Arlington without transit?
Today's WSJ article called "The Ride Choice - A Texas City Ponders Buses" (link: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118964900293725997.html) describes the transit story of Arlington, TX, another world far removed our little transit-oriented bubble inside the Capital Beltway. This texas sized surburb-city, population 365,000, shares our name but not our experience when it comes to urban village living, and mobility options, for they have no transit service!
The article describes the all-too-familiar story of a post-WWII suburban community that is built around freeways and shopping centers, and how plans for transit have met community opposition.
To my thinking, this article highlights the importance of always keeping perspective on community building. Two perspectives that have allowed Arlington,VA advance as a community are as follows.
The first perspective is the competitive perspective, which I believe that Arlington, VA excels at, in which the community looks and learns from national/international best-practices and adopts them in a community supported manner. Adopting this competitive, be 'world-class' perspective has allowed Arlington to make some excellent decisions over the years. Orangeline Metrorail construction, TOD development, multi-modal transportation systems are the examples that come to mind. The County's green building, Fresh Air initiatives, great schools and art and cultural activities are also worth celebrating.
The second important perspective is a community's historical perspective. Knowing your history and what combination of visions, decisions, and efforts transformed Arlington, VA into what it is today. Although there are bound to be many versions of this history. I wonder who is making sure that these histories are being preserved and taught for future recollection and learning? Imagine Arlington, VA without metrorail, CommuterStores, bike lanes or curbside Flexcar service? Which decisions lead us to where we are now? And how will our past help us decide our future?
Thinking about the problems that Arlington, TX are encountering makes me appreciate our Arlington, VA community even more. We have built our many successes, and we are willing to share our story. Perhaps we could invite some Arlington, TX citizens to come visit us and learn about our community, and in exchange we can send some of our citizens to Texas for a learning exchange. In telling our story we can remind ourselves of how we got here, and where we can progress and do better.
Here is my top 5 priority projects, that you have never heard of:
5-Bus and HOV lanes on US 29, US 50, US 1 during rush hours,
4-Establishing a comprehensive on-street bicycle lane network, (building off the great R-B corridor lanes)
3-Fixing existing bus service route traffic bottlenecks at Rosslyn, Ballston, and the Pentagon,
2-Needs assessment for new metrorail crossing over the Potomac (fix the Silver, Blue, Orangeline congestion), (this is the real bridge vs tunnel debate, forget Tyson's)
1-Provide community grant for existing Arlington buildings to provide on-site worker bike parking, lockers, showers, and other related transportation and transit infrastructure, you can fund this with a small parking space tax.
Bonus priority - Make sure that every 7th and 11th graders in Arlington Schools get educated in how to ride a bicycle, bus and metrorail safely. Also, provide this education class free to Arlington adults.
