Category: Virginia

10 Orgs Release a Platform for Fairfax Healthy Communities

Posted on by Stewart Schwartz

 

Coalition for Smarter Growth, Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions, Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, Audubon Naturalist Society, Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling, Friends of Accotink Creek, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Potomac Conservancy, Friends of Dyke Marsh, Audubon Society of Northern Virginia

Fairfax Healthy Communities:  Sustainable, Inclusive, Livable

 A Joint Vision for Fairfax County in 2019

We support a vision for Fairfax County that is sustainable, inclusive, and livable and urge candidates for local and state office in Fairfax County to support this vision and to commit to the implementation steps necessary to make this vision a reality.

We share a vision for Fairfax County where the County commits to:

  • Providing housing opportunities for people of all incomes, ages, and stages of life in every district in the county, investing in improving affordable housing and access to opportunity in communities where there are concentrations of poverty, and fostering greater racialand economic integration in single-family, low-poverty neighborhoods.
  • Ensuring transit, walking, bicycling and other modes of active transportation are well-funded, safe, convenient and accessible for people of all ages, giving residents more choices and reducing traffic congestion.
  • Creating vibrant, mixed-use, mixed-income transit-oriented communities which provide a range of housing choices and employment opportunities, while reducing vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled.
  • Fighting climate change by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, transportation and other sources.
  • Restoring watersheds to ensure clean drinking water and healthier ecosystems.
  • Expanding parks and trail networks.
  • Ensuring access for all to affordable health care and healthy local food.
  • Taking specific steps to realize its One Fairfax commitment to racial and social equity, community involvement, and the 17 goals laid out in the One Fairfax policy.

A sustainable, inclusive, healthy, competitive, and fiscally sustainable future for Fairfax requires a fundamental shift in land use, transportation, housing and energy policies toward walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income, and transit-oriented and green energy communities, and the full engagement of the community in achieving this future.

 

Signed:

Coalition for Smarter Growth

Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions

Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance

Audubon Naturalist Society

Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling

Friends of Accotink Creek

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Potomac Conservancy

Friends of Dyke Marsh

Audubon Society of Northern Virginia

*  The above signatories are 501(c)(3) organizations. This platform is strictly educational and is being shared with all candidates and the public. By law, our organizations are strictly prohibited from participating in, or intervening in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.

CSG Testimony re Amazon & Affordable Housing

Posted on by Stewart Schwartz

Coalition for Smarter Growth

March 14, 2019

Arlington County Board

Suite #300

2100 Clarendon Blvd

Arlington, VA 22201

 

Re:  Amazon incentive package and community needs

Dear Chair Dorsey and members of the Board:

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading non-profit in the DC region advocating a network of livable communities – walkable, mixed-income, mixed-use, transit-oriented centers and corridors linked by an expanded transit network including Metrorail, bus, bus rapid transit, light-rail, and street-car as appropriate. Our partnerships span the region’s leading conservation, affordable housing, bicycle/pedestrian, and transit advocacy organizations, as well as progressive architecture, planning and development firms. We are proud that this web of partnerships enabled us to collectively win the first-ever dedicated funding for Metro.

We support Amazon’s decision to locate in Crystal City/Pentagon City. Their decision is a vindication of Arlington’s long-time leadership and implementation of smart growth and transit-oriented development (TOD). It is a vindication as well of our regional advocacy for TOD and of the Council of Governments’ Region Forwardvision and Visualize2045transportation plan commitments to TOD. Amazon is also teaming with one of the region’s most successful transit-oriented developers, JBGSmith, who have a record of good design and placemaking, and recently started a workforce housing fund.

Turning now to the proposed incentives program. We join others in the long-standing concerns about the nationwide use of incentives to attract major corporate entities – particularly given so many socio-economic needs in our communities. But we also recognize that both Arlington and the State of Virginia incentives are performance based. Arlington’s incentives are also being drawn from the growth in revenue from the Transient Occupancy Tax, of which 15% will go to Amazon for performance but the remainder to schools, housing and transportation in Arlington. We are pleased that the state transportation investments are among the most progressive seen in the U.S. in that they are focused on transit, bicycle/pedestrian and safe street design investments.

