Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Transportation Committee, Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 56m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2784
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:16] Okay, I think we have a quorum, or yeah, we have just about everybody. Go ahead and call this meeting of the Board of Supervisors Transportation Committee meeting to order. We have a couple of substantive items to discuss today. The first thing, though, is the summary of the January 31, 2023 meeting.

[00:00:37] Any changes or additions to that summary? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to the next item. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Bishadny. This is the additional $100 million for active transportation access and safety improvements.

[00:00:54] I believe transportation staff has spoken with just about everybody at this point. So, Mr. Bishadny, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Tom Bishadny with the Department of Transportation. This is a follow-up to the action that the board took last year to identify $100 million for additional bike and pedestrian safety improvements and access improvements.

[00:01:22] The board approved the first $5 million back in November, and this is the next $25 million that you included in the carryover package last September or October. So Michael Garino is going to start the presentation and walk you through the details today.

[00:01:39] Thank you, Tom. Hi, I'm Michael Greeno, Chief of the Capital Project Section. I have with me here Nicole Winans, Senior Transportation Planner in our Active Transportation Team. Lauren Del Mar, Active Transportation Programs Manager, is unfortunately unable to be here today, but we'll move on without her.

[00:01:56] Okay, just as a reminder, as you all know, you are seeking $100 million for Active Transportation Access and Safety Improvements. We've already allocated the first $5 million. We will be presenting proposed allocations to the board for the next $25 million on April 11th.

[00:02:15] And then you also asked us to develop a prioritization methodology, which we've done, and that process is ongoing. So just to summarize what happened back in November 2022 with the allocation of the $5 million, the board approved $1 million each for the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services and for the Park Authority for trail maintenance.

[00:02:39] We approved $2.7 million for low-cost crosswalk improvements, and we've been coordinating with VDOT to help expedite those projects. VDOT has actually agreed to implement four of their projects for us, and then the county will be implementing the remaining 13. It also included $200,000 for a local cast match for the Transpiration Alternatives Program Grant for the Bush Hill Elementary School Safe Routes to School Sidewalk.

[00:03:04] And then finally, we had $100,000 for speed feedback signs for the police department. So I'll go over real quick where we are with our prioritization process. We've completed steps one and two, where we took our spatial analysis tools and applied them to approximately 2,800 unfunded projects and project requests.

[00:03:24] And then we worked with your offices to make sure we've captured any priority projects that we knew about that weren't captured by our spatial analysis. And we've moved on to step three, which is where we are now, where we're doing a further prioritization review. We're looking at network connectivity and proximity to trip generators to help prioritize with the ultimate goal of getting to step four, where we've got a workable short list where we'll do a more detailed evaluation where we'll look at things like cost, constructability, environmental factors, and that's where we plan to do our public outreach as well.

[00:03:56] We are delayed where we want it to be, mostly just because of the volume of projects we had and the different data sets that the unfunded projects and project requests were in. In addition, the list was unvetted, So it's just taken us a little bit longer to go through that than we thought.

[00:04:13] But as a result, that's why we're going to break out the $25 million that's available now. We have enough priority projects that you all have identified that we know about that we can now allocate $25 million and avoid any further delay with that. Our goal now is to conclude this process before the fall so that we're ready to go if there's any money available at the carryover process.

[00:04:41] Okay, so now I'll move on to the $25 million with our proposed allocations. The total amount available is $25,208,830, and attachment two in your packet has the detailed list. I do want to note we had originally intended to use $6 million of this money for a Safe Streets and Roads for All grant that we applied for.

[00:05:01] Unfortunately, we did not get that grant, so we've put that $6 million back into the proposed allocations to projects and other things. We will be applying again this summer for the next round of funding, and we'll keep you posted on that. There are two allocations of boards already approved.

[00:05:17] Back in November, we did approve -- you all did approve $2.3 million to fully fund the crosswalks that were approved as part of that package in November 1st. And then back in February of this year, $400,000 was approved to cover our Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons or RRFBs to cover our instant response and repair and replacement of knockdown RFBs. And that $400,000 will cover anticipated costs through FY 2028. We've also included money for three existing projects. One's Blake Lane and Bushman Drive pedestrian intersection

[00:05:57] improvements. This is one that we did include in the Safe Streets and Road for All grant that we didn't get, but we would like to go ahead and fully fund this project as well. And then there's two other projects, Beverly Road and Old Dominion Drive pedestrian improvements and Elm Street and in Old Dominion drive pedestrian improvements, they both need additional funding to complete.

[00:06:15] We do have proper money on both those projects, but we all need additional funds in order to complete, and they're both in design right now. We're proposing a new round of low-cost crosswalking projects with $4.45 million going to those. These were considered when we looked at the $5 million allocations, but not selected.

[00:06:35] And then we have a list of other priority active transportation projects that the Board has previously identified. They include Lockheed Boulevard from High Ablow Valley Elementary School to Huntley Meadows Park. This does include the gap that north along Harrison Lane, Gum Springs Trail, which is a park authority project.

