Falls Church Citizens' Advisory Committee on Transportation

M E M O R A N D U M

Date: March 30, 2001

To: Mayor Daniel E. Gardner, Members of Council

From: Robert Puentes, Chair, Citizens' Advisory Committee On Transportation

Cc: CACT Members; Kathleen Clarken Buschow, City Clerk

Re: Citizens' Advisory Committee on Transportation Annual Report

I am pleased to provide you with the 2000 Annual Report for the Citizen’s Advisory Committee on Transportation (CACT).

The CACT studies existing and planned public and private modes of transportation, as well as needed improvements or modifications in local and regional transportation, including facilities, routes, schedules, fares and means of support. The CACT provides advice on methods of calming traffic to create safer environments for pedestrians, cyclists, and automotive uses, and advice on reducing vehicular traffic demands through the use of alternative modes of transportation, such as mass transit. The CACT advises the City Council, Planning Commission, and City Manager. We meet the second Wednesday of each month.

Last year the CACT welcomed a new member: Sandra Lewis. At the same time, we lost two dedicated members: Maureen Budetti who accepted a position on the Planning Commission and Jack Byrne who moved out of the area. To date, there are two vacancies on the CACT that we would desperately like to see filled. Other members are: Andrea Giberson, Charles Langalis (Vice Chair), Robert Puentes (Chair) and Meredith Soule. Our City Council Liaisons are Dave Snyder and Ron Parsons. There currently is no official Planning Commission or School Board liaison. The CACT enjoys excellent staff support from Helen Reinekce-Wilt.

The CACT began 2000 with its usual slate of recurring transportation issues including neighborhood traffic calming projects, and fielding requests from citizens for resolutions to various traffic issues. Based in part by comments from the CACT, City Staff created a Transportation Task Force (TTF) which, as you now, is a multi-disciplinary group focused on resolving traffic and speed enforcement issues. This arrangement has worked out quite well as the TTF is much better suited to handling such matters since it necessarily includes representation from the City’s Police Force and Public Works Department, among others. CACT representatives are included on the TTF and do provide input.

With the removal of direct citizen petitions from our slate of activities, we spent most of our efforts in 2000 focused on the development of a Pedestrian/Walkability Plan for the City. The initial stage of this project includes a physical scan of the pedestrian-related accommodations in the City, such as sidewalks and trails. The fact-finding is being accomplished through firsthand inspection and observation, and will note where (for example) sidewalks exist and a general description of their condition. This survey initiative responds to the Comprehensive Plan’s call for making the City “pedestrian friendly” and promoting alternatives to habitual use of the personal motor vehicle. Each member of the CACT has been assigned a particular Ward about which to collect this information which will ultimately be fed into a geographic information systems (GIS) database to facilitate understanding and, we hope, decision-making about the relevant issues. We have also worked with the Recycling Committee to help distribute and collect surveys from students and parents at Thomas Jefferson regarding the “walkability” of their neighborhoods. In addition, the Virginia Department of Transportation is working on a regional bicycle/pedestrian plan that we will also consider. A draft of our report will be presented to Council for review and input. A public worksession would also be appropriate at a later date.

At each meeting, the CACT receives updates and discusses, in detail, development projects currently planned or being considered throughout the City. In connection with this, CACT members reviewed and provided formal comments on the Development Review Process Improvement Team’s (DRPIT) reengineering report. At a time when issues related to safety, mobility, accessibility and environmental quality are garnering more and more consideration throughout the City and the region we were concerned with the fact that CACT had no role in this process. We have been working with City staff for an appropriate role.

The CACT remains interested and engaged in regional transportation issues and projects. We recognize that although such projects may not be situated specifically within the City borders, few transportation issues respect such boundaries and certainly have direct impacts on Falls Church’s residents and businesses. We are particularly focused on the proposed widening of I-66 inside the Beltway, the West Falls Church to Dulles rapid transit extension (bus then rail), the potential widening of the Capital Beltway south of the City, and the proposed light rail from Springfield to Tysons Corner. We are also following the deliberations regarding the possibility of a tax referendum to finance large-scale projects to the west of the City – particularly in Fairfax County. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss any of these issues with you further.

The CACT has developed an internet web-site to facilitate the exchange of information among members and to provide a medium for general public to obtain information about our activities and other relevant issues. The web site is currently hosted by a “free” service but we would ultimately like to see the site incorporated into the City's existing web site. The address is: http://www.geocities.com/FC_CACT.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present this report. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.