Fairfax County supervisors are likely to commit $3.35 million today toward planning a transit system and street grid seen as integral to Tysons Corner’s urban makeover.
The funds will go toward carrying out the recommendations of the Tysons Land Use Task Force, a panel that has already spent millions in consulting fees charting out the overhaul of the bottlenecked business hub.
Most of the money — $2.5 million — will pay for conceptual design and engineering of part of the street grid, which is hoped to pull traffic off main arteries and turn Tysons into a more metropolitan environment.
More urgent to the county, however, is the planning of the circulator system, a network of buses or shuttles that planners want to have up and running by the time four new Metrorail stations open up along Routes 7 and 123.
Construction is now under way for the Metro extension, which is projected to be complete by 2013.
Landowners who would benefit from having a shuttle to ferry workers to and from the new stations are expected to pay for the circulator’s operation. But there is no money yet to fund its construction, creating a growing sense of unease among officials.
How to get commuters both to and around Tysons has been the subject of intense debate among political leaders and affected communities for years. Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity believes Tysons planners are putting too much emphasis on how to carry people east and west, and not enough on the heavily traveled north-south arteries.
He wants more focus on how commuters will be able to transfer from another large-scale transportation project — high-occupancy toll lanes in Interstate 495 — into Tysons.
Despite Herrity’s complaint, the Board of Supervisors is expected to vote to commit the funds today, which includes $500,000 for studying the feasibility of the circulator and another $350,000 for a station access management program.
