Letters to the Editor: September 6 – 12, 2018
Northside Social Parking Woes A Lesson for New School
Editor,
The recent letters to the editor regarding the downtown parking woes makes us wonder about the coming parking apocalypse being designed into the new high school. The design that is being put forward appears to be seriously deficient in parking.
There is a lot of discussion about ours being an urban school and an urban walkable community, so we can get by with less parking. But if we can’t get adults to walk a few blocks from their home to Northside Social, then why would we expect a family of five to walk a mile to go to the 1st grade concert or a rec basketball game at the high school?
Evenings at the George Mason/Mary Ellen Henderson parking lots are just as crowded, if not more, than during the days, with concerts, plays, back to school nights, moving up ceremonies, and meetings. Then there are the high school sports with both home and visiting team parents as well as the recreational sports leagues in both of the schools and multiple playing fields. There is rarely a night when there are not two or three of these events competing for parking spots. It is often difficult to find a parking spot now for these events, and a new school with potentially fewer spots will make it virtually impossible. Towing is enforced just as zealously at the Giant parking lot as anywhere else.
If this truly is supposed to be a community school, we should take a lesson from the Northside Social experience and incorporate them into the design of the new school from the beginning.
Steve and Laurie Clark
Falls Church
Parking in Falls Church Has Been a Problem for Years
Editor,
Never have I seen multiple letters to the News-Press in one issue as in the August 30, 2018 issue of the paper regarding one subject: parking. Wow!
The citizens of Falls Church must really be upset. But parking has been a problem in the City for years.
In the Crime Report written each week there are multiple “hit and runs,” which are probably caused by narrow streets and, when cars are allowed to park on both sides of street, it is easy why that happens. That parking space made available at Maple and Park was an “accident waiting to happen!” Sad.
The City said in an article several weeks ago that they would make 25 spaces available. When will we know where they are?
Agreeing with Mr. Kamen’s letter last week, we need a free parking garage centrally located so people can enjoy Northside Social and Sfizi and not have to walk blocks to get to either one.
The people within a half-mile of the new projects at W. Broad and Park Ave. and E. Broad & Rt. 29 are probably not going to be happy with all the parking in their neighborhoods.
Barb Molino
Falls Church
Has Falls Church Declared a War on Cars?
Editor,
Has the City of Falls Church declared a war on cars? It feels like it.
All over the City, streets are being narrowed and intersections are becoming choke points. Cases in point:
The intersection of W. Columbia St. and N. Maple Ave has a bumped-out curb, narrowing the street only at that intersection. Turns south onto Maple are now harder.
Roosevelt St. was rebuilt between Tuckahoe St. and its intersection with Roosevelt Blvd. What had been three lanes, with a right turn lane onto Roosevelt Blvd. is now only two lanes; no right turn lane (or signal). While there had always been a sidewalk on the south side of the street, now there’s also one on the north side. I live a block away and I have never seen people using either sidewalk. More traffic backs up at the light now. The turn onto Tuckahoe St. was significantly narrowed and is now more difficult. This was not occasioned by the added sidewalk. It was a gratuitous design change.
After more than half a year of detours, Van Buren St. was recently reopened. The work was supposed to fix problems with the culvert and a collapsing sidewalk over it. Before this work was done, a temporary “sidewalk” jutted into the street, narrowing it at the culvert. Now that the culvert and sidewalk are “fixed,” that narrowing has been made permanent, the curb now jutting into the street and the sidewalk is twice as wide (at the culvert, but not elsewhere on the block).
Just to add another insult to drivers, two — not one, but two — speed humps bracket the construction site (replacing a single one further up the block). Don’t speed through the constricted area!
None of these changes will favorably affect pedestrians, but all negatively affect drivers. Why? What is the City’s agenda here — and why has it gone unvoiced thus far?
Ted White
Falls Church
Letters to the Editor may be submitted to letters@fcnp.com or via our online form here. Letters should be limited to 350 words and may be edited for content, clarity and length. To view the FCNP’s letter and submission policy, please click here.