A new area of concern raised by Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government must be addressed – that the proposed agreement includes a provision allowing Amazon “at least two-business days to refute, redact or file a lawsuit when someone seeks records of its interaction with the county” (P. Sullivan, Washington Post, 3/15/19). At CSG we have always placed transparency in government at the core of community planning and engagement and strongly support ever greater transparency in FOIA standards and fewer exemptions. Therefore, this provision which Ms. Rhyne says is unusual, should be removed from the agreement.

While we are supporting the Amazon transit-oriented project, we share the significant concerns about housing affordability in Arlington and the region – an issue which admittedly predates Amazon. While Arlington and Alexandria are pledging $150 million toward affordable housing needs over ten years, our understanding is that these are not new, additional funds. It is good that the Virginia Housing Development Authority will be allocating $15 million per year over five years in low interest loans for affordable housing and added $3 million to the statewide Virginia Housing Trust Fund. But this level of investment is also far short of the need. Since Arlington notes that increased revenues will result from Amazon’s investment and associated development and economic activity, we urge the use of a significant portion of those revenues for affordable housing – to double or more the current annual commitments. We urge the same for Alexandria, Fairfax, and the state.

As for the state commitment to affordable housing, we need to point out the discrepancy between $750 million in incentives for Amazon and $50 million for Micron, while only adding $3 million to the state housing trust fund and the five-year, $15 million per year loan program for Northern Virginia. Similarly, the comparison between the billions we spend on highways and interchanges is stunning when compared to how little we are investing in affordable housing. In fact, housing close to jobs and transit IS a transportation solution, reducing vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled. Investing in affordable housing in smart growth locations creates far more benefits than do our massive highway expenditures, providing family stability, improved health, improved educational outcomes, improved access to jobs and affordable transportation, and reduced air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, we need both much more public funding support from the state and local governments, but also innovative private sector investment in long-term committed affordable housing for 60 percent of area median income and below.

Beyond funding, we concur with many other groups that we need effective preservation strategies for market-rate affordable housing in our diverse neighborhoods that are potentially impacted by the economic development that will come with Amazon. Arlington, DC, Alexandria and advocates at CSG and the member groups of the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance have many ideas for effective tools for both preservation and inclusion of affordable housing, and we need a stronger commitment and an accelerated approach to implementation in each jurisdiction with the full participation of local residents.

Turning back to transportation, and Amazon’s role, we are pleased that Amazon has achieved about a 50% mode share for non-auto commutes in Seattle and has promised that they want to do even better here. We recommend a goal of 65% non-auto mode share. To achieve this, we recommend that Amazon provide transit passes to all employees, and that they minimize on-site parking (as they have discussed) — and price it OR offer equal non-parking benefits to any employee who might be eligible for or offered a parking space but wishes to take transit, walk or bike to work. Include secure bicycle parking, along with showers and lockers for bike commuters.

In addition, the state, Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, and local jurisdictions should add other projects to the package of transportation investments including:

  • Connecting Metroway through Alexandria to Fairfax’ Embark Richmond Highway BRT
  • Accelerating the Long Bridge rail project and building the separated bike bridge
  • In the I-395 Corridor provide TOD node-to-node bus rapid transit connections between Fort Belvoir, Springfield, Landmark, Mark Center, Shirlington, Pentagon City/Crystal City and Pentagon (and a Kingstown to Van Dorn to Landmark connection).
  • Expansion of Capital Bikeshare
  • Expansion of dedicated bike lane infrastructure

In conclusion, we support Amazon’s location decision, but we urge you to fix the FOIA issue, to advance these additional transportation projects in partnership with other jurisdictions, AND commit to increasing funding for affordable housing, adopting new tools for preservation and inclusion, and including the community in the development of these strategies and programs.

