The County Board response to this community request is an example of crazy priorities and hypocrisy.
- the pedestrian crossing at Key and Ode Street didn’t have a curb ramp for at least 15 years, but helped pedestrians and thousands of school bus passengers survive until the curb cut was finally made.
- The intersection at Nash and Key supports at least 10 times the residential density since the development of Turnberry and the Key and Nash Condos, but no planning effort has been made by Arlington County for pedestrians and community requests for this intersection cross walk and other high volume pedestrian crossings have all been rebuffed. Only the developer requested crosswalk on Lynn Street was added, which helped a small percentage of residents and lots of commuters.
- There are funds to finance marketing materials for Arlington Residents to give up their cars but no funding for North Rosslyn community requests to improve pedestrian survival despite all of us paying substantially higher taxes and many of us paying $1K or more a month in real estate taxes. Hypocrisy in action!
Arlington staff, has no vested interest in our neighborhood safety and pedestrian enablement. Admonishing people to walk to other intersections with signals is naive and arrogant advice. Maybe we need to get some paint and buy a sign and get a crosswalk in place.
I wonder how many commuters use those cross walks. Yes we have persons who walk to DC, or Metro to DC, or take the Georgetown bus and/or the Circulator bus who use the cross walks. Some persons come from Colonial Village. Hmmmmm. I guess we are lucky that the persons driving in North Rosslyn have no delays in Rosslyn so that there are never any aggravations for them that may distract. Oh, wait. The WRAPs area will be constructing until 2021 I believe. The Penzance agreements will "leverage" our green space for lower taxes through out all of Arlington. Hmmmm.
As someone who never drives I feel the crosswalk situation is bad. For everything they have tried to do to deter people from jaywalking from the gas station to the metro, they have failed. And that is a dangerous area to cross. Nash and Key has also become very difficult. It’s disheartening that the county is not giving this the attention it deserves.
