traffic study, 3-4-2019

Maybe I’m confused.  Maybe Town Council is confused.  Either way, one of us has to be wrong about this.

The Vienna Town Council has made much out of a “traffic study” that Town staff commissioned.  But it sure sounds to me as if none of them has actually read the scope of work for the study they voted to fund. (here, as a .pdf.)

I wrote a page almost two months ago, where I analyzed the description of the proposed traffic study.  (Read it, in blue, halfway down this page.) My opinion then was that it would be useless from the standpoint of assessing the long-run impact of MAC on traffic.  Instead, the point of the study appeared to be to speed up development by helping the Town to develop a standard transportation “proffer” that it would expect all MAC developers to pay. Continue reading Somebody is confused about the Town’s traffic study, 3-4-2019

Pedestrian-friendly? 3/4/2019

(This map was generated by walkscore.com.  You can check out the walkability of your neighborhood by visiting their website and typing in your address.)

Town government has repeatedly said that MAC will make Maple Avenue more “pedestrian-friendly”.  But that’s … questionable, at best.  And in some key cases, I am almost sure that MAC-redeveloped property will make Maple less safe for pedestrians. Continue reading Pedestrian-friendly? 3/4/2019

If the community says No, No, No, then we’ll have to start all over, 3/4/2019

This page explains a critical step coming up in the development of MAC zoning.  Turns out, the Town is going to ask the citizens what they think about MAC, and then act on that.  Which sounds pretty good, until you realize that the way they are proposing to do that is … confused, to be as polite as I can about it.

Read on and decide for yourself.  This shouldn’t take more than five minutes. Continue reading If the community says No, No, No, then we’ll have to start all over, 3/4/2019

2019-02-26 Transportation Safety Commission, audio recording and notes

I attended last night’s meeting of the Traffic Transportation Safety Commission (TSC).  You can find a (rather poor-quality) audio recording, and an Excel file that serves as an index to the recording, here on Google Drive. Basically, use the Excel spreadsheet to find the times for items you would care to listen to, then move to that spot in the recording to hear what was said.

I attended because TSC was considering an on-demand flashing sign at the crosswalk where Glen Avenue hits Courthouse Road.  The sign is called a rectangular rapid flashing beacon (RRFB).  It would allow pedestrians to stop traffic in order to get across Courthouse. We already have a few of these in Vienna.  Here’s a view of an RRFB pair on Beulah.

Continue reading 2019-02-26 Transportation Safety Commission, audio recording and notes