After staying largely dormant since 2021, plans for a 2-mile bicycle/pedestrian path from the Franconia-Springfield Metro station south to Newington Road are back — as is opposition from some neighbors and advocacy groups.
Fairfax County officials in recent months have ramped up efforts to obtain easements from property owners along the planned route of the Cinder Bed Road Bikeway.
In early March, the Board of Supervisors set a public hearing to allow for eminent-domain action against a number of property owners that had not come to terms with the county for construction easements. The hearing was canceled after all 10 of the private property owners reached settlements.
For its first phase, the project required rights to 14 properties, four of which are publicly owned, according to a summary from county staff.
The Cinder Bed Road Bikeway is part of a larger, 3.1-mile effort to connect Fort Belvoir to the Franconia-Springfield Metro station.
Mostly funded with federal dollars, the bikeway is slated to be constructed along the west side of Cinder Bed Road and connect to an existing trail through Fairfax County Park Authority property. It would continue north to tie into a pathway at the end of Barry Road, a short distance to the Metro station and adjacent Virginia Railway Express (VRE) station.
County officials say the project, which would add two pedestrian bridges over Long Branch, aims to provide pedestrians and especially bicyclists a convenient way to access the Metro station from points south.
“The principal purpose is to allow for access to transit … [to] do what we can to encourage alternatives to driving alone,” then-county transportation director Tom Biesiadny said during a May 2021 community engagement session that was held virtually due to COVID-19 health concerns.
At the time, the county planned to have the project completed by 2024. Both Biesiadny (who retired in 2023) and Covid restrictions are no longer part of the conversation, but concerns raised by the public in 2021 have not gone away.
Environmental advocates contend that their concerns should be given higher priority.
“Ripping into a perfectly functioning wetland is unwise and unnecessary,” said Renee Grebe, the Northern Virginia conservation advocate at Nature Forward, a group previously known as the Audubon Naturalist Society.
“Wetlands help people and wildlife in many ways,” Grebe told FFXnow. “… In this case, we’re talking about a specific type of globally rare wetland, right in our backyard. Why would we want to undermine it? We should find ways to celebrate this ecological wonder, not destroy it.”
The advocacy organization Friends of Accotink Creek has been voicing concern about the project since it was first proposed more than a decade ago.
Philip Latasa, a steward in that organization, says requests by the group to meet with county leaders have been delayed until July. He fears FCDOT will run roughshod over community concerns in order to start work next winter.
“It seems there is no thought on the county side of stopping the bikeway or rerouting it out of the woods. Rather, it seems FCDOT wishes to present a final plan and stick with it,” Latasa told FFXnow.
Transportation planners acknowledge there will be environmental impacts involved in building the trail through areas covered by wetlands, but say efforts have been undertaken to minimize them.
“The trail’s alignment has been established to minimize wetland impacts and will provide all federal and state requirement mitigation strategies where necessary,” a Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) spokesperson said in a statement. “The trail has been designed to meander and stay out of delineated wetlands wherever possible. The project utilizes approximately 3,700 ft of an existing FCPA trail, further reducing the impacts of the proposed alignment.”
At least some residents in the area share the environmental groups’ skepticism.
Patrick Migliorini — who serves as president of the Amberleigh Homeowners Association but spoke to FFXnow as a resident, not in his leadership capacity — said he generally supports projects to improve pedestrian and bicycle travel, but feels “there are a lot of issues with this one.”
Amberleigh, a community of nearly 500 townhomes, owns about 50 acres of undeveloped woods, disturbed only by natural hiking trails.
“The county wants to fell trees and install a 10-foot asphalt trail with lighting straight through this area,” Migliorini said. “It will ruin the character of our woods — which is a rare commodity in this area — is redundant to other paved trails, and the county has not demonstrated there is a need for it or that many people will use it.”
According to FCDOT, the project will require some tree removals, but a landscaping and tree replanting plan will be provided in accordance with Fairfax County Park Authority and Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) standards.
The proposed 24-hour lighting “will have some impact to the landscape,” but it’s necessary for the bikeway to work as a year-round path for commuters, including in the early winter when many will be returning home after sundown, FCDOT project manager Jeffrey Fasceski said at the 2021 community forum.
Migliorini, however, argues that the proposed trail appears to be a solution in search of a problem:
“I don’t see many people using it to commute to Metro or VRE. The trail starts in an industrial complex. Yes, there are some homes on Newington Road near there, but those homes already have access to paved paths to get to the Franconia-Springfield station. I have used the existing paved trails to ride my bike over to Fairwinds from my house on multiple occasions. It works great.”
Latasa also says alternate options for pedestrians and bicycles are already available:
“The surrounding area is a virtual spiderweb of existing alternate routes, including existing bike trails, shared use paths, bike lanes, and quiet streets. Some of these are already designated by signage as routes to Metro. Maintaining and improving these routes, which do serve all the surrounding neighborhoods, would be a far better idea and a better use of funds. Although most of the funding is federal grants, that is still a form of taxpayer dollars.”
According to FCDOT, county staff explored alternative alignments for the trail during a concept study conducted before the project officially started, and additional options were considered “in response to outreach with community groups” and Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk’s office.
However, the alternatives all presented “additional impacts,” including encroachments onto private property owned by the railroad company CSX, and required using existing facilities that don’t meet accessibility requirements.
The county also maintains that the bikeway will offer “a more direct route” than what’s currently available to pedestrians and cyclists in the area.
“The proposed facility will provide a more direct route meeting the county’s goal to provide active transportation facilities suitable for all ages and abilities, which includes meeting ADA compliance and design standards,” FCDOT said. “Alternate routes will require more circuitous travel on different types of facilities that may not serve all users.”
FCDOT currently anticipates starting construction on the bikeway in spring 2028 with a potential finish in spring 2030.
