Results of Reston Land Use College: Session One

[terrence81]

Originally Posted by guyincognito

I'm not sure we need wider freeways as much as we need different freeways and more primary and secondary roads. If there is an accident on one road the entire road network collapses. There should be more redundancy in the system.

Ok I can roll with you on that one. I think one of the things that made the traffic so awesome in my old hometown of columbus, GA wasn't just of course the much smaller population but also there was more than one route to get where you needed to go. I think being from there helped I knew all the short cuts. It seems that there are almost no shortcuts around here. If the traffic doesn't get you the lenghthy (is that spelt right? asked the English major) stop lights will. Maybe it will take me just living here longer but at this point I will agree and say that no there aren't very many routes to get here and there. Although I don't mind getting on a freeway for a short distance if there's no traffic but right to get to the mall the only route I really know is to get on 66 and get off on the next exit.

I still stand by my argument that there needs to be wider freeways. Three lanes is ridiculous when other cities have freeways twice if not thrice that size.

Originally Posted by guyincognito

True to an extent, but based on the growing size of houses I think its really more people want to buy a large house, when they could afford a smaller house closer in.

Okay agreed, and I go back to myself as a prime example. Again would love to reduce my commute and live closer in but the quality of housing in my price range is terrible. Why would I want to go back to that overcrowded/illegal in Fairfax county group house when I can have a nice condo with only two other roommates? (Also those who have no choice but live in less than desireable housing please don't take offense.) The problem is like a million other people said the exact same thing.

I have a cousin way out on the edge of Manassas lives in a HUGE house has a fairly long commute into the city. They live in a huge house border line mansion on a huge lot with a long curvy driveway. Being nosy I looked up the value of his huge house. This 3000 square foot house is worth about the same as these two bedroom townhouses they're building across the street from my job in Shirlington. So the choice becomes pretty clear especially with kids.

Originally Posted by guyincognito

Probably the most difficult thing people have with accepting controlled growth is the realization that we all can't have 2 acre lots with a white picket fence and a 3000sf house. It just can't happen. Once that illusion of nirvana disappears there are a lot of other choices. Buying a home anywhere is going to be a compromise in some way, and I think the smart growth movement is an incentive for those willing to compromise on space for increased accessibility.

Well it looks like here in NoVA is that many are willing to sacrifice the commute in order to have a nice house. A nice home that one can afford isn't that what every American wants? Personally I don't even want a house. Can't afford one or even my own place unless I moved out to Stafford or Fredricksburg. Even if I had kids I'd just take them to a park let Fairfax county mow the lawn . I like everyone else just want a nice place (house/condo/townhouse) to live with low crime. In overpriced Shirlington my car gets broken into. In nice "affordable" Oakton you get one of the lowest crime rates in Fairfax county. So can they be combined: low crime, quality schools for the kids, low traffic and affordable high quality housing? So far doesn't look like it. Reston is giving a go but now this talk of a crime wave doesn't help plead the case. Like I said I don't have all the answers.

[ScranBarre]

Well, FromVAtoNC, I'm sorry if my "self-righteous lecturing" is bothering you, but that doesn't negate the fact that many of the observations I've made about the failure of prior Northern Virginians to plan for today's Northen Virginians (and the likely failure of our generation to adequately plan ahead to ensure a decent quality-of-life for the next round of Northern Virginians, judging by the hostility/apathy so many have here towards the urban planning process) are astute and valid. By the way, FromVAtoNC, discussion of urban planning in NoVA is appropriate for discussion on this sub-forum because it directly relates to the massive efforts currently underway in Reston for us to draft a new master plan after the original one from our census designated place was largely thrown into the toilet by developers. I've learned a great deal from some who have contributed to this thread---that information will serve me well in future census designated place planning sessions, which has warranted this thread as a success. If this thread was violating the TOS, then I'm sure our moderator would have stepped in to close it by now, hand out infractions, etc. As long as this material is still pertinent to NoVA (last time I checked Reston WAS part of NoVA, even if some would rather us not be).

To throw you ONE bone I've only been working at my current position for three weeks and have already been transferred to a sub-office in Tyson's Corner. My former commute was a five-minute drive or roughly a 15-20-minute walk. The new commute is terrible with a lot of stressed-out WV power-commuters tailgating me on the 7 (I don't know where these morons expect me to go when I'm already following others in the Cha-Cha Line, and it was their own fault to move out to WV in the first place), but I can guarantee that I'm not going to relocate to Tyson's as soon as my lease is up because my employer may just as quickly transfer me AGAIN back to Herndon or even to Ashburn or Fairfax. It's all part of my desire for an upwardly-mobile career I suppose. I must sacrifice location stability to get ahead.

