Updates from Letty – January 31, 2025

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Letty Hardi

Blog posts are the personal views of Letty Hardi and not official statements or records on behalf of the Falls Church City Council

Dear Friends,

Happy Friday to the end of a long, difficult week. Our hearts are with the families and friends grieving the victims of the tragic accident at DCA. We are deeply grateful to the emergency responders assisting in the crisis – so many across the region are coming together to support one another. The emotional toll of the accident on top of a tumultuous week is…a lot. So if you need to stop reading and pick this up again later, take care of yourself and each other.

Local city business continued the past few weeks. Lots to celebrate and also pause in recognizing the power of community and local government:

Last week: we unveiled the honorary renaming of Saigon Blvd, recognizing the important Vietnamese culture and history at the Eden Center. This is one of the first recommendations from the East End Small Area Plan we adopted in 2023. We also joined the groundbreaking for the new Hitt Contracting headquarters next doors to the West Falls project.
This week: We had a lengthy meeting on Monday night where we unanimously adopted a refreshed Bike Master Plan. The City has also been hosting a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), focused on the Gordon Road Triangle. The panelists recommendations will be presented this afternoon which is open to the public (read on for links).
Meanwhile: some of us have been in Richmond this week, meeting with members of the General Assembly to advocate for the city’s legislative priorities. It’s important to stay in touch with other local governments across Virginia and as a new member of the board of the Virginia Municipal League, I see the power of local and state governments working together to improve the lives of our residents.

Finally – today is the start of Restaurant Week 2025! No better (or more delicious) way to support local businesses than to plan out where to eat in The Little City in the next 10 days.

Happy Year of the Snake –
Letty

What Happened This Week:

(1) Bike Master Plan

After much work and community input since 2023, we unanimously adopted the Bike Master Plan (which was last updated in 2015). The 40+ page plan – which many expect it to just contain proposals for future bike lanes – is actually a broad, comprehensive plan on the why and vision for bike infrastructure, future routes, connectivity with the region, bike safety education, and more. Ultimately, our vision is to provide choices for all travel modes that can support economic activity and commuting to work, school, or recreation. We can be a bike friendly city for all ages and abilities with equitable and greener ways of getting here and getting around. In 2.2 square miles, I think we are the best example of a “15 Minute City”, where all of your daily needs can be met in a 10 or 15 minute walk, bike ride, or transit ride – so implementing the ideas in the Bike Master Plan can help us get there.

What’s next? There are several “priority routes” identified in the plan for the design and implementation phases – S. West Street, N. West Street, and the East-West Connection to the secondary schools campus. We appropriated funds last year to begin more detailed neighborhood engagement that will begin Spring/Summer 2025 to hear resident input to incorporate traffic calming and pedestrian safety with designs for bike facilities (which could mean sharrows, shared use paths, dedicated bike lanes, intersection treatments, etc – see page 24+) depending on the needs and characteristics of the streets. That has been a consistent commitment we’ve made to ensure we are designing for a “complete street” and not just bike facilities. Future routes in 2028+ are also identified in the plan, but note that with it being so many years out, we’ll re-evaluate as we get closer. It’s always important for us to balance the desires of local residents with safety and accessibility for the broader community.

(2) ULI TAP

That’s a whole lotta’ acronyms.

Urban Land Institute (ULI) has been conducting a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) this week in the city, focusing on Gordon Road Triangle in the west end of the City where the City’s property yard currently exists along with various auto, industrial, and commercial uses. The Urban Land Institute’s TAPs provide expert, multidisciplinary advice to local governments facing complex land use and real estate issues. Over an intensive two-day working session, the panelists will tour the study area, interview stakeholders, and work collaboratively to produce preliminary findings and recommendations for the study area.

This afternoon (Friday, January 31) the panelists will present their final recommendations from 3:30 to 5 pm which you can join watching online through this Zoom link with a more comprehensive report to be published within a few months.

Note that this isn’t the first time we’ve engaged with a ULI TAP – the TAP in 2014 focused on the opportunity at the site of the secondary school campus, which catalyzed the creative thinking of a public private partnership for the construction of the new Meridian High School and the associated economic development offsetting the cost of the school.

(3) Saigon Boulevard, Hitt HQ Groundbreaking, and Richmond