VDOT does it again  I am a member of the Tysons Corner Land Use Task Force, a group that is working to update the Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan for the Tysons Corner area. Tysons is a typical suburban office park area and the location of two large shopping malls. It is the prototypical Edge City as described by Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau in his book Edge City, Live on the New Frontier. As an aside, I was surprised to learn that the term Edge City was first used in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

As is common knowledge now, a grid of streets can play a critical role in the life of a city. It allows many ways for people to get around and helps create interesting walking areas with lots of corners for restaurants and other gathering places. Tysons does not have a grid of streets, which is why it will be one of the suggestions that the task force will propose. Two state highways run through the center of Tysons, and now VDOT is proposing new standards and regulations that will limit the number of access points on state highways, that will limit the ability to create a tight street grid.

Fairfax County officials objected:

Fairfax County has several urban design initiatives underway and planned transit-oriented development areas that will require context sensitive approaches to street design. Flexibility will be needed on some requirements for localities to achieve their planning objectives.

VDOT's response:

The appeal/exception process can be used for consideration of these approaches to street design.

In other words, we're going to create a new regulation that we know will require Fairfax, in order to create livable, walkable communities around transit stations, to apply for a waiver.
posted by Bruce Wright at 3:58 PM #