I'm sorry that some of you seem to have not understood the OVERALL concept I was trying to get across though in terms of not "telling people move next to work," but rather that work (i.e. your employers) should have better centralized itself over the past few decades instead of jockeying people around to Bethesda, Tyson's, Reston, DC, and a slew of other major employment concentration areas. As someone else correctly pointed out earlier if you move closer to your employer who happens to be in a "centralized" employment area where there are 100,000 jobs currently being held, then your chances of being able to locate similar and comparable work within that center are very likely. However, in NoVA's current set-up you could move to Reston for a job in Herndon (as I did) only to have the rug pulled out from under you with a transfer to another part of the county (followed by another transfer followed by another transfer). If I were to leave my employer and seek a new one I'd be subject to wanting to find an employer with a strong, permanent presence in Reston, near my home. Could I find comparable work here? Perhaps. Is it as likely to happen here as it would have been if employment centers were more centralized? No.

To those who are going to gripe that centralized employment centers beget more traffic, I'm inclined to disagree. Traffic is worse in Northern New Jersey, despite the much lower population, than it is in Manhattan for a reason. People there can live and easily walk/mass transit to numerous employers. People in Northern New Jersey can't really walk to anything (save really for Hoboken, which in and of itself isn't exactly an employment haven). Most other major employment areas in Northern New Jersey are widely-dispersed and are in more sterile "office park" sorts of settings, forcing everyone to drive to them by design. Even in Tyson's, which, judging by all of the high-rises one would think would be "urban," is anything but pedestrian-friendly. I remember looking out the window of my new office and grinning to see a Wendy's and a Quizno's roughly across the street. I was then told by others that it was practically impossible to get there on foot because it wasn't safe. Well good job of screwing Tyson's up, urban planners! Now we'll be spending billions of dollars via the "Transforming Tyson's" project to correct flagrant urban design errors that SHOULD HAVE BEEN taken into consideration many years ago when Tyson's was still being planned.

Part of the reason I get so fired up about urban planning in NoVA is because I think of projects like "Transforming Tyson's" and all of the billions of dollars they'll cost we taxpayers to execute when all of that money could have been saved if people a generation ago honestly gave a damn about the long-term instead of only trying to make a quick buck. That money today then could have been better spent on education, health care, culture, etc. Now I'm shaking my head as I watch development patterns in many other areas today in NoVA take that same short-sighted approach as those that originally developed Tyson's did. How many MORE billions of tax dollars do you folks want to waste just because you don't want to confront flagrant urban design issues TODAY to help plan a better TOMORROW for our children? If those who had originally "planned" (if you can call it that) Tyson's years ago could see the armpit it became today, they'd be rolling around in their graves. I don't want to see Bob Simon, my census designated place of Reston's founder, also rolling around in his grave a generation from now if this community is likewise flushed down the toilet because people were too STUBBORN, APATHETIC, and DISMISSIVE of long-range urban planning.

I honestly can't wait until some of you 40-somethings out in Loudoun County who think that there is nothing wrong with current planning methods are 70-somethings and whining and griping about everything under the sun---gripes that could have been preventable if people had stopped to plan TODAY! Does everyone in NoVA have a "me first" mentality with our posterity getting the leftovers? I intend to leave this world a better place than how I came into it, and even if as an auditor I really have no "authority" to do so I'll still pontificate (and yes, annoy you) because even if my ranting convinces ONE person lurking on this forum to become involved in their community's long-range planning process, then it's ranting well spent!

[athousandlogins]

Originally Posted by terrence81

Again would love to reduce my commute and live closer in but the quality of housing in my price range is terrible. Why would I want to go back to that overcrowded/illegal in Fairfax county group house when I can have a nice condo with only two other roommates? (Also those who have no choice but live in less than desireable housing please don't take offense.) The problem is like a million other people said the exact same thing.

It's such a catch-22. Our government engages in a fair amount of social engineering in order to promote homeownership. It's not just part of our culture, it's part of our public policy. Why is anyone surprised, then, that people want to own homes?

And here in NoVA, it's not simply "buy a smaller house close-in" because those small, modest houses still cost half a million dollars thanks to their location. My husband and I have to rent in order to stay close-in. Which we're okay with - being close-in is important to us - but we're in our 30s with 2 kids. Buying and living in a one-bedroom condo is not an option.

Our peers do not rent. There is definitely a stigma around renting at this point in our lives. Our peers suck it up and move to Centreville or even parts of Maryland, then they have long commutes. We made a different decision, obviously, but I can't say I blame my friends for choosing the commute. Our monthly rent is huge for what we get - but we're not building any equity and we have no tax benefits and we can't even paint the walls without getting permission like we're still 18 years old at our first apartment. No matter how we feel about our home or how much we put into it, we'll never own it. It could be foreclosed out from under us, or our landlord could decide to rent to someone else once our lease is up. I don't know. It's not a great way to live once you've established a family.

I'll still do it because being close-in really does matter to me. But I totally get why other people choose otherwise, even if it means a 2 hour drive each day.