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Little
Falls Task Force Meeting
Where:
Little Falls Presbyterian Church
6025 Little Falls Road, Arlington
When: 16 February 2001 at 4:00 - 5:30 PM
Why: Review options for spring 2001 Little Falls Project
The Little Falls
Task Force met on 16 February 2001 at Little Falls Presbyterian Church
to discuss developments on Minor Hill and Emily Sharp Park. The eight
participants reviewed the Little
Falls Median & Traffic Calming project proposal developed by
the Arlington County Staff for the Spring 2001 NCAC funding cycle.
Participants felt that
the County's proposal met some, but not all, of the neighborhood concerns
we expressed to them.
- Participants expressed strong support for the largest possible planted
median (20 to 22 feet wide), as a way of visually narrowing the road,
discouraging speeding, enhancing pedestrian safety, and beautifying
the area.
- Participants did not support the creation of bicycle lanes, primarily
because this would still leave a wide stretch of pavement that would
encourage continued speeding, while not deterring those commuters
who seem to think that Little Falls is a four-lane highway and carve
out their own passing lane. The bike lane also raises safety problems
of its own; the road narrows greatly in front of Nottingham School,
making bicycle travel very hazardous. Dispensing with the bike lane
would give us ten additional feet to add to the median, allowing us
to create medians 20 to 22 feet wide. Participants also supported
making two cutouts, for access to Little Falls Church and another
for Erwin Hall (the Pastoral Care Center), with an additional opening
left near the Williamsburg traffic circle, for shopping center traffic.
- Participants
supported installation of parking lanes, as long as the lanes were
drawn in such a way that those attending worship services at Little
Falls Church were discouraged from parking in close proximity to driveways
(which makes it difficult to back out onto Little Falls Road).
- Participants
supported the installation of patterned crosswalks at the intersection
of Ohio and Little Falls. Participants would also support patterned
crosswalks that were slightly raised.
- Participants
did not support the creation of a painted median on Little Falls Road
east of Nottingham. Rather, we advocate creation of planted medians
from Nottingham east to Lexington. Such medians would, of course,
need to be of varying widths.
- Participants
were unsure of the utility of traffic nubs at the intersection of
Ohio and Little Falls Road, particularly if these measures mean that
there will not be enough funding in this initial project to create
the planted medians, which are our top priority.
The Task Force revised
the County's project proposal to reflect these views. We submitted this
revised proposal – the
Little Falls Task Force proposal – to the County staff and
hope to get their response to it (and also to our questions) next week.
We intend to invite the relevant County staffers to our next Task Force
meeting to hammer out any differences and plot out the next steps. The
deadlines for project submission
for the spring funding round are fast approaching. We will be having
several more Little Falls Task Force meetings between now and the first
deadline, which is 30 March 2001. If you have friends or neighbors who
might be interested in participating, please share this announcement
with them.
If you can't make
the Task Force meetings, but want to help out on the project, wish to
register your views on how you think we should approach the problem,
or wish to be added to the email distribution list, please email ellenjones6@starpower.net
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