Williamsburg residents who responded to the Williamsburg Neighborhood Survey identified speeding and commuter cut-through traffic as among those things they liked least about the Williamsburg neighborhood. Both problems have worsened significantly with the rapid development of Fairfax and Loudon counties. The resulting traffic tie-ups on Interstate 66 have prompted many commuters to seek alternate routes to and from work.

In many cases, those alternate commuting routes cut directly through our neighborhood. Many Williamsburg residents purchased homes in close-in North Arlington to avoid fighting traffic during lengthy commutes. Ironically, we now find ourselves confronting the consequences of those lengthy commutes in the form of ever-more-impatient speeders crowding our residential streets and endangering our school children.

It is no surprise that many Williamsburg residents see traffic calming and pedestrian safety as our highest neighborhood priority. In response, we incorporated numerous specific traffic management and pedestrian safety measures in our Conservation Plan, including recommendations to:

• Install additional speed limit signs and increase police surveillance and enforcement of speed limits on designated streets.
• Install landscaped medians on both Little Falls Road and Sycamore Street.
• Support the installation of four-way stop signs at designated intersections.
• Evaluate existing school zone signs on the approaches to Nottingham Elementary, Tuckahoe Elementary and Bishop O'Connell High Schools and replace them if more effective signs are available.
• Work with property owners and county staff to eliminate hazardous obstructions such as tree limbs and shrubs which restrict visibility at intersections.
• Install at-grade or textured pavement crosswalks at designated locations.
• Install traffic nubs at designated locations.

At the August 17 Civic Association meeting, we identified the landscaped median/traffic calming/beautification components as one of our two top priorities for projects to submit for the spring funding cycle. At preliminary meetings with Jeff Sikes (manager of the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Project) and Chris Nixon (Neighborhood Conservation Coordinator), we discovered that we need to divide the project up into digestible bites. Mr. Sikes did not support our hope to install a landscaped median strip on Sycamore, arguing that the available space was too narrow to support any landscaping.

Instead, Mr. Sikes and Ms Nixon recommend that we focus first on Little Falls Road (Recommendation 14 in our Neighborhood Conservation Plan), in particular the blocks closest to Nottingham Elementary. Pedestrian safety in this area is critical to ensure safe routes to school and safe access for both families and elderly people using the Little Falls Presbyterian Church building. Moreover, the block between the Williamsburg Traffic Circle and Ohio is wide enough to accommodate major plantings. The median would narrow an excessively wide street, help control speeding, and make it easier to cross the street, thus enhancing school safety. Mr. Sikes will work with other County staffers to come up with options for a series of median strips (of varying widths, because the street width varies), including cutouts (i.e., to accommodate traffic into the shopping center and into the Little Falls Church).

Mr. Sikes also investigated the feasibility of related actions, such as the installation of traffic nubs on the intersection of Little Falls and Ohio and the intersection of Little Falls and John Marshall John Marshall (Recommendation 32). He is also exploring the possibility of constructing textured pavement crosswalks (Recommendation 28). In addition, Mr Sikes initiated a County evaluation of our recommendation to install four-way stops on Little Falls Road at Lexington Street, Ohio Street, and Underwood. Finally, on 16 September 2000, we requested that the County Traffic Engineer paint parking lanes on Little Falls Road from the Williamsburg traffic circle to Kensington Street (Recommendation 14).

Project Approval Process: After a series of draft plans and task force meetings, we settled on a draft project proposal approved by both County staff, task force members, and the Civic Association. This proposal was embodies in a neighborhood petition.

• We took the petition door to door along the affected parts of Little Falls Road in March 2001.
• At the end of March, we sent the completed petition to the County's Office of Neighborhood Services.
• At the 27 March Civic Association meeting, Williamsburg neighbors approved the project proposal as one of WCA's spring 2001 funding projects.
• Participants in the 24 April Conservation Plan meeting voted to affirm this support and also voted that the Little Falls Project be Williamsburg's first priority. Arlington County staff estimated that the project will cost $242,000 (for the portion between Williamsburg Circle and Ohio) and $90,000 (for the portion between Nottingham and Lexington), for a total cost of $332,000.
• The project went before the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee (NCAC) for review on 14 June 2001; NCAC members voted to approve the Williamsburg Circle to Ohio portion of the project. Details of the 14 June 2001 NCAC Meeting
• The County Board approved the scaled-back Little Falls Project on 8 September 2001, as part of a larger NC package.

