Minutes

TRANSPORTATION SAFETY COMMISSION

July 29, 2008

The Vienna Transportation Safety Commission (TSC) met in regular session on July 29 2008, in the Council Chamber at Vienna Town Hall, 127 Center St., S., Vienna, Virginia. Chairman Stephen Kenney opened the meeting at 8:00 p.m. with the following members present: Andrew Meren, J. Leonard Ignatowski, Jill Decker, Frank Johnson, Howard Springsteen and Tara Voigt. Absent were Richard Denbow and Sharon Baum. Also present were Matthew Randall, engineer for the Department of Public Works (DPW), Sergeant Mike Reeves of Vienna Police Department (VPD) and TSC Clerk Emily Allen.

Approval of the Minutes

The minutes of the June 24, 2008 TSC meeting were approved with minor corrections.

Possible Alterations to Bus Routes through Vienna

Chairman Kenney informed the TSC that citizen Keely Lauretti had brought to his attention that Fairfax County is looking for input on possible alterations to the current bus routes through Vienna. She has come up with a couple of ideas that are preliminary in nature and she is looking for TSC input. They have invited Mr. Randall White, the county wide transit services coordinator to attend the meeting as well.

Mr. White informed the TSC that Fairfax County is doing a study that is looking at bus services on a county wide basis, including both the Fairfax Connector services and Metro Bus services. There are four major parts of the study: data collection, such as who is riding, and who is getting on and off at stops; public involvement, there have been 8 public briefings around the county; data analysis, which is where the project currently stands; and service recommendations, which they hope to begin sometime in September.

Chairman Kenney agreed that with all the development happening in Tyson’s Corner, this is a great opportunity to analyze both as a group and as a Town what they would like the bus routes to be.

Commissioner Ignatowski asked if there are any standards when mapping a bus route, such as number of stops or length of trip. Mr. White said that there are not currently any standards but that is one thing that the study is looking at developing. He has a lot of faith in Transystems, the company in charge of the study.

Ms. Lauretti informed the TSC that she does planning and landscaping architecture and attended some of the Tyson’s Corner taskforce meetings and that’s what brought this proposal of new bus routes to her attention. It makes sense that with the addition of 4 bus stops (or hubs) in Tyson’s Corner, the bus routes through Town might change. Currently, the 2 major county bus routes in town are the 402 and 403 Fairfax Connector routes. The 403 currently connects the Vienna Metro to Vienna and then connects from Vienna to the Navy Federal Credit Union and then back down to Merrifield. Fairfax County made a preliminary proposal to connect from Merrifield to Tyson’s Corner which would also connect the orange line to the silver line. The fault that she finds in this is the 403 bus is the only bus that connects the Vienna Metro to Vienna; combining a route that connects Vienna Metro to Vienna and then to Tyson’s Corner would be more ideal.

Chairman Kenney reiterated that the 403 originates at Vienna Metro, goes up Nutley onto Flint Hill, across Malcolm Road, back down Lawyers Road, up Maple Avenue to Follin Lane, down Electric Avenue to Gallows Road. The 402 originates at the Vienna Metro, cuts across Tapawingo Road, works its way over to and down Park Street to Cedar Lane down Cottage Street to the Dunn Loring metro. Currently running along Maple Avenue are the routes 2T, 15K and 15L. The 15K and 15L go from Tyson’s Corner through Town into Oakton. Ms. Lauretti is looking at altering the 2T, 402 and 403.

Ms. Lauretti said that if another bus route could be added then no alterations would need to be made to the current ones. She wonders if the section on the 403 where the bus comes up Nutley Street and turns left up Flint Hill Road is well used. Maybe the study will show that it is not necessary.

Chairman Kenney said that the biggest change that Ms. Lauretti is proposing is to the 2T. Instead of having it go up and down Cottage Street the 402 would go up and down some of Cottage Street and the 2T would go down Cottage Street to Kingsley Road, turning right onto Park Street up to Moore Avenue and then back to Cottage Street and take that up to 123.

Ms. Lauretti said that the routes that she drew cover the same areas as the existing ones. The only loss would be to some people going to the Vienna Metro.

Chairman Kenney said that the only issue he sees with Ms. Lauretti’s proposed route is that it will be difficult for a Metro bus to make a left hand turn off of Kingsley Road onto Park Street.

