Coraggio Consulting City of Fairfax City Council Special Meeting/Work Session, Tuesday, February 18, 2025 Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 Place: City Hall, City of Fairfax, Virginia Length: 2h 40m (video) Official meeting video (city, Granicus): https://fairfax.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4104 Agenda: https://fairfax.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4104 Minutes: https://fairfax.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4104&doc_id=326e3315-eee2-11ef-a9e2-005056a89546 Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting. Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [00:00:15] good evening and welcome to our special meeting and work session we have we have recessed our special meeting to go into this work session and i will now recognize miss clark for the first work session item for discussion our first item is a pre-application briefing for proposed mixed-use development with approximately 257 multi-family units with amenities and structured parking, 7,395 square feet of retail uses, 26,391 square feet of office space, a proposed [00:00:51] east-west road from University Drive to Chain Bridge Road, and a north-south pedestrian pathway on 2.52 acres located at 4085, 4101, and 4103 Chain Bridge Road. Albert Frederick, city planner, will provide the staff presentation. [00:01:10] Good evening, everyone. This is a pre-application briefing for a concept plan for three parcels at 4085-4101 and 4103 Chambers Road. Staff met with the potential applicant to discuss the preliminary plans and have provided some initial feedback on the concept plan. [00:01:28] Staff will provide a brief presentation. The potential applicant is in the audience tonight. The old town small area plan was adopted in June 2020 the plan recommends that the existing Offices be renovated with new ground level engagement on Chambers Road in the near term. The plan also identifies at the site as That the plan also identifies the site as a potential to Consolidate properties and recommends commercial development at this location [00:02:04] Orientate you to the site. The site is located on the east side of Cambridge Road north of the former BB&T Bank south of Page Avenue and west of University Drive and south of 4084 University Drive the total acreage for the subject property is 2.52 acres the activity center place type in the small area plan is part of the comprehensive plan is Applies to the site the current zoning is commercial office and the proposed zoning is [00:02:42] Commercial urban here are some photos showing the existing buildings a photo on the left Looking at the at the east side Shows the front of the buildings along chambers road photo on the right Looks towards the west and the back of the buildings as a front on chambers road There's approximately eighty four thousand five hundred square feet of office space in the existing buildings Building four zero eight five is a six-story building with approximately hundred and two parking spaces and then has occupancy rate of [00:03:20] 82% four zero one zero It's the middle building Shown on the screen here is a three three-story building It has an appearance of two-story along Chambers Road. [00:03:38] On the back of the building, it appears to be three stories with approximately 17 parking spaces and has approximately 75% of the building is occupied. 401-03 is a six-story building with approximately 134 parking spaces and about 79% occupied. [00:03:58] Here's the concept layout exhibit showing the surrounding properties. Again, this property is surrounded by non-residential uses to the north, west, and south, and to the east, and separated by University Drive is a residential townhome subdivision. [00:04:15] The concept plan shows 257 multifamily units, a little more than 26,000 square feet of office space, almost 7,400 square feet of retail space, an amenity space, as well as courtyard that is just north of the service drive approximately 500 parking spaces and structured and surface parking a private east-west drive and a north-south [00:04:47] pedestrian path so just draw your attention to the floor plan this is the lower level of the parking garage this level has the primary entrance from from University Drive it also shows three townhomes that line the parking garage that fronts on University Drive this is the second level of the parking garage [00:05:23] and this is what is the first floor of the building so there's three buildings here building three is towards the top of your screen building three has the retail and office component building one which fronts on Chambers Road has the amenity space and residential units on this floor and building two is at this [00:05:55] level is all residential units this is a building this is the second floor of the building building one has 11 units building two has 13 units and building 3 shows office space approximately 14,664 square feet of office space so this is a the third floor the third level of of the building this has a pedestrian bridge that connects buildings one and [00:06:31] two over the greenway so in this area here the greenway would run in a north south direction so this is the connection from building one and two and then the connection point also from building three to building one crosses over the east-west road on this level there's there's 12 units in building one building two has 15 units and building three has 19 units so the next three levels the fourth floor fifth floor and [00:07:09] sixth floor are identical and they have 12 units in building one building two has 15 units and building three has 19 units so looking at the seventh floor the seventh floor only applies to building one and building three along Chambers Road building one has 12 units and building three has 19 units and finally this is a this is looking at the roof plan of the proposed building so in [00:07:45] your packet you'll see an exhibit that deep that outlines the or illustrates the the building seven floors along Chambers Road with six plus stories with step back on level one four and five along university drive it should be noted that the proposed site has significant change in grade from chambers road to university drive so here's a couple of renderings of the proposed development looking at chambers road and then a viewpoint [00:08:20] looking from the private driveway the applicant has provided a north-south greenway which is which is in line with the proposed greenway shown on the Davies site so the applicant has had some level of coordination with the with the applicant for the Davies property showing how the greenway would would align consistent with the small [00:08:52] area plane in terms of feedback from staff the staff has provided comments related to height as recommended in small area plan so five stories along Chambers Road four stories on University Drive incorporated greenway into the project design consistent with small area plan provide landscaping with a mix of plant types and sizes provide a streetscape design consistent with the [00:09:27] comprehensive plan in terms of the minimum street width is 26 feet the applicant should also be aware of the slope on the site maybe a challenge in terms of sidewalks and the lighter truck was one of the comments from fire from the fire marshal the applicant is required to provide a traffic impact statement and in terms of vehicle access there's a minimum spacing requirement of 50 feet including loading areas and garages the applicant would need to [00:10:03] submit a water and sewer capacity study and finally the retention of existing offices and retail and restaurant visibility from chambers road would be well would be an important element to maintain throughout this project in terms of the potential land use requests the you would would see a rezoning a special use permit for an upper story residential mixed-use building and multifamily special exceptions to things such as height density and [00:10:40] possibly inner inner parcel connection you will see a submission for a general development plan a major certificate of appropriateness for a landscape and architecture and of course those would be a recommendation from the BAR to City Council for approval the next steps the applicant would would be required to submit a land use submission based on feedback from tonight and the previous meeting with Planning Commission a development review would meet with the [00:11:16] applicant and go over the application if submitted followed by work sessions and public hearings and I will stand by for any questions that you may have thank you do we have questions or comments or feedback or thoughts councilmember Bates thank you realize this is just a pre application all I have at this point is It certainly is on its own, I think, a nice-looking project and has potential, but it's a no-go for me unless we either see more commercial space [00:11:53] or if our city's fiscal impact analysis shows an average positive impact otherwise, or also a no-go if we don't see consolidation with the BB&T site because then we'd be isolating that, and that, I would imagine, especially with the grade change, would be very, very difficult to redevelop on its own. [00:12:16] Thank you. Other questions, comments? Council Member Amos. I echo similar sentiments. I also want to applaud the design of the project. I find it far more appealing than the Davies site that's adjacent to it. I like the plaza concept. [00:12:32] I heard something about a fountain, which is interesting. So someone put it in an email. I think they sent it to all of us. You can never have enough fountains. I think I'd concur with that one. So I think it's on the right track. But I do have concerns about the commercial space, especially its proximity to the judicial complex project. [00:12:50] And I know that was a sentiment we raised with the Davies folks as well. But I think this project is significantly further ahead. Councilmember Peterson. Well, maybe I'll phrase this as a question to staff. [00:13:06] And that is that I see that residential use was not in 2020 recommended for this. BUT THIS PROJECT IS INCLUDING SOME RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT AND TO THE PRIOR TO COMMENTS, WHAT IS THE THINKING ABOUT SHIFTING AWAY FROM THIS BEING A COMMERCIAL PROPERTY TO ONE THAT'S ALSO URBAN? THE SMALLER PLAN IN THE SHORT TERM WAS FOCUSED ON OFFICE, RETAINING THESE THREE BUILDINGS AS OFFICE, BUT IN TERMS [00:13:44] of the I guess further out it doesn't necessarily prohibit it being a mixed use development it just says that residential is and I think that refers to just standalone residential so what you're looking at is it is a true mixed use project with where the residential on top you have a commercial component that would have restaurants as well as office space like right now that the The buildings that are there now house the couple attorney's office there. [00:14:24] It also has the probation office for the county, and I believe the applicant is looking to retain the two larger tenants that are on site now. So they're mixing in retail with the residential shop as well as office space. [00:14:43] So I don't believe that it would prohibit it this type of design right right now It's just it speaks to short-term for office But in the long term, I think it does have some flexibility for a mixed-use project Just not a standalone it does not not prefer just a standalone residential. Well, and then maybe to add to that I see the Planning Commission comments indicate a desire for more office space. That is correct. Correct. Yeah Currently, there's roughly 84,000 square feet of office and what's being proposed is and the range of 26,000 square feet with [00:15:22] about 7400 square feet of restaurant space, okay, and then I also see a preference expressed for this area for consolidation has that been attempted explored it was the status of consolidation the uh if i can show you so the site here the applicant tried to incorporate that site into their overall plan however they were not able to um to get a contract on that site and in terms of [00:16:02] the bbnt bank i'm not sure if they've had an opportunity to try to make a contract with with the bbnt bank to the south but i know that they've they had contact with the owner just to the east of east of their site and apparently they weren't successful in and getting and acquiring that property okay and then maybe just one last question or two Planning Commission also reacted to height and density has there been any consideration of scaling things back a little bit in either of those dimensions [00:16:39] that is something that they're here in the audience so that's something that I guess they would consider once you know if they decide to move forward in terms of does it does it apply we haven't had any conversations with them about reducing the number of units or anything at this point but they're here to listen they're here to get feedback from you all and I think when they walk out of here they will have you know don't have their guidance and I understand we're still waiting for a transportation impact statement is that that's great we typically don't get TIS reports at this point we will get it once we have a [00:17:16] land-use application usually on the first or second submission okay thank you [00:17:21] Other questions or comments? Council Member Hall. Thank you. The three existing townhomes, it looks like, that's what's handwritten on the page. Are those privately owned townhomes? What are those currently being used as? Do you know? Existing townhomes? If you look on page nine, I think it is the presentation, the height exhibit, there's a handwritten note on the bottom right that says existing townhomes existing. Right there in the very top right there. Oh, that's in the other side. [00:17:59] My fault. I'm sorry. I thought that was I didn't see the road divided there. Thank you. I have to agree. I think it's too tall. I know it seems like five stories is our max, according to our small area plan, if I'm correct, please correct me if I'm wrong. But it does. I have to agree with what the planning commission said. It does seem like that just seems to be an invitation to developers that keep coming back to us with more and more density and more and more height. [00:18:26] I don't think that's what our city wants to be when it grows up, is this big towering city, at least in my opinion and from those that I've spoken with. I think five is plenty. I don't think that seven is going to fly here. I understand that Fairfax County can do what they want with the court building, and I strongly hope that that does not become some domineering facade there in the future. [00:18:53] But I think that in keeping with the character of our city, I think this is already going to be adding a lot more residents, a lot more traffic, a lot more overall perks in many ways as well. But that's my concern. This is Daniel's Run or this is Providence? [00:19:09] Do you know as far as elementary schools go? You know my question every time. Daniel's Run? Okay. Thank you. I do have to say I like the fountain. I like the pedestrian walkway. [00:19:25] I think there were some questions and concerns that were emailed by a resident. And I have to agree with a couple of them, which I'll just point out, which is that Fountain is a really nice touch. More balconies overlooking the streets mean safer streets. And so I think especially in the backside university, if we're hoping to make it some sort of corridor, I think that, you know, keeping that in mind to people looking out and being able to witness things, and it doesn't just feel like kind of like an alleyway almost. [00:19:54] I think there are also some questions and comments made previously about restaurants and trying to make that, you know, interior side of the alleyway kind of an exciting, bring people here, make them want to be here. And I think the more that we can do to kind of keep that open and visible and safe is going to be beneficial for people that want to live there, want to just walk there, and want to kind of use that as an alternate to walking on one of the major roads. [00:20:24] I do have concerns that it's not enough commercial space. I understand that people are moving away from offices, but it seems that every project that's come across here so far has taken what may or may not be fully utilized commercial space and is cutting it in half or a third or whatever it is. [00:20:47] I recognize that the buildings are not necessarily fully rented at this point, But with another property that we had a presentation on previously, I also learned that they were not renewing people's leases, which is why one big entity was being forced to move, not because they wanted to, but because it wasn't being renewed as an option to them. [00:21:12] So I just want to make sure we're having forthcoming information as to why things are not being renewed and why they might be vacant and what those rental rates really are. So I think it's pretty. i mean i will say that i think it's a nice visual i think that it would add to our downtown as far as what it looks like you have to reduce it as far as height goes for me though to make it be a little bit more exciting on my mind thank you other questions and comments oh council member [00:21:45] quillen i actually do have a question too are these apartments or condos the units i believe they're apartments they're going to be apartments okay um so i am echoing everything that you heard tonight more tree canopy this is too tall i would prefer to see it less than seven floors or seven stories too dense also more commercial space is needed for this specific location i do like the two floors of the parking it does seem like there's ample parking for this project [00:22:21] um at this time but we won't know until the study is done so but that's all that's my comments thank you councilmember Amos so as a follow-up question regarding the density and the seven floors so existing we'll just focus on the tallest building is it it's currently at five floors is that existing yeah the existing there's two buildings that are six stores other six stories yeah and so this would go to the seven and what would be this the height difference in feet if we have [00:22:58] that information yet that I don't have that information okay at 11 feet okay okay and then I so I agree with the comments on commercials I said it before my only concern is having been been familiar with industry as well as that the more stipulations we add the more difficult it becomes to make