Safe Routes to School Seminars

Tell me about it. I have to cross the street several times to walk 3 blocks to the nearest mailbox because there are no sidewalks on half of Tapawingo Road.

Hi Folks,
Not sure if Thoreau has a safe routes program. However, there's a terrible problem with our kids -- girls and boys -- having to "run the gauntlet" past day laborers in the morning hanging out on the sidewalk and other areas at the Cedar Park Shopping Center.

I don't know if "girls and boys" having a chance to say hi to their dads on the way to school qualifies as a gauntlet, but I suppose it could be embarrassing if they were with their friends.

I guess by the time they're in middle school that adolescence thing kicks in. Fathers are totally uncool, especially if they have to work menial jobs and be treated like criminals for trying to earn a living. I would, like, totally die if I had to confront that every day. You seem really in touch with the plight of Vienna's youth, Patrick St. Resident.

"Mayor Nagans,"
You think that the only kids who walk to Thoreau are the children of the illegal aliens standing around the shopping center?

GET REAL. The corner at Cedar Park Shopping Center is the main crosswalk for Thoreau.

At a SE/SW Vienna community meeting last week, neighborhood parents told the police and a county supervisor that we're livid with the cat calls and nastiness that the kids who walk to Thoreau are being subjected to.

So, you want your daughter to walk through groups of men, who sit at the shopping center drinking and carrying on, in order to get to school? Nice.

>>At a SE/SW Vienna community meeting last week, neighborhood parents told the police and a county supervisor that we're livid with the cat calls and nastiness that the kids who walk to Thoreau are being subjected to.

If middle school students are being harassed on the way to school, they know by now to report this to school officials. And school officials would report this to the police and to the school's parents. Show me these reports!

Getting real, your post had less of a "there are crimes being committed and we should do something" vibe than a creepy early 20th century Outraged Against White Slavery vibe. Obviously criminals should be arrested. Those making "catcalls" would fall into that category. Drumming up hysteria is not the answer to the problem; calling the police every time it happens is.

It's well known the Vienna cops don't want much to do with Cedar Park and increasingly there's good reason for that, which is exactly why they should be more involved. But you and your kind chased those 'illegals' away from the 7/11, you won't let them hang out in Herndon at a shelter made just for them and you probably won't be satisfied until Vienna goes back to being the Aryan Nation it once was. You can click on the 'racism' link here on this site to get a history of that if you're feeling nostalgic.

We (me and my mayoral staff) don't post here often, but sometimes neighbors say things so inane that it makes us ashamed to have been born and raised here. Your noble goal of saving our town's young girls is admirable, citizen, but your wording betrays your disgusting world view and being real with you probably isn't going to help much. I encourage you in the future to encourage law enforcement to do its job while leaving facist politics out of it. You also totally thread-jacked HV's post and that is, in a word, douchey.

Also, your calling us mayor is jumping the gun a bit, as the election isn't won yet. But thanks for your support.

No one should be walking to Cunningham Park either:

Assault
Location:Cunningham Park Elementary School, 1001 Park St., S.E.
Date/Time:10:29 p.m. September 10
Details: A 24-year old Vienna woman reported she was assaulted while out with her dog on the school grounds. The victim sustained a minor cut on a finger before the suspect fled. He is described as a white or hispanic male, 6� tall, wearing a blue or grey sweatshirt. The area was searched with negative results.

I find it interesting that on the police department's page on the town's site that they have listed 17 items for further information. The weekly crime report is listed as the 12th item - well below inclement weather program but above dog bite prevention.

Patrick St. - I happen to notice that the shopping center security guard seemed to have cleared the people looking for work from their normal spot along the sidewalk this morning. At least at the moment someone seems to have heard your plea.

The SE/SW Vienna Citizens group has been talking with the new Cedar Park Shopping Center owners.

This week, they agreed to increase security, to keep an eye on the kids walking to school, and to chase the illegal aliens to go across the street to the 7/11.

