Commuters may have noticed a new feature above Dolley Madison Boulevard today. Crews successfully installed one half of the pedestrian bridge last Friday. The technique used several powerful hydraulic lifts on a movable platform to position the bridge above Route 123 with almost no impact to traffic and in 1/10th of the time that standard installation practices would have taken. Expect the rest of this bridge, as well as the three other crossings for the stations to begin popping up all around Tysons this month.
The Mosaic District Target store is now open as well as a handful of other retail stores as of last Friday. It didn’t take long for area residents to find out as the place was packed on my trip out this past Saturday night. Two weeks ago there might have been three or four dozen people at Mosaic. This past weekend, from the two hours I spent there, it must have been several hundreds, which must be making the retailers very happy.
GMU reported this week that the region will continue to depend on single occupancy vehicular transportation for the foreseeable future. The study denotes that while transit is being emphasized and improved, much of the region is simple too low density, and therefore too effectively expensive, to connect via anything but typical road design. The study did note that efforts to redevelop Tysons Corner, and realignment of transit around Tysons, will increase transit use in the County from 7% today to 17% after completion of the Silver Line. That is not an insignificant improvement many (including the study’s author) note. By comparison Arlington, a County which is far smaller in land mass and has a longer history in urban land use, currently ranges between %25-30 transit usage (not including carpooling and pedestrian transportation). This is also in stark contrast to Loudoun and Prince William Counties with 1% and 3% respectively. (WTOP)
One of the most impactful votes in recent history will occur tomorrow at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting when the Board reviews and decides on the recommendations for transportation and infrastructure funding within Tysons Corner over the next 40 years. The subject has been debated and modeled within the Planning Commission (and subset within the Tysons Planning Committee) for nearly 2 years. Several rounds of public input on exposure to costs on public funds and triggering mechanisms has gotten the document to where it is today. The document has the full support of the Planning Commission who approved the funding structure last month. The vote, which at this point is an all but assumed yes, will end the unprecedented process which has provided more forward looking budget analysis than any other study ever conducted by Fairfax County. (Patch)
Urbanism Concept of the Day
City Creek Center has been a long celebrated urban project in a city not many people consider on the cutting edge of urbanism. Out in the salt flats of Utah, where space is a given not a commodity, this project has created a new downtown life for residents. It is successful for many reasons, but one of the most detailed and important elements is lighting. Planners often focus so much on streetscape, plantings, building massing, but what most residents see in a downtown occurs after the sun goes down when the go out for date nights or just catching up with some friends after work. Lighting plays such an integral part in how we experience everything and yet it often is the last, and most overlooked, design incorporated into projects. Lights dictate everything from the safety of a street for motorists, to criminal deterrence, to encouraging retail and aesthetic benefits.
When planners and designers come up with their concepts of how a project will look during the day, they should spend at least as much time trying to figure out how it should look at night.