Devon WaldoJul 2, 2024
Benjamin Ross
34 years ago, Fairfax County decided it wanted to give Tysons a "compact, pedestrian-friendly urban form." It cut parking minimums, built sidewalks, made developers build new local streets.
It also kept widening roads at its own expense.
Result? The bad news is 6% find it easy to walk & 53% “don’t find the Tysons area walkable at all.” The "good news" is a quiet tree-lined street with a bus stop with no sidewalk & a traffic light that won’t change unless a car comes.
https://ggwash.org/view/94106/since-the-1990s-planners-have-envisioned-a-walkable-tysons-is-it-working
Since the 1990s, planners have envisioned a walkable Tysons. Is it working?

Since the 1990s, Fairfax County planners have imagined turning Tysons into “a place where people want to be.” How’s that going? Let’s look at the state of walkability and bikeability in Tysons, and how to make it better.

Jun 25, 2024 at 4:00pmWeb
Show threadZack DJun 26, 2024
@BenRossTransit wish these types of articles would mention who controls the roads in Fairfax County. VDOT is a roadblock to pedestrian safety.
Show threadWillJun 26, 2024
@mrpresident1776 @BenRossTransit the problem with Tysons, planners wanted walkable and to give drivers everything they wanted, so you get really wide multi lane roads, and sidewalks, and bike lanes, and ped overpasses, and trails next to freeways. But that won’t work, you can’t just add space until everyone has plenty of everything. You have to take space away from cars and make everything scaled to human bodies and human distances. That is incompatible with auto-centric design.
Show threadZack DJun 26, 2024
@Will @BenRossTransit yup. Asked for two road diets last year, Tyco Rd and Old Meadow and was denied for bs reasons by VDOT. Their top guy invented the diverging diamond interchange and I cannot make any progress until he leaves. Did get rid of a bunch of parking spaces on Anderson Rd for buffered bike lanes though