[00:06:52] And both of those projects were put forward in board matters on August 2nd and 2022. We have a project on Route 7 westbound from Magnolia Lane across the Liberty Gas Station frontage just around the Colmore area. There are crosswalk improvements at Vail Road and Flint Hill Road, Columbia Pike and Tyler Street.

[00:07:14] There's preliminary design for a total road trail connection to Hillside Road, intersection and crosswalk improvements at Rolling Road and Grigsby Drive, Fairlakes Boulevard and Sedgehurst Drive. We've included projects from the West Falls Church Metroville area and Huntington Metro Rail Area Active Transportation Studies.

[00:07:33] We have intersection improvements at St. Germain Drive and Macon Road, and then a couple crosswalk improvements along Eskridge Road. We're also asking for money for consultant support. This is to help us with the prioritization process, to help us with scoping the projects once they're funded as part of this $25 million allocations.

[00:07:53] And then we do need money also to do some road diet studies for the summer repaving cycle this summer and for next summer. And then the Park Authority has some pedestrian bridge replacement repair they need to do, so we're proposing $400,000 for them.

[00:08:11] Their list includes two projects they can design and construct this calendar year, and then several other projects that they can do design, and the idea is if we have money available to carry over this fall, we would ask for construction money for those projects. And then finally, we're proposing the balance of $788,830 to use as contingency for project potential cost overruns, since we have planning level estimates on a lot of these projects, And they could be used for a local cash match on things like transportation alternatives or Safe Routes to School grants that will be coming up this summer.

[00:08:50] Our next steps for the $25 million is we want to finalize the list. And then we'll be presenting it to you all on April 11th. And then once approved, we'll start scoping those projects and forward them for implementation as soon as possible. And we'll be continuing with the prioritization process, as I described, with the goal to get everything done by fall of this year.

[00:09:10] So we'll have a list of prioritized projects if there's money available at carryover. Feedback we're seeking from the board today is, are you all comfortable with the next steps to allocate the $25 million? And are you comfortable with the draft list of allocations? All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[00:09:28] My short answer is yes and yes, but I think we'll probably have a few more. I do want to just acknowledge, first of all, I'm so happy we're doing this. And I do want to acknowledge Supervisor Faust and the chairman for committing your leadership in getting this $100 million additional committed because we're kind of dead in the water for a while, and this is really making this happen.

[00:09:53] So thank you very much. And it's also pretty clear, I think we all have a pretty long list that we know in our heads, if not in our offices, of additional projects. So this is a good start, but it is, I think, just a start for what we need to do.

[00:10:10] But thank you. Chairman? Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. And just looking at the projects on here, I mean, all of these are so important. And we know the list, as you said, is a lot longer. So we got to get these done. Appreciate the staff work on this for sure. And I'm yes, yes on the two questions, obviously.

[00:10:28] I guess the question I have is several times we referenced this grant that we did not get. Do we know why we didn't get it? Yes, actually, there were some debriefings and some meetings held after the fact. I'm sorry, going to my notes here on those.

[00:10:49] We did okay. We were rated acceptable overall, but that was category three out of four categories, so we could do a couple more. And the feedback we got was basically more data to support the claims for safety improvements, equity, and countermeasures, proven countermeasures.

[00:11:05] Also, project readiness was a concern. We had really looked to focus on the grant was structured as a way to have a plan in place and then show your implementing plan. So we were really focused on showing how we were referencing back to our active transportation plan.

[00:11:21] And we decided to pick routes to schools, which was a component of the Safe Streets and Safe Streets for All program recommendations. And so we were really trying to really tie that back and have our policy argument based on our policy documents. But it turned out as they reviewed it, they were looking at readiness and more details on how the actual projects would improve safety and access.

[00:11:47] So we can re-strategize and redo that. We'll probably need to look at projects a little further along the pipeline next time around, but we're already working on that, and we'll be ready to go this summer. Yeah, I really appreciate that because DOT is so good at braiding funds together and, you know, making sure that we position ourselves well for these grants, and I know we did.

[00:12:09] And so, you know, why we didn't is important in terms of, you know, the data you're collecting and some of the scoping work that you're doing now and making sure that because the need list is so long, as the chairman said, you know, this $100 million commitment the county board has made over a number of years is really important.

[00:12:26] but we're hoping that $100 million turns into a lot more by getting some of our funding partners at other layers to help support some of these projects, too, and get to even more of them. So I really appreciate that, but well done. All right, thank you. Mr. Chairman, Supervisor Paul Cech down there.

[00:12:42] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and completely second the chairman's remarks. And this is incredible. I feel like I think there were so many projects, and the fact that you were able to use the methodology, It used to be equitable to look at both the need, the community need, the highest need, and start chipping away.

[00:13:01] And it was just chipping away a little bit and moving forward. So yes, totally supportive. And then just a couple of follow-up questions. The first one, it's maybe just a reminder. The second item, which I love, is the RFB response and repair. As you know, I've lived along Prosperity for 30 years, and it's the first time people actually stop for people on the trail.

[00:13:21] with RFB is so, so successful. So remind me, have we looked at putting them across the cross-county trails and other trail crossings that don't really have them? Is that in part of the plans? It's not part of the plans.