Thank you.

Stewart Schwartz

Executive Director

RELEASE: Bridge Boondoggle: Smart-growth groups respond to Loudoun’s push for upper Potomac River bridges

Posted on by Alex Baca

Coalition for Smarter Growth, Piedmont Environmental Council, Montgomery Countryside Alliance

Press Statement
For Immediate Release
October 10, 2018

Contact:
Stewart Schwartz, CSG, (703) 599-6437
Gem Bingol, PEC, (703) 431-6941
Caroline Taylor, MCA, (301) 461-9831

Recently, the Loudoun County Board voted to support and push for a new and controversial upper Potomac bridge, based on a county-funded study.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth and allies responded, citing years of studies that demonstrate the bridge is not needed, would waste tax dollars, and would destroy neighborhoods and the environment.

“An upper Potomac Bridge and associated outer beltway would be a boondoggle, wasting billions of dollars, diverting funding from true transportation needs, fueling more sprawl and traffic, and greatly harming neighborhoods and environmental resources,” says Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “A bridge didn’t make sense in 1988, 2001, 2004, 2015, or 2017 — when it’s been studied before — and it doesn’t make sense now.”

CSG, the Piedmont Environmental Council, and the Montgomery Countryside Alliance were critical of Loudoun County for not including three previous studies in their analysis: the 2001 “Wolf” study, the 2003-2004 Council of Governments/Virginia Department of Transportation origin and destination study, and the 2015 Virginia Department of Transportation origins and destination study.

“The Loudoun County study ignores the clear findings of VDOT’s 2015 origins and destination study of Potomac River crossings, which do not support a new upriver crossing,” says Schwartz.

The 2015 VDOT study is definitive. It shows that that just 5 percent of Virginia trips crossing the American Legion Bridge today, and 4 percent in 2040, are the “U-shaped commutes” that might use an upriver bridge. All other trips — 95 percent — are either “L-shaped” (60 percent) and best served by the location of the American Legion Bridge and its alignment with the largest job centers in Fairfax and Montgomery Counties, or are trips that cross the American Legion and have destinations along and inside the Beltway (35 percent — these are not discussed in the briefing).

“The 2015 study concluded that the American Legion Bridge has the worst congestion and need for improvement among Potomac River road bridges, and we are pleased the governors of Virginia and Maryland are now focused on multimodal improvements at the American Legion Bridge,” says Schwartz.

The 2015 VDOT findings confirm the previous origin and destination study for the American Legion Bridge (2003/2004), which tracked both Virginia and Maryland commuters crossing that bridge and found a similarly low percentage of “U-shaped commuters.”

“Given the high potential cost of a new upriver bridge, including the 10 to 15 miles of highway that Maryland would need to build, scarce tax dollars are better used fixing existing congestion problems at the American Legion Bridge and the Rosslyn Metro Tunnel, and on local road improvements within Loudoun County,” says Schwartz.

“The Loudoun County study showed that any neighborhood chosen as the path for a new bridge would see negative impacts, including loss of homes and wetlands. It also ignored that the last time specific bridge crossings were proposed, in the 2001 study initiated by Congressman Frank Wolf, it prompted a massive outcry from neighborhoods on both sides of the river,” says Gem Bingol of the Piedmont Environmental Council. “The neighborhoods should not have the threat of this highway hanging over them when the road isn’t justified in the first place.”

In a Fairfax Times article dated May 29, 2001, “[Congressman] Wolf said communities in northern Fairfax and Loudoun counties and those in southern Montgomery County, Md., — particularly on the proposed bridge corridors — were simply too densely packed with homes.” Wolf also said, “Moving the route further west put the bridge into Maryland’s agricultural preserve and too far out to make a difference for commuters.”

