The Arlington Chamber of Commerce is concerned that its neighbors in Fairfax County have a new competitive business advantage, courtesy of Virginia’s revised plans to ease congestion in Northern Virginia.
State officials last week announced that they were scrapping plans to build high-occupany toll lanes along Interstate 395 through Arlington County and Alexandria, a route intended to ease congestion between Virginia and the District, and said they were doing it because Arlington sued the state over the project. Instead, the state will build 29 miles of HOT/high-occupancy vehicle lanes between Stafford and Fairfax counties and improve access at a new Alexandria office development while doing nothing to ease traffic in Arlington.
That has Arlington business leaders fretting that they’ll be left at a disadvantage — all because of the County Board’s lawsuit against the state that the business community urged the board to drop.
“I know that some of our neighboring jurisdictions are shouting with glee, because they think this alternative plan is really going to help the outlying districts, since it’s concentrated there,” Arlington Chamber of Commerce President Rich Doud said. “And maybe there’s enough [business] to go around, but maybe that’s somewhat at Arlington’s expense.”
Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce President Jim Corcoran said county businesses are ecstatic about the plan, which should provide easy access for Virginians south of Fairfax to the county’s major business hub, Tysons Corner.
The community “feels that it will be another major impetus for businesses wanting to move to Fairfax,” he said.
But Corcoran, along with the members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said they’re disappointed that improvements to I-395 were lost in the redesign. Corcaran views I-395 “as a regional issue, not a Fairfax County issue,” he said.
“It’s a shame that Arlington is taking the position that they are, that they don’t want those improvements influencing their community,” Corcoran said. “It hurts their business community and it hurts their citizens trying to get to and from various areas.”
Arlington sued federal and state transportation officials over the I-395 project claiming that they failed to do necessary environmental studies to see if the project would harm low-income and minority residents living near the highway. Arlington Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman said the county never intended to derail the project.
bgiles@washingtonexaminer.com