[00:13:38] I don't know of a specific example. I know we have one planned, I believe, at the W&OD trail at a location in Reston. But that is certainly on the table, and as part of our prioritizing process, we can look at those and look at -- and I see those would have good regional connectivity, obviously, and a safety benefit just because of cross-country and jail use and things like that.

[00:14:01] So that is something we will look at. Okay. So I would appreciate that. I don't know, Mr. Chairman, if you're open to that. I think you've got quite a few of those as well -- is for our regional trails to kind of review as we go into the next tranche, especially, or other funding streams how to target additional RFBs and other ways to improve that safety because I think it seems to be very effective.

[00:14:23] So I appreciate that. And then I appreciate that we have the bigger projects and then the smaller ones. I think that's a good way to kind of balance those. And I love that we now kind of have a time frame. So I think my only next question, to the point of we know there are so many more projects that we've been working with in our community in the pipeline, I don't know if you want to say it here, kind of follow up with us. It seems like we have more of a process and timeline now of how to do this year to year. So if you can share a little bit with us and maybe just follow up with something we can have internally and share with our community so there's more understanding of that. Yes, I'll go back to the prioritization

[00:15:02] slide. I do have some time frames on there. So what we're looking to do now is step three is between now and June, work with you all on developing that short list that we would then move into step four, and then that's when we'll be developing cost estimates, looking at constructability, things like environmental factors, reaching out to the public to then come back in the spring.

[00:15:23] Is that what you're referring to? Is that the yearly, was kind of the recurring timeline on this? So, Supervisor Palachuk, after the list is evaluated at the end of this year, then the list will be prioritized at that point, and then each time there's funding available, the top projects can just be implemented from there.

[00:15:43] So this prioritization process will kind of deal with that whole 2,800 projects. So you won't have to go through that every year. It'll be just, okay, we've got a new pot of money. Here's how much we can fund out of this priority list.

[00:15:59] Okay, and of the $100 million, are we expecting to do the $25 million a year, and then we'll kind of look at the next tranche each time? It depends on how much money might fall out through the various budget reviews. But to Tom's point, at the end of the prioritization process, we'll have a list of projects targeting the $70 million coming out of $100 million.

[00:16:22] And then that can be updated as we need to. So that will be the full list because it's just the immediate list. Right. So what we have right now is the immediate list for the $25 million that's available. By the time we come to the fall, the intention is that we can use this list for the $70 million as it comes in over the next few years.

[00:16:38] Excellent. You will share with us clearly when there's an opportunity for public input on the full list when that comes up. Okay. Excellent. Thank you so much. Very exciting. Okay. County Executive Hill. Thank you, Supervisor Walcorn and Supervisor Palchek.

[00:16:55] We'll be looking at this at their quarter, so whenever we have funding available to get to the $100 million, that's how we're going to allocate those funds. And thank you for your – thank you. Okay. Supervisor Faust. Yeah, I just want to say, I think it was very well done the way you pulled this all together, and it looks like a good result.

[00:17:20] I just, you had two questions. I'm very supportive of the next steps and the draft list of projects. Thank you. Supervisor Lesk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll agree with my colleague here to my left.

[00:17:37] I agree with both items, yes and yes. Can I ask on the point you made about the data, needing more data for the projects, is there a need for us to use technology or something else to help you in sourcing the data that would help make our projects more viable?

[00:17:57] It's basically what we're doing. We use step one. We had a couple tools we talked to you about in the past. As part of the active Fairfax Transportation Plan update that Nicole is leading, they developed a demand tool and a needs tool. So we use those to kind of weed through the list of 2,800 projects.

[00:18:16] We came out with a list of about 600 looking at top priorities and needs and demand. But a lot of that was we've got a lot of raw requests that have been accumulating over the years that we just haven't had staff capacity to go through and keep up with. And the idea was we would use the tool to help that first part of the vetting, so that was very helpful.

[00:18:37] But then we did have to go through that list of 600 and do a high-level vetting. Some projects might already be built because of raw requests. Some might just be infeasible. It's a lot of duplicate projects, things like that. So we've got the list down now to a bit over 400, And then we'll be working with step three to get that down further.

[00:18:55] And step three is a combination of a GIS analysis and more kind of staff person looking through because it's a little more detailed. And then, but the idea is we're using technology to get from the 2800 to a manageable list. When we get to step four, we're looking at cost estimates, constructability, environmental factors.

[00:19:14] Long term, what we'd like to do is have a more automated process for intaking project requests and a better way to kind of bring them in. in a more systematic matter as we're going through this process we're keeping a list of ways we can improve and expedite in the future and different ways to do it so it'll speed it up so so we're we're using technology as best we can i think there's areas where we can do it more but overall the process is working the way we want it to it's just taking longer than we than we thought i think the question was to see if there's something else that you might need in

[00:19:49] in terms of a tool or method, just trying to see if there's a way to help you be able to substantiate the projects even better. Okay, I'll talk to my team, and we'll certainly let you know. Supervisor Gross. Thank you. Back in, I think it was 1999, we had federal funding.

