Please Skip the Idiotic Raised Planters.

Economic Reality May Limit Options in Maple Avenue Upgrade
by Brian Trompeter September 23, 2009

This artist's rendition, provided by Bowman Consulting Ltd., shows how concrete sidewalks could be incorporated as a cost-saving measure of Phase 4 of the Maple Avenue Enhancement Project.
Vienna residents and visitors are familiar with the town’s brick sidewalks, period street lamps and other streetscape amenities along sections of Maple Avenue and Church Street.

As town officials prepare to undertake the fourth, and presumably final, phase of the Maple Avenue Enhancement Project, budget pressures and site conditions may force a change in materials and aesthetics.

Bowman Consulting Ltd. of Alexandria has been studying a 3,500-foot stretch of Maple Avenue between James Madison Drive and the Lawyers Road/Courthouse Road intersection, which will be the site of Phase 4 renovations.

M. Scott Delgado, the firm’s engineering director, outlined three streetscape scenarios at the Vienna Town Council’s Sept. 21 work session.

“Nothing is in stone,” he told council members. “This is very conceptual. We have flexibility and time for feedback.”

The first, and most expensive, option would be to continue the aesthetic used in the project’s first three phases and install raised planter beds and brick sidewalks with mortared joints. But those sidewalks are costly to install and maintain, while raised planter beds complicate the site’s drainage, Delgado said.

A second streetscape option would place planter beds at street level and install sidewalks in which the bricks abutted each other sans mortar, with only sand between them.

The third option would employ concrete sidewalks with brick banding for aesthetic purposes. This option would be half as expensive as mortared brick sidewalks (Option 2’s costs fall about in the middle) and likely would be appropriate at the project’s west end, where Maple Avenue is wider but the right of way is not, Delgado said.

Project designers also looked at options for placing utilities underground, an aesthetic benefit introduced on the north side of Maple Avenue in the project’s other phases.

It would cost between $2.1 million and $3 million to do the same on Phase 4, with at least some utilities remaining above ground on Maple Avenue’s south side. And to go for the whole enchilada and put all utilities underground? A whopping $8.4 million.

Vienna can expect little financial assistance from utility companies in this matter, said Vienna Town Manager John Schoeberlein. While utilities might chip in if the road were being widened, they’re not likely to do so if the project is aimed just at beautification, he said.

Bowman Consulting also studied traffic conditions along Maple Avenue, which handles about 34,000 vehicles per day. The firm noted jaywalking trends and looked for places where a pedestrian-activated, signalized crossing would be appropriate. No locations could be justified from an engineering standpoint, Delgado said.

Council members asked whether turning radii at some intersections could be increased, a boon to drivers that had been implemented at other locations along Maple Avenue. Delgado said no significant radii changes were planned, adding that his firm did not wish for the project’s scope to become unwieldy.

“We’re not going to be able to fix all the issues with this project,” he said.

Council members also queried whether a service road in front of a car wash and McDonald’s at the project’s west end would be eliminated. Project designers would like to enhance that site’s entrance, but would have to work with landowners and businesses concerning those parcels, which are privately owned, Delgado said.

Bowman Consulting will work toward a final design during the next few months, at which point the Town Council will have to choose which streetscape, utility and traffic options it wants.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-11th) obtained $1.25 million in federal moneys for engineering of Phase 4 of the Maple Avenue project. Construction funds will be financed from a future bond issue, Schoeberlein said.

Council member Laurie Cole said she was happy that Bowman Consulting plans to contact businesses and landowners about the impending project, and said designers provided a good rationale for possible streetscape-material changes.

Vienna Mayor M. Jane Seeman concurred.

“I can see [the project] will be a little different from what we did before,” she said.