Commissioner Springsteen questioned the current level of ridership of buses through Town is. Mr. White didn’t currently have the information gathered from the study. He is not sure how quickly it will be available to the public. Commissioner Springsteen said that his point is that if there is limited ridership it almost doesn’t make sense to have at least some of the bus routes at all. Many of the buses he sees in Town are virtually empty.

Chairman Kenney predicted that might change once the metro is expanded into Tyson’s Corner.

Ms. Lauretti said she noticed that there is a lot of overlap on the 2T and the 403. Currently the 403 goes through Dunn Loring instead of coming down 29 and then coming up Cedar La.

Mr. White said that someone had mentioned to him that there are some apartment complexes on that stretch of 29 that would benefit from buss access.

Chairman Kenney pointed out that on Ms. Lauretti’s proposed route the bus goes up Hilltop Road to Cedar Lane which passes through some denser housing neighborhoods as opposed to simply continuing north on 29 to Cedar Lane.

Commissioner Meren asked if there is the same number of buses traveling the Metro lines and the Fairfax Connector lines. Would rerouting change the number of buses on the route or the frequency of arrival?

Mr. White said that he is not sure how frequent service is. The 402 and 403 are linked. One bus will do part of each route. He believes that the 2T does something similar.

Ms. Lauretti said that another plan proposed by the task force is circulator routes within Tyson’s Corner with 2 buses per circulator route which would be in designated lanes.

Commissioner Meren asked if the circulators are going to be new buses or will they be taken off of other routes? Mr. White answered that those routes are at least 10 years off and the details haven’t been worked out yet.

Commissioner Ignatowski asked if there was any thought given to offering other modes of transportation, such as an elevated monorail? You have to offer people an advantage over driving their vehicle to get people to take public transportation. Maybe buses are not the best prospect for the future.

Mr. White responded that they are looking into ways to improve the bus system such as signal priority.

Commissioner Springsteen said that for people to consider riding the bus it has to be frequent and convenient and both of those things seem to be lacking.

Commissioner Meren asked if the TSC recommended new routes, how quickly that would be put into effect. Mr. White answered that the plan is to take in all suggestions and review first. If a route is serving an external project that Fairfax County has no control over, such as the new Metro locations, they would try to shoot for the best guess of when that location would be open for service.

Chairman Kenney said that he sees several good ideas in what Ms. Lauretti has proposed. He especially liked the proposed 2T route which connects the Vienna Metro to Tyson’s Corner via 123. He likes the 403 rerouted through Hilltop Road, which has a higher density area of housing, up Cedar Lane which goes past the apartment complexes and then to Navy Federal. She has an alternate route that brings it up a County road which is one of the ideas that Fairfax County was considering. That is a less traveled road which would turn that route into the equivalent of an express route because the bus probably wouldn’t be picking up that many people through that neighborhood.

Commissioner Ignatowski proposed that maybe they are looking at this too narrow. The West Falls Church Metro stop is closer to Tyson’s Corner and more convenient. Maybe that should be the connecting station to Tyson’s Corner, instead of Vienna Metro.

Mr. White said that currently there is a connection from West Falls Church to Tyson’s Corner. The proposed Vienna connection is aimed at people who live west of Vienna.

Chairman Kenney suggested letting everyone review the current and proposed bus routes over the next month and then he would like some input at the next meeting so something can be put together to show the Mayor.

Preliminary Review to Citizen’s Guide to Traffic Calming in Vienna

Chairman Kenney said that there are some things that the Town Council would like the TSC to review in response to the report by the traffic consultants. They would like the TSC to update the Citizen’s Guide to Traffic Calming. He suggests setting some minimum standards before a street can even be considered for physical traffic calming. He is asking for the commissioners’ opinions on how to go about this. Does everyone want to review and make suggestions or would they prefer for him to come up with revisions for them to review? In addition, the Town Council ask for help in prioritizing traffic calming measures.

Commissioner Springsteen replied that he thinks Chairman Kenney should make the revisions and then give them to the TSC to look over. He doesn’t want to set the standards too high, they should be realistic for the Town of Vienna. The TSC should look into Arlington County’s standards because they have an aggressive stance of traffic calming.

Chairman Kenney offered that one VDOT standard that he likes relating to proposed all-way stop signs is that cross traffic should be a minimum of 1/3 of the total volume of a street.