“The bridge and highway would impact significant natural and historic resources, including the Potomac Heritage Trail, the C&O Canal National Historic Park, Broad Run, Seneca Creek, the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve, and neighborhoods in eastern Loudoun and throughout Darnestown and North Potomac, Maryland,” said Caroline Taylor, executive director of the Montgomery Countryside Alliance. “As a result, and not surprisingly, Montgomery County and the State of Maryland remain adamantly opposed to the bridge and highway.”

In the 2017 Council of Governments study of long-range transportation plan priorities, Supervisor Ron Meyer of Loudoun County pitched the upper Potomac Bridge as a “game-changing” investment, but study results show it is not. It performed worst in meeting regional challenges, increased regional VMT and per capita VMT, ranked 6th in reducing vehicle hours of delay, and was among the scenarios that moved the needle very little on the remaining measures.

This almost precisely mirrors the findings in a recent Northern Virginia transaction plan analysis, which showed that the Northern Virginia network performed about the same with and without the bridge. In that case as well, other scenarios, such as compact land use, performed as well or better than the bridge. Additionally, the bridge would add traffic to area roads rather than reduce it, because it would induce demand for new trips rather than serving existing travel patterns.

“The bridge stands out from all the other scenarios for having the largest negative impact on air and water quality and open space,” says Bingol.

“This isn’t surprising. The bridge would directly impact the drinking water intakes for most of the region’s population; potentially impair the Piedmont groundwater aquifer, which serves as the sole source of drinking water in rural Montgomery County; create development pressure in the nationally recognized Agricultural Reserve; and increase vehicle miles traveled,” says Taylor.

“We urge Loudoun County to drop their push for an upper Potomac River bridge,” says Schwartz. “It won’t help traffic. It will, in fact, make traffic worse, while harming neighborhoods, drinking water, the Agriculture Reserve and environmental resources. And it will waste tax dollars.”

###

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth
The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

JOINT STATEMENT on I-66 agreement between Governor McAuliffe and Virginia legislators by Coalition for Smarter Growth, Southern Environmental Law Center, Sierra Club – Virginia Chapter, Piedmont Environmental Council, and Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation

Posted on by acustis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2016

CONTACT
Stewart Schwartz, Coalition for Smarter Growth, (703) 599-6437
Trip Pollard, Southern Environmental Law Center, (804) 318-7484

RICHMOND, VA — Three leading smart growth, conservation, and transportation reform advocacy groups released the following joint statement on the announced agreement between Governor McAuliffe and state legislators on I-66 inside the Beltway:

Our organizations have supported the Governor’s package of transit, HOV, and tolls for I-66 inside the Beltway as a far more effective approach than widening. This package of solutions will move 40,000 more people through the corridor in the peak hours faster and more reliably, and it won the support of Fairfax, Arlington, Falls Church, and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

Therefore, we are deeply disappointed by legislators of both parties who have pressed to undo this effective demand-management and people-moving package in favor of a widen-first approach. In doing so, the legislators have failed to understand the settled science of induced traffic where widened roads in metropolitan areas quickly fill up again. They also failed to understand the benefits of funding transit through the toll revenues, and the effectiveness of the package in moving more people through the corridor during peak hours.

We’re grateful to the Governor for fighting for the package of solutions he has championed for I-66 inside the Beltway. Although we are very disappointed that the widening is being accelerated before more effective solutions are given the opportunity to work, the agreement reflects a political compromise. That said, we urge the Governor and local governments to accelerate the funding and implementation of transit and supportive ride-matching and transit marketing necessary to ensure we maximize the number of people using transit and carpooling before the widening takes effect in 2019.

We urge legislators to understand that an economically successful region like ours cannot build our way out of congestion through highway expansion. That widening is just a band-aid with an increasing cost to people’s homes, neighborhoods, schools, parks, and health.

We have long made the case that investment in transit and smart growth, which can be coupled with road and parking pricing, is the most effective approach to addressing traffic congestion in the near, medium, and long term. Creating a network of walkable, transit-oriented centers and communities allows us to maximize walking, biking, and transit trips, while minimizing driving. It reduces the sprawling development which is the chief contributor to our traffic congestion, and creates the types of communities so in demand today.

