About a month-and-a-half remains before the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) releases a set of draft designs for the planned rail stations in Reston.
In anticipation of this study, Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) hosted a three-day conference last week called the Reston Charrette. The conference featured a team of West Coast consultants who listened to the concerns and wishes of local residents in relation to the rail project.
By the third day, the consultants produced a series of designs for development around the stations. The designs featured mixed-use villages, elaborate walkway systems, and even an option to build a platform over the Dulles Toll Road.
"We wanted to have this discussion before the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, so the community would not have so much apprehension before the study comes out," Hudgins said.
The consultants tackled the same issues that local planners and Reston officials have been looking at for the last year.
The two stations are planned to go in the median of Dulles Toll Road, one at the point where Dulles crosses Wiehle Avenue and the other at the intersection with Reston Parkway. Some Restonians have advocated shifting the two stations closer to the bridges that cross Dulles Toll Road. This idea is meant to give pedestrians greater access to the rail stations. But the consultants advised against the idea, which would mean partially rebuilding the bridges. The cost to rebuild the bridges would exceed what WMATA is planning to spend.
"We feel any additional funding should go to improving pedestrian access into the community, such as building walkways to the Reston Town Center," said consultant Dick Kaku. "It's very important to have good access to the station. This doesn't mean direct access from Reston Parkway."
The consultants also supported the construction of additional parking lots at the stations, to accommodate automobile commuters. Some have shunned this idea, especially at the Reston Parkway station, in an attempt to limit traffic congestion around the stations.
"It's very important to apply a balanced, multi-modal approach," said Kaku. "You should facilitate access for automobiles, buses and pedestrians."
IN TERMS of the appearance of the stations, consultant Doss Mabe envisioned high density urban villages around the stations, designed with intimate open spaces.
"What I don't find in a lot of Reston, but what I do find in Lake Anne, is a kind of intimacy and protection in open space," Mabe said. "There are places to sit and wait to meet people."
He suggested that the rail stations might be integrated with outdoor cafes, waterfalls, and public sculptures.
"I can't overemphasize the creation of intimacy," Mabe said. "I want to feel there is a place that I am in when I walk, and it's not just an asphalt desert."
Consultant Dave Wilcox estimated air rights platforms, which would accommodate additional commercial and residential development over Dulles Toll Road, to cost between $105.5 million and $118.9 million each. But, over the course of the three-day charrette, there was no discussion of where funding for air-rights, or any other high-cost improvements, would come from.
"The value of the charrette was enormously diminished by not having realistic cost constraints," said Thomson Hirst, who represents the Lake Fairfax Business Center, located along the Toll Road. "We have a federal deficit, state deficits and county deficits. And they casually said it would cost $100 million to build over the Dulles Toll Road."
Hirst said that, as WMATA gets ready to unveil draft plans for the rail project, the community should be more realistic, and abandon "pie-in-the-sky ideas."
Even so, many community members were energized by the charrette.
"It's really important to get a vision of what this might be," said Reston Association Board member Bob Poppe. "That's the real value of this."
Hudgins said she would like to assemble a citizen group to analyze WMATA's upcoming Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and give her a report. She used the conference to identify candidates for that group. Hudgins said between 125 and 150 people attended the three-day conference.
"This is very exciting," said long-time Restonian Baba Freeman. "One of the things I've always liked about Reston is that it has a good arrangement of buildings, amenities and open space. With efforts like this we can continue it."