The Washington Metro Area Transit Authority held an open house and town hall meeting in Rosslyn the evening of November 29, 2006. People from across the greater Washington area attended and interacted with officials from WMATA.

During the public comment period, the items that I noted of interest were:

- Consideration is being made to route 50% of the Blue line trains over the 14th street bridge instead of through the Rosslyn tunnel to ease the congestion through the tunnel, mostly generated by increased Orange line traffic.

- Concern was voiced about plans to change central Rosslyn. Chris Zimmerman, the Northern VA metro board member and chair of the Arlington County Board responded to several citizen comments, including mine, regarding the need for integrated bus and rail and pedestrian friendly access to the Rosslyn Metro Station area coupled to the proposed development of the block that includes and metro staton as well as the block east (Orleans House / MacDonald's / Burger King block.

I spoke at the meeting and thanked WMATA for fixing the elevator shaft water leak that has been problematic for a long time and repeatedly reported to WMATA for the past 7 years.

I also thanked WMATA for taking action to manage the removal of abandoned bicycles occupying the Rosslyn metro station bike rack which now allows commuters to park their bikes at the station.

Regarding the proposed changes to central Rosslyn, I commented that "the center of Rosslyn is going through intense change with plans being discussed to raze and replace 2 blocks. The community is concerned about the planning process. We need a rider-centric transportation hub with integrated transportation. Currently plans are being driven by salaried, full time developers that are pushing for dispersing the bus stops. This makes no sense. Citizens look to metro to represent their interests in this planning for an integrated, rider friendly transportation system. Pedestrian access to public transport needs to be improved. The sky walks should be preserved and traffic calming measures need to be taken to manage the high speed traffic moving from the Key Bridge to Route 50 in front of the pedestrian entrance to the Rosslyn Metro Station.