A transportation workshop focused on short to medium term improvements for the Rosslyn area considering all transportation modes was held Saturday March 4, 2017. Attendees included Arlington County staff, Arlington Residents including North Rosslyn Residents, developers, Rosslyn BID staff and various others interested in short to medium term improvements for the Rosslyn business district areas.

The format of the meeting was a series of presentations discussing the perceived problems from the viewpoint of Arlington County and planning consultants along with examples of what might be possible to improve across the business areas of Rosslyn. Attendees were divided into teams and I was assigned to a team that included William Jones and Shannon Flanagan-Watson, both from Arlington County, Diane Gorman and I from NRCA, Nancy Iacomini from the Planning Commission, and several others that work in Rosslyn.

David Levy, a consultant from the Livable City Group facilitated workshop. The goal of the workshop was to
- Identify transportation conflicts
- Create short term solutions
- Share the solutions
- Provide input to the Arlington County transportation team

The teams Focused on 6 intersections, all within the Rosslyn business core. Our team focused on the Lee Highway/Ft Myer Drive intersection where the Holiday Inn sits on the SW corner.

Some time was spent presenting brief mention of past efforts including Realize Rosslyn, Arlington Retail Study, Master Transportation Plan and various Surveys

The Vision for Rosslyn is to move from auto-centric to multi-mode transportation to support economic vitality.

Rosslyn was described as a successful commercial areas with a strong desire by planners to move to mixed use by adding in residential and retail activity.

The goals presented by the consultants were: Healthy retail, walkable streets, safe attractive area with accessibility, a transportation network that works for all transportation modes.

The workshop was conducted to allow attendees to brain storm short-term solutions that could be implemented at low cost starting in a short time frame. A Fall planning process would be used to initiate long term studies for long term vision and planning.


The workshop was described as “Tactical urbanism" with opportunities to best address areas of excess road capacity, increasing pedestrian and bicycle volumes and balanced street networks to move toward a well designed urban system

Pilot improvements suggested including ideas applicable to streets and intersections, providing space for cyclists and pedestrians, improving public space. We were asked to keep in mind fostering better retail, agree that transportation is important, understand that streets are about people and that people make lively streets.


Arlington County Dennis Leach, Director of Transportation, spent some time talking about transportation history and Arlington County’s staff viewpoint:

Vision in 60s and 70s was to reinvent area. Rosslyn and Crystal were the first places built on top of rail system - not providing park and ride to DC infrastructure.

Dennis felt that Arlington basics are good with rail infrastructure, and density, but the density needed was not at street level. 10 years ago there was an overhaul of the master transportation plan to look for adding additional density, both commercial and residential which has been accomplished. Retail density still lags. Dennis feels that travel options and choices are important, that shared travel modes are important, and that Rosslyn needs complete streets to accommodate modes of travel. He also told us that use of transportation is important.

We were told that Rosslyn in critical for regional travel with the convergence of 3 metro rail lines, 2 bridges, many bus lines, and 2 biggest bike trails. (NRCA feels we are the convergence point of 4 bike trails, the two on the VA side and the Canal and Crescent trails on the DC side of the Key bridge). We were told we are a regional transit hub which is one of the top 3 VA transit hubs. Dennis also told us Rosslyn has a high demand for curb space for deliveries and short errand parking. Dennis said the streets are legacy of 1960's presenting challenges with block format and street scape.

Dennis said the vision is to add streets, protect bike lanes, provide wider sidewalks, and other improvements such as these. He feels we need better regional bike trail connections and improved access to Iwo Jima and other attractions.

Dennis said the the Lee and Lynn Esplanade project is underway. (You can see this construction effort taking place near the front of the Marriott.)

Dennis reported these challenges: high travel demand, limited right of way, need substantial financial resources, need to involve stakeholders, need for safe travel during construction.


