The Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling (FABB) is looking for Northern Virginia residents to help with bicycle and pedestrian safety by becoming a transportation safety leader.

The program offers free training in bicycle and pedestrian safety techniques and certification as a bicycle education instructor.

Are you a #NoVa resident committed to safer #cycling? @BikeFairfax and @WABADC sponsor seminars in March: pedestrian or bike safety, or become a @BikeLeague Cycling Instructor. Apply by Mar 1 https://t.co/9XNwWJ4FwE
Dates here: https://t.co/c0pmhnZHww@BikeArlington @Active_PW pic.twitter.com/c6a8mN2vbu

— Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling (@BikeFairfax) February 21, 2019

The program is a collaboration with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, which is partnering with FABB, George Mason University, Inova Hospital and others on the project. The aim is to increase the safety of bicyclists and reduce crashes. The training is part of a federal highway safety project funded by a grant from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

Three training programs are available:

• League Certified Instructor (LCI) Seminar (24 hours) — To become an LCI, you’ll need to complete this comprehensive 3-day LCI Seminar. As a prerequisite, you must also complete the one-day “Smart Cycling Class” at least one month prior to the seminar as well as an open-book assessment.
• Smart Cycling class (eight hours) — Gain bicycle safety knowledge and skills by completing this class online and six-hour seminar both in a classroom and on a bicycle.
• Pedestrian Safety Training class (four hours) — Gain pedestrian safety knowledge and skills by completing this four-hour class over two evenings.

Participants in the program must attend all applicable training dates and commit to doing at least two community pedestrian and bicycling safety outreach events by Sept. 15 and one more by January 2020.

The training is open to any local government staff, police, school faculty or residents with an interest in improving bicycle safety. The deadline for applications is 5 p.m. on Friday, March 1.

Olympic Gold Medalist Tom Dolan is opening a new children’s swimming school today (Friday) in Falls Church.

The Tom Dolan Swim School is located in the Willston II Shopping Center (6112-A Arlington Boulevard). The new facility includes a 90-degree pool, as well as changing rooms, showers and other pool-related amenities.

The Falls Church location is the second Tom Dolan Swim School. The first opened in Loudoun County in 2012.

The school opens for the first time today, but the first day of classes is scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday).

Classes at the school vary from “waterbabies” classes to ones specializing in different kinds of strokes. An adult class is taught at the Loudoun County location.

A grand opening celebration is planned for Sunday, March 10 from 1-3 p.m. The grand opening is planned to include pool games, water safety classes, face painting and more. Dolan will also be available for autographed photos and visitors can try on his gold and silver Olympic medals.

Dolan is originally from the area, having grown up in Arlington. He won Olympic gold medals in the 1996 Atlanta and the 2000 Sydney, Australia Olympics. Dolan is a 14-time U.S. National Champion and has been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Photo via Facebook

A panel of local businesswomen will lead a discussion next week in Tysons on communication and leadership as a woman.

The “Taking the Lead with No Apologies” event is hosted by the Tysons Regional Chamber of Commerce Women’s Leadership Committee. The event’s description says it will offer simple, easy-to-use tips to help women communicate effectively in the workplace.

The event will be held at Embassy Suites Tysons (8517 Leesburg Pike) on Wednesday (Feb. 27) from 5-7 p.m.

The panel is scheduled to be moderated by Virginia Case, a strategist for Falls Church-based marketing agency Strategic Tactical Marketing, LLC. The panelists will be:

• Nicole Geller, senior director of Springer Lawson & Associates
• Michelle Walker, founder of Trebla Consulting
• Danielle Turcola, president of Professionalism International, Inc.

Tickets are $35 for members, $45 for non-members, or $65 for a two-ticket pack.

Photo via Facebook

If you had a game on pre-order at the Vienna GameStop (203 Maple Ave E), you might be surprised to show up and find the store completely boxed up.

According to an employee sitting in the otherwise empty storefront, the chain closed last week and consolidated with the store in the Tysons Corner Center mall, where customers can go to pick up games they ordered.

