BY Kathleen A. Brown

IMA volunteer in Justice Park

Ravenwood Citizen Association, VP 

How is it that Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT), a DECADE after a Seven Corners community request for “a” sidewalk, spends extensive staff time, planning, construction mapping, and soil grading studies for this sidewalk with a price tag of nearly $1 million in a county park without reaching out to the originally requesting community for a check in?  

Had FCDOT done that, it would have found a sidewalk had already been paved on the opposite side of Peace Valley Lane in 2023, in front of Justice High School financed by FCPS funds, which fulfilled the community’s request for a paved walkway between neighborhoods on either side of the school in the Seven Corners area. 

Between Ravenwood Park Citizen Association’s original 2016 sidewalk request and the 2023 construction of a sidewalk on the Justice High School side of Peace Valley Lane, surrounding communities in 2021 successfully fought off paving Justice Park for a 2-acre school parking lot. After that battle, community insistence for meaningful engagement about any future paving projects was assured by County officials, or so we thought.  

Yet, on Saturday morning November 8th, volunteers working on invasive management activities arrive at Justice Park to find white tape, survey markers and an indication that County planners are staking out plans for what? A road widening?  Days later a large blue County sign appears on Justice Park announcing another sidewalk project to be completed in spring of 2026. After several stories on the local news website Annandale Today, the County’s sign promoting the construction of this sidewalk disappears. 

Inquiries with FCDOT staff in the Transportation Design Division originally claimed the project was “ pursuant” to Ravenwood Park’s request for the sidewalk; yet weeks later staff claimed, “it was not acting on the community’s request.”  It appears the design team may not have been aware of the construction of that sidewalk on Justice High School’s side of Peace Valley Lane until their survey staff finally visited the site. 

It may have been this project got into the pipeline, yet because of our County’s more costly pipe issue, “stove piping”, it was never taken out. Instead of backing down, Gregg Steverson, FCDOT’s director, shares a “both-sides-ism” argument.  He insists FCDOT often places sidewalks on both sides of the street to prioritize “connectivity”. Yet this is a sidewalk to nowhere– as it runs from a cul-de-sac across from the high school sign – yet abruptly ends near a service road on the parkland and does not include the County right of way in front of the sole home at the corner of Peace Valley Lane and Mansfield Road. So much for genuine connectivity!   

Given Fairfax County’s projected budget shortfall of $131.5 million to $163.8 million, why would nearly $1 million be spent on a duplicative sidewalk which doesn’t provide a path for students and community members approaching Peace Valley Lane from Mansfield Road? 

Why when Justice Park’s severely eroded tributary of Holmes Run will be undergoing much-needed stream restoration by the Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services to improve water quality, as well as the urban forest’s water connectivity to the floodplain, will further impervious cement surface be placed on the very top of this stream?  While not allocated yet, the design phase for stream improvement is funded by $540,000 from the County’s stormwater tax revenue. 

“The sidewalk is a wasteful and destructive piece of construction, pursued in an absurd way”, says Peter Jones, volunteer IMA (Invasive Management Area) lead in Justice Park at a meeting in the park on March 5th.  Sonia Shahnaj, a lead Engineer for FCDOT admitted no less than four times at this meeting, “We’ve already spent the money on design and land acquisition so it would be a waste not to finish it.” 

Visit fcnp.com to read the rest of this commentary.

“The utter lack of logical thinking, covering up poor coordination over three different project managers and six years of non-action is just utterly inexcusable” argues Peter Jones. “It’s like they looked around for an old project to spend extra money on, found this, did no due diligence, cut and paste a new date on the old 2018 project plans, and then now go full steam ahead claiming any questions or push back from the community is in bad faith.  We have coordinated over 450 volunteer hours per year for the last five years in Justice Park.  There are many people who care about this park, and FCDOT did not even bother to do any meaningful community outreach before starting this project, beyond one meeting in 2019.”

Let’s expect more accountability for our hard-earned taxpayer dollars and see that this sidewalk sideshow in Justice Park forces our County, with a $5.7 billion dollar budget, to disallow projects, a decade in the pipeline, from suddenly reappearing without reevaluation to ascertain its need and worthiness. 

As of now, there’s something called an Internal Audit Office in Fairfax County which reports directly to the County Executive, rather than an independent authority, yet their investigation will not stop the clock on this project.  Chairman Jeff McKay and Supervisor Andres Jimenez’s offices have brushed aside pleas for meetings. 

So, if it happens here, twice on this small parcel in the Seven Corners area, it’s surely happening elsewhere in our County. 

There’s a reason we face a $131M+ dollar deficit in Fairfax County. This is just one of the 131+ reasons why.