these projects feasible and affordable so just balancing that moving forward And, I mean, so currently if it's 6 and it's an 11-feet difference, I don't know if that's substantial enough. [00:23:37] I'll leave that to my colleagues as well, but people need housing too. Excellent points. Anything else from anybody else? Okay, well, then I will just say I like this project. I realize that the orphaned property of BB&T Bank concerns people in the city about what will happen if that's not consolidated. [00:24:00] But I understand you can't make somebody sell you their property if they won't. The seven stories does not bother me at all. I don't think that that is an outrageous departure from other buildings, especially on Chambridge Road. It's across from the judicial complex. [00:24:16] I do think that there might be demand for commercial space because I think there are attorneys who really want to live within walking distance of that judicial complex. And so, I mean, it's hard to say what the future holds as far as where people work and how people work, but that courthouse is not going anywhere. [00:24:33] And there are attorneys who have to be fully present in that courthouse. And so I think that we're always going to have a certain amount of demand for commercial space, particularly for law firms in the immediate surrounding area. So I think this building could support more commercial. [00:24:50] I want to speak to the greenway because we are kind of getting feedback from people about that greenway. That greenway is really important, and it is not meant for vehicles. So I know not everyone has read the power broker. I'm looking at Chris Bruno. [00:25:06] The answer to traffic is not building more roads or bridges or anything else. We need a greenway because we don't want to build more roads for more cars. The greenway is an important statement in the small area plan for this city to say that we want space for people to be able to walk on their own two feet safely and to move through a pleasant, lovely city of pleasant, lovely buildings on foot. [00:25:32] And so for those comments we're getting that says, oh, no, build it wider for cars, we are not building that greenway for cars. That is not the idea. And so I hope our community understands what we're trying to do with this 6.2 square miles, and it is not to encourage more vehicular traffic. [00:25:51] So I'm just planting a flag on that for all of the projects that come forward and say we've aligned with the greenway. It's like, yes, you get what we're trying to do here, and that matters. So, I think we have consensus that we kind of like this project. It's got a lot of things that we like about this project and some things that we think maybe could be tweaked. [00:26:12] So, take that, take that as you will, and see how you want to proceed in moving forward. But, good-looking project. All right. Thank you so much. Next item. Thank you. Our next item is discussion and review of the two-year transportation program. [00:26:31] Wendy Sanford, Transportation Director, will provide the staff report. Good evening, Mayor Reed, members of the City Council. [00:27:03] The work session this evening is to review the proposed two-year transportation program, and this is in anticipation of, at the next meeting, adoption of the two-year program. I'm going to go through this presentation somewhat quickly. [00:27:19] You all have seen this presentation, but I do want to make sure, for the sake of the public, that we go through the whole presentation. What we're discussing tonight is the transportation funding area of focus within the transportation division. And actually, let me pause. I got started too quickly before I introduced with me David Summers and Chloe Ritter, who are the public works director and our multimodal transportation planner. [00:27:45] Transportation funding. This is one of the main areas of the transportation division, and it's one of the main functions that we perform to seek outside funding, non-local transportation funding for our projects. There are many opportunities for funding from VDOT and VTA, DRPT. [00:28:05] And these opportunities come up either every year or every two years. And we want to be in a position to have projects that are ready to be submitted for this funding. And the funding comes online often many years in the future. Some of it comes online in one year, but many of the funding sources you apply for now and they come online six years from now. [00:28:28] So it's really important that we take a holistic approach and before we apply for funding, we identify the right projects to submit, to do the concept planning, engage the public, and then be prepared when those funding applications come up that we have the right projects to submit. [00:28:46] This is our Transportation Capital Project Roadmap and you'll see this a lot in this presentation and in our coming presentations. What this shows is this outlines the process that a capital project flows through, and this whole process can take anywhere from 5 to 10 to 12 to 15 years to complete, depending on the project, depending on the funding source. [00:29:09] When we start at step one, when we propose a project to go into the two-year program, that's the starting line, if you were, and that's where we are right now. We're going to talk in a little bit about the Norman Avenue sidewalk and the concept planning for that. [00:29:25] And that's at step four. That was already adopted into a two-year program. We've done the concept planning, and we're now at that point where we're looking at that concept plan and deciding is this a project, whether this is a project we want to move forward with to actually apply for funding. Later in the evening, we're going to be talking about Cambridge and Eaton. [00:29:43] That project is already at step nine, step ten, where we've gone through the concept planning, applied for funding, done preliminary design, and now we're at 60% design. And so it's important when we go through and talk about projects that we acknowledge where we are and where we have been on this roadmap. [00:30:03] So when we talk about the two-year program, that's all the way at the beginning. We're talking about what projects to even put on the road. So I've already said this, but what is the two-year program? And so in a nutshell, it's the list of projects that we want to advance on that road to do conceptual planning for, to get public engagement on, and then make a decision about whether it should proceed for funding. [00:30:30] So that is the two-year program. It's ultimately, it is a list of projects. It's a to-do list. So where do these project ideas originate? They originate from already adopted plans and policies. A number of them are listed here, but we do this planning. [00:30:47] And what this does is this tells us at a high level what are projects that we should consider. And in many cases, these plans, like the small area plans, say, let's look further at doing such and such. But it doesn't tell us how to do it. that we put that on the two-year program list so that we can then go do the concept planning and get more specifics. And the city council, the public may decide after getting more specific information, you know what? We liked that idea conceptually, but now that we have a little more planning information, we don't want to pursue this project further. Or alternatively, oh, we've done the details. Yes, this is a great project that we want to pursue. So that's why it's important to [00:31:26] have that two-year program step where we take it from the big picture plan and put it on the to-do list. I've mentioned this already. Why is it important? Because these projects take a very long time to develop, to fund, to implement. They span multiple city councils. So significant time, resources, money go into each and every project. So it's really important to identify at the beginning the projects that we think can withstand the test of time and different city councils, changing public, and so on. Just to talk a little bit about the funding that's available, [00:32:06] there is a lot of it, and the city has been very successful taking advantage of the various sources of funding that are out there. What this shows in the box that's shown on the right of the screen is that the city has been successful in receiving approximately $250 million of non-local transportation funding since FY16. We've spent approximately $20 million in local funding to support this that's in application preparation sometimes in local funding but we have spent that money and in return received 250 so we have done a very good job of leveraging our local funding to receive non local funding so [00:32:46] this is a more simplified version of that other roadmap and what it's showing is our projects and where they are and again what's shown on the left-hand side is those pro those projects that are proposed to get on the starting line for two-year program. So I'm going to talk about each one of those projects. It's a relatively short two-year program. There are five projects. One of them is actually a project that we're proposing Metro undertake and that we just support them. So there's really a list of four projects. The first is Fairfax Circle Intersection Evaluation. This project has been identified in the comp plan and [00:33:22] the small area plan to look at alternative designs for this intersection. There was a draft vision that was developed through some intersection planning, some technical assistance funding that we received a few years ago, and then again through the small area planning. [00:33:40] But we don't have a final design, and so what the proposal is, is for us to use some local funding to develop a concept plan. And this is a major project. This is the most significant project on the two-year program list. And this is not a project that we would have a concept plan in the public engagement done immediately. [00:33:59] This would take a couple of years to get through to get to those further stages on the roadmap just because it's such a large project. The second proposed project is the bike route wayfinding plan and implementation. [00:34:15] The adopted bike plan recommended the establishment of a bike route throughout the city and it recommends that we develop a plan for wayfinding. And so this project will develop that plan and install the wayfinding signs and striping throughout the city. The third project is intersection improvements at Main Street and Lindhurst. [00:34:36] The Main Street Road Safety Audit looked at all of Main Street, really east of Old Town, and it identified a number of improvements that should be made. Some of them are some low-hanging fruit that we are addressing just in-house. But one of the main recommendations is to identify some improvements for this intersection. [00:34:57] In addition to the safety audit identifying this intersection as needing upgrades, we have received comments, complaints from residents in the area. It's difficult to get out. It's also difficult for people to walk across the street. There are queue bus stops on both sides. [00:35:13] So this intersection is really an intersection that we want to do some more evaluation of and develop a concept plan that we could then submit for funding to make the improvements. As I mentioned, one of the projects is outside of the city, and this is at the Vienna Metro Rail Station. [00:35:33] We would like to have Metro make improvements on the north side, similar to what they've already done on the south side. We have spoken with them, and they do support this, and we told them that this would be on our list. Again, this isn't something that we would implement, but this is something that we could potentially help sponsor if they were looking for outside funding, and we would certainly work with them. [00:35:52] The reason this is important is because the north side is where all of the Q buses have our stops. So if you're coming out of the Vienna Metro Rail Station, you've gone through the gates. If you turn right, you go to the south side. And that is where most of the connector buses and the WMATA buses pick up. [00:36:09] But if you go left, that's where the George Mason shuttles and the Q buses, that's where we mainly have our stops. And so there is a real difference between what the stops on the north side look like from the south side. And then the last project is a feasibility study for sidewalks on both Westmore Drive and on Rust Road. [00:36:31] These projects actually came to us rather than being identified in a plan. Our plans do recommend residential sidewalks, at least one on every residential street. But we have a policy, a residential sidewalk policy, where residents can submit a petition asking the city to consider sidewalks on their street. [00:36:50] And so we have now received petitions from residents on both Rust Road and Westmore Drive, and these two connect to each other and would really fill in a missing gap in this neighborhood. And so we are recommending that we conduct the feasibility study for residential sidewalks on these two streets. [00:37:06] Again, there's already a high level of support from residents on these streets, and there's high connectivity and traffic safety benefits. And so this is a project that we would prepare a concept plan for and submit it for funding. So again, this really just summarizes the projects that are at the starting line. [00:37:25] In terms of outreach, we developed an interactive map through our Engage Fairfax tool for residents to view the projects, make comments, propose other ideas. We had a postcard, and you can see the front and the back at the bottom of the screen here. We put this out in City Scene. [00:37:41] And what's really nice about the Engage page is that even though we only received nine comments, We can see that there were a thousand visits to the page. So there were eyes on this. 797 visited at least one project page, 338 visited multiple project pages. [00:38:01] So we had a lot of eyes on this, a lot of people looking at the content. We had nine comments left in the guest book and then we had 21 pins that were placed on the map. So if you went on to the interactive map, there are green circles that show where the projects are. [00:38:17] And then you could drop a pin and you could say I like this project or I don't like this project or you could put a pin somewhere else and say hey, what about this project? I summarized all of the pin information in your attachment that's in your staff report so you can see that. [00:38:32] And I tried to put the location and sometimes people's comments were responding to other people's comments. So someone said I don't like this project then somebody else said no, I do like this project. So you can see there was some dialogue going on on the interactive map. And then the comments that were left separately outside of the interactive map, I summarized them here on the slide. [00:38:51] Again, just a handful of comments. So in terms of next steps, you can see where we are on the timeline. We are here at our work session to review the public outreach. And based on the outreach that we received, I don't recommend any changes to the two-year program as it has been proposed. [00:39:10] And what is next is the next meeting on February 25th, I am recommending that we ‑‑ that City Council to hold a public hearing and adopt the two-year program that concludes my presentation I'd be happy to answer any questions questions comments I'll start with Councilor Stacy Hardy Chandler and then councilmember Amos thank you for your presentation I think this is one of the presentations that really highlights our role as stewards because depending on where these projects are in their timeline we may be inheriting decisions from prior [00:39:48] council and setting up opportunities for future council. So I really appreciate the emphasis on the history and the fact that these projects are so thoughtfully considered in multiple ways with multiple opportunities for engagement. But it really challenges us to think long term. And I know that it is tempting to think that a project starts when you as an individual first hear about IT, BUT RECOGNIZING THE TIMELINE AND WHERE ALL OF THESE PROJECTS ARE REALLY IS REALLY [00:40:25] GOOD CONTEXT FOR US. SO I LOOK FORWARD TO THE TWO-YEAR PLAN AND THE OTHER PROJECTS YOU'LL BE REPORTING ON. THANK YOU. NOW THAT I HAD THE PLEASURE OF WALKING THE CITY, WHEN I LOOK AROUND, I'M LIKE, OH, YEAH, THERE'S SPOTS THAT I ALMOST DIED AT. SO FOR EXAMPLE, THAT MAIN STREET TRAP ROAD Lindhurst that place is terrifying uh it freaks me out because it's there's also a vertical component that you can't see there but your sight distance is completely limited um I am curious though because there was a comment against fixing that intersection do we know what that was and [00:41:04] that's just more out of curiosity the mix support yeah um I believe it is in your attachment and I don't remember offhand but I put all of the comments from the guest book and the pins in an attachment thank you other questions comments yes council member base and then council member peterson thank you i think it's important to point out that this discussion tonight isn't about projects that have already been funded um i've you know made my stance on some of those clear and [00:41:41] that hasn't changed and hope to have further discussions about some of those but as far as the projects on this two-year plan that's proposed here um that are they're not funded yet i um I think that they're all no-brainers to me, fully support them, and I also want to point out as far as the wayfinding signage project, I think it would certainly be worthwhile. [00:42:07] While this might be something to think about further down the line, but just to kind of start that, you know, conversation about that is including on just on shared use paths anyway, a reminder for bicyclists to use an audible signal when passing pedestrians, because that is a huge problem, especially for those who are hearing impaired and vision impaired in the city. [00:42:33] Bicyclists assume that everybody hears them coming and some people don't because they literally you know are hearing impaired or You know vision impaired, and you know, they might just might just be too quiet And that is definitely a huge issue For you know for people with disabilities. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson. Thank you the public comment We got about the trails are those already funded and not a part of this two-year decision. We're making Correct. [00:43:05] Yeah. Yeah, so any, correct. Okay, that's a separate conversation. Separate conversation. The vote is on the list of these projects on the left right here. Yeah, thank you. Public engagement, very much appreciate two things. [00:43:21] One, that you have identified the milestones, the tasks and timelines, the discrete points in which decisions have to be made and that they are progressive. And also that there has been a really significant effort on the part of the city. [00:43:37] to engage with the public. But that said, there still are times when people either don't feel like they were adequately involved or perhaps they weren't fully aware of what was being proposed. And so those voices then are added later. [00:44:01] One of the reasons that that happens is that the reality of implementation of specific projects becomes more clear the further we go into the process. Now, unfortunately, that means we're spending money to get tighter implementation specifications. [00:44:24] So there's a price tag for becoming more specific, but what it does is it reveals more clearly what a project will look like and the feedback we get as a consequence of that becomes more meaningful and it typically intensifies. [00:44:40] So I think it's reasonable to expect that even though you have received heavy engagement so far as you can tell early on, you will be getting more later and it could be of a different form which is reacting to what are in reality new specifics that become better understood as we go forward. [00:45:00] So I just wanted that to be acknowledged because I don't think there's any shame in getting to the stage where the specifics dictate that we have a new view on something, right? Absolutely. I mean, the next presentation that we're going to have is about the Norman Avenue sidewalk. This was approved in the last two-year program. It was put on the list. We've done the concept planning. And we're now, tomorrow night, we're going to present the concept to you tonight. [00:45:25] And then tomorrow night, we're having an engagement meeting and the public comment period opens. And this is really critical to hear from people. And these are going to be people who maybe didn't participate in letting us know how they felt about it during the two-year program process, but now may come to the table and tell us, yeah, this is great, or no, it's not so great. [00:45:42] One thing you'll notice is that over the past few years, we spend a lot more money on the application and on the initial concepts, because to your point, years ago, you know, we'd have a rendering, and we really wouldn't have as much detail as maybe was necessary to show some of the impacts but over the past few years one because the applications are so competitive but also to try and give residents as much information as we can on the front end and we do try and do that with our uh with the money the local money we're using on these applications correct there's a cip project [00:46:17] in the proposed cip that is you'll see it has a picture of the funding wheel and it has i believe four hundred thousand dollars attached to it that's local funding and we use that money to do these [00:46:27] concept plans. And so it is money very well spent. Yes. Great. Thank you. Councilmember Hall. Thank you. A couple questions and comments. First one is, can you tell me roughly when the Rust Westmore sidewalk petitions were sent to the city? I'm going to ask Ms. Ritter to answer that question. Thank you. I don't know the, don't have the years off the top of my head, but I believe that the Rust sidewalk, so there were two separate petitions. The Rust road sidewalk petition, I believe, came in around 2017, 2018. And then the [00:47:03] Westmore Road sidewalk petition came in last year. Okay, so did the second edition of the sidewalk then that did that kind of revamp the first part of it? Okay, just the two together make a lot of sense. When we were looking at Rust Road originally individually, we were looking at the fact that there was already a sidewalk on that Walmart side. If you if you it's not really in the city, it's part of it's actually the private sidewalk. Right. But then when Rust when then when Westmore came in and we looked at the two together, there are those efficiencies by doing them together. [00:47:37] And so we had this older position. And again, just because someone submits a petition, we have criteria that we look at to see if it rises to the top. And when we looked at Rust a number of years ago, it didn't really. But now together with Westmore, it does make a very nice project. Okay, thank you. [00:47:54] As we'll discuss next, I actually went around door-to-door and did the Norman positions for Cobbdale. So Norman is one of the roads, the only road right now that was selected. We did that in 2020. So just trying to understand potentially the years and for those at home that are trying to follow along. [00:48:10] Question on the metro improvements. Did the city contribute any funds to the south side improvements? No. No. And we likely would not contribute any funds to the north side improvements either. Okay. So we're just trying to hope that they will. [00:48:28] Right. We're trying to put political will behind this project to encourage Metro to do what they did on the south side to the north side. Okay, then I would support me before with that. I just want to make sure there wasn't some expectation that the city funds were going to be applied. I would just clarify that the funding source that we would recommend would be Commuter Choice, which is a regional funding source that is 100% funded, whereas some of our other projects might have a local match. [00:48:54] This one does not. And so that was one that we could help sponsor with WMATA. Okay. Thank you. And then my last question or comment, really, the Engage page. Love it and hate it. I got to be honest. I love the information that's there. I think in prime example here, you know, over a thousand visits, I think the biggest complaint, and I share it with others, is that you have to have an account to log in and make comments. And I think that's probably why you're seeing nine comments. And also to Council Member Peterson's point, it's not always reaching the right people at the right time either. So again, I do think when these other projects come [00:49:32] up, there will be a lot more voices at the table. But I would strongly see if there's another way that we can find that people don't have to create an account. I know we don't like anonymity, but I also think sometimes anonymity does give people the voice to be able to say something that they don't want their name attached to, or that they want someone in the city that, you know, so-and-so said this, or so-and-so said that, they're not going to like me anymore. I mean, We're grown-ups, but we're not, right? [00:50:00] You know, everybody still wants to be able to have an opinion, but not be harped on it because they didn't support that project. Because I can tell you, I got a whole lot of comments on my own from me on that Engage page. And I'm sure I have some fake name that no one knows it's me, but until they recognize my writing and my style and those things. [00:50:19] I think this is a larger conversation that we would need to have with the city manager and our communications director about engagement tools. So we utilize the tools that are available citywide. I agree. I just think it's sooner rather than later. [00:50:35] I think we have, as always, really critical, important projects. And I think we're leaving a lot of voices out. Understood. But thank you for what you're doing because I do think it's engaging and that's helpful. Councilmember McQuillan. Thank you for your presentation. [00:50:52] I do have a question. Can you explain what goes on with a feasibility study? What exactly does that entail and how long does that take? Sure. And, in fact, you're going to have more information. [00:51:03] our next presentation is about the Norman Avenue feasibility study and we'll talk very much in the detail about in detail about what we do for a feasibility study but we do survey we look at utility locations right of way we look at trees so landscaping impacts so you're we're looking at what would be impacted how much would it cost to do this project what would the alignment be so in the case of a sidewalk for instance it will be what side of the street does it make more sense to go on and we make that decision by looking at Where do we have drainage impacts? [00:51:36] Where are there overhead utilities? Where are there underground utilities? Do we own right-of-way? So we look at a variety of things. That's for a sidewalk. That's really high level. What else would you add? I would say one of the main things is if it's possible, if it's cost prohibitive, seeing what's there, what has to be moved out of the way, what has to be purchased, elevations. [00:52:01] So just the possibility of doing it to meet current standards. and whether it makes sense on a cost if the if the bang is worth the buck and that's done all by our staff right or do we use another we use consultants we have a number of on-call consultants so that we bring them on and so we have five or six consultants different engineering consultants and we'll use them to do this work thank you council member hardy chandler thank you mayor very quickly you mentioned and for that uh rust westmore corner the vast majority of traffic you [00:52:40] can see them just turn right where that picture is so that is a very you know perfect uh but you mentioned um that when you get a petition that there are certain factors that you weigh in order to determine whether that project rises can you just for my education talk a little bit about those factors that go into consideration of those for inclusion on the two-year plan just so you know Chloe manages the residential sidewalk program so these petitions go to Chloe so whenever we get a petition we we basically keep it on [00:53:15] file until we either move it forward or or it gets rejected or gets canceled I think we've only had one project that's been canceled so we get petitions kind of throughout the year sometimes one a year sometimes two a year sometimes none it just depends and we look at them once a year and say well how does it impact traffic safety connectivity so are there other sidewalks that could connect to how does it connect to things like schools and transit stops we look at the constructability issues like mr. Summers mentioned sometimes there's a lot of overhead utilities and it's and we think we know it's gonna be more complicated so we want to really balance that against some of the resources that we have and then we also look at community support so when we get a [00:53:53] petition okay is there a lot of support for this sidewalk and then the other consideration is just our capacity to manage more projects so the reason for example that we got a petition for Norman Avenue in 2020 and we're kind of getting to it now primarily because we don't have the resources to support a new project every year with all the other ongoing projects so that's kind of the overview of the sidewalk policy of how we evaluate petitions at a starting point and then as we go through the process and get more detail with the design we get more feedback from the community about whether this is is something that the community actually wants to move forward. [00:54:29] Thank you. Appreciate that. Anybody else? Council Member Peterson. A thematic question to build on a point you raised earlier. Within all of these projects, is it the case that either a primary or a significant part of the intent here is to diversify transportation choice so that we are not locked in only to single occupancy vehicle mode, [00:55:05] here in the city we're trying to diversify that? The short answer is yes. If you look at the range of projects, they are spanning everything from supporting metro to bike to sidewalk to roadway. So yes, we are looking. It doesn't mean that every year it's going to be exactly perfect, but the idea is to have a variety of projects in the two-year program. [00:55:27] Well, it's helpful to hear that because, again, to the earlier point, I think the misnomer here is that this is a road building series of projects and that's all about cars and roads and there's a lot more to it than that the other thing I would just add by way of a thank you is that I the mayor was kind enough to nominate me to help represent the city on many regional transportation boards and commissions and one of the things I learned from that there's actually a council of councils which is run by a number of attorneys which you all are spending lots of time managing [00:56:05] i just raised this uh not entirely in just because a lot of what you do is regional coordination and regional environment here and that's what is required to make this all work and deeply appreciated i i guess the other big picture question which we'll uh no doubt be um monitoring is whether you're expecting any changes in the regional operating environment as we go forward here for transportation. From where we stand now, I guess the answer is probably no, but if you have any thoughts, it just would be helpful to know. It's a very difficult question to answer. [00:56:42] I would say right now we have not been informed of any changes to the funding streams. NVTA is one of our biggest funding opportunities, and I don't anticipate changes with that. Those are state taxes that are levied in Northern Virginia. That would take a legislative act in the state to change those. In terms of our funding through VDOT, revenue sharing and other, I can't answer that because I don't know what's going to happen. But we have been told to continue on. So until I have [00:57:18] any other information, we are going to carry on. Excellent feedback. So yes, and thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for stepping up, being voluntold that you need to do these things because it's a lot. [00:57:35] But you bring up something really significant about regional cooperation. I mean, we are not on an island here. I mean, everything doesn't end at our borders, not our trails, not our bike paths, not our roads, not anything. It all has to connect to something else for this region to work. [00:57:51] And the other point that you made is we are not designing for cars. We're designing the city for people, and somehow this gets lost in transportation equals roads and accommodating vehicular traffic. No, this is a city built for people, and what we want as far as the lifestyle of a small urban city inside an economically robust and successful region is what we need to be thinking about. [00:58:20] And so multimodal transit means transit, buses for us. We don't have a metro station here. We have buses here, but we have opportunities for pedestrian mobility and for more bike mobility. [00:58:36] And this is where we should be investing our resources, not just ours as far as the cities match, but what we're doing with these NVTA funds and other sources of funds, which is why this two-year funding plan is so critically important to stick a pin in something and say, we're willing to commit to building sidewalks. [00:58:54] We're willing to commit to building paths. We're willing to build these things for people, not cars. And I'm just, you brought all of this to the surface right here, right now. I'm having this epiphany and I'm sharing it with you all that this is really important. [00:59:09] And so I think like the bus shelters on the north side, like I'm on both sides, right? I take the best bus to New York and it's on the south side and it's very nice over there. But then when I take the Q bus, when I come back from COG meetings and I'm on the north side, it's like low rent district and you don't feel good about this tiny little shabby little shelter when this lovely, lovely bright newly wrapped Q bus pulls up. [00:59:37] You want something a little more in keeping with the transit we've invested in. We want more people to take Q so it should look nicer than it looks over there on the north side. So I think it's worth us putting our political will in our voice because Q is our bus here in the city, us and Mason, and we should say that they need to upgrade what it looks like so that people are more inspired to take the Q bus. So I'm glad to hear that people are on board with that. [01:00:08] I think this is a very good thing. We have political will. We have things we can offer. Alright, so sounds like we are all feeling good about your two-year funding plan. Thank you so much and let's move on to the next item. The next item is discussion on the Norman Avenue Sidewalk Feasibility Study. [01:00:27] Wendy Sanford, Transportation Director, will provide the staff presentation. Actually, Chloe Ritter will be leaving the staff presentation on this. I will be advancing the slides for her. Yes, so before we start, I'll just introduce our consultant, Megan Waring. [01:00:45] She's an engineer with Kim Lee Horn, who is helping us with this feasibility study. You'll be hearing from her tonight as well. Okay, so the purpose of this presentation is to give you kind of an overview, introduction to the Norman Avenue sidewalk feasibility study give you some background on it and then we're also going to go over the existing conditions and the evaluation that we've done as part of the study and the concept that's been developed that we can present to the public for their feedback we'll talk about the public engagement plan and how we've reached out the public because we can get their feedback and then we will talk about next steps and I do want to [01:01:20] mention that we're still early in the process with this project kind of we'll go back to the roadmap again and we can see that. So we're not necessarily looking for specific guidance or specific direction tonight. You know, we want to hear whatever feedback you have as we get started, but we will be coming back to you after we hear public feedback to share that with you and get some direction on next steps after that. So this is the project timeline. As was already mentioned, the petition was provided to the city or submitted to the city in 2020. [01:01:52] And then in 2023, the project was adopted, the project meaning the study, was adopted in the your transportation program and so that's basically steps one and two the kind of the planning phase we are now in the concept phase the orange section and we are conducting the feasibility study we started working on it last fall and we're here today