The employee said rising rent prices in the shopping center — at the corner of Maple Ave and Park Street — forced them to close and relocate.

Two doors down, the Starbucks is also on the way out. An employee said that both of the existing Starbucks locations in Vienna are being closed in April, with staff consolidated to the new drive-through location one block away.

Between the two is Cold Stone Creamery, but a manager at the store said the location is on a 10-year lease for the location. The manager did not know how far into the lease the chain was but said there were no immediate plans for it to leave.

The Tysons branch of Republik Coffee, which opened last June near Tysons Galleria, could face eviction within the week.

The coffee bar occupies a high visibility corner of Highgate at the Mile (7915 Jones Branch Drive), the first in a series of new mixed-use developments planned for the area.

Owner Talha Sarac said the eviction notice is part of a misunderstanding with Kettler, which owns Highgate at the Mile. Sarac said he met with Kettler representatives last week to discuss issues related to the building’s rent and believed everything had been settled.

Steven Tracy, property manager for Highgate, said he could not comment on an ongoing issue and the Kettler management office could not be reached for comment.

Sarac said he expected the issue to be cleared up imminently, but the eviction notice from the county sheriff’s office said the property must be vacated by Feb. 27.

NFL Network reporter Kim Jones went on the Today Show Wednesday to tell the story about how local doctors saved her life.

In November, Jones suffered a medical emergency while covering a Washington Redskins practice. She ended up at Inova Fairfax Hospital, where doctors determined she was suffering from a rare aortic dissection and quickly performed emergency surgery that saved her life.

An aortic dissection is a tear in the heart, the same condition that killed comedian John Ritter.

Jones told the Today Show anchors that she’s lucky to be alive and grateful for the doctors who saved her.

The City of Falls Churched announced via a Simpsons GIF that trash and recycling curbside pickup services delayed yesterday on account of the snowstorm have been rescheduled for this Saturday.

Snow angels > garbage angels. City trash and recycling curbside collection is rescheduled for this Saturday, February 23 because of yesterday's snow! pic.twitter.com/gUv3nBxVq5

— City of Falls Church (@FallsChurchGov) February 21, 2019

Trash pickup for other localities started sooner. In Vienna, trash pickup canceled yesterday was picked up earlier today, though the town asked locals not to include brush or bulk items.

Roughly 90 percent of Fairfax County residents and businesses use a private collection service and are encouraged to reach out to their chosen provider to find out when trash services resume.

American Disposal Services, one of the largest private collection services in the county, announced that its Wednesday trash pickup service was also postponed to the weekend. According to the website:

Wednesday Residential service will be made up on Saturday, February 23, 2019. Please have trash and / or recycling out the night before to ensure collection.

Commercial and Roll off service will be on a one day delay. Wednesday service will be performed Thursday, Thursday service will be performed Friday, Friday and Saturday services will be performed Saturday.

The collection service also asked that the lots near dumpsters and the wheels are cleared of any ice.

At least one Falls Church resident noted on Twitter, though, that some Fairfax Public Works employees were braving the foul weather yesterday to pick up bulk trash on the street.

Seems to be tapering off a bit here in Falls Church/Fairfax, but the snow didn’t stop Thomas, an awesome @ffxpublicworks employee, from braving the roads to help pick up some bulk trash for us. pic.twitter.com/MzLKtcdpEv

— Brian Chiglinsky (@chiglinsky) February 20, 2019

Photo via Facebook

Bamboo may be a favorite of pandas and homeowners looking for a screen around their property — but it’s also an invasive species that can quickly grow out of control, and Fairfax County is struggling to figure out what to do about it.

An effort led in part by Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth is examining what to do about bamboo in Fairfax County. According to Jack Weyant, director of the Department of Code Compliance, the county is putting together an educational flyer to let homeowners know about the risks of bamboo, but is also in the first stages of considering more stringent ordinances.

