In an editorial in Wednesday’s Examiner, Fairfax County Board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly claimed he and his fellow supervisors have “taken the lead in addressing the transportation issues we all face each and every day.” If only that were true. During the last four years, Connolly and the Fairfax Board of Supervisors have played political games with the traffic congestion that gets worse by the day andthreatens the quality of life throughout Northern Virginia. Fairfax County property taxes have doubled since 2003, so lack of money doesn’t explain why the board hasn’t fast-tracked desperately needed local road improvements and unclogged well-known choke points.
Connolly claims his four-year plan placed “a renewed emphasis” on transportation. Since 2004, Connolly says, “we have worked to build consensus locally, regionally and statewide to address our transportation needs. That is the hallmark of true leadership.” No, that is the hallmark of the bureaucratic mush and political double-talk exemplified last week when The Examiner asked Connolly how many new lane-miles of roads were built in the last four years with the “80 road projects using well over $100 million in county funds” he cited in his editorial.
Recommended Stories
The first answer we received was a request to define what we meant by “lane-miles,” a basic measure well-known to anybody familiar with the literature and language of traffic management. A week later, we’re still waiting for the answer we were told was forthcoming. Perhaps the Fairfax transportation bureaucrats needed a definition of “today,” too.
Rather than concentrating on improving existing roads and building needed new ones, Connolly has instead focused on what he says is his “top transportation priority,” the no-bid, sole-sourced Dulles Rail Project linking the airport with Metro via Tysons Corner. This $4.5 billion, secretly negotiated deal puts Fairfax taxpayers on the line for spending overruns on a project whose price tag already exceeds the combined costs of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Springfield Mixing Bowl.
Yet Connolly’s top transportation priority will attract just 16,000 new riders by 2030, according to the Federal Transit Administration. That’s a fraction of the 100,000 daily trips taken to and from Tysons Corner now, not to mention the 600,000 additional trips that will result from board-approved new development near the coming Metro stations, tripling density on already overburdened local roads.
When challenged by desperate motorists, Connolly and his fellow supervisors obfuscate, but county residents know it’s harder to get around now than it was four years ago. And they also know things are only going to get worse. Connolly and his fellow supervisors are singing the siren song of “transit-oriented development” while leading area commuters deeper into gridlock. Come November, Fairfax voters should retire Connolly and elect a completely new board that will get serious about reducing congestion.
