The future of Tysons as a transit-oriented urban district looks bright, but local leaders worry it could be marred by declines in Metro ridership.
During the State of Tysons event that the Tysons Partnership held last Thursday (Dec. 10), local elected officials, business leaders, consultants, and journalists outlined the present conditions and future of the city, touching on both the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and Tysons’ 40-year comprehensive plan.
While 2020 will be remembered for being upended by a once-in-a-century pandemic, for Tysons, it also represents a “decade of accomplishment” since Fairfax County adopted a comprehensive plan that “envisioned and guides transformation of our suburban-edge city to an urban destination,” event emcee Sol Glasner said.
In the past, Tysons was “characterized by regional retail anchors, ringed by acres of low rise office parks, themselves encircled by acres of surface car parking, encased in ribbons of asphalt,” he said.
But participants agreed that Tysons has made strides to becoming a transit-oriented urban district with more mixed-use housing and retail development, and more young families choosing to live in the city.
“We really are making progress. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way,” Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik said. “This is a 40-year plan, and we’re 10 years in. We need to stay committed to these goals and applying resources and ideas to help achieve them.”
The primary concern for the State of Tysons speakers and panelists was the future of transit.
Pre-pandemic, the four Tysons Metro stops were clocking the highest-ever Metro ridership rates, according to Palchik.
With low ridership persisting, WMATA cuts looming, and little chance of federal aid in sight, the future looks grim, City Monitor editor Sommer Mathis said.
“If the service cuts that WMATA is proposing come to pass, Tysons is going to have to be more than agile,” she said. “It’s a huge potential blow to the ability of folks who were pleased to get to Tysons easily via Metro. We’re starting to track a death spiral for public transportation in a number of cities.”
Ridership declines due to COVID-19 could become semi-permanent when prices increase to make up for lost revenue, she said, adding that it will be difficult to get federal aid if the makeup of the U.S. Senate doesn’t change.
“Transit is under siege,” Palchik said. “It’s under fire. It’s going to take support from federal partners to make sure we make it through this challenging time and save transportation.”
Fairfax County Deputy County Executive Rachel Flynn said Tysons needs to be agile, checking in on the 40-year plan every few years. She stated that it is important to celebrate successes and identify areas to improve, such as transit, walkability, and equity.
Other focus areas in the coming months will be when companies start returning to their offices after the pandemic, responding to changes to the retail sector, and rebuilding the hospitality sector — particularly for restaurants.
Matthis said that some predictions of the future of remote work are overblown, but Tysons will need to respond to an increased demand for flexible office and meeting spaces as more firms are rethinking the traditional office space.
Staff photo by Jay Westcott
For more than 14 years, the Fairfax County Police Department has offered information about calls for service using a web-based mapping system.
The latest platform — which recently took on a new name after CrimeReports.com merged with Motorola — is called CityProtect.
Although the platform now has a different name following the merger, FCPD Sgt. Tara Gerhard says the features are the same. The department’s internal reporting system connects with the website to automatically publish an interactive map.
The service is free, and users can sign up to receive alerts. Users can also filter the data based on the type of incident and the date.
“CityProtect provides a convenient, web-based platform which allows us to continue to be transparent with our community by sharing local police-related information,” Gerhard said.
Incidents like domestic violence, traffic-related incidents, and homicides are not captured by the platform.
FCPD also recently launched a new data dashboard, which provides public information about arrests, citations, warnings and department training procedures and other policies.
Image via CityProtect
The trajectory of COVID-19 cases in Fairfax County continues its upward climb this week.
As of today (Monday), the trailing weekly average of new cases hit 471, with an all-time high reported on Saturday when cases hit a weekly average of 505.
While the county’s caseload continues to break all local records, the acceleration of new cases reported daily seems to have slowed slightly.
Nonetheless, the county reported the highest number of daily cases — 725 — last week on Dec. 7. Overall, the case trajectory continues to be exponential over the last month, suggesting that community transmission is occurring.
Another measure to determine community spread — the test rate positivity — remained high this week. The county’s rate is 10.6 percent, slightly down from last week’s rate of 11.5 percent. The state’s rate is 10.9 percent.