Finally, it is important to recognize that Arlington County’s internationally recognized success in coupling transit-oriented development (TOD) with transit investment has done more to reduce regional traffic congestion than any other jurisdiction or any highway expansion in Northern Virginia, while increasing the region’s economic competitiveness. Arlington’s success is a compelling case for why we should continue to maximize our investment in transit and TOD across Northern Virginia rather than widen highways all the way to DC.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC’s team of over 60 legal experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use. Learn more at SouthernEnvironment.org.

The Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club is 15,000 members strong. We are your friends and neighbors working to build healthy, livable communities, and to conserve and restore our natural environment. Learn more at sierraclub.org/virginia.

Since 1972, the Piedmont Environmental Council has proudly promoted and protected the natural resources, rural economy, history and beauty of the Virginia Piedmont. Learn more about the Piedmont Environmental Council at pecva.org.

 The Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation has campaigned for a ‘wiser, not wider’ I-66 inside the Beltway since 1999.  Learn more at acstnet.blogspot.com.        

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Coalition for Smarter Growth President “tired of the Arlington bashing,” says proponents of widening I-66 “apparently don’t believe in the science of induced traffic”

Posted on by acustis

Check out the video of Stewart Schwartz of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, speaking in Alexandria at the December 9 meeting of the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB), and the partial transcript below. Schwartz does a great job, in a short amount of time, of explaining why we need smart growth solutions in the I-66 corridor, and throughout Northern Virginia, NOT more roads and more roads-inducing sprawl development.

The CTB meeting at which Stewart Schwartz spoke covered a number of transportation-related topics, including this mouthful: “Authorization to Impose Tolls on I-66 Inside the Beltway, Advancement/Allocation of Toll Facilities Revolving Account Funds, and Approval of a Memorandum of Agreement with the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission Relating to the Transform66: Inside the Beltway Project.” What on earth is that? Well, if you followed the closing weeks of the 2016 Virginia General Assembly elections, or if you simply turned on your TV in those closing weeks, you’re almost certainly aware that the issue of I-66 tolling came up, over and over again, in the most demagogic and misleading fashion. I’d note that, in the end, despite Republicans spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these ads, none of the candidates they attacked (Jennifer Boysko, Kathleen Murphy, etc.) lost. In fact, it’s arguable that the ads backfired, if anything, as candidates like Kathy Smith won by far larger margins than had been expected. So, not sure about the political potency of this line of attack, but it certainly didn’t work in 2015.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the McAuliffe administration is generally on the right course with regard to addressing traffic congestion on I-66 inside and outside the Beltway. As the Coalition for Smarter Growth and many others understand, the LAST thing we should want is pouring more pavement, for a wide variety of reasons, including: a) increasing road capacity simply encourages more sprawl and more traffic (“induced demand”); b) locking in, and even adding to, fossil-fuel-powered transportation infrastructure is the 180-degree wrong way to go, at a time when we need to be rapidly phasing out greenhouse gas emissions if we want to avoid frying our planet; c) building new roads is a ridiculously expensive proposition, and for no good reason (see points “a”and “b”), other than to line the pocket of the road-building folks.

As for the McAuliffe administration’s plan for the I-66 corridor, what it does is basically harness Free Market Economics 101 to address/ameliorate a problem in a cost-effective, market-oriented fashion. Why Republicans of all people would oppose this is kind of mind boggling, until you consider that they also have flip-flopped and now oppose other conservative ideas, such as the “individual mandate,” “cap-and-trade,” etc.

The bottom line, with regard to widening I-66 inside the Beltway, is that Arlington County is absolutely correct: this should be a last-ditch option, after all other options have been tried and ONLY if those other options fail. Frankly, widening I-66 is just as misguided and short-sighted as building new fossil-fuel-fired infrastructure, before we’ve maxed out on energy efficiency. Not smart at all.

With that, here are Stewart Schwartz’s comments at the Dec. 9 meeting of the CTB. Enjoy.

Regarding the previous speakers, they apparently don’t believe in the science of induced traffic, that it is a very real problem. They apparently think we can widen Constitution Avenue in DC. There is no place for these cars to go. If you build it, they WILL come on a wider road. That’s why your combined transportation demand management, transit, HOV solution is the best solution for that corridor.

And I get a little tired of the Arlington bashing. Arlington has probably done more to relieve traffic congestion in Northern Virginia than any other jurisdiction…Their transit-oriented development has sited millions of square feet of development, tens of thousands of housing units, in locations where their vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled are lower than anywhere else in Northern Virginia. And they have, in the process, maximized transit, walking and biking. That IS a regional transit-oriented development…not what I’m hearing, which is a 1950s, can-we-please-build-rings-of-outer-beltways-and-widen-every-road.

We have to change our land use to do so in a more sustainable way…We DO care about the regional economy, we DO care about being competitive. That means we should maximize great placemaking and transit-oriented development to attract these companies, to retain the Millenials and the next-generation creative employees. And we should do our transportation smart, in a demand-management way like we’re talking about…

Virginia Wants To Talk To Maryland About A New Potomac River Bridge — Again

Posted on by Will Reckley

Virginia’s influential Commonwealth Transportation Board wants to open discussions with officials in D.C. and Maryland about improving congested Potomac River crossings, with priority given to expanding the capacity of the American Legion Memorial Bridge and Metro’s Rosslyn tunnel, which is the bottleneck for the Silver, Blue, and Orange lines.

The long-running idea of building a new bridge west of the American Legion — which carries I-495 over the river — also was included in the board’s resolution, although Maryland repeatedly has refused to go along with it. Opponents of adding a bridge west of the American Legion derisively say it would be part of an “outer Beltway.”

“We have had indications from Maryland that they are not opposed to discussion,” said Gary Garczynski, the Northern Virginia representative on the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB), which voted Wednesday in favor of opening discussions again.

“There should be dialogue about any one of those crossings or all of them, because in total they would certainly effectuate a much more connected region,” he said.

Studies by the Virginia Department of Transportation have identified the American Legion Bridge as the most important choke point for car commuters. A study of 11 Potomac crossings released in July recommended extending Virginia’s HOT lanes on I-495 across the bridge north to the I-270 spur.

More than 300,000 commuters per day use the bridge, the study said. More than 44,000 people travel through the Rosslyn tunnel on Metrorail into Virginia.

Opponents of an “outer Beltway” say there is relatively light demand for a new bridge upriver.

“There are certain lobbyists who continue to push this. There are certain parts of the business community that keep putting pressure on Gov. McAuliffe and Gov. Hogan. They are totally off base,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a long-time foe of building a new bridge between the American Legion and Point of Rocks bridges over the Potomac.

“There is no funding available for upriver bridges and no demand based on VDOT’s own study. So to us it is a waste of time,” he added.

A spokesman for the Maryland Department of Transportation said the agency would continue to talk to Virginia officials about its concerns with a new crossing.

Also on Wednesday, the CTB formally approved VDOT’s plans to toll I-66 inside the Beltway staring in 2017, accepting a deal with the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission to allow local representatives to decide where to spend toll revenues to improve mobility in the I-66 corridor.

Read at WAMU >>

Tuesday’s Elections Prove There’s No Such Thing as “Purple Virginia”

Posted on by Will Reckley

Northern Virginia is going a different way from the rest of the state, particularly on density and transportation.

The results of Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, leaving the commonwealth with a term-limited Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled legislature, are surely fodder for hacks who want to pump up the notions of bipartisanship and political enemies working together. Surely, Governor Terry McAuliffe will have to find some way to negotiate his desires for a Medicaid expansion and limits on gun ownership with a General Assembly run by GOP members from the southern and western parts of the state.