Security is also recording the license plates of those who hire the illegals at the shopping center, and turning that information in.

Also, we have asked Southern Management, which owns the Cedar Park Apartments, to be more responsible for their residents. We want SM to create an area on their property for the illegals to use as they seek work.

The goal is to make the area safe for the kids to walk to and from school, and for shoppers to feel safe enough to use the shopping center.

"...since we do not actually have sidewalks around Louise Archer..."

No Sidewalks around Louise Archer? Hmm. I thought this was a "NO BS" or a "No Spin" zone. There are sidewalks in that neighborhood, maybe just not on the specific street that you want them on...but you can't really say that there are no sidewalks. :-)

No Sidewalks around Louise Archer? Hmm. I thought this was a "NO BS" or a "No Spin" zone. There are sidewalks in that neighborhood, maybe just not on the specific street that you want them on...but you can't really say that there are no sidewalks. :-)

There are no sidewalks on Windover, Walnut, parts of Knoll, West, Orchard, most of Lewis. That's a problem. Are not those the streets that surround Louise Archer?

Oh, you caught us.

Most kids cannot walk safely to Louise Archer who live just blocks from the school. Doesn't matter that Nutley has sidewalks - that's for show. Just so they can all toot their horns "we have sidewalks by the school."

Well, if your want our kids to walk there (good for everyone - saves money, time, burns fat), make the sidewalks where they need them. The town knows this - NW is their top priority.

In NE, it seems that the residents are the ones holding up sidewalks. For instance, along Beulah Road, VDOT proposed sidewalks on both sides, but the residents along the street from Ayr Hill to Maple Ave would not agree on adding a sidewalk even though there are now only 2 trees in the way of adding at least a 4' sidewalk adjacent to the road. One of the trees is even in bad shape. Now kids and everyone west of Beulah Road will have to cross Beulah in order to walk down to Maple. When are people in the town going to realize that sidewalks increase safety and also add to their property value? I don't understand why someone would prefer to have a tree within the first 4' of a street instead of a sidewalk especially when they front on a busy street?

C.M. Nagans:

I agree 100% with you. To discuss the illegal problem/plight/situation/dilemma/issue (however you want to label it) and not think there isn't more than a tinge of racism involved, people are fooling themselves.

If it was a bunch of "pretty" non-English speaking Swedes were hanging at the 7-11, the talk about illegals would be very different.

School bus kills pedestrian in Tysons Corner

Vienna - Oakton
By Monty Tayloe
Source: Fairfax County Times
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2 2007

Leesburg resident Adrian Wright was on his way to work in Tysons Corner around 8:15 a.m. when he saw a Fairfax County school bus strike and kill a woman, who would later be identified as Arlington resident Elsi Noemi Alvarado-Rivera, 30. Alvarado-Rivera was crossing Gosnell Road at the intersection with Old Courthouse Road.

Wright was in his car with his wife, facing the intersection and waiting to turn at the light, which was red. Rivera had already crossed the first three lanes of traffic when the green arrow came on and the Fairfax County school bus began to rumble forward.

"I don't think she was aware of the bus. I just don't think she saw it," Wright said.

According to police, Rivera attempted to run in front of the bus to reach the median but was subsequently struck. According to Wright, Rivera was a very small woman, and he doesn't believe the bus driver, a 26-year-old Chantilly man, ever saw her.

"We jumped out of the car and told him to stop, he wasn't even positive he had hit anything at that point. ... He took it hard," Wright said.

Rivera was already under the bus by then, and although Wright and his wife tried to help her, she was pronounced dead at the scene. According to Fairfax County Public Schools, the driver, a school employee since April was hospitalized for observation after the accident.

The bus had just dropped children off at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna and was on the way to pick up children attending Louise Archer Elementary School, so no children were on board at the time of the accident. Initially after the incident police were unable to identify Rivera because she carried no identification.

"It's really good they identified her," Wright said. "We saw someone at their most fragile, and we didn't even know who she was. It's still difficult."

According to police, the investigation is ongoing.