[00:20:10] As I recall, it was a million dollars to the county, and we each office got $100,000. I can't imagine. We actually got some things done, but each office was able to determine which project we wanted to do, and we actually got it done.

[00:20:30] But it takes too long. We can have all these wonderful plans, but we need to get the dirt turned. And I am not surprised that we didn't get the grant because we didn't have essentially shovel-ready projects. It took me 14 years to get a trail along Elmdale Road.

[00:20:47] It's taken 37 years to get the sidewalks on Sleepy Hollow Road, which are under construction right now. 37 years. It wasn't all the county's fault. But, and we still have a lot of opposition to sidewalks along Sleepy Hollow Road, but it's under construction.

[00:21:11] I'm really, really pleased about that. There are two projects on here in Mason District, both of which were the locations of tragic deaths. And I'm wondering, we don't want to use these tragedies to move things up in the queue, but is there any leverage given to, you know, moving things along more quickly because we have had pedestrian deaths in certain areas?

[00:21:46] Perhaps that's more of a retard. You may want to think about that, but it's something that, and I think, Supervisor Palchuk, you had the same situation in Providence District. I think we've all had terrible issues over the last year or so, and that's why some of these are actually, I think, on the list right now.

[00:22:08] But is that a factor that we should include in the urgency for some of these projects? Supervisor Gross, I think the answer to that is unequivocally yes, is that there are several projects on this list that are here as a result of incidents and fatalities that have occurred in your district in several areas.

[00:22:29] Yeah, so we really need, I know we need to have the planning, but once we've done the planning, then you've got the engineering, and then you've got the land acquisition, and then you've got the, you know, letting the contracts, and eventually you'll get to construction. but it could be years away. So we need to find a way to move that more quickly. Thank you.

[00:22:53] Thank you, Supervisor Gross. Okay. If no other comment, oh, Supervisor Stork. First off, yes and yes. Thank you. Just had a question on the rapid rectangular flashing beacons. And I understand the criteria for what I think is an incredibly effective way of protecting pedestrians, is that it has to be in a 40-mile-per-hour and above area.

[00:23:22] Is that accurate, and is that state required, or is it something else that we can't go less than that? I believe we can go less than 40 miles per hour, but I apologize. We'll have to get back to you on that. Lauren is our expert on that one, so this is where we're disadvantaged because she couldn't make it.

[00:23:43] But there is set criteria and countermeasures. And so it starts with looking at a crosswalk, signage, you can go up to RFB, sometimes a median refuge and combinations of that. So we do follow that. VDOT's got guidelines on that.

[00:24:00] And then you can go even up to a pedestrian hybrid beacon, which is a signal, which we call those HAWC signals. I don't believe it has to be over 40 miles per hour, but we'll have to double check that and confirm that. I apologize. Yeah, that was my understanding is that, again, I think HAWC, I think they work.

[00:24:17] I've seen them, particularly in the district. I haven't seen any for us, but I know that we're looking at that in a couple places, and I'd encourage us to take a look at that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for the presentation, all the great work. Look forward to moving forward with this.

[00:24:35] Okay. Let's move to the last item on the committee agenda. This relates to the Transportation Planning Board's long-range plan. It's like we just did the long-range plan, but it comes up every few years. visualize 2050 and the 2025-2028 transportation improvement plan discussion and I look forward to this this is something I believe we had spoken about briefly at the committee before but Supervisor Walkinshaw and I serve on the TPB and there's a lot of discussion regionally about this

[00:25:15] process um in particular how's it how it relates to our climate goals so we'll be i think hearing more about that and then have the opportunity to ask questions and provide some direction so mr bishadny thank you chairman uh walking uh chairman elkhorn um different committee sorry yeah he's going to be chairman of the other thing one day yes tpv that's that's what the chairman elkhorn um this is a follow-up to the presentation that we did um in january 31st to the transportation Committee. Additional information has been included, including some potential projects that

[00:25:52] could be added, and we wanted to discuss those with the Board, and also some suggestions on public outreach process to review these before they're adopted, or before they're considered by the Board for formal submission in June. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Malcolm Watson for the presentation. Good morning, Chair Alcorn and members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Malcolm Watson. I work in the coordination and funding section of the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, and I'm going to do a brief presentation on the Transportation

[00:26:31] Planning Board's Visualize 2050, the region's long-range transportation plan. I'm going to go over briefly what is Visualize 2050. It's the region's long-range plan. Talk about the project lists that are in the plan. Have a brief discussion on climate change mitigation, and talk about the timeline and some public outreach events, and then we're going to wrap up with some questions.

[00:26:58] Visualize 2050 is the region's long-range plan. It is a federal requirement that the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is the Transportation Planning Board, develop the region's long-range plan. Essentially, this plan is a collaboration between the TPB and member jurisdictions to tackle transportation-related challenges and advance strategies and projects that move us closer towards obtaining the region's transportation goals. The plan is currently underway. The update of the plan is underway. On February 15th, the Transportation Planning Board announced

[00:27:35] the call for projects, so we are in the throes of updating this plan. This plan is different from past plans as we're on a, what they're calling, zero-based budget process whereby all the projects in the plan are removed from the plan, and the jurisdictions have to ensure that projects that will go into this plan are in alignment with TPP's planning priorities and goals. TPP developed two lists of all the projects in the plan. One is exempt list and another list is non-exempt. In this plan, there are many projects. There are maintenance projects.