Commissioner Ignatowski questioned taking stop signs off the table and let the DPW engineers make those decisions. Stop signs are not supposed to be traffic calming devices.

Chairman Kenney said that DPW always get to offer their input when an item goes before Town Council. He is going to look over the Citizen’s Guide to Traffic Calming and will forward changes he is proposing to the other TSC members for discussion next meeting. Another thing that he thinks should be reviewed is who should be surveyed by citizens for inclusion in a petition. He feels that people whose sole access to their home is by way of the street in question should be included on the petition as well.

Commissioner Springsteen said he feels that people in cul-de-sacs will be less likely to be in favor of traffic calming because they are not the ones dealing with the traffic volume.

Commissioner Johnson’s questioned whether homeowners or renters should be included.

Chairman Kenney said that he thinks it should be whoever is living at the property at the time of the survey.

Chairman Kenney said that the Town Council also wanted the TSC to look at the Town by quadrant and offer suggestions for traffic calming. That is a big project and something that can be looked at in the future.

Commissioner Springsteen said he feels the recent traffic study should have accomplished that.

Report of the Chairman

Chairman Kenney went over a summary of bike and pedestrian accidents that Sergeant Reeves had recently given him. In 2005 there were 10 bicycles accidents and 8 pedestrian accidents, in 2006 there were 6 bicycle accidents and 7 pedestrian accidents, and in 2007 there were 3 bicyclist accidents and 10 pedestrian accidents, so far in 2008 there have been 1 bicyclist accident and 5 pedestrian accidents. According to Sergeant Reeves, most pedestrian accidents result from pedestrians crossing in the middle of a roadway, pedestrians in parking lots or pedestrians in crosswalks. Most bicyclist accidents occur on Maple Avenue or Nutley Street and result from bikes going straight on a thoroughfare and motorists turning onto the road or bikes going down sidewalks and being hit by cars coming out of parking lots.

Sergeant Reeves said that most bike accidents occur because the bicyclist is being too aggressive and the motorist is not paying attention.

Chairman Kenney showed the TSC photos of the W &OD crossing at Church Street. There is a striped parking space right next to the crossing. Just beyond the Church Street sidewalk is a stop sign and stop bar to encourage trail users to stop before attempting to cross Church Street. If there is a car parked in that space the bicyclists can’t see the cars and the cars can’t see the bicyclist. One idea would be to create a bulb out with the sidewalk to bring the bikers and pedestrians out to a better visibility point. If that can’t be done then the parking space should either be moved or removed. The other issue is that there is a storm drain there so any work done with the curb would have to allow for run off to be directed towards the storm drain.

Commissioner Springsteen said that the pedestrian crossing pylon that is put out on Farmers’ Market days should be out there all the time.

Commissioner Meren agreed and said that they should try making the sign permanent before considering a bulb out, because of the storm drain. Chairman Kenney agreed that the storm drain is an issue but there are things that can be done to get around that.

Commissioner Voigt said the parking space should definitely be moved.

Commissioner Springsteen made a motion to make the pedestrian pylon sign that is placed out on Farmers’ Market days permanent, and have DPW look at eliminating the parking space.

Commissioner Johnson added that the other side of the crossing should be striped for no parking.

Commissioner Meren seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.

Chairman Kenney said that he has put a call in to the Post Master to try to find out the size, quantity and routing of trucks coming and going to the Post Office, as he is still looking for ways to improve the intersection of Church Street, NW and Lawyers Road, NW.

Chairman Kenney shared with the TSC that recent traffic counts the show the traffic calming recently installed in the Church St/East Street area has reduced speeds.

Commissioner Voigt asked if the petitioners had seen those counts and Chairman Kenney said no but he has spoken with them and they are very happy with the results.

Chairman Kenney said that he has everyone’s bike rack information loaded into his computer. He has looked at the website on the pamphlet given to him by the Mayor to find out what you have to do to be considered a Bicycle Friendly town. It involves a lot of work and is not something that can be done over night but it is something that the Tow n can work towards. He also informed the TSC that the Town Council will be having a hearing in September to finalize a priority list for new sidewalks. He has received a list of cost estimates from DPW but feels some of the prices are too high.

Commissioner Springsteen suggested that short sidewalk segments be done first to get them out of the way.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:56 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Emily L. Allen
TSC Clerk

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