Shifting the Focus for Transportation Planning in Fairfax County

A proposal in Virginia’s Fairfax County could shift the focus of local transportation planning to pedestrian infrastructure and transit, moving away from the common level of service (LOS) model that prioritizes the fast movement of vehicular traffic. As Vernon Miles reports for FFX Now, the policy, called “Additional Measures of Effectiveness,” would require the Department of Transportation to evaluate the impact of transportation projects on pedestrian, bike, and transit infrastructure and safety. 

According to Gregg Stevenson, deputy director of the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, “if the county wants to become more multimodal and make bus, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic as viable as cars, it needs to update its measures of effectiveness to match that.”

Miles notes that any new transportation analyses wouldn’t apply in the same way across the country. “The presentation noted that the county is broken up into ‘tiers’ of similar land uses, with different modes of transportation emphasized in different areas. For example, the type of bicycle and transit-focused development might be more heavily emphasized in Tysons’ urban environment, but not as much in low-density, residential neighborhoods.”

The agency plans to keep developing the policy throughout 2023.