To the Editor:
The work on the New Herndon Monroe Metro station has begun and will negatively impact the surrounding Reston community almost immediately. A huge new, ugly parking lot(s) is being proposed on the east side of the current parking lot. The new metro and this parking lot will draw significant traffic through the Reston community leading to visual and noise pollution, increasing traffic jams and more safety and security concerns for the neighborhood. Our Reston Community has a very short window to mitigate this impact by persuading the County planners with the correct transportation planning option for Reston.
Option 1 (Not preferred): The first option is what traditional transportation planners may undertake especially if the Reston Community and the Reston Association does not get involved now. Under this option the County may decide to broaden the nearby roads like Sunrise Valley and make grade-separating interchanges across Fairfax County in Reston -- check the Fairfax County exchanges at Fair Lakes and Monument Drive as examples. Costly to build, time consuming to implement, ugly for the community, negatively impacting our neighbors, these grade-separating interchanges must be avoided in Reston to preserve its beauty.
Option 2 (Preferred): The best alternative is to ensure that no new metro or the new parking lot related traffic enters the Reston community or the Sunrise Valley drive but is all neatly directed behind the Sprint building adjoining the Dulles toll road and the new metro parking lot. Currently, traffic from around Woodland Park and nearby communities wanting to reach the toll road, and the Herndon Monroe Parking lot traverses the Sunrise Valley drive. This makes the Sunrise Valley in Reston very crowded. Our suggestion is to create a new exit for the Dulles Toll road at the Monroe Street (#666). This recently broadened Monroe Street will now become an additional exit gateway to the toll road, the new metro and the parking lot, thus decreasing the traffic on Sunrise Valley drive significantly.
The Reston community must organize to present the option 2 to the community transportation planners and the local county representatives on April 22 when there is a public hearing to discuss these issues. The Reston Association can play a pivotal role in this endeavor and so can community newspapers like yours and Reston households by registering on social media sites like http://Nextdoor.com.
Please assist the community in bringing these issues to the forefront and helping keep Reston city beautiful and pollution free.
N. Pradhan
Reston