New statewide restrictions went into effect today, including a curfew from midnight to 5 a.m., a 10-person cap on social gatherings, and an expanded mandatory mask requirement.
An initial shipment of the Pfizer vaccine was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration last week. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam stated that the Commonwealth would receive its first shipment within the following 24 to 48 hours with initial distribution targeted toward healthcare workers and long-term care facilities.
Meanwhile, the county is urging residents to celebrate the holidays with the people in their immediate household.
“We must find a way to recognize our traditions without putting ourselves and others at risk,” said Fairfax County Health Director Gloria Addo-Ayensu.
Here are some shopping tips for a healthy, safe and enjoyable holiday 🛍️
Check out our recommendations for family celebrations and entertainment: https://t.co/U2eRplxu3k pic.twitter.com/CpqHqa5TR9
— FairfaxCounty Health (@fairfaxhealth) December 13, 2020
Image via CDC on Unsplash
New COVID-19 Restrictions Take Effect in Virginia — “On Monday, new COVID-19 restrictions went into effect in Virginia, including a curfew that with exceptions requires people to stay home between midnight and 5 a.m.” [ABC7-WJLA]
Snow Expected to Hit Mid-Atlantic Region This Week — “A major winter storm is set to wallop the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast on Wednesday and Thursday…But for the immediate Washington area, a messy mix of precipitation is more likely than a major snowstorm.” [The Washington Post]
Vienna Hopes to Be a Trailblazer with New Holiday — “The Vienna Town Council on Dec. 7 unanimously adopted a resolution to recognize Liberty Amendments Month, which will honor the ratification of the U.S. Constitution’s 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments.” [Sun Gazette/Inside NoVA]
Haycock Elementary School Teacher Publishes First Book — “Allison Kelly, an ESOL teacher at the school, published her book, “There’s Spaghetti on My Ceiling: And Other Confessions of a Reformed Perfectionist,” just in time for the holiday season. A mother of two McLean High School graduates, she writes about balancing life as a Fairfax County Public Schools parent and teacher.” [Patch]
Republik Coffee Bar (7915 Jones Branch Dr.) permanently closed earlier this week, Tysons Reporter has confirmed.
An employee at Republik Coffee’s Ballston shop told Tysons Reporter today (Friday) that the Tysons venue permanently shut its doors three or four days ago, but the worker was not privy to any behind-the-scenes information about what went into that decision.
A representative of Highgate at the Mile, the mixed-use building that houses Republik Coffee in Tysons, also stated that the shop just closed, but she didn’t know why. Tysons Reporter also reached out to Kettler, which owns Highgate, for comment but has not heard back yet.
Originally based in Arlington, Republik Coffee came to Tysons in June 2018 with the goal of providing premium coffee and serving as a key tenant of the fledgling Highgate development. It had been envisioned as the start of a larger expansion that would have included another Fairfax County location and two venues in Washington, D.C.
However, signs of trouble emerged only nine months later when Republik Coffee received an eviction notice in February 2019. Owner Talha Sarac told Tysons Reporter at the time that the situation was a misunderstanding, and the location stayed open past the Feb. 27, 2019 date when the space was supposed to be vacated.
Highgate resident Ryan Martinez informed Tysons Reporter yesterday (Thursday) that the furniture in Republik Coffee had been packed up, and equipment appeared to be in the process of being removed. He noted that the shop had always been a little erratic, opening its doors on some days and closing on others.
“I’m sure the pandemic really drove down business,” Martinez said. “Too bad, hope they or another coffee shop can turn things around.”
Toll revenues from the Interstate 66 Express Lanes to the tune of $1 million will fund a second entrance to the McLean Metrorail Station.
The plan is to knock down part of a wall in order to add doors and an entrance, Fairfax County Department of Transportation Special Projects Division Chief Martha Coello said.
“It really enhances the ability for people who live or work north of the station to easily access it,” she said. “Hopefully, that gives them greater incentive to use transit, rather than use their own vehicle.”
Fairfax County aims to start work “in the next year or so,” she said.
Using 66 Inside the Beltway toll revenue, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission awarded money to six “low-cost, low-risk” transit projects as part of its Commuter Choice program for the I-66 corridor, according to an announcement on Thursday (Dec. 10).
