Wiehle Avenue Train Wreck

The Wiehle Avenue Train Wreck


Tax District Equity

It appears that there will be disparity in benefit if there is one tax district for the entire corridor. Can the tax district have differential rates, for example, an A rate for properties within the quarter mile walking distance, A prime for those within a ten-minute shuttle bus ride, etc.

The tax district add-on to the rents within the Town Center would put these properties at a marketing disadvantage to those at Tysons.


The Whole Enchilada

Once the system arrives at Wiehle, the additional cost to get to the airport should be moderate. The real cost will be structures necessary to get through Tysons. From Tysons west, the main cost is just the rail itself. This will be particularly so if the investors would be willing to build stations at Reston Parkway and the airport and beyond as part of their transit-oriented development.


Is Wiehle Needed?

The justification for the Wiehle station was always based on the fact that there was already a park and ride there. However, the location of this park and ride was not based on sound planning but rather expediency. Conventional wisdom has assumed metro stops should have park and ride facilities adjacent to them, while in fact that just brings more cars to the crunch points. Remote sites connected with a shuttle system would be a better way to manage traffic and interface with rail.

The beneficiaries of a mass transit system will be those living or working within the walking distance to the stations. Some planners estimate the amount of development appropriate around a station should be as much as a million square feet of interrelated development. Within Reston, two stations are projected, Reston Parkway and Wiehle Avenue. Is the market strong enough to support a million square feet at both stations? This market competition must also consider the market share that Tysons, Monroe, and outbound will capture. Reston Parkway already has close to the necessary critical mass. How much more can we support?

Are We Prepared for Wiehle?

The development intensity currently around Wiehle is low. Considerable effort has been given to planning for a possible station at Reston Parkway. An equivalent amount of thinking will be needed to begin to develop and reinvest within the impact area of a possible station. Who will do this and when?


Avoiding the “Mixing Bowl” Syndrome

The Wiehle/Toll Road intersection currently has many very important functions for the region. These include: entry and exit to and from the Toll Road, cross Reston traffic from north to south, cross Reston traffic from east to west, cross Toll Road traffic from Leesburg to Alexandria, access to the fire station, McDonalds and Taco Bell. All of these functions occur at the same point unless alternatives are found. Adding access to the end of the line for the Metro will exasperate and compound these problems. The solution to these complex problems will make the Mixing Bowl pale.


Non-corridor Beneficiaries of Rail

Although the planning for rail has focused on the increased development activity that can occur in the corridor itself, attention should also be given to how the rail investment can benefit the other parts of the community, for example, if satellite parking facilities were constructed at existing Village Centers, would this create additional market potential for the Village Centers? Instead of building a single multi-level parking deck at Wiehle and the Toll Road, could not smaller parking structures be built at Toll Oaks, Lake Anne, South Lakes, and North Point Village Centers?

Observing the commuters arriving at the stations in Long Island who first go to the local stores, then to their cars, and then home demonstrates how this model would offer convenience to the consumer. This would certainly be a traffic generator to the Village Center merchants.

©Patrick F. Kane
August 22, 2003

Trying to Use Mass Transit

BUS ISSUES

As a community activist and urban planner, I have long advocated the value and benefits of mass transit. Until recently, I was only aware of the buses I saw on the road. I am now dependent on mass transit and attempting to use the Connector bus and RIBS to access places within the community. A frequent destination is Lake Anne Village Center. Other destinations include Kaiser Permanente, the YMCA, and the Reston Town Center.

Lake Anne Village Center

There is a bus stop at Lake Anne which is served by RIBS 1 on an irregular basis. According to the printed schedule, it does not serve Lake Anne in the afternoons. Referring to the Fairfax Connector map, effective February 16, 2004, there is a note: “Not served by all PM peak trips. See Schedule.” There is no stop at the Lake Anne Village Center on the schedule. When seeking information from the Fairfax Connector bus information line, the operators ask where the intersections or addresses are that you wish to be informed about. Since this bus stop is in the middle of a parking lot, there is no address. The closest street intersection is Village Road and North Shore Drive. The telephone operator can provide information about stops at this intersection, but not the bus shelter in the Village Center.

If a passenger realizes this, he or she must navigate through the parking lot at Lake Anne and cross North Shore Drive at a place where auto traffic has poor visibility. The sign for the bus adjoins an area of bare ground which in wet weather turns into mud.

