FABB hopes you will take some time this week and celebrate–perhaps with a ride–the fifth-year anniversary of the Fairfax County Bicycle Master Plan. It was at the end of October 2014 that the Board of Supervisors held the final public hearing on the plan and unanimously supported it. After the vote the plan was incorporated into the Transportation component of the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
The plan recommends the steps to be taken to improve the transportation system and make Fairfax County more bicycle friendly. It includes a recommended network of both on-road and off-road facilities to serve as a bicycle transportation network. It also recommends ways to incorporate bicycle friendly design into future roadway projects, transit projects. Finally, it provides policy guidance to the public and private sectors on establishing and promoting bicycling as a mode of transportation.
FABB is proud to have contributed to the plan’s development and to have advocated for its adoption over the five years preceding the vote. The process started in 2009 with Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay’s motion for the Board to endorse the concept of a bicycle master plan. The proposal and evolving plan was supported by numerous government, private, and nonprofit groups, including the Trails and Sidewalks Committee, Transportation Advisory Commission, Environmental Quality Advisory Council, Partnership for Healthier Fairfax, the Towns of Herndon and Vienna, Reston Association, WABA, and George Mason University.
The plan, of course, is still being implemented and it a long way from completion. Plus, it is due for an update in the coming year. FABB will continue to work with the county to make sure the plan is the best it can be and that Fairfax is increasingly bicycle friendly. Would you like to help? Please contact us at [email protected].