“We’re expanding the transportation network now using a conservative strategy focused on low-cost projects and longstanding assets to ensure access to convenient, safe and reliable choices whenever people are ready to commute,” NVTC Executive Director Kate Mattice said in a statement.
Both the scope and timeline of the program are more conservative this year due to a drop in toll revenue caused by the novel coronavirus. Pre-pandemic, Commuter Choice anticipated getting $25 million in grant funding for the 2021-22 fiscal year. Instead, tolled trips dropped by nearly 50%.
The announcement called Fairfax County’s application the strongest out of the six projects, which will receive a total of $3.5 million. Other picks included renewing service for three “existing, high-performing express bus services” and converting parts of one lane of Lee Highway in Arlington into a bus and HOV-only lane.
Staff picked this batch of projects because it “minimizes the risk around the uncertainty of a return to pre-pandemic traffic volumes and makes the best use of the minimal available toll revenues,” NVTC says.
According to Commuter Choice, the program has enough money saved from previous years to continue existing projects and fund new projects.
Coello said the McLean Metro Station project “is a bit unusual” in that it was not formally part of a capital improvements plan, but rather, arose during a rezoning application from Capital One in 2012.
Working with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, a team from Capital One designed the entrance, she said. The county received the exact amount it applied for, but Capital One has pledged to contribute to overages.
Coello says Fairfax County has been waiting for the right time to develop the site. Back in 2012, the change was not urgent enough to justify spending the money.
“Having an opportunity like Commuter Choice, this was kind of a golden opportunity,” she said. “It was a case of the right place, right time, right pieces falling in place.”
Since the Commonwealth of Virginia and NVTC established the program in 2017, Commuter Choice has provided more than $60 million grant funding to 36 projects in Northern Virginia.
Staff photo by Jay Westcott
It has barely been 10 days since Fairfax County launched its annual Hypothermia Prevention Program, and it’s already clear that this winter will be unlike any other that Abby Dunner has experienced in her nearly decade-long work with the initiative.
Now the manager of the Fairfax County Office to Prevent and End Homelessness, Dunner has been involved with the hypothermia prevention program since she was employed as a case manager and assistant by the nonprofit FACETS in 2012.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, forced Dunner and the other county and nonprofit officials who run the program to completely reengineer their operations, which were well-honed after 15 years of providing shelter for people in need during the coldest months of the year.
This year’s hypothermia prevention program, which started on Dec. 1 and runs through Apr. 1, 2021, must contend not only with the public health risks and social distancing protocols created by COVID-19, but also the looming threat of a surge in homelessness if emergency assistance measures end.
“We recognize the challenges and kind of the unique situation that we’re in, but everybody is also very much on board with understanding that the program has to continue,” Dunner said. “We have to still be able to shelter people who are experiencing homelessness.”
County officials and the nonprofit contractors that operate the hypothermia prevention shelters realized early on that they would have to make major changes to the program to make it viable this year.
Dunner says the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness collaborated extensively with the Fairfax County Health Department throughout the planning process. Health officials walked through each site and recommended ways to implement social distancing as much as possible.
Typically, the county relies on faith communities and nonprofits to host the actual shelters, which rotate between different locations every week, but the churches and other buildings usually utilized were too small to allow for the approximately 100 square feet of space sought per guest.
This time, the county turned to its own facilities, ultimately identifying seven sites that were sufficiently spacious, centrally located, and accessible by public transportation.
The ideal site for Central Fairfax, which includes the Tysons area, turned out to be a former Container Store at 8508 Leesburg Pike in Vienna.
According to Mike Dykes, the hypothermia coordinator for FACETS, which is operating the site, Fairfax County had been renting it out to George Mason University as a storage space before realizing it could be repurposed. At roughly 19,000 square feet in size, it can accommodate up to 84 shelter guests with social distancing.
“It’s quite a lot of space, much larger than the spaces we were looking at earlier and larger than most of the spaces we’re at in other years,” Dykes said.
Dunner says the hypothermia prevention program generally serves about 1,200 people across its four months of operation, and roughly 215 people utilize the shelters each night.
