The Rosslyn TRansportation Stakeholders met Tuesday afternoon followed by a public meeting Tuesday evening. I attended only the Stakeholders meeting, where the county's consultants rolled out their further thinking on pedestrian, bicycle, vehicular, and public transit traffic in and and around Rosslyn with the planning horizon out to 2030. The information presented built on the two earlier meetings. The study is supposed to be completed by this December. Some important items discussed follow:

The consultants recommended quite a number of small improvements to bike/walk access in Rosslyn (including proposals for bike lanes and bike tracks), although the improvements are still at the feasibility stage. One of their thrusts was to find ways to short-circuit the route East and South so that everyone does not wind up at Key Bridge. Other parts of their proposal called for one or two more accesses to the River/Mt. Vernon trail -- one from the center of Rosslyn and one from Iwo Jima, although they acknowledged that the former would likely prove to be cost-prohibitive. They would like to see the number of bicycle/foot trips as a percentage of total trips through Rosslyn grow from 1% of trips to 10% by 2030. Note also that their little map of "proposed" access routes included an access at or near the Washington Vista path.

The consultants are recommending that Moore become something of a pedestrian zone with buses and taxis -- they had a fancy European name for it that now escapes me, with a curbless approach, pavement changes etc. to mark the area as a pedestrian-friendly zone. The need for curbs by "kneeling" buses would be addressed through access pods or platforms where the buses are to stop.

The consultants are recommending certain changes (in the 10 year horizon) that would two-way Lynn (although it may only be for a bus counter-flow lane) and Ft. Myer, open the back of the Metro station, close the bus alley, possibly fill the Ft. Myer underpass to grade, and, instead of having 21 buses Southbound on Moore Street, move to a system of approx 7 buses SB, 7 buses NB and 7 buses NB on Ft. Myer. This would allow them to increase capacity for buses at Rosslyn station, allowing for future expansion. The Arlington County project manager said the biggest problem with buses is dwell time, and this is particularly true of the Loudon County and other long haul bus services. He said Rosslyn's curb capacity was limiting bus service and that the dwell time problem was contributing to it as much as anything. The station improvements they recommend were somewhat different than what is being proposed by 1812 N. Moore.

The bus depot idea was still on their graphic, although the consultant acknowledged that there were many negative as well as positive comments concerning that proposal.

Jennifer