- Fairfax County promotes active lifestyle with lane closure in Tysons.
- Ask your supervisor for similar open streets throughout the county.
FABB is happy to see that Fairfax County has decided to create an open street again this year by closing one northbound lane of Tysons Boulevard for community recreation as the region continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. This temporary closure repeats the successful implementation of an open street last summer of 2020.
The closure begins on Wednesday, July 6, and local riders and walkers will get a half-mile stretch of road from Westbranch Drive to the pedestrian entrance of Lillian Court at Tysons II (right before International Drive around the Tysons Galleria area). The closed lane connects with bike lanes on Park Run Drive and Westpark Drive. The closed lane will be a safe place for new young riders to practice their biking skills, perhaps as they travel to the park at the corner of Westbranch Drive and Tysons Boulevard. Nearby Capital Bikeshare stations provide an opportunity for others to discover or return to the joys of bicycling in a protected area.
2020 Tysons Boulevard lane closure.
FABB, the Tysons Partnership, and others requested at the start of the pandemic last year that the Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) and Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) consider this solution to support active transportation during the health emergency. We are grateful that they ran the pilot program in 2020 and have repeated it this year.
As we said last year, while Tysons Boulevard is a good place to start, there are other areas throughout the county that would benefit from temporary street closures to improve local access to exercise and nearby businesses.
FABB again encourages riders and other interested residents to contact their district supervisors and ask for a rebalancing of streets to allow walkers and bikers more and safer access to local streets. This not only will make for better bicycling but will make for better health and better business activity throughout the county as we resume a hopefully more active pre-pandemic lifestyle.
