Some of my family and friends in Fairfax shop at Montgomery Mall because traffic is easier to manage than traffic through Tysons. If you've ever waited through 8 traffic light cycles to get through an intersection there, you already know why they would make the trip.
Overhaul Of Tysons Center Approved: Under Macerich's plans, several thousand people will live in nearly 1,400 apartments in towers rising as high as 30 stories and arrayed around the sprawling, 300-store mall like watchtowers around a fort.
All with no tunnel.
More here.
While the citizens who make up the Tysons Land Use Task Force were talking last night about how to involve the public in creating a small city of distinctive, liveable, walkable neighborhoods, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors was approving a developer's plan to surround the Tysons Corner Center mall with eight residential and commercial towers up to 30 stories high.
And where is the closest Metro stop? It's not walkable.
Also, the construction includes multiple different projects involving rail, private toll lanes, I-66 construction, utilities, and the towers. It will take 10 years if it stays on schedule. Traffic will have no where else to go while it occurs.
I just heard about an update in WaPo on Saturday 01/27. You'll be pleased to know Tyson's isn't a "nightmare" -- yet.
Take the 12th-biggest business district in the country, which already suffers spirit-crushing traffic jams as more than 100,000 employees and thousands more shoppers try to squeeze onto the few roads in or out of the area daily.Then add the construction of an aboveground rail line that would require the complete reshaping of one of two major roads. At the same time, throw in the addition of two or three sets of highway ramps dropping in from the often-clogged Capital Beltway. Top it off with the building of 30-story towers around the huge mall in the center of the area.
The resulting scenario sounds like the cruel fantasy of an angry god. But it is the reality of the next several years facing the tens of thousands of residents, shoppers and employees who pass through Tysons Corner every day.