[00:28:15] There are also projects related to the cost of funding a transportation, the operation of a transportation asset. But in this plan, we're going to focus specifically on regional significant projects. And these are projects that are located on transportation facilities that provide a significant alternative to traveling on the region's highways. These projects can be located on principal arterials, or they could be located on a fixed guideway transit system. The example list of projects in the plan include projects that are currently have funding on them or they're

[00:28:52] under construction. And these projects do not have to be compared against TPB's planning priorities and goals. The non-exempt list of projects are projects that are still in the development phase and these projects don't have funding on them. Additionally, any member jurisdiction that wants to put any new project into the plan, that project must also go into the non-exempt list as it must be compared to TPP's priorities and goals. For our part, we're going through the comprehensive plan and the transportation priorities plan and we're identifying projects

[00:29:32] that might be considered to go into visualize 2050 with your approval and these projects include but they're not limited to the route 7 bus rapid transit the orange line metro rail extension the yellow line metro rail extension to hyper valley the i-495 south side project the i-495 counter flow express lanes and seven corners and these are just some of the projects that we've identified in our comp plan and the transportation priorities plan that we think might be considered

[00:30:03] for this round of Visualize 2050. For this transportation plan update, the TPB is also considering climate change mitigation. The TPB passed a resolution that adopted two goals for climate change mitigation to reduce greenhouse gas on on-road transportation. The first goal is 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, and that goal matches the county's climate energy action plan. The second

[00:30:35] goal is 80% below 2005 levels by 2030. That goal doesn't quite match the county's goals, but we're all moving in the same direction. Most of the jurisdictions in the region are supportive of TPP's climate change mitigation goals as we're all moving in the same direction, just not all at the same pace. The TPP also adopted two sets of strategies. The first seven strategies will be considered as we're moving projects into the region's long range plan. The second set of strategies, the TPB said they wanted further discussion. The Transportation Planning Board

[00:31:14] will hold two listening sessions. And later in March, we believe that it's going to be on March 29th. They don't have the time. These sessions will be virtual. And essentially what these sessions are going to entail is the TPB is going to listen to the process and approach that member jurisdictions have for re-examining projects that will go into the plan. And then board members will have an opportunity to ask questions or express any concerns they have about any of the projects in the plan. For our part, we're proposing to have two public outreach sessions for Fairfax County

[00:31:51] residents. One will be virtual, one will be in person, and we're encouraging our residents to give us feedback by April 28th, and we're going to direct everybody to go to Visualize 2050, the website, as TUB has already set up a public participation process and platform to receive comments. After we receive all of those comments, we're going to bundle them up, and late in May, we're going to come to our board, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, for your endorsement

[00:32:25] of both lists. There are some key milestones that are going to happen with Visualize 2050. All preliminary projects must be submitted by June 30th. So up until maybe early June, both lists, the exempt list and a non-exempt list, is going to be dynamic in nature. We're currently making changes to both lists and we hope to be complete by early june as we move into the fall the tpb will have a public comment period on the air quality conformity analysis and the scope

[00:33:00] of work and the plan and as we transition from the fall to the winter in november the tpb will approve the air quality conformity analysis and that scope of work i mentioned at our last meeting that the air quality conformity analysis takes about at least eight to nine months to complete So after that's done, in October of 2024, the TPB is going to have another public comment period.

[00:33:26] And if all goes well, we hope that the Transportation Planning Board will approve Visualize 2050 in December of 2024. So with all that said, we have a couple of questions for you, and we're open to questions as well.

[00:33:44] Is the board comfortable with the county's two public outreach events scheduled for April? And the second question is, do you guys have any questions about any of the project inputs thus far? All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Watson. Mr. Bashad.

[00:34:00] Before you answer those two questions, just as you look through the two attachments, there is a significant cleanup that needs to be done with those attachments in terms of some of the endpoints and some of the delivery dates. We know that. We're working on that.

[00:34:15] And before we go out to any public meeting, we will have these updated for you. So you may see some differences in terms of endpoints. There's a couple of duplicative projects that need to be combined. So I just wanted to let you know that we are working to clean these two lists up.

[00:34:34] Okay. Thank you, Tom. And before I open it up for questions or comments, just as a little bit of background, I know Supervisor Walkinshaw is very aware of this, But there's a lot of discussion regionally about this process. And what we've got is a long-range planning process that, in effect, was designed to address local air pollution issues, smog, you know, the constrained plan.

[00:35:00] And then in parallel with that, we have climate goals that TPB has endorsed, and we have climate goals here in Fairfax County, too. What we're all sort of trying to figure out now is how those two come together. So just for everybody's background, we're seeing a situation where the inner jurisdictions are like no new road projects at all.

[00:35:23] And then the outer jurisdictions are like, oh, my God, we've got these road projects. We've got to do these. Our traffic is horrible. So we're kind of in the middle, and I think it provides Fairfax County the opportunity to maybe demonstrate a way that we can bring those two together as we go through this process.