to present those preliminary results to you and then tomorrow we have an open house planned with the public to look at the concept give us feedback and then we'll have a public comment period for a couple of weeks after that [01:02:27] And then, as I said, we're here at the very beginning, very early in the process, past the planning phase, but this is a really critical step in the project roadmap. As we've already talked about, these projects can take 10 or more years to plan and design and construct, and so we really want to get feedback now before we invest all that time and all that outside money into deciding whether we actually want to build the project or not. [01:02:50] So we are spending a little bit of local money now to develop this concept and to get that feedback, And as we'll talk about later, we've made a real effort to get out to the public and make sure that they're aware that there's an opportunity to talk about this right now and decide if this is a project that they want. So we've... [01:03:07] Oh, that's all right. So like I said, we'll come back with the public feedback after the public feedback comment period. Okay, yeah. So this is just a brief overview of where we've had some sidewalk projects in the past, some projects that we've constructed, some projects that are funded but haven't started yet. [01:03:28] And then, as I mentioned, I think we've had one petition that was evaluated, and the community decided they didn't want it after they saw what the concept would look like. And as I mentioned, the sidewalk policy that we have, we do prioritize the petitions that we receive and the projects that we start based on safety, connectivity, constructability, and community support. [01:03:46] And then just a little more context for Norman Avenue specifically. As I mentioned, the petition came in in fall of 2020, and based on that petition, we saw support from about 60% of the neighborhood when looking at the whole neighborhood, and then specifically on Norman Avenue, there was support from about 68% of the residents with 17 households opposed, and 15% who did not respond to the petition or didn't have a signature for the petition. [01:04:18] There's also some related projects. There was a traffic calming study a few years ago that looked at speeding, and there are some permanent speed feedback signs on Norman Avenue that were a result of that study. And then we'll hear a little bit later tonight about the project at Chambers Road in Eaton Place, which would connect to the east end of Norman Avenue with a continued sidewalk. [01:04:42] And so this is the project location. This is kind of an overview of the whole corridor. It's about 0.6 miles long, I believe, and it would start on the west side. There is existing sidewalk just west of Cobb Drive. And at the east end, again, this would connect to the sidewalk that's planned part of the chambered road and eaton project so now i'm going to turn it over to megan to talk about the study and the design great thanks chloe so the map there was helpful just to give a lay of the land as we kind of talk through and walk through the corridor together we're going to start over in cob drive and make our way over to eaton place so what's up on the screen now is going back [01:05:21] to the information that wendy was sharing earlier what are we collecting as part of this feasibility study we're collecting a lot of data because we want to make an informed decision when we're going to the public having these open houses and talking through the designs and the analysis that we've done so a lot of this data you can see some screenshots here of the the street that exists today things that we're looking for and collecting as part of this is the survey what's getting gathered in that is understanding the different elevation changes that happen throughout the road understanding the drainage that exists out there today that allows us to do an analysis and just understand generally where water is [01:05:56] going if there's any issues with the water today when a storm comes through and also understand are there utility impacts as you can see on the right picture there on norman the north side has the majority of utility lines and poles throughout the entire north side of that project that's going to come up again as we talk through this a little bit but we can also see the ditches that exists out there today so there's no pedestrian facilities out here between cob and eaton place today at Cobb there is a sidewalk on either side of the road that continues to the west and then there will be improvements with the Eden Hall project that you'll hear more about later that would make those connections as well. In addition to the data collection that I mentioned and as Wendy [01:06:36] mentioned earlier, we're also looking at trees. We're looking at the size of the trees, the health of the trees, understanding where they sit on the property and how that might play into the designs that we look at as part of this feasibility study itself. We also go through and we look at the parking we understand what folks are doing out on these streets what observing where they might park whether it's in their driveways or on the streets today how they might utilize the street itself in addition to looking at lifetime maintenance costs that's something that gets a little bit more into the actual design and analysis of the projects that we're looking at but having all of this data that's collected at this stage is incredibly helpful in being able to [01:07:14] determine those different aspects that we're looking at so what we have up on the screen here are three different scenarios that we looked at as part of this project. The first conversation that we had was north side or south side, which side might make the most sense to have a pedestrian sidewalk path, some type of pedestrian connection through here. So what you'll see up here are three sections of north side sidewalk curb and gutter, south side sidewalk curb and gutter, and then south side paved path ditches. So I'll talk a little bit more about what those mean and we'll see some great examples here to actually show you and visualize what that means so you're not just [01:07:53] trying to sit there and think hey what does that look like but as we went through this process and we're laying out each of these scenarios we're looking at them based on certain things property impacts where does the property line sit today are there opportunities to be able to put these facilities in along norman avenue and not impact or minimally impact properties as they sit we're looking at the utility impacts. So understanding that there are a lot of above ground utilities on this corridor, very little sit underneath the road. And so anything that you touch would have to be moved. The utility poles in this corridor are situated very nicely on property lines. So you [01:08:31] don't see them when you look out your front window, which is great. But as you come through and look at maybe putting improvements in or anything, they have to shift and adjust. And there's only so many spaces that they can go. Trees are important. There's a lot of mature trees throughout this corridor. And so looking at that and understanding what would these different facilities have an impact on those, that is a piece that we want to consider as we're looking at this. Drainage effectiveness, as we saw, there's ditches out there today. And so commonly with sidewalks, we're going to look at maybe a curb and gutter system. You see that for the north side and the south side, where it's going to collect the water while it's still in the road and take it away, [01:09:07] whereas the ditches would be maintained of what they are today. Also going to look at project cost and maintenance costs, understanding what the upfront cost for the project itself is, but also the longevity of the maintenance cost, what will have to be continued to be maintained for pavement, maintained for ditches, different things like that. [01:09:26] So we have a, we call our high, medium, low situation here, and the colors will kind of start to see why we were recommending the alternative that we are, but as we look through this, typically when you're seeing pedestrian projects, a lot of them are going to be sidewalk improvement projects, especially in a residential neighborhood. [01:09:42] With that, most of the time, you're gonna see a curb and gutter system. So as we looked through each of these pieces, we'll kind of look at the pictures together, but property impacts, we were trying to understand some houses and some properties sit up a lot higher. So to put a sidewalk in, you have to push back in further to tie back in. [01:09:59] So that's a big piece where on our north side, we had more constraints. The houses sit up a little bit higher, some of the yards slope up a little bit more. So you'd be pushing further into the yards just to be able to put the sidewalks in. Whereas on the south side, a little more flat a little more gradual where it's easier to tie back into the properties and you're not really changing the elevations of the yards or anything like that the utility impacts as we talked about we have those poles along the street when we have to move them it's not just one they all talk to each other and they have to be able to help each other stay upright and so it [01:10:33] kind of the trigger effect of moving utility poles and so with the north side because we have a lot of those grading issues it's triggering more and more of those utility pull issues as well so they kind of work in conjunction with each other as you see a lot of those high impacts on the north side and the drainage effectiveness you see effective for all of them we did an analysis of the drainage the existing ditches today are effective they would be regraded if that were to be an option but they work today a carbon gutter system works as well so we don't want to have any perceived notion that any of these suggestions would have an adverse effect to any of the drainage [01:11:12] that's experienced on the corridor today as well. And the maintenance cost, the one thing that we really want to point out here is a sidewalk and curb and gutter, that's generally going to be concrete. It's very easy to maintain. It's a very normal part of maintenance, whereas a paved path has a lot more longevity of needing to take care of the asphalt itself and then the ditches as well, having to clear those out and make sure that they're adequate to convey the stormwater. [01:11:35] so our recommended concept we did see that center one circle that was the south side sidewalk curb and gutter so when you are standing in the road if you can imagine it the project is going to be on the south side or to your right when you're facing east towards eaton place what that means is that the existing roadway it's today is going to stay the width that it is it's not going to widen it's not going to get more narrow but we are going to introduce a curb and gutter just on the right hand side that is intended to collect the water and keep it out of the yards take it along down each of the side streets that go along [01:12:14] norman avenue in addition to that we have a six foot graph grass buffer and a five foot sidewalk this is providing separation and pedestrian safety from the street so getting the pads a little bit up with that curb and gutter and then a little bit separated with the buffer itself and then tying back in to the yards we have a couple of examples of what these look like and so i'll kind of talk through these and this is just to give you an idea of what these would look like in this example here we're actually standing on norman facing west we're actually looking at the intersection of cob and today on the left what you can see is that we have a ditch section through here and what we're proposing is that curb and gutter that six foot buffer space [01:12:54] and then the sidewalk itself so i'm sure you all have seen a lot of these throughout the community but wanted to visualize this a little bit clearer on what we're looking at with this concept i think we do have one more example um facing east but looking down the corridor a little bit more so we have flipped views as we're looking back towards eaton place and just understanding these are going to be coming through not very deep into the yards um they're actually within the right-of-way and they'll go to most of the properties for these sidewalks there's very very little property acquisition needed for these maybe a foot depth in all of them the property lines are set back [01:13:30] very far because of the ditches along this corridor so we're able to remove the ditches place the sidewalk almost on top of where the ditch used to be today which is in the city right of way and complete that pedestrian path okay so that's the kind of the preview of the concept and we do typically like to come and give you all a preview before we take it to the public so that's what we're doing tonight and so the public engagement that we've done for this like I said we have an open house scheduled for tomorrow evening and then as part of that we're also going to put the materials on Engage Fairfax and we've made a substantial effort because this is a really critical decision point on [01:14:08] our on our roadmap we've made a substantial effort to get the word out we have put out a frame signs in the neighborhood we've mailed letters to I believe all of the residents in Cobdale I think about 500 houses it's also just gone out on our general social media it was in city scene so we really want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to weigh in at this point to your to some earlier points that were made of trying to make sure people are aware at this decision point it's never going to be perfect but hopefully we're getting the word out and then like I said we'll come back for to share that public feedback with you right now we're proposing to come back on April 1st to [01:14:48] share whatever feedback we hear at the open house and over the next couple of weeks on engage Fairfax and then there's a going to be decision point for you all of whether we want to move forward with this project based on the feedback that we hear and if we do decide to move forward with this project we tentatively have a plan to look at revenue sharing applications and we'd want to have that information in late spring to decide how we want to move forward so I think that is our presentation be happy to take questions and hear your feedback okay questions comments councilmember Hall thank you [01:15:23] as you all know I live here this has been a very very long time coming I'm very excited to see this very excited for tomorrow night you did a wonderful job presenting I just want to thank you for your information education of all of these different components. And I do want to say that I did receive the letter. I actually had the same thought that this was, I know Cobdell brings along a lot of engagement. This was the most that I've seen and I've heard of from any other project so far. So thank you for doing that and putting the signs out. Those are very, very appreciated. So I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. And vote yes. [01:16:00] Other comments? Council Member Hardy Chandler. I just have a quick question, and this is inspired by my colleague here, Council Member ON SLIDE 8, JUST CURIOUS, WITH THE UTILITY IMPACTS ON THE SOUTH SIDE, IT'S GREEN BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY, THERE AREN'T MANY, ARE THERE ANY IMPACTS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OR ARE THEY COMPLETELY ON THE NORTH SIDE? [01:16:27] THERE ARE THE POTENTIAL TO BE A FEW ON THE SOUTH SIDE. THERE ARE POLLS THAT SIT ON THE SOUTH SIDE TO MAKE THE CONNECTIONS TO THE RESIDENTS ON THE SOUTH. the benefit of a sidewalk is that there are opportunities further along in design to kind of meander around some of those poles as well but there are less poles they're meant to be for connection points so there are still some that exist and that could be the potential to have some that might need to adjust only two or three from what our investigation has shown but there are opportunities design advances to potentially maneuver around those as well so So there's a couple different options. [01:17:03] And is there any thought, potentially, based on the feedback, to move those underground in any way, or is it merely above ground? It's above ground. The poles will be moved above ground. But there are some, if storm sewer pipe is installed underneath the curbing gutter, there are some utilities like sanitary laterals and water services that go from the water main and the sanitary main to the house. [01:17:32] And if you're digging a trench four to six feet to put a storm sewer pipe in, typically those things will have to be moved out of the way. And that's all part of the construction. It's very typical in the city. So in addition to the overhead utilities, there will be some services that will have to be relocated because of the storm sewer system, which goes underneath the gutter. [01:17:53] Excellent. Well, I'm excited about it from a connectivity standpoint, so excited to hear what the community has to say. Thank you. I can just give you a quick sense of scale. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there's 20 utility poles along the north side and I think five along the south side. [01:18:10] Correct. So that's just the scale of what we'd be looking at with the number of utility poles we need to deal with. Yeah. Council Member McQuillan. My question is about the sidewalk style with that buffer. Are we taking any potential street parking for homes or residents there? [01:18:33] So we did look at the parking. and the parking right now is informal. People can park on the shoulder, partway in the ditch. It's not the greatest situation because a lot of times you'll see people parked over the white line, kind of partially blocking the travel lane, so it's hard to quantify exactly what the parking impact is, but there would be less parking than what is out there now in terms of de facto parking. [01:18:57] The other thing that we observed, though, is we went and did a quick survey I think three or four times, and we only saw two or three cars parked at any one time over the course of the you know 6.6 miles so where there really wasn't a lot of on-street parking that we observed the other I can say a few more things about this two other things I'll point out is that there still would be parking on the north side that de facto parking on the shoulder and there may be an opportunity to carve out some parking on the south side if that was what the community desired it's a trade-off of you don't have as many trees that we can plant you don't have that same grass buffer but there would be a potential to [01:19:35] to carve out more parking if that was something that the community felt was more important yeah other councilmember Peterson to build a little bit on councilmember Hardy Chandler's question about the utility poles I just as a general question that's not specific to this project but is it possible and I realize that's a loaded question because it includes costs coordination etc to move utility lines underground and as a matter of practice do we have a a goal for migrating from above ground to below ground? [01:20:15] We have, we undergrounded the utilities in the Old Town area, and there has been some discussion of expanding the undergrounding. But to underground the utilities in a residential street would be extremely expensive, and you would need to put in a duck bank with manholes, and it would be a huge project. [01:20:42] It's typically around $3,500 to $4,000 per foot to underground utilities because you have to underground the power. And then to get rid of the poles, you have to underground the Verizon and you have to underground the Cox. And they all have their own requirements. The planning takes years. [01:20:58] You have to get all these guys together in a room to share where their wires are coming from and where they're going. And then to get the design approved and to procure it. For instance, it took me 11 years just to underground the wires in Main Street because of all the coordination and requirements. [01:21:14] So not only is it really a separate project, it's a huge undertaking. And that's why we really only attempted it in the downtown area. Another general question you raised in terms of the feasibility study, evaluating basically the upfront as well as future ongoing costs and whether you call them maintenance and operation, variable, whatever, this may be actually sort of a budget question as well. [01:21:46] Just help me understand on behalf of others the where and when the numbers are for the ongoing expenses that are involved in these kinds of projects. When we look at a budget item, are we looking at an estimation of cost? [01:22:05] Are we looking at a net present value of everything? Are we just looking at the upfront cost? How should we be understanding these costs? Well, when Public Works puts together its operating budget for concrete repairs, we look at the total amount of concrete we have in the city, we look at the age, and we look at the cycle. [01:22:23] Typically, concrete will last 20 to 30 years. So, you know, we'll take this into our inventory. If this project is built, we'll take it into our inventory. It'll be in our database. It'll be part of our asset management, and it'll be in the schedule. And, you know, sometimes things happen. [01:22:38] If a utility truck drives over the sidewalk and cracks it or something like that, we go in and we fix it. A lot of the small repairs we do in-house, the bigger ones, we put our annual concrete contract out to bid. It's around a million dollars a year to maintain the concrete in the city. [01:22:54] So, yes, you know, it will be part of our operating budget. Going back to the feasibility study, really, out of all the maintenance work, the biggest maintenance is maintaining these roadside ditches because the homeowners can't cut them because they're too steep. There's trash. You get low spots, which then you have mosquitoes breeding. [01:23:13] So really the biggest maintenance cost for a project like this is maintaining the roadside ditches. Great. So you're giving us cost of the project lifetime when you give us cost here is what it sounds like. There's two costs. No, the capital cost, the capital budget is just to build it. My operating budget looks at maintaining the infrastructure. So if my operating budget goes up little bit because this project's built that'll be what you see and do we see both of them together in the feasibility study so we have the up front and the ongoing we could we could put in you know we could easily put an operating cost correct i mean and that's part of what we do when we when [01:23:52] we're looking at that matrix is looking at what is first the cost to build right okay and really to build a sidewalk on either side of the street or to build a path i mean you're talking about pretty much the same thing. What we're talking about is the cost of right-of-way, the cost of utilities. That's what makes the project, the overall project cost greater. And then we look at the maintenance cost. And you can see on that slide why both of the sidewalk options are green and the ditch option is high because of that lifetime, because it's so expensive to maintain [01:24:28] these ditch sections. Not only that, but I would submit to you that the maintenance cost for this new concrete curb and gutter and sidewalk would actually be less than what I'm spending on maintaining those ditches. So even though my operating costs and concrete go up, my right-of-way costs and ditch maintenance goes down. Well, not to be labor the point, but then a point that came [01:25:01] up in a prior conversation was the recognition that while you and we are spending money on these projects, in effect, we're also saving money because we're backing down existing maintenance as well. And that will be on a net basis represented here. [01:25:18] So we... Not necessarily. When we're talking about the cost, we can certainly quantify that. But to be clear, when we talk about the project cost, we're talking about the cost, that one time cost. But somewhere, presumably, in your feasibility analysis, it will be made clear if you are saving funds in the process so people can become aware of that. [01:25:40] It's very easy for us or for our consultant to put in, you know, over a 30-year period how much we're spending on maintenance of this, and we could also put in how much we're saving on ditch maintenance, and that could be in the study. I would think that would be very helpful because part of what we want to try to do is be economically efficient and save money by spending it smartly. [01:26:01] Energy efficiency will be a big example. Final question. These sidewalks, are they designed also for bike use? No. Okay, where do the bikes go? On the street. Okay, do you make any modifications to the street to accommodate bicycling? [01:26:20] Go ahead. So our bicycle plan has identified some roads that are lower traffic, generally lower speeds, that we want people to be riding their bike on the street. And on the previous presentation, we talked about the bicycle wayfinding plan. Part of that would be identifying that route of on-street bike routes. [01:26:39] Now, there are going to be people who ride on the sidewalk because they don't feel comfortable on the street. But what we're encouraging and what we're asking people to do is ride on the street on these, what we're calling the neighborways, sort of the low-traffic, low-speed streets. As opposed to on the busier roads, we do, like on Fairfax Boulevard, we would want a shared-use path totally separate from traffic. [01:26:58] And that would be designed differently. that would be a 10-foot sidewalk or path versus a 5-foot sidewalk. So the sidewalk, if I'm going to guess, and please correct me, isn't inducing any change in biking behavior. [01:27:16] People were already, if they were going to bike, they were biking on the street, and that's not going to change here, although I'm going to guess people are going to cheat a little bit and get on the sidewalks, right? Possibly, yes. Okay, all right. But you're basically saying it's a bit of a separate issue. It is. [01:27:32] I think mostly what we see on neighborhood streets is going to be children. On the busier streets, especially in the corridor where Mason students are going down University Drive, there might be an interest in biking, but maybe not the confidence to bike in the street. [01:27:50] And so then you see more of them on the sidewalk. And we're trying to build out the sidewalks wider so that they can accommodate bicycles on those busier streets. And in a case like this, I'm guessing because of scale, et cetera, it's really not reasonable to try to create both a bike and walking path at the same time where we have the sidewalk as we're doing in these other really high use areas. [01:28:17] It's not something we've discussed, and I don't know that it's something that is not recommended in our plans. I think that would be a different discussion about what the city's goals are for bicycle facilities. Typically when we look at what you're talking about is a shared use path and those have a bigger footprint than the sidewalk It's not something we're looking at for this street It's relatively low volume in terms of where we would put a shared use path We're looking at a shared use path on Germantown Road for instance We have one on Chambridge Road, but Norman Avenue likely wouldn't sort of qualify in terms of needing a shared use path [01:28:53] And so in this case what we're talking about is a sidewalk for pedestrian accommodations and then the bikes on the street thanks Councilmember McQuillan I just have one comment this street too is a connector for a lot of kids who walk to school because Providence is right there in Catherine Johnson Middle School so they will the kids will use it to ride their bikes and all that stuff too but just thought I'd mention that Councilmember Hall if I may we're just happy to have a sidewalk quite frankly [01:29:30] I respect what you're saying I appreciate the push there the suggestion, but we are a very pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, but most people stick to the outskirts because they're scared to go on Norman. You know, there's too much traffic. It's, people don't slow down. Having a sidewalk and just a place to go will be unbelievably amazing for our community. So, thank you. Other questions or comments? Well, I echo that. This will be, you know, if this, if this gets approved for an application on May 25th, it will give lots of reason for [01:30:07] celebration at the Halloween parade in October where they walk up and down Norman. Of course, they do close off the streets to car traffic, but there's a lot of kids and their parents walking through that neighborhood for the Halloween parade. And this is what I hear from them when I'm walking. Why are there no sidewalks in this neighborhood? And what are you going to do about it? Well, now Council Member Hall will be able to tell them in advance. We have done something about it. Thank you. I do think it's important for us to remember that connecting to the schools is really important because kids need autonomy to be able to get around this city. To me, [01:30:47] that is an equity issue. Not everybody's parents can, you know, coordinate their day to pick up and drop off for everything in this city. It creates disparities between kids if they can't get to school and home safely on their own. And I hope that we are always thinking in terms of what is equitable in this city when we build projects like this. And so Norman Avenue, which is a street in a neighborhood full of kids, this is a great investment for our city. And it's going to make that neighborhood very happy. And I just want to thank Council Member Hall for having gone door to [01:31:25] door in 2020 to make this possible because this is what it takes. People have to decide that they want to advocate for something and then they have to go out and they have to do it and it's great to see positive organizing for something it's a happy place to be so um yes council member bates thank you i just wanted to thank council member hall for all your work on this it's really a you know huge value to the community to your neighborhood but also anybody who happens to be passing through the neighborhood as well well we hope to see everyone tomorrow night 5 to 7 p.m in the cafeteria [01:32:01] there we go thank you so much on to the next item lacking the time I meant to bring that okay thank you our last item is discussion on the chain bridge road eaton place intersection improvements when the standard transportation [01:32:22] director will provide the staff presentation ok ok ok final item we are giving an update [01:33:06] on the Cambridge Road Eaton Place intersection improvement project and before we get started I'd like to introduce our team. We have our consultants with Timmins, Nick Susi, and Steve Schmidt. We have David Summers and our city traffic engineer, Kurt McCullough. Purpose of the evening tonight is to review this project, where it stands on the roadmap, to review the project's purpose and need, where we've been, where we're going on this project. The council endorsed design features, highlight what has changed since we last met, and primarily speak [01:33:41] about the tree preservation, maintenance, and replanting plan. Our city urban forester, Anna Safford, had a little bit of an emergency this evening, so she was supposed to be here, but I do want to just let you know that she is not able to be here with us tonight. And then we'll review the schedule and the next steps. In terms of the roadmap, you can see where we are. We have been through steps one through eight. We have done the concept planning. We have developed concept plans. [01:34:11] we have submitted for funding, received funding, waited until that funding came online, kicked off the project, developed new plans, and here we are. So we're many years into this project. And like what we did on the last project, I will run through the timeline. So if you look first at those blue steps one and two, back in 2017 and 2018, this project was included first in the Multimodal Transportation Plan, and then it was approved in the FY 2021 two-year plan. [01:34:46] Then in 2018-19, moving into then the orange steps, we developed a concept plan and had public engagement. We then applied for and received $10.75 million in NVTA 70% funding. [01:35:01] At that time, what we had applied for was a two-lane roundabout. That was the concept plan in 2018-2019 that had been developed. The funding was awarded. We had sort of the break in the road and then in 2022 when that funding came online we then considered some updated concepts and the reason for this is because in those intervening years of 2019 through 2022 VDOT came in and was [01:35:33] building their express lane entrance and added a number of additional signals on Chambers Road We also, the city, installed another signal at Orchard Street, which is now known as Northback Street. So when you look now at how a two-lane roundabout works on that corridor in conjunction with all those traffic signals, it wasn't achieving the goals that we had originally hoped it would. So we looked at updated concepts, and this is when we brought Timmins in and had [01:36:06] them re-look at the intersection. What can we do? One thing to note is that when we had applied for the funding for that two lane roundabout that project at that time was 22 23 million so when we were awarded the 10.75 that was also just partial funding for what we needed at that time so then when when now back to 2022 and we're looking at updates we we also looked at is there something we can do to achieve the goals to fix the safety issues we're going to speak in a few minutes more about what the purpose and need is of this project we looked at is what we could [01:36:42] accomplished potentially with the funding we also we had. So we developed an updated concept and again we'll speak to that in a minute and then we had public engagement on that updated concept and then in March of 2023 the city council endorsed the updated concept. We went back to NVTA to receive their concurrence that we could use the funding we had received for that updated concept because again the funding that we applied for was for a different concept plan and so what they were looking at is to see, does this project achieve the same congestion reduction relative [01:37:18] to cost, which is the primary factor that NVTA is looking for, and funding their 70% regional projects. NVTA, and this was on the city's dime to fund that re-evaluation of the project. NVTA did give us that concurrence that we could move forward with the project. So then move into October of 2024. We had public engagement on that preliminary design. So we took the project, we advanced it into preliminary design. And now here we are in February of 2025, and we are preparing for the public hearing. So the purpose of this update is to bring the city council up to [01:37:57] speed on where the project is in anticipation of holding the 60% design public hearing. And now let me just pause for a second. 60% design public hearing is really a VDOT term. In a project that is funded with VDOT funding in the project manual at the 60% design phase. It is required that a locality hold a public hearing to receive comments on the final design. So it's really like the last bite at the apple in terms of providing comments on design of a project. In order to be more transparent to the public, we hold a 60% design hearing on all projects regardless of the funding [01:38:36] source. So this project is not VDOT funded, it is NVTA funded. Nevertheless, at the 60% design phase we want to have that same public hearing that last sort of opportunity for engagement so the purpose tonight is to preview the public hearing materials and then we would like to go ahead and set that public hearing for march uh next month at this point i'm going to pass it over to nick susie and nick is who we've been working with now since 2022 on this project both nick and steve and i will pass it to them to describe the rest of some more of the details [01:39:12] Thank you. So I guess first what I will say is that as we've just explained we have been at this for three years and so in the different presentations that have been made both to the public and to the previous councils we've covered a majority of this information at different stages along the way in differing levels of detail and so we're going to try to capture the big points here but certainly if there are questions or additional follow-up information that you'd all like to hear about we are happy to provide that. [01:39:39] So the purpose and need, as we call it, is really the why, you know, how we got here, why are we here. And there are a variety of factors, as with any project, and this one is a little bit unique in that we've got a national highway system, NHS, as we call it, route being Route 123 Cambridge Road that connects 66 down into the city. [01:40:04] That not only is an NHS route, but it is a significant arterial corridor that carries 40,000 vehicles per day. So it's a significant regional route of significant importance, and you have it interacting with the local residential traffic that you get as you get to the Eaton Place intersection. [01:40:23] And so it's really a unique blend of different factors, and that blend really presented a variety of challenges and, again, generated the purpose and the need for what we're looking at. And so these are summarized on this slide, and we will come back to a few of these primary points, but as you start in the top left there, level of service and congestion are certainly one of, if not one of the top, certainly one of the top concerns that we are looking to address, and we'll get into more detail, so I'll skip over that one for now. [01:40:56] Intersection conflicts and delays. Delays kind of goes along with that congestion concern, how long am I waiting in traffic, But conflict points are something we've talked quite a bit about. That's just any opportunity for vehicles, vehicles and pedestrians, bikes, whatever it might be, to interact in a way that might generate a collision or a conflict. [01:41:16] The other part of this puzzle is the school bus stops and how children are accessing the buses today. The buses, as they operate today, come from Norman, from the west, make a right down the service road. They stop along Norman, they then stop as they make that right at that first Cobbs Grove intersection, and then they stop again just prior to assembly. [01:41:41] And so if you can imagine a line of vehicles trying to leave the neighborhood on the west side, trying to leave Cobdale, you've also got school buses during that time stopping along the way. And so that was another challenge to be tackled. On that same line, on that side of the road, there are no sidewalks. [01:42:00] We talked earlier about sidewalk along Norman Avenue that would connect up to the sidewalk that we're now proposing. But we definitely heard a lot of feedback about walkability and safe places to walk and not having to jump out of the road when a vehicle comes by too quickly as someone's walking down the street. [01:42:19] Heard a lot and have spent quite a bit of time, and we will present more tonight on updates that are new for this meeting in terms of the vegetated buffers, both on the west and east side of Cambridge Road and within Cambridge Road. and the challenges that exist within those green spaces. [01:42:37] And then we also have spent quite a bit of time and have found that the southbound travel lanes are not in their current configuration adequate for the future year traffic volumes. And so when we first started this, there were three southbound through lanes, a single left turn lane as you headed southbound to Eaton Place since then. [01:43:00] And with the introduction of the signal at the new street there, we did implement, and the city did implement, an interim improvement. So now there are two southbound lanes, as you see in this image, and two southbound left turn lanes. [01:43:15] So we, again, only have four lanes today, but we'll cover the need moving forward. And then access management and intersection spacing is definitely a concern. As you look at this intersection, it's really three intersections in one, quite frankly, and you have service roads both on the west side and the east side of the intersection very closely spaced to Cambridge Road, which present conflicts and concerns there. [01:43:46] Last, and certainly not least, if not most important, is safety. There has been a significant crash history and safety concern at this intersection going back before even the project was submitted in early parts of this project, and we will cover some more of that here. [01:44:05] But again, the three primary points we will jump into a bit. Those are those three. So I'll turn it over to Steve to discuss. All right. Thank you. [01:44:20] So first on operations, this intersection under 2019 conditions was operating at a level of service D. You guys are probably familiar with level of service, but we grade intersections from A through F, much like we do in school. We do include an E in there as well. And generally, anything below a D is considered failing, needs improvements. [01:44:40] But under existing conditions, the average vehicle was taking 50 to 55 seconds to go through. And that's the people that are going straight through or making a left, making a right, coming from the side streets. On average, vehicles were waiting between 50 and 55 seconds. [01:44:57] As we look towards the future, the city is growing, the new improvements to I-66, the new developments, traffic will grow along this corridor. If we do nothing out there, that delay will grow to more than a minute and a half, then it would be a level of service F. Again, some movements would wait much longer, left turns coming from side streets, left turns from the main line. [01:45:17] But on average, vehicles will be waiting more than a minute and a half to get through the intersection. You heard Nick talk a little bit about the crash history. From 2017 to 2022, we generally look at five-year increments in crashes. There's a total of 76 crashes at this intersection. [01:45:33] During that time period, there was one fatality. There's since been a second fatality, which prompted the interim improvements that Nick mentioned earlier. 59% of those were angle crashes, and that's important because angle crashes tend to be more severe in terms of injuries, fatalities, impacts to people's lives. [01:45:52] 21% of those crashes involved in injury or fatality. And it's also important to note that 20% involved vehicles on the making that southbound left, which we then helped to fix with the interim improvement. And a third of the crashes involved vehicles traveling from the side roads into the main line. [01:46:09] We're going to look at a, one of the things we did to help illustrate the challenges that are out there from an access managed and conflict point is we put cameras up at the intersection and filmed all four quadrants of the intersection and then looked through to see what are those, what's going on today. [01:46:25] So right now you are standing looking from assembly out. You see children walking along the sidewalk. They're going towards their bus stop. You see this truck coming around the corner with a trailer. It can't make the turn. The truck is going to stop in traffic and is going to start to back up. [01:46:40] The opposite side gets the green light. They're trying to come across. They can't make it because the truck is blocked, trying to navigate the queue of vehicles. So now we have a backup into Chambers Road while the children are waiting for the bus. You see this one parent and child just stop and wait backwards, a step back. [01:46:57] There will be a second clip coming up in a second. I will note that we have previously showed more than 10 minutes of clips. You know, we've kind of culled that down to just about a minute or two today. Here you've got a bus dropping people off trying to pick up and a vehicle completely ignoring the bus arm coming out. [01:47:12] That vehicle should have waited. Here we've got a queue leaving assembly, and here comes a FedEx driver that just decided he didn't want to wait. He couldn't wait to come around. He's trying to go north, and so he just blocks everything. This is the opposite side view. You're going to see this mail truck come around the corner that wants to turn into assembly and can't make that turn because that FedEx truck is blocking. [01:47:33] Now, we'll admit that the FedEx driver is doing illegal maneuvers here, but there are so many conflict points, so many things going on, the traffic is doing strange and unsafe things, which we see in the crashes here. So eventually, FedEx trucks can get through. The mail truck can come through as well. [01:47:50] So like I said, there are countless examples on both sides of the intersection of things like this. That's just one quick snippet of things we saw out there. So back to the access management side, again, as Nick said, this is an NHS road. [01:48:07] One of the principles and things that we must do is if we touch an intersection that is on the NHS route, we must fix the access management issues. Currently, it does not meet city or state standards. Generally, you want 225 feet. It's required, 225 feet is required from the main intersection as you turn onto another road to the next intersection. [01:48:28] On the assembly drive side, there's about 32 feet of spacing. On the east side service road, There's about 45 feet of spacing. Again, those videos we just saw illustrated that point, right? Those intersections are too close. So if we're going to touch this road, if we're going to do something out there, we've got to look at both sides. [01:48:45] We've heard a lot, can we do just the east? Can we do just the west? No, we need to do the whole thing if we're going to make improvements at this intersection. All right, so that was a very high-level and quick overview of purpose and need. [01:49:01] And as we look, continuing kind of in the process of how this project has evolved, the next step, if maybe we click one more time, was the City Council-endorsed concept from March of 2023. And so as we transition to that, this is the concept that was presented, that was endorsed in the resolution in March. [01:49:21] And this concept included several key design features, but it also came with some recommendations or some commitments for further evaluation. So just to quickly and high level cover the main points of this improvement and the scope of work here. [01:49:38] The first thing is that primary redistribution of traffic with this project is that the service road on the west side serving Cobdale would be converted to one-way. So from the Eaton Place intersection and continuing northbound towards Norman, that would be a one-way maneuver, whereas today it's two-way traffic. [01:49:59] The second and correlating component of that is creating a new exit from the west side of the intersection to the new signal that is created now by VDOT. Again, by making that service road to the south one way, we need the associated exit maneuver there. [01:50:19] The other piece is that this did include, and there was quite a bit of back and forth discussion, debate, and good feedback on the shared use path component of this project, particularly along the west side of Chambridge Road. You can see in this endorsed exhibit the shared use path is on the west side on the neighborhood side of the green buffer space there. So you see the service road text underneath Cobbs Grove and that is the shared use path which is a combination of bike, pedestrian, other uses along that that portion of the [01:50:54] project. We also then included sidewalk which is another important consideration here the sidewalk really serves two purposes one obviously just the general walkability community connectivity and bringing folks from the neighborhood out to the more regional shared use path facility but it also serves to provide access to the bus stops that I mentioned earlier as opposed to having a three different points of stops for the buses the children will now walk actually from the assembly up the sidewalk along the service road to a single bus stop that'll be located on Norman Ave this was [01:51:32] coordinated with county schools transportation folks to make sure that it was reasonable and acceptable to them and it was so this will again condense the number of stops and then the other primary component here as you look to the east side of the Eaton Place intersection those service roads on the east side are now severed and so we clean up again the access management concerns bring the intersection into compliance and reroute that traffic otherwise. Next slide please. With the council endorsement came some commitments for staff to follow through on and [01:52:11] those are listed here. At the time of this endorsement the VDOT signal was soon to come online was anticipated and with that change there was expected to be a shift in traffic flow and traffic patterns, how people traveled to and from the places they need to go, and so the commitment was to, once that signal was operational and in place, let's look at what the numbers, what the traffic is doing, what the numbers tell us to see if were we on the right track, are we actually seeing the traffic redistribute in ways that we would expect it to and as we based our assumptions [01:52:46] on. The second was evaluating shared use path crossing near the Cobdale entrance, and then the Third was ensuring tree preservation through the development of a buffer management plan. And we've got more to share on all three of those things here tonight. So from a traffic operations standpoint, we, as I said before, we project traffic out to future years to look at those things. [01:53:12] And so in 2019, when this project was started, there was projections made about how much traffic would divert to the new signal, how much traffic would grow, that sort of thing. So we went back out once the new signal was open in 2024 and redid the traffic counts out there. [01:53:28] And what we're seeing is that 40% of vehicles that were previously making that red maneuver, that southbound left, onto Eaton to come back up that service road, 40% of that traffic is now making the left that you see in orange. So they're completely bypassing the big intersection that we're talking about, the Cambridge-Eaton intersection, and are using the new signal. [01:53:48] On the outbound movement, we're seeing 43% of vehicles that used to come and make the right turn to head back onto Cambridge are now using the yellow maneuver there, again, bypassing the big intersection. So the traffic counts have validated that there is a shift in traffic going on from what was done before to what is going on now. [01:54:09] And then if you can go to the next slide. So then as we look at projecting out to the future, you heard me say before that a level of service F of a minute and a half is what we were projecting without any improvements in the future. So now in 2040, with the improvements that have already been made and the ones that are proposed with this project, both intersections will operate at a level of service C or B, as in buoy, and we can get that delay down to 30 seconds or 20 seconds overall. [01:54:37] Again, some movements will wait longer or shorter, but overall we're dropping down from that 90 seconds to 35 seconds or 20 seconds at most. The other thing the traffic counts did is verify the lane usage out there. We are proposing two southbound left turn lanes and three through lanes. [01:54:53] Now, generally in traffic engineering, the rule of thumb is that you can serve up to about 300 vehicles in an hour on one lane. When you go above 300, you start to need that second southbound lane. in 2019 we had 275 330 2024 those numbers have come down a little bit because they're getting diverted so we but back by 2040 those numbers are going to then exceed that 370 320 range that second southbound left-hand lane is needed in the future now from a three-lane standpoint we look more at queue how long are those vehicles going to stack back up and wait if we stay with [01:55:30] two lanes that queue was going to extend back 760 feet which as you see there if we if it goes beyond 565 feet it's going to impact that new signal that's the spacing between those so in the future if we hold with two southbound through lanes that queue will back up and impact and block the new signal by adding that third lane we can get that queue down to 300 feet and it will not block that uh the new intersection so traffic counts and projections confirm we do need two southbound lanes through left lanes we do need three southbound through lanes the second point [01:56:05] of validation that i mentioned before was evaluating options for the shared east path crossing on the west side on the cobdale and assembly side of the intersection what you see on the screen here was what was shared with council at that time and and basically shows that we had an alignment that was in gray and black there there was certainly some feedback and some thought that that couldn't be made better and so as we advanced design we wanted to make sure that we spent some more time looking at that we presented two options at the time option one and two on the screen and as we go forward to our current design what you see in that same area of the design is that we have shifted [01:56:45] the trail the path as it approaches the intersection to bring it closer to Cambridge Road to 123 and that will help with a few things most certainly will help provide a better line of site for folks using the path and the vehicles coming through that intersection the other piece of this is that in addition to the shared use path on the west side we received some feedback and have now incorporated a shared use path along the east side of Cambridge Road as well which is the bullet that kind of points down to the far bottom of that exhibit there will now be from the [01:57:21] connection to the Snyder Trail and continuing south will be shared use path along the entire east side of this project as well providing that connection and I didn't mention it before but in case you're not familiar the shared use path on the west side actually continues north off of the screen on the VDOT constructed shared use path that connects to the 66 path so many places you can travel from any of these paths and sidewalks in the project area and the other piece again the sidewalk is still there along the west side and there's some intention here behind separating the more regional users of the shared use pass whether [01:58:00] they're going to or from the city or are out the city 66 excuse me and then those you know school children going to the bus stop or whatever it might be so again we've got two different facilities on that west side with really two different purposes so now kind of bringing us to where we are today what you see on the screen is our current design and the design that's proposed to be presented for the 60% design public hearing many of these design features that are pointed out really speak to and are directly tied back to the purpose [01:58:35] and need items that we covered