Greetings folks. I wanted to take this opportunity to update you as to the Tackett's Mill Commuter Lot situation.
As you may be aware, the Tackett's Mill Lot has been an issue of ongoing concern for me as Occoquan Supervisor. In fact, as someone who picks up slugs at the Tackett's Mill Lot to get to my law office in Arlington, I am especially interested in the progress of this situation.
This past June, after several inquiries from concerned citizens my staff and I put together a town hall meeting to update commuters as to the status of construction of the lot. At that time, the contractor had planned on closing the lot completely for 28 days in order to lay concrete and asphalt. This option was unacceptable, and we pressed the contractor to work with the county transportation staff to find an alternative that would allow our commuters to continue to use the lot during construction without having to close it. During the town hall meeting county transportation staff and the contractor also heard several ideas from citizens regarding modification to the lot design (e.g. the staging area and a place to stand).
Since the time of the meeting, there has been good news and bad news. The good news is that the contractor figured out a way to keep the lot open during construction to allow our slugs to continue to use the lot. The bad news is that this has delayed the final construction of the lot. It also has contributed to the dusty, rocky conditions that currently exist out there. Had the contractor been able to simply shut down the lot, he would have been able to complete his work more quickly. However, all of the commuters would have been displaced for almost a month or more. To be sure, this was a trade off. However, the community felt that keeping the lot open during construction was the most important goal.
In speaking the county transportation staff, I have been advised that the lot will be functionally completed by the first week of November. There will still be some internal tweaking to be done, but the dusty/rocky conditions should be rectified. We are also currently working with the Occoquan Land Use Committee, LOCCA-PELT and Lake Ridge Nursery to develop a beautification plan for the lot, including trees, shrubbery and other plants.
In addition, thanks to the input of the slug community that was provided at our town hall meeting, the final lot design will include sidewalks in the staging area. As you know, slugging is not officially "sanctioned" by the county or state. Rather, it is a more informal system so the county cannot officially establish staging areas. Nevertheless, the new sidewalk area in the plans seems to be a logical choice. If someone out there is technologically savvy, I do have a .pdf version of these plans that we can post here. Just shoot me an email and I will forward you the plans. We are also working with the county transportation staff to get the plans posted somewhere on the county's website (www.pwcgov.org).
As always, should any of you ever have questions or concerns, please let me or my staff know.
Sincerely,
-Mike May
Michael C. May
Occoquan District Supervisor
13083 Chinn Park Drive
Prince William, Virginia 22192
(703) 792-4643 (phone)
(703) 792-4833 (fax)
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