Though only a handful of people stayed at the Container Store site for the first couple of nights, the shelter averaged about 26 guests over the program’s first seven days, reaching 40 people on Dec. 7 with numbers expected to continue rising, according to Dykes. Read More
Fairfax County Public Schools could start expanding in-person learning to more students again in January.
Under a draft timeline that FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand presented to the county school board last night (Thursday), all students will learn virtually for the first week after winter break, which lasts from Dec. 21 through Jan. 3.
Students who opt for hybrid in-person/virtual learning would then begin returning to school buildings on Jan. 12, starting with five cohorts that encompass pre-K and kindergarten students, as well as students in special education, English learners, and other specialized programs.
Elementary school students will be phased in, two grades at a time, between Jan. 19 and Feb. 2. Middle and high school students have been split in two groups, with seventh, ninth, and 12th graders returning on Jan. 26, and eighth, 10th, and 11th graders returning on Feb. 2.
“This plan is contingent on health and operational metrics being met,” Brabrand emphasized. “We’ll provide the board an update on this plan on Jan. 5 at our next monthly return-to-school work session and as needed as we get closer to the target dates for the groups.”
During the school board work session, Brabrand also laid out plans for a revised bell schedule to accommodate the increased time and reduced capacity needed to transport students to school by bus, a change that he acknowledged will present challenges for some families and employees.
“However, it is the only way we can return all of our grade levels back to in-person following health and safety guidance,” he said.
To address concerns about students falling behind academically while learning online, FCPS will loosen its grading policies and implement a system of interventions to give more individualized support to students who are struggling. English learners and special education students will also receive targeted support, including teacher-family conferences and regular check-ins.
Brabrand’s Dec. 10 presentation represents represent FCPS’s first concrete effort to resume a process that began on Oct. 5 but was suspended on Nov. 16 after Fairfax County’s COVID-19 caseload exceeded established thresholds for phasing students back into in-person learning.
Whether the new Return to School plan will actually come to fruition as proposed remains to be seen, as the Fairfax Health District continues to report record levels of COVID-19 transmission. Read More
The Tysons-based theater 1st Stage is taking a stand against gun violence with a virtual night of staged play readings on Dec. 14.
Kicking off at 7:30 p.m. on Zoom, the free event will feature readings of seven short plays written by teen playwrights as part of the nationwide ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence project, which encourages teenagers to express their activism through art.
1st Stage Artistic Director Alex Levy says the project aligns with his belief in theater as an arena where people “can come together as a community and have difficult conversations about our world.”
“I was especially moved to amplify the voices of these young people whose entire lives have been lived in the shadows of lockdown drills, gun violence, and mass shootings,” Levy said. “They are demanding a better world, and we at 1st Stage stand with them.”
The plays were written by teens from around the country, and they were selected by a committee of playwrights, including Lauren Gunderson and David Henry Hwang, according to a press release.
The readings will be followed by a discussion led by Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Executive Director Josh Horowitz and Fairfax County NAACP President Sean Perryman, who is currently campaigning to become Virginia’s next lieutenant governor.
Descriptions of the featured plays and a link to register for a limited quantity of tickets can be found on 1st Stage’s website.
Metro Silver Line Phase 2 Delayed Again — “Metro executive vice president of capital delivery Laura Mason said Thursday based on the latest information from the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority – which is in charge of building Silver Line phase two – fall 2021 appears to be the best estimate for when service can start.” [ABC7-WJLA]
VHSL Issues New Face Mask Requirement for Student Athletes — “Starting tomorrow, winter athletes must wear a face mask at all times. This includes while they are engaged in physical activity. Because of safety concerns the only exceptions would be wrestling, gymnastics and swim & dive (when engaged in activity).” [McLean High School]
Fairfax County Suggests Pause on 495 NEXT — “Fairfax County supervisors approved two letters to the state transportation secretary Dec. 1 urging the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) not to finalize decisions on its 495 Express Lanes Northern Extension (495 NEXT) project until Maryland officials make highway-capacity arrangements on their side of the Potomac River.” [Sun Gazette/Inside NOVA]
Comcast Expands Network in Tysons and Other Parts of Virginia — “Comcast Business today announced it has completed construction in Virginia – expanding the company’s advanced fiber-optic network to more than 2,800 additional businesses.” [Comcast Business/PR Newswire]