[00:35:43] So I'd encourage folks to be thinking about that as we move forward. So, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, very briefly, I appreciate that point because you can literally see it in these meetings. And the same thing happens at NVTA and some of the other organizations as well.

[00:35:58] And I think we just need to recognize that we have pieces of the outer county and pieces of the inner counties in Fairfax County. And so we literally are sitting there with concerns both in terms of balancing roads with other transit pedestrian improvement projects.

[00:36:16] And so we are in a good place for making sure that there's a recognition of the importance of both road projects and multimodal projects. I guess the only question I have directly related to what you've asked us, in terms of the two public outreach events, we don't have the dates in April, but I notice the comments on the project list are due April 28th, and so I just want to make sure there's enough time between the public information sessions and give people enough time to be able to submit their comments.

[00:36:48] Some may have them before the public information sessions, I get that, but there also will be some who will be hearing this for the first time at those two public information dates. And so I'm sure a lot of comments will be collected at those sessions, but we do need to make sure we've left some time between the final public information meeting and April 28th.

[00:37:07] And it seems like a pretty tight timeline for people to be able to submit their comments. And I realize that April 28th date is driven by TPB, not by the county, and that ultimately we then will be making our endorsements on May 23rd. So we have time between, we'll have plenty of time to look at all the comments.

[00:37:25] I just want to make sure that people who are commenting also have plenty of time to do that in between. So probably the earlier in April we can get those dates set, probably the better. Mr. Chairman, assuming that after this committee you all have, you're comfortable with what we're proposing, and we'll go ahead and get those scheduled right away in early April.

[00:37:43] Excellent. Thank you. And remember, there's spring break that week, which a lot of people will be out of town. Of course, we've got budget public hearings for three days, so there's not a lot of dates in early April left. Yeah, that's another reason to make sure we get those cemented.

[00:37:59] And the other thing to keep in mind is one of these is virtual. So while we do have those complications, I do appreciate that we're doing one in person and we're doing one virtually to make sure anyone can participate in it. Okay. Thank you. Let's start down here. Supervisor Palchuk and NVTC Chair Palchuk.

[00:38:18] Thank you. First of all, is this your last committee meeting, Mr. Brashadney? Yes, it is my last transportation committee meeting. I'm sure you're dreading it. I was saving that to the end. Sorry, sorry. No, and actually it was interesting because hearing those comments and let me start with your question first.

[00:38:39] So I think I understand the constraints with the time. I think ideally, I would have loved to see maybe a North County and a South County in-person meeting. But I appreciate that we have the online one. And I haven't gone on the website recently. If there's not a-- so visualize in this.

[00:38:56] I know Supervisor Luss wants to make sure we are good at visualizing. So if it's not already there, if there is an easy way to just show this visually-- the map's just very easy. like this is where they are on, you know, superposed on a GIS county map. I think that would be helpful.

[00:39:13] Most of us can visualize them, but that would make it a little bit easier. Number two, yes, I think extending the deadline and really making that platform be an easy way to communicate with people. And I'm assuming we'll have it in all the languages. Definitely, I think Spanish would be really, really important for this.

[00:39:32] We typically have been doing Spanish and Korean as the top three with English. So we can make sure we do that on this. Okay. Yeah, at minimum, I think that would be very, very important. And then with my MVTC hat and thinking about where we are in the between counties, as you see, I know Vice Chair Gross appreciates that I've joined her inside the Beltway, but many aren't.

[00:39:59] So I think it's really exciting that we're considering, and I would support BRT7 because it brings the dedicated bus lanes. And we're talking about reducing congestion and using these roads to more easily have the multimodal. I think it's not super helpful when the buses get stuck in traffic for people to give up their car and opt for the bus. So I don't know. I guess my first question was going to be, is there a designation under the TPB guidance for dedicated bus lanes, or can we just add that as we look at the C-CAP goals

[00:40:38] and the air quality goals to try to reduce car use on roads? So when we submit the Route 7 project, we will indicate where it will be running in dedicated lanes versus where it will be running in mixed traffic.

[00:40:54] Particularly in the City of Falls Church, it will be mixed traffic, but in the county, we think it will be in dedicated lanes. So that will be part of the submission. Okay, that's excellent. And I don't know other parts, but do we have any other projects or these widenings that could incorporate dedicated bus lanes or mixture potentially?

[00:41:14] Okay. So to me, that's just another one. I think an opportunity as we look at this in between areas where, yes, I think I love extending orange and any lines. It will be wonderful when they happen. But in the meantime, those dedicated lanes and support of the multimodal would be great.

[00:41:31] but thank you all right thank you supervisor paul check uh supervisor lusk uh thank you mr chairman my question is just on uh slide six um it talks about potential additional projects i think this is what uh supervisor paul check was referencing for the route 7 bus rapid transit um it says here that you might or may consider submission the following projects i'd like to advocate on behalf of the yellow line metro extension to hypo valley i think that's something that is in alignment with what we're doing along uh with bus rapid transit first and our embark

[00:42:10] which is a highway study so the goal is that we eventually get to the extension of that metro line so i just want to advocate for that and put a plug so that it can be considered so thank you Supervisor Gross. Thank you.

