Snyder Assails Size, Cost of Pedestrian Plan Editor,
The City’s multi-hundred page “Pedestrian, Bicycling and Traffic Calming Plan” and related documents is set for first Council consideration on Monday, but was just unveiled this week during a poorly attended work session. While positive in intent and goals, it goes badly off track in terms of its huge, unnecessary costs and its multiple, serious negative consequences.
The overall price tag is $22 million, requiring the diversion of tax dollars from pressing City needs such as schools, stormwater and public safety, or higher taxes for all. Worse yet, dozens, if not hundreds, of property owners face the destruction of their fences, the uprooting of trees and the loss of their on-street parking. That’s because the Plan doesn’t just provide for needed safety improvements (something we could all agree on) but instead adds “wants” such as sidewalks where they are not needed and removal of on-street parking to allow for bicycle lanes and other “improvements”. The tragic irony is that this waste of money actually might make our streets less safe, by making some streets one way (thereby encouraging higher speeds and cut-through traffic) and removing our citizens’ parked cars ( an inexpensive traffic calming measure). It also jeopardizes the historic look and feel of Falls Church that sets us apart from the rest of NOVA’s suburban sprawl. And, the reduced on-street parking will also hurt our businesses that rely on it to serve their customers, who in turn, help support the City through meals and sales taxes.
It is imperative that we force the process to go back to the drawing board by identifying essential safety improvements and eliminating projects such as new sidewalks across the street where they already exist in residential neighborhoods. Otherwise, all taxpayers will face steep new bills and many property owners will wake up one morning to find City backhoes chewing up their yards, tearing out their fences, uprooting their trees and no parking signs placed where they have parked their cars for decades.
Dave Snyder
Vice Mayor, City of Falls Church
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Originally Posted by elcee
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