By Monty Tayloe

mtayloe@timespapers.com

After three years of presentations, models, scenarios and prototypes, the Tysons Corner Land Use Task Force has finally begun work on a final recommendation for a new comprehensive plan for Tysons. The group is just entering the home stretch, but there are already signs that it's going to be a long one.

“I had hoped to have it done by the first of May,” said Chairman Clark Tyler, “but that's not going to happen.”

Now, the group is aiming to have finished its “preferred alternative” by the end of May. The preferred alternative plan will be tested against the computer models of task force consultant Cambridge Systematics, then the task force will make adjustments based on the results and that final version will become the group's recommendation for the new Tysons Corner comprehensive plan.

Even at this late date, it's hard to tell what that plan will be.

The billion dollar question concerns the projected densities for the future Tysons Corner, but Tyler and other members want to wait to the bitter end to define suggested floor area ratio numbers.

“Everyone is hung up on the numbers,” Tyler said. “We need to have densities that are high enough that developers will have an incentive to follow our plan.”

Still, at a recent planning session, Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce President Bill Lecos and others were advocating for developmental densities in Tysons above the recommendations of consultants PB PlaceMaking.

While proposed floor area ratios remain unsettled, the task force members seem unified in their support for a grid of streets throughout Tysons and a large bus circulator system, which is meant to bolster the effects of the planned Metrorail line on traffic.

The task force is also considering a series of grade separations at the more troubled intersections in Tysons, although consultants and VDOT engineers have recommended against them. Several connections to the Dulles Toll Road have also been declared less than feasible by engineers.

“If you put things that really can't be built into your plan ... ,” began transportation planner Leonard Wolfenstein, addressing the task force.

“We're saying this is important to us,” Tyler said.

However, the group's dismissal of engineering and traffic recommendations from its own consultants may add credence to recent criticisms of the task force by the Greater Tysons Citizens Coalition, which maintains that the task force is ignoring practical infrastructure concerns, including water and schools, in the planning process.

“They seem to feel money was the only obstacle and that could be handled easily. We think taxpayers and ratepayers would not be as cavalier in these assumptions,” said Ted Alexander, of the GTCC.

Email the reporter at mtayloe@timespapers.com

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