Tonight the Northern Virginia Streetcar Coalition held their annual meeting at the Skyline development in Fairfax County to discuss the status of the Columbia Pike and Crystal City streetcars. The projects are moving forward in their feasibility studies, FTA funding outreach, and jurisdictional planning and look to begin the next steps in early 2013 towards getting a final engineering concept. Mary Chavalier and Matthew Houston both were optimistic about regional support and believe the projects could reach completion between 2017 and 2018.
Of particular interest to Fairfax residents is the terminus of the Columbia Pike streetcar project in Fairfax at Skyline. Supervisor Penny Gross provided some interesting historical context on the night telling the audience of 40 or 50 about the development of Baileys and Skyline in the 1970s. Originally the concept was that a heavy or light rail system would be available along Columbia Pike and at that time Fairfax County moved ahead with allowing development at transit densities. Unfortunately the rail options were then removed from Metro’s master plans and so began a cycle of overcapacity road systems in the corridor.
“So many local leaders come up and tell me I want it to go out to Route 7 all the way to Tyson’s, or to Annandale, or to Falls Church. I say let’s get it to Bailey’s first, to prove its viability,” said Supervisor Gross. “There is tremendous interest to take the initial line and providing a network to Northern Virginia, and I am very pleased to be a party of it.“
The panel discussion of regional leaders (Supervisor Gross Fairfax, Supervisor Hynes Arlington, Councilman Smedberg Alexandria, and fill in Former Councilman Ballard Falls Church) provided significant insight on their relationship to each other, the state, and federal sources and partners on transit projects. “We don’t have the partner that many of us would like at the state level. It would be great to have that state component to help spur this along,” said Councilman Smedberg of Alexandria.
If you missed the event tonight and are interested in the streetcar projects Arlington County Supervisor Mary Hynes will be hosting an event 7pm tomorrow at the Central Library at Virginia Square on streetcar design criteria and further regional coordination.