“That makes collaboration and good-faith negotiation—oriented toward crafting sound policy, rather than partisan gain—even more vital to lawmakers’ ability to represent Virginians’ interests in the coming legislative session,” reads a morning-after editorial in the Virginian-Pilot in Virginia Beach.

But stripping away the fact that scuffling with a Republican legislature might distract McAuliffe from his top priority for 2016—delivering Virginia’s electoral votes to his friend Hillary Rodham Clinton—Tuesday’s results were actually pretty good for progressive interests in the DC suburbs. Two retiring members of the Arlington County Board were replaced by Democrats, leaving independent John Vihstadt as the body’s singular minority; Loudoun County voters elected a Democratic county chairwoman and two Democrats to a board that was previously all-Republican; and voters in a suburban state Senate district rejected a candidate who made his campaign about opposing proposed tolls on Interstate 66.

Even if McAuliffe’s hopes for expanding low-income healthcare access and imposing some level of gun control are dashed next year by rural conservatives, Northern Virginia separated itself further from the rest of the commonwealth, particularly with respect to density and transportation.

“I think that indeed you are seeing sustained support for smart growth,” says Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarther Growth, which advocates for greater implementation of transit and dense, urban development.

Arlington’s newest board members, Christian Dorsey and Katie Kristol, both ran on pro-transit platforms, perhaps giving the county a chance to pull away from the brink of becoming a soulless suburb. The Fairfax County Board’s incumbents mostly swept on Tuesday, leaving in power a group that has favored increased infrastructure spending in the county’s commercial corridors, especially on Metro and, most recently, Capital Bikeshare, which is coming to Reston.

Even Alexandria’s mayoral race might not be so bad for pro-growth idealists. Alison Silberberg, who favors “thoughtful, appropriate” projects—a blow to the developers seeking to rebuild the city’s waterfront as well as advocates of multi-modal transport—beat four-term incumbent Bill Euille’s write-in campaign. But Alexandria’s other incumbent council members were re-elected, and Silberberg’s biggest selling point was the rather broad promise of improving the city government’s community engagement. “That appears to be an endorsement in the direction Alexandria was going, balancing growth and historic preservation,” Schwartz says.

But the most encouraging result for the smart-growth set in Fairfax County might be in the state Senate race in which Jeremy McPike beat Manassas Mayor Hal Parrish. The Republican Parrish bombarded airwaves with ads stating his rigid opposition to a McAuliffe proposal to implement tolls I-66 during rush hours to relieve congestion on the typically clogged highway. While McPike also said he opposed the toll plan, Parrish’s message didn’t stick with voters; other local Democratic legislators who were hit with similar anti-toll attacks also won.

“Trying to do complicated transportation policy in an election year isn’t easy,” Schwartz says. “When you look at the options for 66 inside the Beltway, [the Virginia Department of Transportation] has come up with the best option for that corridor. It’s not an option to widen that corridor from Ballston in.”

The VDOT plan currently proposes collecting tolls from vehicles with fewer than three occupants traveling in peak directions during rush hours, with some of the revenue being used to pay for Metro and other alternative modes of transportation. Schwartz says simply widening the highway would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, result in the destruciton of numerous communities bordering the road, and funnel even more traffic onto DC roads that cannot handle the additional volume. While the toll proposal will almost certainly be tweaked many times, Schwartz says implementing it inside the Beltway could set a strong example for the outer suburbs, where officials favor building additional highway lanes, which are expensive and almost always result in more congestion by encouraging more cars to get on the road, a phenomenon transportation planners call “induced demand.”

But the outer suburbs might be taking steps that would surprise inner-Beltway eggheads. Two of the Democrats elected last night in Loudoun County are black, including County Chairwoman-elect Phyllis Randall; previously, the county’s current leadership is made up entirely of white Republicans. In Sterling, Koran Saines, a human-resources manager with Aramark, knocked off long-time incumbent Eugene Delgaudio, who is known best for his often toxic right-wing agitprop. Saines ran on expanding public transportation and building more transit-oriented real-estate developments; Delgaudio once called the Silver Line “a crazy circumstance in which the general public is going to get raped or not get raped.”