[00:42:27] Certainly the Route 7 bus rapid transit eventually will get all along Route 7. I think it's coming from the city of Alexandria this way and the Tysons area this way. And Mason District portion of Route 7 is sort of in between, right in between them.

[00:42:45] So I'm hoping that we can be the golden spike that Utah has had, you know, 150 years ago. Let's make sure that it gets all the way done, but I would like to make a, so I would advocate for the bus rapid transit in all of its planning.

[00:43:03] And then, again, Seven Corners, the Ring Road, all of the things that we did in the comprehensive plan back in 2015, I think it was, that needs to be kept front and center.

[00:43:21] Regardless of bus rapid transit, there are things to redo the Seven Corners interchange. Remember, Seven Corners pretty much looks the same, except that everything is concrete now instead of dirt roads. But the Seven Corners roadways, if you look at an aerial from 1946, you can see all of them still there.

[00:43:44] So it hasn't changed a whole lot, but it's no longer farmland. So let's make sure that Seven Corners is on the list. Thank you. Okay. Supervisor Walkinshaw and second vice chair of the TPB, I believe.

[00:43:59] That's right. Yeah, I'm the vice chair because I made the mistake of showing up in person to all the meetings. So they looked around and no one else was there, I think. But it's been an exciting three years of listening to Marylanders argue with one another. But Malcolm, thank you for your work on this.

[00:44:19] And just a couple of questions that I think I know the answers to, but are maybe important for folks to understand. Can you just give us a little more detail on the determination as to what's regionally significant? And just maybe it's illustrative, but the Braddock Road Multimodal Project, for example, is not on the list of regionally significant.

[00:44:42] So how is that determination made, and who makes it? Supervisor Walkinshaw, thank you for the question. The definition that we had on the screen in the presentation is the federal designation of what a regional significant project is.

[00:45:01] And that's our starting point because it identifies the roadways that are significant in diverting people from the highway traffic. And then we're in an area where, you know, for years we were classified as non-attainment for air quality.

[00:45:20] So bringing it down to the 5000 level, at the TPB level, it's all about whether or not the project will add or take away capacity from the room. But the starting point is on the federal definition, and then we whittle down to what TPB uses to develop the air quality conformity analysis.

[00:45:44] Got it. Okay. And in terms of the submissions for Visualize 2050, what is the relationship between Fairfax County and VDOT? In other words, who is submitting the projects that are in Fairfax County? Is it Fairfax County? Is it Fairfax County in consultation with VDOT? And if there's a discrepancy between our position vis-a-vis a project and VDOT's position vis-a-vis a project, what happens? So the submissions can be done by the county or by VDOT or by metro or, you know,

[00:46:24] any of the regional agencies. But in this case, specifically two of the projects on slide six, if you could go to slide six, the I-495 south side and the I-95 project, those will be actually submitted by vdot they will actually make that submission um the route 7 brt project may actually be submitted by nbtc because they've been coordinating that project we're still working through the orange line and the yellow line but they could be submitted by um a number of agencies but the the plan is to bring forward the list of projects that are in fairfax county and ask the

[00:47:00] board to consider endorsing that list regardless of who actually is going to submit the um the project so um if if there's a disagreement um we would try and work that out before it comes to you to the board um we try and do that before before we before we bring anything to you um i'm not anticipating any disagreements but um certainly if there are we will make sure you're aware of them and try and work those out and what happens to a project what does it mean if a project doesn't

[00:47:33] make it on to Visualize 2050? What the Constrained Long Range Plan or Visualize 2050 is intended to do is demonstrate what projects the region can afford to do between now and 2050. And so to your point earlier about Braddock Road, Braddock Road already has funding on it, so it will be in the exempt list when we get done with this. But it is intending to demonstrate that there's enough money generated through transportation sources that are anticipated between now and 2050 to

[00:48:10] support a list of projects. If a project is not on the list and it's regionally significant, either the sponsoring agency would have to come to the TPB and amend the list with a funding source or that project would not go forward until there was such an amendment. The project would not go forward or the project would not go forward with federal funds? If it's regionally significant, it would need to be in this plan one way or another. Okay. But for example, if it's a sidewalk project, like the projects we talked about in the previous presentation, none of those would be

[00:48:50] considered regionally significant. So they can go forward with local funds with no issues. Got it. Okay. Well, you know, I think this process gives us an opportunity to go back and take a hard look at some widening projects that have been in our plans for a long time and maybe don't make sense anymore. Braddock, not to focus on it, but Braddock Road maybe is illustrative in that for decades, I think this is accurate, it had been on our transportation plan to widen Braddock Road, and it took really only a little bit of analysis from the community and from FCDOT to realize

[00:49:27] that wasn't going to be a good idea for a lot of different reasons, not even a controversial decision. And I think this gives us an opportunity to look at are there other things in that category where we've always just assumed since the 1980s that we're going to widen this road. But when we look at it in 2023, it doesn't make sense because of climate goals or maybe for other reasons as well. So I'm hopeful that we can make some progress on that through this process.

