Which Way Tysons Corner?

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2014/08/04/what-kind-of-tod-can occur-around-dulles-metro/

Dulles Airport Metrorail Silver Line
Phase two
clarkconstruction.com

Hello Everyone:

I was going through my drop box folder and found this fascinating article by Yonah Freemark in The Transport Politic titled, "What kind of TOD can occur around Dulles Metro?"  The article looks at how the Washington D.C. metrorail system expanded eleven miles north, linking it to Tysons, a suburban, auto-centric business district in Fairfax County, Virginia.  The Silver Line will make this connection via the current Orange and Blue line segments through downtown Washington and is expected to serve 25,000 daily commuters at five new stations, with service every five to six minutes at rush hour and twelve to eighteen minutes off peak.  The second phase of the project, at a cost of more that $5 billion  will add an additional eleven-and-half miles and stretch into Loudoun County, by way of Dulles in 2018.  What will this expanded metrorail service hold in store for the good people along the Maryland-DC-Virginia transit corridor?

Tysons Corner, Virginia
noovaproperties4sale.com

The first phase of the metrorail expansion project is quite significant from the expanded rapid transit service point of view.  The Silver Line is the second longest rail line to open in the history of the Washington Metro. The extension and will dramatically speed up the commutes of riders using mass transit to travel to and from work and through the western suburbs.  Theoretically, the expansion is anticipated to create a revolution in the physical environment by creating a new walkable downtown.  According to Robert Puentes, [the line] "is the catalyst for the transformation of Tysons from an exclusively auto-oriented 'edge city' to [a] modern and vibrant live/work community."  This the shared goal to which the local business partnership and Fairfax county have committed themselves.  Their mutual aim is to quintuple the population to 100,000 people.

Tysons Corner neighborhood
tysonsliving.com

One thing that holds true for this project is that it is creating significant new real estate developments near the four planned stations for the business district.  No doubt, the availability of an "excellent transit service" will increase the number transit commuters.  However, Mr. Freemark questions what sort of "livable" downtown will be created from elevated rail lines in the media of large roads and current built environment.

Yonah Freemark goes on to point out the difficulty in making Tysons resemble a traditional environment is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, the neighborhood could serve as a model for a different type of urbanism-one that acknowledges the monumental scale of existing roadways and a new transit system, which added infrastructure of vast proportions to the area along with pedestrian-oriented island set apart from the road.  Mr. Freemark speculates that the city could "...adapt to its new transit accessibility by not becoming another downtown in style but by adapting its existing suburban environment into a unique new place.  If successful, it could provide a model for suburban business districts across the country."

Map of future Tysons Corner
ourfairfax.com

Like many auto-oriented suburban business districts, Tysons is dependent on a few widely interspersed arteries that can be overwhelmed by peak hour traffic and extremely pedestrian-unfriendly.  These roads are simple not conducive to the standard livability concepts in the current planning profession because it makes small-scale retail and walkability virtually impossible. Sad to say, these hostile arteries are also the very same roadways chosen for the placement of the Silver Line and its stations.  Fairfax County transportation planners have placed a priority on the the radical reconstruction of the area's road network; moving it away from a community of a few arteries toward a hierarchy of streets laid out on a more complex grid.  This hierarchy would include the major arteries (boulevards) and smaller streets now labeled "avenue, local streets," and "service streets."  The smaller streets would create a more pedestrian-friendly environment at the core of transforming the city into a "downtown."  "Downtown" meaning a tight walkable grid of mixed-use buildings with street-level retail and commercial or residential spaces above.

The Tyson Plan
washingtonpost.com

Currently, there are major projects underway that will include newer and smaller street that are expected to take decades to transform the neighborhood into a fully realized grid.  Mr. Freemark observes, "What we're likely to get in the meantime, given that Tysons is huge and development is hardly coordinated, are tiny areas of gridded streets, surrounded by auto-oriented parking lots and the same old arterials the area is know for." Downtowns are dependent on grids that connect them to the broader city's street grids thus creating walkable areas that make it possible to live and work without a car.  In parts of Tysons where the gridded areas were laid out, most people continue to rely on their cars to take where they need to go.
More problematic, the Metro station entrances will be located on the "boulevards."  The reason why Mr. Freemark calls this a problem is that the Virginia state Department of Transportation, like similar agencies around the United States, favor the car in their transit planning initiatives.  Some of the "boulevards" have been widened in conjunction with the Metro expansion.

