| Tysons:
A New Mini City? |
| Andres Duany, a prominent urban planner, hopes to turn 40
acres of Tysons Corner into the latest urban city. |
| According to The Washington Post, Mr. Duany wants to build
a "mini-city where as many as 12,000 people might live in
residential towers as high as 12 or 15 stories." |
| While it is interesting to note the similarities to Reston,
there are certain roadblocks in the plan that Mr. Duany may
not have considered. |
| ®§First, who would really want to live in Tysons Corner?
I mean, it's not a place with a lot of charm and pizzazz.
Tysons, after all, is nothing more than a mega shopping center
and offices. |
| ® Mr. Duany says people living there can live, work and
play without getting into their cars. The mistake: Americans
love their cars, and they like to drive them, even though
the new "Urban Mini-City" might be next to a rail line. Anyway,
the new "city" would then have to build huge parking garages
to store all those SUVs. |
| ® The project, which is hoped to be completed by 2003, depends
on the "timely approval from Fairfax officials." If history
repeats itself, the project is dead already. It will take
until 2003 just to think about doing an environmental impact
study, four more years to get through the planning commission,
and another two years to hold public hearings. Mr. Duany,
apparently, has not worked in Fairfax County. |
| ® The project also depends on a Metrorail station at the
Dulles Toll Road and Route 123, which is planned by 2006.
Not a chance. We're still dealing with buses and tele-communting
as an alternative to cars. |
| ®§Mr. Duany says that his plan will actually lessen traffic,
not increase traffic. Now let me get this straight: An additional
12,000 people, with all their cars, will actually lessen traffic
in Tysons Corner? The math just doesn't add up. |
| ® The plan is that the new "Urban Mini-City" will have a
variety of architects to avoid the "sameness" of the area.
In other words, they don't want to make it look like the hometown
of the Stepford Wives. "If you use many architects," Mr. Duany
is quoted as saying, "it's a city." |
| A city, Mr. Duany, is made up of people, schools, churches
and government, but not architects. Maybe that will be the
project's biggest failure. |
| Techway
Gets Loudoun Support |
| A survey commissioned by the Loudoun County government found
that 46 percent of 1,000 people interviewed strongly supported
building a bridge crossing the Potomac River. Another 22 percent
somewhat supported it. |
| That's a total of 68 percent who support the new bridge,
part of the Techway or "outer beltway" that would take traffic
from I-95, past Dulles Airport and into Maryland and I-70. |
| Of those interviewed, 35 percent somewhat or strongly opposed
the river crossing. Another 10 percent had no opinion. |
| What part of the Techway doesn't Congressman Frank Wolf
understand? He's the one who scuttled the latest study on
the project. |
| Northern Virginia needs this new highway and bridge before
we all perish in traffic gridlock. |
| Other facts found on the $14,000 Loudoun County survey: |
| ® 65 percent of households had lived in Loudoun fewer than
10 years, and 34 percent for fewer than three years. In other
words, 99 percent of the people in Loudoun have moved there
during the last decade. That's hard to believe. |
| ® 63 percent think growth is the county's biggest problem,
followed by 16 percent who named traffic and transportation. |
| ® Rural and open space was listed by 30 percent of the households
as the thing they liked best about Loudoun, and 15 percent
said location and proximity to shopping and a major city were
the reason. Nine percent said they liked the scenic views
and beauty the best. |
| ® 75 percent support reducing the land area available for
residential development and 88 percent believe developers
should pay more of the capital costs associated with new development. |
| ® 84 percent want more options for mass transit and 89 percent
rate the county's quality of life as good. |
| ® 98 percent felt safe in their neighborhoods and 73 percent
said the county provides good value for the tax dollar. |
| Nice place to live, Loudoun County. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