[00:49:56] Thank you, Supervisor Walkinshaw. Supervisor Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much for the presentation. And obviously the Richmond Highway will make sense down to Prince William and Woodbridge, and that's clearly part of that.

[00:50:13] You have the yellow line to Hivela, which is the DRPT study that was done in 2014. I get that. There was a more recent study done, blue line, yellow line. I don't know if it's quote-unquote finalized or not, but how does that fit into the 2050 planning?

[00:50:28] Because it had potentially a yellow line going down to Woodbridge, I think, as well. And then I think that's where the default was there. Supervisor Stork, the DRPT did do the study of looking at the blue and the yellow line.

[00:50:44] Our current comprehensive plan has the yellow line going to Hivala Valley. And so that's why we identified that in the list. At some point in the future, it's possible that it go beyond that. But that's not currently in the comprehensive plan. so we didn't look at that as a potential inclusion.

[00:51:03] The blue line extension to Prince William may be considered by others, but that is one that is significantly more expensive than the yellow line extension. I'm a big supporter of the yellow line and even all the way to Woodbridge.

[00:51:21] What do we need to do to get that process started? Is there something in particular that I should do as a board member Because the study that's been completed already by DRPT, what's that mechanism so that it's included as part of the dialogue and the conversation?

[00:51:39] Well, ultimately, the next step is if the board wants to include that, we would have to amend our comprehensive plan to include it south of Highblow Valley. Because that's not currently in our comprehensive plan. Thank you.

[00:51:55] Supervisor Smith. You know, of course, I want the orange line to be listed because it's got to be looked at to see if something can be done. I guess I'm unclear of how detailed you want to get into any of our concerns about any projects or looking at them more. There's one I pulled up their chart.

[00:52:12] I couldn't find one because the one that's on the list you have is about the Manassas National Battlefield Park bypass. You know, the world has changed since this first got there, so I think that's something we need to discuss. And then, you know, we asked staff to look at the one with Stringfellow Road between 50 and the Fairfax County Parkway because there are citizens concerned about that.

[00:52:35] And I know that's a question we've had. So those are things I'd like to talk to you more offline about those two projects. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Smith. Supervisor Herdy. Yeah, I'll save my specific project questions for later. But just a general comment. I mean, there are a lot of BRT studies going on.

[00:52:51] NVTC's got one. NVTA's got one. I'd encourage to look at not just dedicated BRT lines, but using semi-dedicated roadways. We've got a great HOV network, a hot lane network that can be used to maintain speeds and get people there quicker.

[00:53:10] And I'll repeat my request to look at as we design these things and talk about these things, to look at the ability to run express buses and have pull-offs. So it's not faster to drive a car, faster to ride a bike than it is to sit on a bus and stop at every stop.

[00:53:30] All right. Thank you, Supervisor Herdy. A couple quick things before we wrap up. First of all, on the Orange Line extension, I know one of the technical requirements associated with that is a new Rosalind tunnel or improvements there.

[00:53:48] Do we need to say that, or is that just something we would coordinate? Because, I mean, obviously that's not in Fairfax County. We'll be coordinating that with Metro because they likely will be adding some of those core capacity to the Visualize 2050.

[00:54:04] Got it. And they did a study. I think the board has been briefed on it. There were a number of different alternatives, so they will have to boil down which of those alternatives they want to put in. But the purpose of that study was to try and get at core capacity.

[00:54:19] And that's the blue-orange-silver line study. Do you know if that's scheduled to come back to – is there going to be a locally preferred alternative identified soon? I don't know the schedule. I don't know the schedule for that, but that would be the next step, and we can ask some questions and get back to you.

[00:54:34] Okay, that'd be great. And then lastly, if I could just ask, before this comes back to the board, I know there's some project-specific questions that came up. But I think it would be really helpful if, and I realize staff doesn't have a model that lays out, oh, here's the climate impact of this project versus this one.

[00:54:53] But I think perhaps just at a high level, if staff could identify projects that have a potential, potentially a higher climate impact on the list and identify those to come back to board members before we make the decision, I think that would be really helpful.

[00:55:15] I mean, transportation is our top climate emissions generator in this area. So, I don't think we need a lot of detail, but certainly just identifying those, especially as Supervisor Walkinshed said, the expansion, railway expansion projects.

[00:55:36] I think that's probably something everybody in the region should be doing as they go through this process, too. Thank you. Any final questions, comments? Wow, we're finishing early. And we started late.

[00:55:53] So with that, the committee is adjourned. And, oh, actually one thing, sorry, and this is very important. Mr. Bishadny, I believe this is going to be your last board transportation committee meeting. So you're going to hear a lot of accolades over the coming weeks or so, but we'll just start right here.

[00:56:13] And, Tom, thank you for everything you've done for this committee, for the county, for the region. and your support has been so helpful in so many ways over the years. So thank you so much, Tom. Thank you, Chairman Elkhorn, members of the board.

[00:56:28] It has been a pleasure working with you for 34 years, and it's exceeded everything that I could have ever asked for. So thank you for that. All right. Yay. Okay, on that note, we are adjourned.

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