Tysons Corner Station
lovemycommute.blogspot.com

 Progressive minded planning suggests that Tysons  Corner should be more pedestrian-friendly, more so,  there should be pedestrian areas near railway stations.  According to Yonah Freemark, these are areas that need  road diets, because they are places where people do  not need to drive.  However, Mr. Freemark observes  that Tysons is hobbled by wide roads that are not likely  to go on road diets anytime soon.  Metro planners  understand that these  flabby roads are hostile to  pedestrian and built pedestrian overpasses on both sides  of the road to prevent pedestrians from mistakenly  crossing the "boulevards."  There is a small chance that  this hostile environment would ever be at the core of a  future "downtown" because there is no accommodation for street-level walkability.  What does it mean when the areas near the stations are the most hostile to pedestrians who wish to access the stations from the street-level?

Silver Metro Line street entrance
gettyimages.com

Fairfax County optimistically addressed the issue by hoping that street-level retail enterprises and pedestrians will line up along the edges of the secondary highways rather than look at the deficiencies of retaining an auto-centric orientation.  Needless to say, given the current state of the "boulevards," walkers are not exactly flocking to partake of the semi-urban environment along the streets, particularly when they are gaps in the area's sidewalk network.  However, a traditional "walkable downtown" Tysons is not.  Even if the sidewalks are improved, the broad "boulevards" throughout the area will continue to be an obstacle to make the full transformation of Tysons into a more urban environment hard to conceive of.  Optimistically, Mr. Freemark sees the potential for an interconnected series of "island" neighborhoods.

Ovris Fly-Fishing
Tysons Corner, Virginia
orvis.com

Since Tysons is not likely to be a "downtown" in the literal sense, it does not mean that dense development will not take place.  It simply means that the developments of this nature will be different.  Washington Post architecture critic Philip Kennicott recently noted:

The decision to elevate the stations-a far less expensive approach than burying them-may well presage this sleek new world of elevate plazas and public areas, disconnected from the ground.  A new office across from the Tysons Corner stations is built atop a parking garage, so that at ground level one faces a seemingly impenetrable plinth.  Already, a web of pedestrian bridges-some built by Metro, others by private developers-is emerging, keeping us safely about the world of machines and hydrocarbons and asphalt.

Philip Kennicott is describing a situation that approximates the modern urbanist concept which premises the necessity of separating people from car by placing them on different levels or designating specific areas for pedestrians or automobiles.  On the other hand, Mr. Freemark tells us that this concept is "...more recent new urbanist and livable streets movements has that the idea of separating people and automobile has failed, resulting in urban environments that are unsafe, uninteresting, and generally designed without normal people in mind."  Said movement have made clear the importance of mixed-use environments with densely spaced streets design for walkers but still accommodate the automobile.  This what Fairfax County planners hope Tysons will become.

Tysons Central 7
fairfaxcounty.com

Philip Kennicott further notes that the physical facts of the Silver Stations stations throughout the areas imply the city's future development will mirror the modernist concept more than the new urbanist vision.  In fact some of the significant new developments planned for Tysons such as Tysons Central 7, puts forth a series of structures linked to the Metro station pedestrian bridge, turned inward, away from the "boulevards." The result is akin to the pedestrian-oriented "island" that tries to ignore the automobility of the surrounding area.  Pay attention to the fact that in the illustration of the Tyson Central 7, pedestrian activity is presented almost entirely focuses around the Metro pedestrian bridge or the interior of the plan. On the exterior of the project are the curb cut, automobile entrances, and parking.


Tysons Central 7 could produce a new district made up of distinct "island" neighborhoods separated from each other by the "boulevards" and Metro stations, yet quite walkable.  A more advance version of this idea would make the interior of this development completely pedestrian-only.  The modern movement approach to urban planning is considered a failure and replicating the element will not work.  Despite that, the layout of Tysons' roadways and Metro stations infer  that the primary streets of the communities will continue to be automobile-centric.  The complement to those spaces should be viable, interesting pedestrian-only areas on the interior of the "islands."

For suburban business districts considering remaking themselves for transit or walkability, Tysons can serve as a good model.  Some areas make eliminate large road all together, something, opines Mr. Freemark, Tysons should done years ago.  Others, like Tysons, that are preoccupied with maintaining their ability to move large numbers of car from places to place may opt to create pedestrian oriented islands, which holds the most potential.