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Federal Decision on Metro
Rail Extension Provides Unique Opportunity To Enhance Area's Approach
to Transportation and Land-Use Challenges
Citizens Group Favors Mass Transit, Yet Shares Concerns
Expressed By Transit Agency
January 27, 2008 Fairfax,
VA – Fairfax Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc.
(www.FairGrowth.org) has issued the following statement regarding the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA’s)
January 24, 2008 letter to Governor Timothy Kaine on the challenges
facing the Metro extension to Tysons Corner:
Northern Virginia is in dire need of additional transportation
infrastructure. However, the reservations expressed by the FTA
are sound, and come as no surprise to those who have followed the issue
closely. In particular, FairGrowth shares the FTA’s deep concern
that because Metro “faces significant, unresolved capital funding needs
for maintaining the current system, the proposed extension to Metrorail
may pose serious financial and operational challenges, and further
strain the system as a whole.” FairGrowth has made numerous
presentations over the past several years to the Fairfax County
Planning Commission, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and the
Metro Board of Directors outlining Metrorail’s lack of adequate
infrastructure to accommodate current and anticipated demand, even
without accounting for the proposed extension.
FairGrowth sees the FTA’s determination as an opportunity to
re-evaluate, reform, and improve the area’s approach to our
transportation needs and land-use planning process. New
technologies, techniques, and procedures, some of which have
experienced significant advancements since the extension's route was
laid out, may be more efficient,
affordable, flexible, and environmentally friendly than the proposed
elevated Metrorail. Additional concepts, including circulator
systems, high-tech bus rapid transit lanes complete with dedicated
infrastructure, and genuine, community-centric Transit-Oriented
Development initiatives featuring intensive citizen involvement from
the start, all may have the potential to help address many of our
profound transit and land-use challenges. Therefore, all of these
alternatives can and should be re-examined.
FairGrowth looks forward to working with officials and community
leaders in a cooperative, collaborative and productive manner to
achieve our common goals.
About FairGrowth
Fairfax Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. (FairGrowth) is a
nonpartisan, countywide grassroots citizens group concerned with
development and land-use decisions and their impacts on traffic,
transportation, schools, the environment, and other infrastructure and
public services. Visit us at http://www.FairGrowth.org. |