I was aware of many of these conditions. They became points of concern last week when my youngest daughter, who has some developmental disabilities herself, was attempting to assist me to take the bus home after a lunch on the Plaza since it was a cold, rainy day. We learned that a bus would stop on North Shore Drive in front of the gas station at the entrance to Lake Anne Plaza. To get to the bus stop, we had to navigate up the slope of the parking lot, dodging the cars that were seeking parking spots. Crossing North Shore was a challenge because at that point the cars have just completed a curve and are coming down the grade.

Since my vision is impaired, I depended on my daughter to give me the all clear. I do walk with a cane. Midway in our crossing, my daughter urged me to hurry up. I did the best I could, given my disabilities. We arrived at the north side of North Shore and found a metal post indicating the bus stop. Unfortunately, there was not room on the small concrete pad for the both of us. The alternative was bare soil which the rain had turned into mud. The bus came and got us home.

Because there is no printed schedule to identify the time the buses are coming, the half hour wait in the cold, chilling rain was uncomfortable. This was magnified by the fact that the covered bus stop with benches was clearly visible in the parking lot we had just left.

On a previous day, I was recovering from a hospital stay to overcome anemia. I also decided to take the bus, even knowing that there were some erratic bus schedule issues at the Lake Anne Plaza bus shelter. Fortunately, Mr. Ingebritsen was walking past and advised me that I was in luck; a bus would be coming soon to take me home. I saw a bus coming from 606 and assumed that was my bus. Instead, it turned left onto North Shore and continued on. After waiting a considerable time, I saw many other buses on North Shore. I could not figure out a safe way to get to the North Shore bus stop alone.

When a bus finally came by, I asked if it went to Lake Anne. The driver said it did. The route the bus then took proceeded to Cedar Ridge, from there to Toll Oaks Shopping Center. At this point, I asked the driver if he was going to Lake Anne Plaza next. He told me that he wasn’t, and that I should go to the next stop and walk. Instead I left the bus at the Toll Oaks Center hoping that I might find someone I knew shopping at Giant. Before that happened, another bus arrived. I asked this driver if he would go to Lake Anne and he answered, yes. His route took me to Cedar Ridge and then to the Fellowship House. Eventually, an hour after I started, we came to my stop at Wainwright Drive and North Shore Drive.


YMCA

There is a bus stop on Sunset Hills Road in front of the YMCA but this also is not a scheduled stop. The Connector information office advised me to take a bus that stopped at Target. From there, I could attempt to navigate the Target parking lot and cross Sunset Hills Road at the compound intersection of the YMCA/restaurant parking lot entrances.

Kaiser Permanente

I have seen a bus pull into the front drop-off area at Kaiser Permanente. Unfortunately, the information desk at Kaiser did not know when this bus was scheduled to arrive or where it went. A call to the Connector information office could not help unless I gave them an intersection or an address. The Kaiser address is Sunset Hills Road, and that information led to the information office person to conclude that the closest bus stop would be on Wiehle Avenue in front of the SCS Building/McDonald’s. Fortunately, I found a friend in the prescription line who offered an alternative to Metro as is often the case in this community in which I have lived for so many years.


I have brought these issues to the attention of LINK and Supervisor Hudgins’ office. Her office did advise me that there were plans being developed that would improve the parking lot at Lake Anne, which would facilitate a walk from the covered bus stop to the place on the side of North Shore Drive where the buses stop now. As a close follower of the revitalization plans for Lake Anne, I don’t think I’ve heard of any specific plans to improve the Lake Anne parking lot yet, unfortunately. If we are to revitalize Lake Anne, attention must be paid to assisting people find the covered bus stop and its scheduled service. Often when I have tried to use the bus, a familiar voice will offer me an alternative in their car. The existence of a fine international bus system such as the Connector and RIBS offer me a possibility of significant freedom of access within my community.

When Metro finally arrives at the Wiehle Avenue station, assuming connections between the Lake Anne Village Center and the projected end of the line of this stage of the Metro expansion in the Dulles Corridor will become more important to many residents, not just those with disabilities.
Distribution of the connection points to the Wiehle Avenue Metro will be essential to avoid undue impaction of the already-congested Wiehle/Sunset Hills/Toll Road intersection. The impact of this intersection is a subject of an essay called “The Wiehle Avenue Train Wreck,” which addresses the need for action to mitigate the congestion that will occur under the current plans to handle all of the 2300 parking spaces required by Metro at the Reston East Park and Ride. If interested, contact me at reston1@comcast.net

©Patrick F. Kane
March 31, 2005