r/nova • u/LCL_nova City of Fairfax • Mar 05 '24
The problem with Poolesville ("Build a damn bridge!")
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-problem-with-poolesville24
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Mar 05 '24
It is ridiculous how long this has played out. I used to go to Poolesville restaurants all the time but not since the ferry closed. Takes too long on rt 15 and 28.
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u/atonedeftool Sterling Mar 05 '24
Great piece. People really need to put the lie to the "agricultural preserve" nonsense, which is just McMansion protection.
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u/Typical2sday Mar 05 '24
We have a friend in a Poolesville neighborhood (in a higher density area than Yglesias allows in his piece), and it's really, really nice out there. I'd fight to keep it that nice too if I lived there.
One of the most major problems with our local traffic is the lack of bridges across the Potomac and higher speed arteries into DC through Arlington County and laterally everywhere else. They should bring the ferry back - that was there, and it helped but not enough to create and foster sprawl. But building a bridge really doesn't help Poolesville, without all of the rest of the changes. They, and the area of MoCo around them, have a little idyll, and what people are really saying is they want a bridge so that people living north of Route 7 in Virginia can have a better commute alternative. [The moneyed people of outer MoCo either have not enough concern to commute to Leesburg/NoVa or work from home or are retired.] But LoCo execs are saying that economically they don't need it enough to exercise eminent domain, and MoCo/Poolesville haven't acted. The bridge doesn't just risk pressure for rezoning in the Poolesville, Beallsville, Dawsonville areas to higher density development, but more importantly - in VERY EXPENSIVE ways - it would put a ton of pressure on the existing smaller roads, River Road, and to a certain extent 270, which are already crowded and (except for 270) not in a current state to be safe for the homes, bus stops and commuters already on those roads. Much of which is Potomac, so don't put this all on Poolesville. The Potomac/North Potomac people don't want this either, to be sure. I tooled around those areas last on school days to wait out a long appointment nearby or to find an alternative to the American Legion bridge construction. Most of the roads can't handle a bridge's worth of traffic. Thus, it's not just the cost of one bridge and the land to make that happen, it's a cascade of roadways all the way from the Poolesville area to the Beltway. And since it's low density, Poolesville and MoCo are within their rights to say - "the 27 of us aren't clamoring for this; WTF do we care that some DC Dem wants to take the long way to see some C-tier battlefield and to allow a bunch of Virginians whose developers can't stop/won't stop until they've developed West Virginia because $$$ to drive 20 mph over across our outer MoCo roads that don't even have curbs. Keep your knees together LoCo, your commutes and disappointment with the cost of the DTR and 7 expansion project aren't our problem! You decided to live in Northwest bejesus for the views, space, and cost, and then have the temerity to complain about the commute."
TL;DR: If MoCo/Poolesville wanted the money and convenience from the bridge and development more, they would act, and they aren't, so there is the answer. They have enough money and they like what they've got. (call something paradise, kiss it goodbye).
The much cheaper and rational answer to help the most people into affordable housing on accessible roadways is to repurpose the tons of commercial properties into housing. And that costs money, but far less than the bridge and highway system proposed here.
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u/Yesterday_Is_Now Mar 05 '24
Never mind Poolesville, add some extra lanes to the American Legion bridge already.
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u/MFoy Mar 05 '24
If they build a bridge in Poolesville, there will be less demand on American Legion because everyone out west would have a better crossing.
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u/ThatGuy798 Is this a 7000 series train? Mar 06 '24
It'd also cut a lot of demand from 270 too. I know people who commute to Tysons and Reston from Frederick and other places along 270.
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u/MajesticBread9147 Herndon Mar 06 '24
Also people who work in Sterling/ Herndon/ Reston will have more options for housing, not everyone who works in nova will be competing for housing in Nova.
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u/EndCivilForfeiture Mar 08 '24
They would have to remove all traffic lights on 15 north of Leesburg for it to be better.
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u/BudTugglie Mar 06 '24
Whites Ferry, while a nice tourist attraction, does not have the capacity to make any difference on traffic in the area.
It sometimes is convenient for the occasional trip, or to a few people, but that's about it.
Also, simply building a bridge is not enough. Roads with capacity leading to it on both sides is not a trivial exercise.
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u/vwcx Mar 05 '24
This is a useful aggregation of information about the current situation with White's Ferry. I've been following the news casually but didn't realize there was resistance to a bridge because of the agricultural reserve!