Larry Marcus, another Arlington County staff then spoke about how the workshop could be viewed as a “How to get there workshop”. Larry asked the audience to think about what can be done at low cost to improve pedestrian/cyclist safety. Think about ideas such as where does Key Bridge inbound traffic go if not through Rosslyn? He asked the attendees to think short range: "low hanging fruit" approach. Larry encouraged the attendees to think in terms of the ideas from the NACTO design Guides ( National Association of City Transportation Officials) and introduced Matthew Roe - from NACTO.

Matthew spoke to the audience about what makes great streets? Design? Retail on ground floor? People? Combination of these factors? He said that Rosslyn has a mismatch. Streets and people are separated. That Rosslyn Needs design for people, places, traffic, cars - that's what design and guides are about. He said to think in terms of interim design curb - not moving the curb but improving existing streets. To think of ways to do projects, quick and slow, low cost versus high cost. He did say that being quick has limited design options that forces planners to sort short and medium term options. Wider design options need more approvals and result in long lifespan. Matt cautioned to not design for the peak moment, hour, day but for the greater general need. He encouraged focus on dedicated bus and bicycle lanes and left turn pockets carved from multi-traffic lanes relating how these changes often improve flow of traffic.

matt said to think of the idea of neighborhood "Main Street " improved by removing a lane for turns, bike lanes, etc. He cited experiences where this thinking resulted in crashes going down providing a much safer environment for both pedestrians and vehicles. Matt said new configuration thinking results in moving more people and sometimes more car traffic with retail sales tremendously improving.

Matt’s ideas on easy to do changes included interim sidewalk widening using bollards, planters that absorb water, creating pedestrian space to delineate where cars can go and not go, creating space at corners, and using epoxy gravel on asphalt or thermoplastic paint helps delineate street areas.

I asked if slug lines are important and need to be integrated into the plans since no one from Arlington County or the consulting companies had mentioned the fairly unique mode of transportation that is an important sharing mode to move workers in and out of Rosslyn. An Arlington County staff member characterized sagging the same as high hiking comparing this mode to riding with strangers. In a side discussion we talked about slug ride sharing as being more similar to paid ride sharing (Uber, Lyft) with the riders and ride providers developing familiarity with one another over the years. It was obvious that preserving and accommodating slug drop-off and pickup points were not something that Arlington County has chosen to include in planning discussions.

After the various presentations, the teams went to their assigned intersections, evaluated what they saw, those that knew the area shared their experiences with Rosslyn’s traffic situations, and brainstormed ways to provide short term topics for consideration to improve all transportation modes within Rosslyn’s business core.

Our team was assigned the Ft. Myer Drive and Lee Highway intersection with the Holiday Inn located on the SW corner and Gateway Park located across Lee Highway to the north. Our team came up with these suggestions:

• Remove slip lane , east bound Lee Highway at Ft. Myer Drive.
• Replace traffic west traffic lane on Ft. Myer Dr with 2 way bike lane (funnel bike traffic to the west side of Key Bridge leaving pedestrian traffic on east side, the teams discussing Ft. Myer Dr intersections to the south of our intersection also recommended changing the west traffic lane to a bike lane)
• Reduce Ft. Myer drive to 2 traffic lanes south of Lee Highway
• Move the bus parking lane in front of the Holiday Inn 10 ft. West to expand the island for additional seating and tables. Allow Food Truck during in the bus lane mid day.
• Bump out the curb on the NE corner of Lee Highway and Ft. Myer Dr.
• Reduce Ft. Myer Drive from 4 lanes to 3 lanes N of Lee highway (would have to be coordinated with VDOT)
• Improve signage on Lee Highway west of Ft. Myer to include pavement direction signage to encourage earlier traffic best lane alignment to the two main destinations (Key Bridge or Highway 110). This is similar to the pavement markings on the 14th street bridge guiding traffic to the best lanes to reach DC local streets or the 395 and other freeways.



The day was filled with networking and a lot of great ideas and collaboration. A non-scientific poll was conducted at the conclusion of the team reports and the intersections on Ft. Myer Drive and the Wilson Blvd and Lynn Street intersection were the two identified most in need of attention.

You can follow transportation planning efforts for Rosslyn at this Arlington County web page: Rosslyn multimodal transportation study and at this Rosslyn BID web page: community transportation