Growth Is Defining Issue in Loudoun

http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2007/oct/07/growthissue/

When you read this article it should be a wholesale slaughter against any republican pro growth candidate or incumbent. Yet you look at the total picture and the right kind growth is needed in Loudoun. Too many bad neighbor developments starting to creep in. The incumbents say not their fault it is a by right issue. Well guess what whether you like it or not by right is your issue and will play a major role in the election for the bad neighbor developments and traffic it has created.

Most likely too late for most of you incumbents. Had your chance too bad.

Now the next problem is with the challengers running may not be much better if they win. If they totally fund the schools and road system where does the money come from. Much much higher taxes on falling home values???? What happens when the next president slows down defense spending and pulls out of Iraq? This area is highly dependent on government contracts especially in home land security and defense. Even with property values declining this still an expensive area to live.

We still need development to pay for the tax base.

What we don't need at the moment is no more sprawling subdivisions, ((less cheap flex and industrial which is mostly by right and does not pay for hardly anything)) We need a younger population without kids to support the work centers and tax base. We will only get these type of demographics when you build the One Loudouns
which brings together cheaper housing and work and shopping in one place. It also brings in a younger demographic without as many kids so less strain on the schools.

We also need that subway and the transit centers. If you look at Snow and most of the incumbents their compaign money is not coming much from these high quality good neighbor urban developers such as Miller and Smith Moorefield, Loudoun Station etc. Nope their money is coming from the established sprawl builders. That want to take the transition zone and build more of the same.

Think about it for a moment, They say building in the transition area will bring road improvements. Just where are these road improvements?? ha ha ha h in and just surrounding where these sprawl builders are going to build. Will it fix waxpool of course not just make it worse. Fix 28 and increase it to 4 lanes each way of course not. Fix rt 50 only partially with a few interchanges but what happens east in Fairfax and south in Prince William???? hmmmmm more Large sprawl subdivisions as many of you live in now so what happens with these sprawl subdivisions. WE GET MORE OF YOU ALL. That means more kids more commuting and on and on. Do we need and want more of us until the schools can catch up and we can get to work in a reasonable time. We don't want or need more of us. Think about it we are the problem. SO the answer is not less development but the kinds of good neighbor developments, such as transit oriented urban developments which brings a younger less children demographic and a work live and shop environment. The schools certainly can't take more kids and we can't have higher taxes to pay for what we need right now. The road system is busting at the seams and sprawl subdivisions and by right will not fix that.

There are going to be some gloomy years coming no matter what. Any of you that have kids staring school this year will not see much improvement until they are almost thru high school. Many more years of misery until the roads and schools are fixed and we have good jobs close by. Personally I have not heard any of our politicians come up with workable answers. The first urban development to be built is ONe LOudoun and who's district is that in Lori Waters. Where are all the new interchanges being built guess what ?? on rt 7 . They over there will soon have a free no light situation from leesburg down rt 7 to 28 to the cheaper toll rd or 66 without a traffic light to be seen. No pie in the sky all of that under construction right now.

The center of the county where we live will get worse and worse both in traffic and schools. The rt 50 corridor is also a mess and they have fairfaix to the east hurting rt 50 with no solution there in sight except to ignore it in fairfax. They also have Prince William which non of the LOudoun traffic so not any improvement from Prince William and to the west we have the middleburg people . So rt fifty in it's geographical location is in a weird situation and what do the republicans want to do over there including mr snow take the transition area and build more of the same and believe me that is waiting in the wings if he gets elected. Personally I don't have a problem with building more density in the transition zone when the area corrects the existing roads and schools, but certainly not now. Right now we need the subway and the One Loudouns. Especially along the toll rd. Which they would vastly improve the waxpool situation if they can get the roads through the sea of flex and industrial buildings between them and 28 and 606. Notice how industrial and flex by right is always in the picture to screw things up.

Lee j

 

Wow, I don't usually comment on these things but - "gloomy years coming" and "more years of misery"??. Seriously, do people really think its that bad here? If so, my suggestion would be to move - don't live for some utopian future, live for now (that's not to say don't hope for a better future, mind!). We've lived in a lot of places, and I haven't found a perfect one yet - but NoVA, in my opinion, isn't bad. Yes, I have to pay a lot to ride the Greenway to get to work; yes, I have to leave for work early to keep my commute under an hour. But even when I lived in Ann Arbor my commute was 35 minutes minimum (as opposed to my 50 minutes now) - so for 30 minutes extra a day, I get to enjoy living in close proximity to our nations capital. I get to enjoy close proximity to the mountains. I can be at the beach in less than 4 hours. I can be at a decent mall in 20 minutes (now this would take me at least 45 minutes when I lived in Michigan). I live in a vibrant, relatively recession proof, area (by the way, my property taxes outside the city limits of Ann Arbor were 50% higher than they are here). I really like this neighborhood!! I'm sure I could find faults if I stopped and focused on them, but ask yourself this - When you are in your twilight years, are you going to look back and wish you had complained more, or are you going to wish you had enjoyed more of what you had?


P.S. Nothing wrong with wanting change, but if you want to change things, don't blame it on the politicians - enter the political process and work to change them!

 

StevieD-
When Lee's on one of his rolls, it's best to just go with it.
This is about the 123rd post on about 70 different Forums he's espoused the same thing!

 

I blame Barbara!

 

Of course you do, GM.

 

Yep and if you go back the several years of my posts, you will see I am right on the mark. When everyone was thinking they were going to get wealthy off their homes increasing values, I said it was a false hope. Then I was accused of ruining everyones Christmas. The difference is I live in the real world and what is really possible to do and realistic to change in Loudoun. I also sent mr Snow several years ago several emails that his ambition to add density to the transition area was way too ambitious and should be scaled down or it would be shot down and my exact words were he is not selling it right and not addressing the regional transportation system for what all this new growth needs to be viable. But I personally thought increasing the density somewhat in the transition area was a good idea just not as much as they were going for. Barbara at that time accused me of being one of the PEC people which I got a great laugh at. Right now the problem is one side wants too much growth of the wrong kind too soon and the other side wants too much less growth. I am very curious how next year this way too ambitions school budget is going to be funded as well as many other programs such as the police dept and many other services are going to be funded without raising taxes thru the roof. StevieD may be used to paying way more taxes and driving further to the mall which the dulles town center is really not that great but getting better slowly then in other places she has lived, but in this county history, you are going to find that a hard sell if history is to come into play. So it will really come down to next year the reality versus the fantasy when it comes to raising taxes much. This county is a disaster in the making and will take many many more years to fix. You all have lived the dream as good as it will get for many many many years. The downturn is going to have many years of catching up to do. Doom and gloom or living in reality your choice.

The eastern part of the county is going to have to go urban especially since most of the sprawl land is gone in eastern Loudoun, which is going to change Loudoun profoundly over the next many years. Subdivision life as we know it does not have much land left to expand, so urban is coming. We need the right politicians to make this transition less painful. Sprawl growth as we have seen does not work anymore. Urban growth done right will help expand the tax base and keep the high quality of life here most of you want.

Lee j

 

"Fix 28 and increase it to 4 lanes each way of course not."

Along with parts of your post about road improvements, have you not seen all the work they have been doing? I can't believe you are asking where all the road improvements are... 28 is fantastic now and getting far better. Because of the improvements on 28, taking it and avoiding the Greedway time-wise has literally been cut in half in the last year. 2 huge thumbs up for me.

 

Yes 28 will be getting better as all the interchanges are getting done . Enjoy it now because just wait to the nightmare in the years to come when they widen it. The original plan was to widen it at the same time as the interchanges were being built, but was not because of lack of money.