earlier congestion and delay reduction is really the first one I jumped to there in addition to the conflict point reduction by reducing the number of vehicles through this intersection by rerouting and reassigning traffic flows we as Steve just covered have confirmed that that that congestion and the delays will be reduced similarly conflict points are reduced inherently creating a safer and more user-friendly intersection with less points of conflict less issues of trucks or vehicles blocking intersections whatever that might be continuing kind of counterclockwise the [01:59:14] service roads again are disconnected on the east side of the intersection cleaning that up also providing a nice new green space for replanting which we'll cover we discussed the expanded capacity for the five now lanes on southbound 123 the bus stop location and condensing the number of stops there and then the shared east paths on both the west and east side the one thing that's also pointed out here is the vegetated buffer management plan for the [01:59:46] existing green spaces out here we can cover that and a bit more now so to this point pretty much everything that that we've discussed so far tonight has been covered in some way shape or form or has been previously shared with with either previous councils or the public this is the first time that this full plan is now available we kind of take things step by step once we had good buy-in on our earlier conceptual design as we were working to develop our current 60% design we also had our arborist partners working with us to develop and truly assess all right we've got a more solidified design we know where our [02:00:25] impacts are expected to be let's start looking at tree impacts and what could be done not only in terms of impacts reducing and managing those impacts but actually improving the green spaces that are out here and so our partners at wetland studies and solutions conducted a full inventory and assessment of all of the trees that you see or that are found within the green spaces shown on this map and this is what we're referring to as our tree inventory area and as we go to the next slide you can see here that they inventoried a total of 459 trees that are five inches and larger [02:01:04] in diameter they inventoried many more but really in terms of a reporting and assessment standpoint the the city norm and standard is to look at five inch diameter trees and larger you can see here those trees are in a variety of conditions and these are using typical assessment criteria and ratings based on a variety of factors but what I'll point out there is that about 26% of those existing 459 trees are either in poor or worse condition and that's generally a tree that's going to be looked for removal at some stage or another whether by this project or otherwise [02:01:44] the other part of this is that we now understand the number of trees that we expect will be removed as a part of this project you can see the second column of numbers there 146 of those 459 trees would be proposed for removal with this project I'll point out that there are some dead trees and other poor health trees DC the 36 dead versus only 14 were removing those are trees that were inventoried in areas that are beyond the limits of the project in terms of what we're actually improving and actually in most cases those are actually further [02:02:20] into the county and so right now our plan does not call for removal of those that are beyond the limits of the road improvement work so this kind of assessment is part one part two of this was really how do we preserve and maintain for the future the green space and particularly the buffers that are out there today. As we saw, there are several, many trees that are in poor health, declining health, and are otherwise affected by invasive or non-native species in these buffer spaces. [02:02:54] They really, as a picture on the previous slide showed, frankly are overgrown with vines and other things that really detract from the health and long-term stability of these areas. And so the second part of this plan was developing an invasive and non-native species management plan. [02:03:14] So taking those, how do we address the issues so that we can preserve the trees that are still healthy today and make sure that they continue to survive and do well. And so a plan has been developed and is included in what's being shared at the 60% stage for the areas shown in orange here to do exactly that, whether that's pruning and removing vines, removing invasive species, you know, bushes, shrubs, trees, whatever that might be, but taking a holistic look at cleaning up, for lack of a better term, the spaces that are here. [02:03:50] And then the last piece of that is we're removing many trees, as I pointed out before. We're also removing and cleaning up non-native and invasive species. That really opens the door for replanting. And what you see here is that we are proposing replanting of almost 300 different trees or shrubs. [02:04:09] These vary from two-inch caliper, new plantings, combination of deciduous and evergreen trees, as well as some smaller shrubs. We have some areas, like the area I mentioned with the shared-use path crossing on the west side, where we don't want to introduce tall trees that would block visibility and we want to look for small, low-growth plantings to make sure visibility at pedestrian crossings is still maintained. [02:04:36] And so as we look, there's a lot of details and different typical species to be planted that have been coordinated with the city's urban forester. But as we look at the next slide, this slide points out those spaces where new plantings would be completed. [02:04:54] In the west side buffer, where that blue leader kind of points to the yellow area there, that replanting is really an infill, for lack of a better term, right? We've removed some trees, there are some dead trees and invasives that are being removed, so let's replant new and native species in those areas. [02:05:14] Whereas on the east side, east side of the Eaton Place intersection there, you can see those were pavement areas in our current or existing conditions today that can be replanted and reestablished as green spaces on this kind of focal point entering and exiting the city. So again, those almost 300 plantings are spaced in a variety of locations that you see here, and the preliminary replanting plan is included in our package. So that brings us to really where we are. The main design features and design goals to address the purpose [02:05:53] in need that we covered before are still included in this this design plan we've got this exhibit we've got our 60 plans and then the full tree management non-native invasive management and replanting plans that are all part of the information that's out there and we intend to gather further public feedback on through the public involvement and public hearing process and then real quick budget we still show the project remaining within the total 10.75 allocated by mvta so this again is a important point to make because we have the funding the city has the [02:06:33] funding to advance this project and move it to construction and then lastly um just to give a recap on the most recent public engagement that we completed which again was this past fall engage site for this one and again this is about the fourth iteration of different outreach and engagement we've had with the community but in the time that passed between september and november of last year we had almost 400 visitors to this project site on the engaged fairfax site we also held an open house in october we had 18 people attend that [02:07:10] several of which provided comments and or comment forms the comments i believe we've provided a summary with the package for this this meeting and really what i'll say is there's there was good feedback in the comments that we got about the new signal whether it has changed or hasn't changed people's daily routine and commute there are were six folks who provided comments that were not in favor of the project five that were in favor of the project and a lot of the comments spoke to very specific either property specific or you know my daily commute specific [02:07:49] concerns and and for those that are property specific especially for those folks that live immediately on or adjacent to the project area those are certainly concerns that we look to continue to address and work with those property owners on as we get into that right-of-way acquisition phase that would be upcoming so again we are at step nine looking to kind of turn the corner here and present the 60% plans for the public hearing and as we look at next steps that is exactly what we have scheduled tentatively or currently on [02:08:24] March 25th for this project the right-of-way acquisition process that I mentioned before we have about six properties currently three of which are residential that we expect to need small very small portions of easement acquired from in order to construct this project, we would start that this summer, all moving forward according to plan, and look to start construction of the project next year. [02:08:53] That is all I have. With that, we'll open it up for questions. Thank you. All right, questions. Council Member Hall and Council Member Amos. Thanks for coming out. I have a number of questions, and my apologies in advance, but we're going to go through all of them. [02:09:13] Number one, the lab, sorry, actually, I should probably start with the most important part. the crash history that you presented only went through 2022 what happened after 2022 to 2024 and now 2025 i think that's really important to know because there are a lot of major changes that went on right and including one additional fatality which prompted the second southbound left turn lane as an inner improvement that's incorrect so there was the first fatality cobdale community was begging for a red ball there so that we could turn left safely and [02:09:44] not have to worry about that. And then while the project was in the midst of having the waiting for that second left turn to go, that's when the other fatality came. So it's not a correct statement that that was because of a second fatality. We were waiting for that and unfortunately that person died in the meantime. My apologies for misstating that. It did, yeah, okay. We can, we, that is the five year that we looked at at that time. We can certainly update and include new crash data. We continually look at those. Crashes have continued at the intersection, but we can provide the [02:10:19] updated information. I think it's critical information at this point in time. As far as the delays go, I have suggested this before I was on council, and I'm going to suggest it again now. Please close off the entrance and exit from the Best Western side on Eaton Place. It does not need to be there. As you've shown, there's 43% and 47% that's being rerouted. There's no reason why that needs to be there. [02:10:44] I was told before it's a financial thing and then it's not really because we can just put up temporary barriers that prevent people from going in and out of there. It's done all the time when we have rock the block. We own those things. There's absolutely no cost. And the delay that's coming in and out, sorry, that's coming out of Cobdale could borrow those seconds. [02:11:03] I know we've been through this many, many times on the signals. I still don't understand why if you take away that in an egress and ingress there, why those seconds can't be added to Cobdale, why they would have to go to 123 traffic, that doesn't make any sense. To me, we have the ability to play with this intersection further, and we should. [02:11:25] So the sidewalk. Okay, I'm sorry, my thoughts are a little scattered here, but I will start now with the buffer area. So on this picture, my community disagrees that we need the shared use path and in addition to the sidewalk that's now on the west side. [02:11:49] We love the sidewalk. We're happy for the kids to have a place to go. If you'll recall from one of our early meetings, we actually pointed out the fact that there were schools nearby that were neglected to have been considered in the original plan here. So having that sidewalk, having ExtendUp, having the bus stop at Norman and Chambered Service Road is wonderful. [02:12:09] That shared use path, A, does not need to be there at all. B, if you want to have it there, move it closer on the street side. because now you're talking about lower vegetation that is now going to allow people to continue to see in our neighborhood and to make it louder, make it more visible, all of these things that we don't want. [02:12:29] And there's no reason for that to be exactly where it is. And quite frankly, if I was riding a bike, I would rather be on the inside protected side of a road and then be able to safely cross in front of the assembly to get where I need to go rather than having to then be on a shared use path and stop and turn my neck all the way over here to see if there's a car coming from Cambridge Road. [02:12:53] I think that's silly. I've thought this was silly since the beginning, and I still think it's silly now. And the videos that you showed of the traffic coming in and out, this has been a main point of contention as well, is that when you turn from Cambridge Road South into the service road, for whatever reason, there are now two pillars there that did not used to be there. [02:13:15] I don't know what is under the pillars. I don't know why the pillars need to be there, but it's the most inconsistent right-hand turn pretty much in the entire city. If you just turned it, took that stuff out or relocated it or let us drive over it, there's no reason why it needs to be so awkward because in this picture, you shave it off better. [02:13:34] You close it off. You make it look a little bit like a normal right turn. There's no reason why that couldn't be done now. Okay, so we've dealt with those things. Fix a turn. I don't know what I meant by that one. [02:13:51] So, yeah, there's the cost part. I'd like to point out that this plan was council-endorsed, not community-endorsed. The community asked for a lot of different things that would have made them amenable to moving forward with this plan, and I'd like you to bring you back then to Alternate 1, which took away the shared-use path and combined it into the sidewalk above. [02:14:14] And now I keep being told that, no, no, no, we don't want kids and walkers and bikers all in one place. Well, that's called a shared-use path, and that's what you're trying to put elsewhere in the city. So you can play it one way, and you can play it the other, but let's play it consistently all around. [02:14:33] So, yeah, no shared-use path. Deadly accidents, we already discussed those. As much as it seems important in the lay of the land here to have three straight lanes that now go through down to 123, I'd like to point out that once they cross over this road here at Eaton, they go, I'll call it a half a stoplight at Orchard, and then they come to Route 50, where you have this big, ginormous, I think it's five lanes across intersection, and as soon as you cross over Route 50, you're down to one single lane. [02:15:09] One. so why do we need three straight lanes that comes into five if we're just going to go right back down to one and if you really want to make this intersection safe the safest part of this would be not allowing people to turn left onto eaten and we said this before bring them up to the big 10 million dollar intersection that was put in at fairfax boulevard force them to go up and around don't allow them to use eaten as a cut through that would be the safest thing if that's really what we're trying to do here. And I'd like to know what the cost is to cancel the project. I would [02:15:47] like to know specifically, accurately, what we would need to give back to pay back if we chose to cancel this project. And finally, the Timmons group, you did address that the public engagement was only recent. And I'd like to point out, as I pointed out at the in-person meeting a couple months ago, my neighborhood is tired. My neighborhood is over this. My neighborhood does not want this to happen in most cases, they're also so tired they don't come to meetings anymore because they don't think that it matters. So one of the reasons I ran for council is so I could sit up here and give my opinion on intersections just like this because I think it's important. And I'm sorry if [02:16:24] I'm being aggressive. I'm sorry if I'm being overly emotional about it, but I have personally been fighting this since my sister got married three and a half years ago, coming up on four years. So I've been here every step of the way of every single one of these conversations, And this is not community-supported, this is not community-wanted, and it does not make sense. [02:16:44] And if you had been able to make some of the smaller changes along the way, I think we would have been more accurate, more reasonable, more measurable data to determine if we really need this or not. So, thank you. Councilmember Amos. More recently, and I don't know if you've already addressed this or not or spoken with them, I know the Moose Lodge indicated that they had some concerns specifically with fire safety access and some of the transportation changes since you'd be cutting off that access point from Eden. [02:17:14] Could you speak more on that or your conversations with them? The Moose Lodge has not contacted me. They have the same concerns on that side as we do on our side, which is that it's not working. [02:17:34] I have not heard from the Moose Lodge. There was a comment made, whether it was Representative Daycare or Moose Lodge, I don't recall off the top of my head. was a comment it's in the summary list about access and how that driveway could be or should be reconfigured with the proposed improvements we've not met with them to discuss specific concerns or what adjustments could be made but certainly you know would be doing that as a part of that that right-of-way process yeah I'm not familiar with the daycare I do know that I spoke with a gentleman from the moose lodge whose name is slipping me but I would just [02:18:12] recommend outreach to them as well other questions comments councilmember Bates. Thank you. I personally, you know, I understand the concerns and I've listened to all the concerns that have been out there. And if this was just a matter of convenience or, you know, capacity alone, then I'd say