Arlington to ask Virginia lawmakers for permission to add speed cameras throughout the county article
ARLINGTON, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - Soon you may really have to watch your speed when driving in Arlington – or at least you will if local leaders get their way.
The Arlington Board now plans to ask state lawmakers for permission to add speed cameras throughout the county. Right now – because of just-approved legislation – the cameras are only allowed in school and work zones, but officials want that to change. There are a few reasons why, including safety and equity. Sometimes in some places police might have some bias that they may even be unaware of and suddenly you find it’s mostly people of color that get pulled over for speeding, Board Chair Libby Garvey explained Thursday. This takes all the subjectivity out of it.
December 18, 2020 at 9:45am
(Updated 02/08/21) The Arlington County Board has scheduled a public hearing on proposed changes to the Residential Parking Program for its regular meeting on Feb. 20.
But Board members are open to pushing off the hearing further to engage more people and give residents more time to digest the changes.
Board member Christian Dorsey said the Board is merely advertising a public hearing and the proposed changes to the program are not drastic.
“This is an evolutionary update, not a revolutionary one,” he said. “While it’s a complicated program, the degree of change is not as difficult.”
A delayed public hearing may mean implementation is deferred to the 2022-23 fiscal year, especially if the County staff is expected to do more public engagement, said Stephen Crim, the RPP review program manager.
December 17, 2020 at 3:35pm
The County Board approved a test of surge-price parking in Arlington on Tuesday, after discussing the potential impacts on people with lower incomes.
The $5.4 million project is funded by VDOT, and the funds are expected to cover everything from developing to installing the needed parking software and hardware. Drivers will find this new type of parking on the streets in the Rosslyn-Ballston and Crystal City-Pentagon City corridors.
The program, also known as “performance parking,” was pulled from the Saturday meeting over concerns about how this would impact people with lower incomes, parking planner Stephen Crim said during the Tuesday recessed meeting.
December 15, 2020 at 6:30pm
A new logo and seal for Arlington County could be chosen from community submissions in June of 2021.
Members of the County Board gave the go-ahead to a logo-change process during their recessed meeting Tuesday evening. Before doing so, Board members agreed to shorten the process by one month and asked county staff to come back in June with a timeline estimating how long it will take to phase out the logo.
“We’ve had this discussion since July,” Takis Karantonis said. “This logo is offensive, therefore we are really in a hurry to retire it and make it disappear from our official documents, etc.”
The Right Note is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.
It would not be 2020 without at least one unexpectedly strange story from our County Board. Last week it was revealed by the Washington Post that Christian Dorsey’s bankruptcy claim was dismissed with prejudice for “an overt act of misrepresentation.”
This is the second time in recent memory that Dorsey has had a very public revelation of difficulty with being forthcoming after last year’s failure to disclose a $10,000 improper campaign contribution. And for the second time in a year, he has received a less than enthusiastic vote of confidence from fellow Arlington County Board members for his continued service. Board Chair Libby Garvey said she backed Mr. Dorsey “despite his personal financial issues.”