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Fairfax County staff move planned transit station east, add active-transportation and streetscape guidance
Summary
County planners shifted the draft location of a planned transit station east of Government Center Parkway, updated TOD mapping and added new active‑transportation and streetscape guidance in the July 20 draft. Staff said the changes are plan-level and that exact siting and design will require later study and coordination with VDOT.
Ryan Stewart, the project manager and a senior planner with Fairfax County, presented the transportation portion of the Fairfax Center Area Phase 3 draft and described a series of edits to the July 20 draft meant to modernize multimodal guidance. "My name is Ryan Stewart. I'm a senior planner with the with the county and the project manager on this effort," he told the task force before outlining the changes.
The largest graphic change staff pointed to was moving the planned metro or mass‑transit station to the east of Government Center Parkway. "We've moved the future planned metro station or mass transit station, to the east of Government Center Parkway," Stewart said, framing the change as a way to resolve inconsistent map references and avoid conflicts with the Monument Drive ramps. Staff emphasized that the map change is a plan‑level depiction to provide flexibility, not a final engineering decision.
Along with the station shift, staff said they updated the 0.25‑mile TOD boundary to match the new placement and removed a previously mapped 0.125‑mile transit‑amenity radius to avoid prescriptive layout assumptions. The draft also adds a clearer active‑transportation section—pulling language from the recently adopted Active Transportation and Trails Plan—addressing pedestrian safety, buffered and separated bike facilities, multi‑modal corridor design, transportation‑demand management and parking management.
Staff said the plan now includes example cross‑sections for Monument Drive, Government Center Parkway and Fair Lakes Parkway to illustrate possible streetscape and multimodal treatments, but that project‑level design and zoning reviews would resolve curb lines, tree impacts and detailed dimensions. Stewart noted further study will be required to determine final station siting, explaining that the plan aims to leave flexibility for future engineering and coordination efforts.
Next steps: staff will publish a community draft at the end of August, hold a Planning Commission public hearing tentatively scheduled for September 30, and bring the plan to the Board of Supervisors in October for a decision.