absolutely. Let's, you know, look at scaling this back. But as you all have said, it's a matter of safety. And in terms of the shared use path on the west side, [02:18:50] still fully support that and I you know if it wasn't for the school bus stop there I'd say you know yeah let's look at maybe merging out the sidewalk but if we have an opportunity to put in a separate shared use path and a separate sidewalk that is not for bicycles where the on the side where the bus stop would be then I can in good conscience pass that up yeah I mean at the end of the you know I acknowledge there are a lot of concerns and I wish that we could come [02:19:26] up with the win-win scenario but I think we made the right call on this but I look forward to exploring any ways that we can kind of maybe you know work it a bit further as we go through the process and see if there are you know tweaks that can be made while still accomplishing the the overall objective of the project thank you councilmember McQuillan so I walk through this neighborhood all the time I run there quite often and so I've been following [02:20:01] this project since the beginning pretty much and if this was about safety then that green light that left turn light would have been implemented right away because we didn't do that right away even though we had residents coming out in droves complaining who are sitting they drive by they see those bus stops I do too so I know the discussions that have taken place about moving the bus stop but if it was about safety that would have been done and it wasn't and I feel like it's pretty obvious based off of the testimony here that our residents really know and I understand that there's a lot of testing that goes on [02:20:37] and I understand that we're dealing with professionals in this field but the residents know what they're talking about and I think it's really really important that we include the people that are driving and using these roads and using this area on a daily basis because they know what they're saying That's all I'm going to say. [02:20:57] Questions or comments? Council Member Hall, then Council Member Ambrose. Thank you. I will be quick, I promise. Just to your point about the bus stops, I love Cobdale. We don't have any sidewalks, which is why this Norman sidewalk potential is so exciting for us. [02:21:13] So our kids, they're pretty well used to standing on a random corner on a random part of a street waiting for a school bus. It's wonderful that they're going to have a dedicated place to stay here, And I don't want to take that away from them, but I don't think muddying the waters between we have to put in shared use path here and we have to put in sidewalk here really are important enough to make that difference. [02:21:39] I think they could be achieved in the very short time in which a kid is walking on that sidewalk and standing there waiting for a bus, that it's okay if a bike wanted to use it as well. Council Member Amos? This is more of a question just for my general education. [02:21:56] I was at the community meeting where you all presented. But prior to that, there's a lot of projects in the city. So I guess my main question would be, what are the main or major significant differences between this iteration of the plan and the council approved plan from March of 2023? [02:22:16] I understand that the tree escaping the buffer plan, which is great. But besides that, there's there have not been other major design changes. It really was advancing the design, looking like we talked about the shared east path crossing, providing the shared east path on the east side, which was not there before, and then really digging into the tree preservation side of things. [02:22:40] Yes. Other questions or comments? Council Member Peterson. One piece of the question mark that was raised, what would be involved in shutting down the turn into Eaton Place? [02:22:59] is that possible and if so what's involved in actually making that change are you referring to shutting down the southbound lefts from chain bridge onto eaton place or shutting down i think i'll go back to council member hall who had raised this right and maybe you could explain what you were not just disconnecting service roads but not allowing that southbound left at all especially if we're going to be doing a road diet on eating place at some point so so still allowing rights [02:23:39] onto it rights off just not allowing the southbound left correct that traffic making the southbound left is going to willow wood in the business complexes there especially in the morning There are cycles in the morning where you have 30 to 40 vehicles making that southbound left onto Eaton Place, and the majority of them are going to Willowwood, which is a city business complex. [02:24:18] Other questions or comments? Council Member Bates. So we have the North Facts East-West Roadway that's separately been applied for funding. [02:24:37] Would that also allow left turns from Cambridge Road? No. We did an analysis, and actually Timmons worked on this with us, and this is off the screen, so further down here. And there would not be lefts southbound. [02:24:52] Southbound, there would not be the lefts onto that new road. It would be a right in, right out situation from that roadway. Yeah, yeah. Can you remind me, has what Council Member Hall raised about banning left turns onto Eaton Place been looked at? [02:25:15] Was there a recommendation on that, or has that been looked at? That was not something that we looked at. I don't believe that's something you modeled, either. No, it wasn't something we modeled, frankly, because of the impacts to businesses and local traffic, as Kurt just said. [02:25:38] Yeah, and lastly, the issue of, you know, that modification that's been raised, you know, as far as the traffic signal that has been made, was that the one that we were, Mr. Summers, emailing about where we were waiting for VDOT authorization to do that? [02:25:58] If you're speaking of the change to the dual southbound lefts, that required coordination with VDOT, which we were able to get while they were working on the new signal. And that introduced some of the delay in actually getting that done. [02:26:17] Yeah, yeah, that was my understanding. Thank you. There was an overlap in limits of construction, so we were not allowed to go into VDOT's work area while they were working there. We had to wait until they left. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I certainly, I just frankly don't see also the argument that staff hadn't made this other modification separate from the project. [02:26:47] And so this project isn't about safety. You know, I just don't see it. I don't agree. But especially since that was because we were waiting for VDOT authorization to go forward. Thank you. I'd just like to remind everyone that this design is up until 2040. [02:27:04] It's not just to fix the problem now, but it's looking at the congestion in traffic up to 2040. And these are NHS arterial roads, so it is somewhat of a regional project, not just a local project. [02:27:22] Other questions, comments? Council Member Hardy-Chandler. So just for my education, the upcoming public hearing, how would that information impact subsequent steps since we're at step nine right now? I can take this. [02:27:37] So the public hearing, again, is a final opportunity for the public to make comments on the project. There is not a council action required at this step. The next time the city council would have action is to award a construction contract. [02:27:52] And when we're talking about comments at a 60% design stage, we're really talking about minor modifications, looking at the planting plans. We're not looking at major design features. So that is what the 60% design public hearing is about, and that is what is proposed for late March. [02:28:09] Other than awarding the construction contract, there could be council involvement if we have to condemn right away. We don't see that necessary because we don't need a lot, but if that happened, we would have to come back to council. Councilmember Peterson question to staff the modification to the left turn on Eaton would constitute a major redesign is that right to to prohibit a left this is not something that we recommend doing part of having the [02:28:49] network is having various outlets and to push all of the 40,000 vehicles up to that other signal I think would would be a whole remodeling of this intersection and I also do think it would be detrimental to the businesses and all of that traffic then would have to go to route 50 circle back around on Eaton place and so it's not I mean it is not something we've modeled but it's also not something I would recommend modeling the the other current roads that that traffic would have to take cannot handle that amount of traffic in other words [02:29:25] going down to route 50 and then heading down and taking a left and turning back into that area? It'd be too much? The business traffic heading to Willowwood would have to go all the way down to right 50, make the left, then come back up to either University Extension or to Eaton and make another left and come back through over to Eaton Place when those are just both those locations are only single left-hand turns that do not get much time, and readjusting the [02:30:02] time for a heavier volume would have absolutely detrimental impacts on Fairfax Boulevard, and that is a critical route for our emergency vehicles, and we try to keep it as fluid for them as possible. Well, and I appreciate the clarification. I'm certainly not disputing what you say it just it's helpful to hear this and for others to be able to understand the rationale the other the other important thing to mention is that eaton place is also with university drive extension another access into that economic development area and so we're also removing [02:30:41] that in entrance if someone's coming in that area is redeveloped if someone's coming from the 66 or from from vienna that area and trying to get into this area all of that traffic would be forced down to 50 to access it from Route 50 versus being able to use University Drive extension. And one of the reasons we put University Drive extension was built was to create that grid of streets in this area and create more access and open this up for economic development purposes. [02:31:04] So it's critical, I believe, to have the access from Eaton Place, from, I'm sorry, from Chambers Road and Eaton into this development area. Thank you. Council Member Hall. Just a couple other points. [02:31:20] I think it's important for those on council to recognize that when families now leave Providence Elementary School and Catherine Johnson Middle School, and they come through Cobbdale and they come all the way down Norman, which we're hoping is going to have sidewalks, they will now have to come to this weird little intersection here. [02:31:39] Thank you. They'll have to come out. They'll have to wait. And then they'll have to come out there. They'll have to take a right on 123. They'll then have to wait at another light. then they'll have to take a left onto Eaton and continue to go down that way. People that actually live in the assembly or that live in Cobb's Grove or the people who actually bought the original Cobb family house in Cobbdale, since the Williams family decided to move, they were too disappointed by what the city was doing to them, in their words, as to what was happening to their property. [02:32:10] So all of those people, when they want to come home, if they've gone on the other side of the city, they have to do exactly what you just drew in there, but now they have to take a right again to get back into the assembly or back onto that service road. So I recognize that there are people that are going into the businesses and whatnot on Eaton, but so are homeowners, so are residents, so are taxpayers. So I'm not saying one is more important than the other, but let's not recognize that people are not being inconvenienced by this. [02:32:37] And one final point is that the situation that currently exists at the service road entrance at assembly and 123 is simply being picked up and moved down to the new light there. So when I want to leave Oak Place, I'm now the assembly. I'm no different than them, except I'm coming in from a light, a left now, instead of coming in from a right. So let's recognize again this for what it is. I don't follow that, Ms. Hall. You were actually the one who said this, agreed with me at the previous meeting. We're picking up the situation that the assembly has, and we're moving it over [02:33:12] here to this new light. So now when I want to come in from Oak, I'm now the lady in waiting that no one's going to want to let come in to leave the neighborhood. That's a merging situation versus different directions. And so it's, it's not, it's not recreating the situation at that new light. Over here? You don't agree that this is the thing right here? [02:33:34] No. Correct. That's all traffic moving. Right. So now there will be no one leaving at assembly everyone is coming in the only one that's leaving is that little slip right turn and on the over there that is a merge situation so the problem that's existing right now at the assembly is that you have cars that are trying to leave and coming in so you have opposite direction traffic and that is the conflict that is created there we are not recreating that conflict I want to be very clear about that okay okay I'll give you that this I think is [02:34:14] totally superfluous no one's going to want to sit here and wait through this to then continue everyone's going to go on on norman so to me that could just be plantings as well and i'll maybe i'll make one clarification to your point on the roundabout way to get from the neighborhood we shared information earlier about the no build condition and the delay that would be experienced if the eaton place intersection was the only intersection vehicles were traveling through it I think it was a 91-second average delay for vehicles using that intersection in 2040. [02:34:48] The total, you know, excuse me, if you were to exit along the service road as we have it proposed, the new signal is an average delay of 19 seconds in that same 2040 year, and then the Eaton signal average delay is down to a 34.9. [02:35:05] So collectively, you know, it is, especially if you're in assembly, you are leaving, You are going a different direction. You are, you know, going directionally out of your way. But in terms of efficiency to get through the intersection, we're confident that it would be an improvement. [02:35:21] So just to be clear, you're going from 90 seconds, you said, now to 54 plus? 34, 19 and a half. 34, 19 and a half. So 54 compared to 90. Correct. Okay, thank you. Okay, then I will weigh in with my opinion. [02:35:44] So I've been using that intersection since I moved to Fairchester Woods in 2003. and it is dangerous it is awkward and it needs to be improved for all the reasons that you have gone over and i understand that councilmember hall believes she's representing the 500 homes as not wanting this change however looking at the data from the norman avenue sidewalk we didn't have 100 of the people who could decide on the sidewalk we had some who wanted it some who didn't and some who didn't respond i would posit that out of 500 homes there are people who don't [02:36:20] want it people who do and people who aren't paying any attention to it so I think for speaking for the people who don't want it they are well represented here I like this design I think it has all of the elements that this community wants not just this neighborhood but this city I think the two shared youth paths are important for all the reasons we discussed previously this evening about offering multimodal transportation connecting a shared youth path to I 66 and on the other side, connecting it to what we hope is the George Schneider Trail, gives people opportunities to use something that are not cars. [02:36:58] I would also point out that this is the main entrance to George Mason University off Route 66. No one has talked about George Mason University or the fact that people get off here to go through our city on 123 to get to that Fairfax campus. We owe them something too. [02:37:15] They are visitors, they are students, they are faculty, they are staff, and this is how they get where they're going. So having a safe intersection and having adequate signage and making it safer for people to move through our city matters to them as well as to the residents and not just the people in the neighborhood. [02:37:31] As far as cutting off Eaton Place, people are not going to want to be rerouted, and why would we destroy a grid we're trying to build to make traffic flow easier? Our only Class A office space is on Eaton Place at Willowwood, And we just approved the N29 residential, there's 300 and some units of residential apartments that are going to be built on what is now a parking lot. [02:37:58] And those people don't want to have restricted access to their new home. But they are not here to tell us that because they haven't moved in because we haven't built it yet. So I think when we talk about urban design, again, we're talking about planning urban designs and spaces for people, all people. [02:38:16] And so, in my opinion, this design has the elements not just for today, but going into 2040, the aspects of safety, multimodal transportation, meeting the needs of the people in the neighborhood, and meeting the needs of the people who have not yet moved here. [02:38:34] And so I am supporting the change to this intersection, and I understand that there are people who are not happy with it, but generally that is true of every project that's ever been built in this city since the 1800s, no doubt. [02:38:48] So I am saying, from my perspective, that I think this design has merit, and I think if the public wants to weigh in, they will be given an opportunity, but the fact of the matter is we're at 60% design, it has safety features that I think are important to our city, but more importantly, I think we need to remember people are coming through our city on 123 to get to the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. [02:39:18] and they deserve a safe way to get there. Those are all of my comments. If anyone has anything to add, thank you very much. Okay, I will now reconvene the special meeting. [02:39:38] And in doing so, I am going to take us into closed session. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com