“I think what you have here is as much a reflection of changing demographics as anything else,” Schwartz says. “It reflects the diversity that is Loudoun today.”

To be sure, Democratic wins in Northern Virginia do not guarantee tolls on I-66, a wholesale expansion of express bus lines and Capital Bikeshare stations, or a solid timeline for Metro’s extenstion to Dulles. Many facets of those issues will continue to be negotiated in Richmond, which remains under the control of exurban and rural delegates far from Washington and who openly loathe McAuliffe and Clinton. But the results suggest that Northern Virginia continues to tilt toward greater adoption of alternative modes of transportation like rail and cycling, denser commercial and residential development particularly near transit hubs, and the will to pay for it.

HOV switch on I-66 pushed back until 2020

Posted on by Will Reckley

FAIRFAX, Va. — The Virginia Department of Transportation has delayed a move to convert high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) rules on Interstate 66 until 2020, three years after tolls are introduced inside the Capital Beltway.

VDOT has suggested the conversion might happen when tolling began in 2017 during a meeting before the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board in January. Under the Constrained Long-Ranged Transportation Plan, VDOT must convert I-66 from HOV-2 to HOV-3 by 2020.

“It’s part of our air quality commitments and changing it would risk us losing federal transportation dollars,” said Sharon Bulova, chairwoman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

There is a consensus among many across the spectrum that the delay is a good move.

“It’s a smart choice to say they’d start at two and move to three because slugging is a different culture,” said Arlington County Board Chair Mary Hynes. “Both for buses and slugs, you need places for that to happen outside of the corridor. This gives us a chance to get that infrastructure into place.”

Adding tolls and changing the HOV rules would eliminate the clean plate exemption, which allows certain hybrid vehicles to use the HOV lanes even without two people. The Coalition for Smarter Growth backs the delay as well, even though the group aims to get as many cars off the road as possible.

“This decision makes sense,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Delaying until 2020 puts it in sync with what they’re doing on I-66 outside the Beltway. We’ve recommended that VDOT do some market studies to make sure that HOV-3 is going to be effective and there will be demand for it.”

Even Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity supports the move, although he has serious concerns with the overall plan on I-66 inside the Beltway.

“With HOV-2 and the hybrids — our HOV is just not working,” Herrity said. “We need to get that fixed. We’re going to need to go to HOV-3 in that corridor. It’s very unpopular, but if we want to move people through carpooling, then we need to go to HOV-3.”

Among those opponents are groups like the 66 Alliance.

“For owners of hybrid, electric and other clean fuel vehicles, that could mean you would pay tolls of up to $10,000 per year to continue to drive in the HOV lanes during rush hour,” the group wrote on its website. “HOV-2 carpoolers would be forced to find another carpooler, pick up an unknown passenger [aka “a slug”], or pay similar tolls to enjoy the same HOV privileges you currently take for granted.”

There could be one potential problem from the delay. Drivers will need an E-ZPass Flex transponder in HOV ON mode in order to get a free trip with two passengers, similar to the 495 and 95 Express Lanes.

But since the HOV-rules will not be in sync between 2017 and 2020, vehicles with two people will have to remember to turn on the HOV mode on I-66, then turn it off before entering the 495 or 95 Express Lanes.

If a driver were to forget to turn off the HOV mode when exiting I-66 for the Capital Beltway, he or she could be subject to a ticket for an HOV violation on the Express Lanes. The first violation carries a $125 fine and then it escalates up to $1000 for a fourth offense.

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Testimony to Alexandria City Council on demolition of Ramsey Homes

Posted on by acustis

I am a also a strong historic preservationist, which is what attracted me to Alexandria in 1988. The rich African-American history Parker-Gray and our city, and the bravery of the residents who fought for freedom and equality resonates deeply with me and should continue to be documented, promoted and honored — as is done so well by the Alexandria Black History Museum.