Over the summer, we worked with County staff to see whether the Safe Routes to School funding already approved (which amounts to around $82K) could be used to construct both sidewalks (carving them out of the existing roadway) and a wide, landscaped swale – as an alternative way of narrowing the roadway. The County engineers have rejected this proposal, for the following reasons:

1. Safety – a median affords pedestrians a safe haven, which a swale does not.
2. Inadequate funding – the $82K that has been funded for the sidewalks is not enough to rip up concrete, build the sidewalks, install new curb/gutter, and landscape (even if we tried to get landscaping funds from either the Street Trees program and/or private donations).
3. The wide swale would entail unacceptable changes to the intersections, with the result that the street won't line up correctly.
4. Our proposal would create storm drainage problems.

Little Falls 2 Approved as Fall 2001 NCAC Project: This left us two options: to drop this part of the project for the time being or to submit it as a project in the fall NCAC funding round. At the 23 October 2001 WCA membership meeting we voted to do just that. On 13 December, the NCAC held their twice-yearly funding meeting. NCAC members voted to approve Little Falls 2.

The Little Falls project now consists of three components:

• Little Falls 1 (installing a landscaped median on the block between the Williamsburg Circle and Ohio)
• Little Falls 2 (installing a median from Nottingham to Lexington)
• Safe Routes to School Project (to fill in the missing sidewalk on Little Falls Road across from Nottingham Elementary).

At the 22 January 2002 meeting, County staffers presented some early plans for the combined project.

The Little Falls project area was surveyed in the spring of 2002. This field survey work was converted into new accurate base maps.

Little Falls 2: Integration with the Safe Routes to Schools Sidewalk Project: Right now, we are waiting for the County to coordinate the Little Falls Project 2 with the sidewalk completion program adopted by the Safe Routes to School Program. In order to avoid destruction of mature trees, WCA members voted on 25 June 2002 to modify one block of the project to allow for a slightly smaller median.

Little Falls Sidewalk Completion Project
Little Falls Sidewalk Resolution

This part of the project has been held up pending resolution of this issue. Arlington County is currently working with the two property owners to provide space for the sidewalks.

Little Falls I Nears Completion: Construction work for the medians on LIttle Falls 1 began in December 2002. On February 5, 2003, the Little Falls Working Group met with Jill Yutan (the Arlington County staffer from Neighborhood Services who is assigned to this project) to decide on the tree species for the medians. We decided on a planting pattern featuring sixteen large shade trees - Red Sunset Maple. This is a native species, featuring red/orange fall color; it grows to 40-60 feet high and 35-40 feet wide. For the median strips closest to the Williamsburg Circle and Ohio, we decided to feature several flowering trees - Okame Cherry. This tree features pink blooms in March/April and grows to about 20-30 feet high.

In addition, we decided to mark the ends of each median by planting beds of Blue Pacific Juniper, with space around the perimeter of each bed for planting of annuals. We may want to explore the possibility of inviting the Boy Scouts or other local groups to adopt a bed to plant and maintain on a year-by-year basis.

The medians were sodded and the plants installed in April 2003.

• After repeated requests, the County finally painted parking and bike lanes in September 2003, but failed to comply with the statement in the project proposal that lanes would be marked "in such a way as to discourage parking in close proximity to driveways."
• The textured cross walks at the corner of Ohio and Little Falls will be installed with the installation of Little Falls 2, probably early winter/spring 2004.

Little Falls 2 Neighborhood Review: On 19 August 2003, we held a neighborhood review of design plans for Little Falls Phase II Center medians, sidewalks and crosswalk improvements. We publicized the meeting through email to residents affected by the project, as well as flyers distributed door to door. County Staff representatives included Tom Hutchings (Capital Projects Coordination 703 228-3809) and Conrad Brewer (Design and Engineering 703 228-3634). Neighborhood residents at the meeting approved the plan. The County expects to begin construction on the medians in early winter. We will have another neighborhood review meeting at 6 PM on November 19th to review and approve the plantings. Jill Yutan, the landscape architect from neighborhood services (703-228-3825), is our point of contact on the landscaping. The meeting will be held in Little Falls Church.

How you can help:
• Be a part of the Little Falls Task Force that is spearheading this effort. To join the Task Force or to provide input/feedback/ideas, email Ellen Jones or call 703-536-7626 (before 8:00 PM, please).
• In the meantime, if you are alarmed at the dangers posed by commuters using our neighborhood as a speedway, you can highlight citizen concern by calling Arlington County at 703-228-4141 to report the problem.

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