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,

After a week off, City Council was back in session this week, so I’ll share updates on bike route community meetings and the concept of “Complete Streets” and the new Tinner Hill District, and new legislation from Richmond that goes into effect July 1. While my posts will be a bit intermittent during the summer, there are plenty of opportunities to engage with us ahead of our August recess (see our schedule of summer meetings at the end). A few upcoming:

–> I’m holding my June office hours today: Friday, June 28 at 9 am at Mr Brown’s Park – it’s a beautiful morning of cooler temps!

–> We also will have Ask the Council Office hours on the first Wednesday of every month – our next will be at 9 am, July 3 at City Hall.

–> And of course, we welcome public comment at all of our regular meetings (in person or virtual) and via email.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy summer,
Letty

PS – Note that the City is NOT hosting an Independence Day Celebration this year – there will not be a fireworks display due to turf work at the high school baseball field. I know this is disappointing, so we have encouraged staff to look into other possibilities for future years.

What Happened This Week:

(1) Bike Community Meetings & “Complete Streets”

Over the past 2 weeks, there have been 3 community meetings to share updates on the Bike Master Plan work (see my February 2024 post when I last wrote about it or a more in-depth history from Bike Falls Church) and hear input from neighborhoods on 3 priority routes and concepts for those routes: an east-west connection to the secondary schools campus, N. West St., and S. West St. As you may recall, we kicked off a refresh of the Bike Master Plan in 2023, as the last plan was adopted in 2015 but it lacked implementation specifics, thus we have yet to make any significant progress on bike infrastructure.

You can read more about the priority routes and potential concepts in the presentation here.

There was high turnout at all the meetings and we appreciate the input from both residents and advocates. I’ll share the top themes I heard from the meetings:

• There was general support to make it easier for kids to bike safely to school, including making it more accessible for everyone
• Traffic calming, sidewalks, crosswalks, and general safer streets were predominant concerns and residents would like to see all of these priorities stepped up
• While these meetings were a good step in gathering neighborhood feedback, we heard a desire for more active and early outreach via mailed postcards, letters etc

This is a good time to share the term “Complete Streets” as an umbrella concept that wraps around all of these initiatives. Complete Streets are ones designed and operated to enable safe, efficient, and comfortable travel for all users. Those include people of all ages and abilities, regardless of whether they are walking, bicycling, using public transportation, or driving.

Letty’s Thoughts: safe and accessible convenient travel options for all modes is top priority shared by me and the rest of City Council – such that it’s 1 of our 5 strategic priorities for the next 2 years. Complete Streets are our goal – hence the increased resources and budget dollars in recent years to fund more sidewalk projects, traffic calming, pedestrian-friendly signal infrastructure like Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPIs), and now updating our bike plans. It is a slow and expensive process to evolve our current streets, born out of 1950s car-centric design, to get to a city of Complete Streets but one we’ve been committed to and will continue to pursue. As the bike plan update continues and more detailed designs are presented and discussed – there will be tradeoffs, including potential impacts to parking if we need to make room for a dedicated bike lane. But considering the entire street design in the framework of Complete Streets – and not as a zero sum game of bike lanes vs parking spaces will be important.

(2) Tinner Hill Historic and Cultural District

After much staff work and community engagement over the past 6 months, we adopted the Tinner Hill Historic and Cultural District amendment to the city’s Comprehensive Plan (Chapter 3, specifically). The designation is largely honorific – it doesn’t change zoning, permitting, taxes. However, the district designation would enable important strategies, such as heritage tourism, public art, branding, and other ways to promote its history and activate the district.

In the past month, we’ve had two important examples of the kind of work needed to recognize and honor the history in the district with the new Tinner Hill mural dedication and celebration of Juneteenth. The Falls Church Independent has a nice write up if you missed it!

See also my post from January 2024 for additional information.

(3) New General Assembly Legislation

We also received a thorough and lengthy report on key legislation we had been tracking during the 2024 General Assembly legislation. Overall, the Virginia General Assembly, for both sessions, introduced 3,595 legislative proposals. Through the legislative process, 2,281 passed, 909 failed, 845 were approved, and 201 were vetoed.

Of note for Falls Church – the General Assembly did amend our city charter, removing the restrictive section around board and commission member eligibility requirement to be qualified voters. Falls Church is a community of residents from all over the country and the world. Members of the military, state department employees, citizens of other countries, and others who have made the City their home have been prevented from participating on boards and commissions in their community because of the qualified voter requirement. This has been an effort we had been pursuing for years. With the General Assembly action this year, we were able to pursue our local amendment which we unanimously adopted in May, effective July 1 2024.

Letty’s Thoughts: More to come on follow ups on City code changes and local authority we’ll pursue based on the actions in Richmond. And before we know it, we’ll be preparing again for the 2025 General Assembly session and advocating for Falls Church priorities. Of specific note that I raised this week is towing, as predatory towing has been a long-standing concern that we’ve been fairly powerless at the local government level to curb – the General Assembly did adopt new towing authority changes that staff is evaluating and will be providing us a recommendation this fall.

What’s Coming Up:

Friday, June 28 – Letty’s June Office Hours (9 am, Mr Brown’s Park)

Monday, July 1 – City Council Work Session*

Wednesday, July 3 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, CIty Hall)

Monday, July 15 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, July 24 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, August 5 – City Council Work Session*

Wednesday, August 7 – Ask the Council Office Hours (9 am, City Hall)

Monday, August 12 – City Council Meeting*

*Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings