Letters to the Editor: August 30 – September 5, 2018
Only the City to Blame for F.C.’s Parking Problems
Editor,
I am astounded at the parking problems and traffic congestion that seem to be growing on a daily basis in Falls Church. To blame anyone other than the city and poor planning would be wrong.
Falls Church City has done nothing to plan for these problems and the worst is yet to come. I have already observed many parking issues attributed to the Northside Social customers. They are parking anywhere they can and taking spots for other nearby stores in the lot next door. Twice I have had to leave due to zero parking for Maneki Neko while Northside Social patrons were seen taking several spots.
As more and more residential units are built along the Broad Street corridor we will continue to experience parking problems as visitors jockey for short-term and overnight parking. All of this rests firmly under the direct control of the City planners.
Why is the City of Falls Church blind to the increasing traffic and parking issues that they are causing with the ridiculous amount of large development projects? Quality of life is dwindling rapidly.
How much more traffic can North/South Washington Street take before it and Broad Street become like midtown Manhattan?
We are no longer the “Little City.”
S. H. King
Falls Church
Officials Needed Parking Plans Before Northside Opened
Editor,
The owner of Northside Social is quoted in your August 23-28 article on his restaurant as saying “I don’t need to worry about parking” – a thought possibly shared by many other restaurateurs, e.g., in Manhattan, D.C., and Bethesda, to name just a few notorious locations. And Pete’s Towing is just trying to make an honest buck, as well as satisfy nearby property owners who resist violations by Northside customers of their own parking spaces. So is nobody to blame for this new parking/traffic mess on Park Avenue, which some insist is only temporary, just part of our Little City’s growing pains?
The women and men on our City Council all seem to be conscientious, hardworking, and ethical folks, endeavoring mightily to increase our city’s commercial and other tax revenues. But in that process, I believe it’s, ultimately, our city officials’ responsibility to ensure in advance adequate parking for proposed new large commercial enterprises, be they restaurants, shopping centers, grocery stores, condos, or apartment buildings.
If the City’s admirable goal of raising more tax revenues via more commercial enterprises can be accomplished only by winking its collective eye at its own prior parking regulations, I believe it’s doing our community both a short and long-term disservice. Kicking the can, as they say, down the road, will only make that road more, and more dangerously, crowded.
Gerald Kamens
Falls Church
Restaurant Should Not Have Opened Without Any Parking
Editor,
In the News-Press article on parking and towing last week, Falls Church City’s James Snyder said “There are these growing pains you have.”
Well, to him I say, did your car get towed? Did you have to pay $130? Did you have to get a ride to Pete`s to get your car?
Screw the growing pains. They should have not been allowed to open with no place for their customers to park!
Wendy Nicholson
Falls Church
Time for the City to Build a Parking Garage
Editor,
The many new economic enterprises and proposed mixed-use developments are very exciting and important to the City and residents. However, for all of these new and future businesses to thrive, adequate parking is critical.
I think is is time for the City to build a structured parking garage in Town Center. The area behind the Broad Street CVS would provide the right location for such a garage since it would be within a two- or three-block walking distance of many private and public opportunities today and in the future.
Jim Coyle
Falls Church
If No Garage, City Content Losing Out To Mosaic, Tysons
Editor,
In reference to the August 23-29, 2018 News-Press article “Parking Pains Abound Around New Restaurant at Park Ave. & N. Maple,” I read that ‘…there is little the City can do to rein in the predatory, but still lawful, towing practices” and “…the idea of building a garage to help with parking, City officials aren’t fond of that idea.”
This all tells me that City officials are apparently content to lose business to both Mosaic and Tysons.
Eric Wright
Falls Church
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