The Arlington County Civic Federation works to empower citizens to improve their communities by mobilizing and coordinating the resources of government, business, nonprofits, the faith community, neighborhood leaders and the citizens themselves. Here are some updates from the December 6, 2011, meeting:
 
The invited speakers were Richard Doud, president of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, and Terry Holzheimer, who is in charge of the county’s Office of Economic Development. Both men spoke about Arlington’s unusually strong economic position during the downturn. According to Holzheimer, there is no reason to expect that Arlington won’t continue to grow and develop at a much greater rate than almost any other jurisdiction in the nation. Doud echoed much of what Holzheimer said and added a few words about the chamber’s position on local taxes (in favor of the hotel tax, not in favor of the special sewer/infrastructure-related tax on commercial properties).
 
Delegates Susan Sharp and Allen Munchnick brought up the Virginia Department of Transportation’s effort to conduct a multimodal long-range planning effort to “identify a range of multimodal and corridor management solutions (operational, transit, bike, pedestrian, and highway) that can be implemented to reduce highway and transit congestion and improve overall mobility in the I-66 corridor, between I-495 and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.” Sharp had just left VDOT’s public forum on this matter, at which the public was not allowed to ask any questions.
 
Sharp was concerned because the tenor of the meeting suggested that VDOT was leaning heavily in favor of road widening and perhaps converting lanes on I-66 to high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. In short, the options being pushed seemed to favor those living outside of Arlington and at the expense of Arlingtonians. VDOT accepted public comments until January 2 on this issue.
 
Additional I-66 documents may be found here:
http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/northernvirginia/i-66_multimodal_study.asp
http://www.virginiadot.org/VDOT/Projects/Northern_Virginia/asset_upload_file511_54324.pdf