The famous Waxpool will be getting worse and worse so getting to 28 is going to be the future nightmare. There is a taskforce because this is away to pacify the public for awhile when there is no money. It is going to take the subway and the urban transit centers along the toll road to do any major help to waxpool. The crazy thing is, is the proposed road system to 28 and 606 is a design mess with major connections missing along the toll road. Yes I have studied it throughly and even did a photo record on how shellhorn on one side can connect to the sterling interchange with out making turns which mean traffic lights. Right now they are trying to dump the entire transit centers onto 606 . Just look at the proposed map. So while they are wasting time studying waxpool I have redesigned the road system and did a photo tour on how it can be done. Funny thing is my ideas at first was accepted as very interesting and clever and not a word since. hmmmmm and what makes that interesting is that was late last spring and not a word since. So why they are studying and talking about waxpool I actually went out to the field and photographed it and drew a rough drawing on how to make the connections to 28 and 606 simpler and more effective, through just common sense and using the existing and proposed roads to do it and work from the transit centers. But it take's land from some of the unbuilt and their very precious flex buildings to do it correctly. Soon that opportunity will be lost if more flex gets built where my proposed and simplified connections should go. Developers can not think and plan what they want to do effectively until the county and state figure out the road system. Which should of been done years and years ago. Again the politicians and bureaucrats are hurting the developers plans by not getting their planning done. They rather put together task forces at election time to pacify you all . This is not rocket science to have this long of discussion and study time. We don't ever spend that much time in the private sector we just get it done period. Again flex will creep in here and hurt the future road system to be efective. I don't hate flex as long as it stays in their zoo. Right now it is jumping out at all of us.

Lee j

Lee j

 

Eh. One could have said it would be a nitemare before they did all the interchanges. Fact is, the interchange building has gone on pretty smoothly and the results are grade-A fantastic in my opinion; so I don't buy the future 'it will be a nitemare' viewpoint at all. They have my trust on getting it all done right. May not be the perfect solution, usually there is always a better way.

 

I agree with Lee. The problem is not 28, it is GETTING to 28.

I have a 12 mile commute to Herndon and during normal (non-summer) rush hour(s) it can take me 30-40 minutes to get to work. And most of that time is being stuck in eastern Loudoun due to Waxpool or the merge before and after the toll plaza on the Greenway.

And lets not forget the debacle at the Greenway/28/Dulles intersection which is not going to go away any time soon.

Unless you leave your home at 0600 or after 0930, getting to Rt 28 reminds me of the oft used vacation mantra, "are we there yet".

 

I agree the interchanges have gone very well for the most part. The problem with widening 28 is the narrow lanes and jersey concrete wall that makes people afraid to drive against with no shoulders during construction far worse situation then the interchange construction.

Lee j

 

the t8 man agrees with me??? oh my god, looks like I will have to buy him a beer at the next happy hour

Lee j

 

Yes, yes you can!

 

This was killed by the EPA. They have determined the air quality is too low to allow RTE 28 to be 4 lanes each way.

 

I blame prison builders, flex buildings, and lets not forget... murder dr!!!

 

I am confused and we might be in agreement - shocker to some readers

the off-ramp (28 Off ramp - right?) it goes down from 3 lanes at the main greenway/toll plaza down to 1, right? There is also a rather deep curve and elevation (which may explain the 25 MPH) downgrade - but I am not a traffic engineer. Than it is compounded with the merge of DIA(aiport) traffic onto this 28 feeder road as well and then ultimately dumps onto 28, right? And I agree with an almost immediate interchange for dulles airport exit as well as the DTR Washington Exit too much in a small amount of roadway.

So Flynn - I agree with you but I was confused with the exact road are we talking about the same one?

Also for the main Greedway/Toll plaza - at last glimpse the main plaza feeds nearly 6+ lanes into a 2 lane DTR hand off. Either way it stinks to pay that much money to stare at other drivers who have no idea of how to merge.