The plant was first introduced to the Mid-Atlantic region in 1882 as an ornamental decoration. Sprouts of the plant can grow 12 inches a day and roots can travel 20 feet away from the original clump, according to the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia.

Patches of wild bamboo can be found throughout the county, including the Pimmit Run Trail in McLean.

The plants can dominate sites, creating a monoculture that can crowd out and ultimately displace native vegetation. The plant can cause extensive property damage to decks, pool liners or even building foundations.

Getting rid of bamboo is far more difficult than growing it. Justin Roberson with the Fairfax County Park Authority said the best way of eliminating bamboo is to cut down the shoots and treat the stumps with herbicide, a process that needs to be repeated over multiple growing seasons. Digging into the ground and breaking up the roots could make the problem worse and spread the plant even further.

In 2017, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation authorizing localities to regulate bamboo to existing ordinances regulating grass. The code specifies that the bamboo being regulated is any type characterized by “aggressive spreading behavior.”

Current Fairfax County code regulates grass height to not exceed 12 inches, but whether or not Fairfax County opts to regulate bamboo the same way is still up for consideration.

At an environmental committee meeting on Feb. 12, Weyant said locations around the country have a variety of approaches, from requiring property owners to maintain or contain bamboo to a full-on ban that requires owners of existing bamboo to get rid of it.

So far, Weyant said Fairfax has focused on education and has a flyer in the works explaining the hazards of the plant that will be ready for release sometime within a month. But the county is looking at how a hypothetical bamboo ordinance could be put into place.

“Any potential ordinance would be complaint-driven,” said Weyant. “We need to talk about whether or not to prohibit the planting of new bamboo and how to enforce that. We could allow it to remain but require the property owner to maintain it and we could issue violations to someone who we did get a complaint.”

Running enforcement for bamboo complaints could be complicated and costly, and according to staff documents, there are concerns the fines imposed as penalties to violators would not be significant enough to support the inspection and enforcement process. There are also risks that control of bamboo could lead to unintended damage to the nearby trees, which efforts to remove invasive plants are designed to protect in the first place.

“The last thing we want to make clear is that don’t want to get the county into taking measures to remove bamboo such as we do with a grass ordinance,” said Weyant.

Mason District Supervisor Penelope Gross, chair of the environmental committee, said the county would continue with education and move into regulations only if necessary.

“This is a thorny one to try and address,” said Gross. “Going to education is often the first and least onerous approach. Let’s do the education and see what happens.”

Photo via City of Fairfax

Despite being tucked around the back of an office building at 8500 Leesburg Pike, Italian Gardens is already a popular local lunch spot.

But new plans to bring beer and wine to the store could make it a go-to spot for a midday drink.

The restaurant isn’t visible from the main street, but is frequently crowded around lunch. The relatively inexpensive menu offers a variety of subs, wraps and pizzas.

Italian Gardens filed an ABC permit last November. If the permit is approved, an employee at the restaurant said the current plans are to add wine and beer to the menu and hopefully develop a system to deliver beers like any other food delivery.

The ABC status is listed as pending, with no word yet on when beer delivery could start up.

Feeling inspired by the Fairfax Fire and Rescue Department’s recent rescue of a fallen mule or last year’s dramatic crane rescue from a Tysons construction project?

The Citizens Fire & Rescue Academy (CFRA) is now accepting applications for Fairfax residents who want to learn more about what it’s like to be a local firefighter. The CFRA is open to persons 18 and older who live in Fairfax County

According to the Fire and Rescue website:

Each session will cover different aspects of the organization, providing an in-depth overview of the department and its uniformed and civilian workforce. Program topics include: fire suppression, emergency medical services, training, recruitment, special operations, and other interesting topics.

Applications will be accepted until March 8, with classes beginning on March 21 and ending May 9. The class is scheduled to meet for eight consecutive Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Each class is scheduled to be approximately three hours long.

There is no charge to attend. The department also emphasizes that the class will not teach you how to become a firefighter.

Photo via Fairfax Fire and Rescue Department