Friday, July 24, 2015

I-395 & Glebe Road Bridge maintenance and repairs

I-395 and Glebe Road

Bridge maintenance and repairs

Project Photos

. Click to view full-size photo

. Click to view full-size photo

. Click to view full-size photo

. Click to view full-size photo



VDOT has announced a public information meeting scheduled for Tuesday, July 28 at Gunston Middle School, 2700 South Lang Street in Arlington from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

About the Project

This project includes maintenance and repair work for three bridges at the Glebe Road and I-395 Interchange in Arlington County.  The work will include milling and overlaying bridge decks and approaches, reconstructing deck joints, concrete repairs, bearing replacement, beam painting, approach guardrail improvements and reconstructing selected sidewalk transitions. 

See: http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/northernvirginia/i-395__glebe_rd.asp




Thursday, July 23, 2015

Arlandria Quality of Life Walk, Friday at 9am

For those who might not yet have heard, there's still time to get in on the Arlandria Quality of Life Walk scheduled for Friday morning.

The annual event, primarily for representatives of City departments to get together to collectively solve on-going issues, is set for Friday, July 24 at 9:00am. 

The walk will commence at the Four Mile Run Park Conservatory Center at 4109 Mt. Vernon Ave. Please feel welcome to invite others.

ALSO, this just in!!

All are invited to tour the Four Mile Run Wetland Restoration construction site on Friday as well. For those interested, the tour will begin after the Quality of Life Walk and will be facilitated by Dana Wedeles (Department of Recreation, Parks, and Cultural Activities) and the contractor. 

If you would like to participate in the Wetland tour, please wear appropriate shoes (any durable footwear that you do not mind getting muddy!).

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Transportation Plan is Getting Updated for Arlandria

On Wednesday, July 22nd, the Alexandria Transportation Commission will hold a public hearing to consider and approve an Update to the Transportation Long-Range Plan.

As part of its responsibility to develop and maintain a comprehensive Transportation Long Range Plan (LRP) that identifies the City’s long-range transportation needs. The LRP is an unconstrained list of all transportation related capital projects, programs and studies identified in City plans and policies. Projects on the LRP have no identified funding source. Once projects on the LRP receive partial or full funding, they are moved to the City’s constrained Capital Improvement Program (CIP).

As projects from the LRP are considered for the City’s annual constrained budget, there are a number of other criteria that are typically considered by staff, Each year the Transportation Commission updates the LRP transportation projects, programs and studies from plans adopted since the last update and adjusts the rankings accordingly.

This year's update includes:
  1. safety improvements at Mt. Vernon Ave/Russell Rd moved in the rankings from #7 to #5 and
  2. safety improvements at Mt. Vernon Ave/Four Mile Rd moved in the rankings from #10 to #6. 
These items featured prominently in the planning discussions that took place from 1998 through 2003, culminating in the passage of the Arlandria Plan. The Vision for the Arlandria Neighborhood included the following common elements:
  • the desire for a healthy, mixed use community focusing on redevelopment of three underutilized “opportunity” sites (Safeway-Datatel, the Birchmere and the Mt. Vernon Village Shopping Center),
  • active and viable commercial retail that serves both the neighborhood and the broader community,
  • a transition in uses from automobile-oriented to pedestrian oriented; and 
  • visual and physical connections to Four Mile Run Park; and a safer environment for pedestrians.
Basically, as summarize in the plan, the community consensus was "the desire to make Mt. Vernon Avenue more pedestrian friendly and to improve its appearance"

The Draft Transportation Long-Range Plan is available online and the public is invited to provide comments either during the Public Hearing (City Hall, Council Work Room, 2nd Floor) or in advance of the hearing.

If you would like to provide advance comments, email Steve Sindiong, Principal Planner, Department of Transportation & Environmental Services at steve.sindiong@alexandriava.gov.







Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Alexandria launches effort to improve broadband

Exciting news today about Alexandria's efforts to improve broadband offerings to residents and businesses:
According to the City's notice:
The City of Alexandria (“City”) issues this Request for Information (RFI) for the purpose of gauging the interest of for-profit and non-profit entities in forming potential public-private partnerships with the City in regards to two separate but complementary broadband initiatives.
1. The first is to form a City-initiated fiber backbone infrastructure to support data transport among the City’s public institutions, including its schools, libraries, public safety, and other City facilities (“Institutional Network,” or “I-Net”). 
2. The second is to enhance the broadband connectivity of the City’s residents, businesses, and anchor institutions by expanding the range and quality of available broadband and data transport services, potentially to include a Citywide Fiber to the Premises (“FTTP”) deployment
The bid opening date is listed for September 3rd at 4pm.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

4MRMarket Increases Incentives for SNAP Customers

 

4MRMarket Increases Incentives for SNAP Customers with USDA’s Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive Grant Program


Already a leader in promoting healthy & foods to folks of all walks of life, 4MRMarket just expanded its groundbreaking program!!


Sunday, the Four Mile Run Farmers & Artisans Market (4MRMarket) increased access to fruits and vegetables for the food insecure of Arlandria and the surrounding neighborhoods, while also benefitting small and mid-sized farmers in the region. The new incentive program was made possible by the USDA with $31.5 million granted through the Food Insecurity Nutrition Program (FINI). National nonprofit Wholesome Wave received a $3.77 million FINI grant, of which 4MRMarket, as a subgrantee, received $4,100.


“It's been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work to build 4MRMarket over the past few years. We'd hope to continue to be much more but it's awesome to look back to 2010 and see how far we've come. Since then we helped bring about a lot of improvement to Four Mile Run Park through fund-raising and plain, old hard work, helped raise funds for a variety of other non-profits and helped folks of all walks of life,” says Nick Partee, Co-Market Manager and Founder.


Since June 2010, the Four Mile Run Farmers & Artisans Market has been committed to bringing fresh, nutritious food to people of all income levels, provide an opportunity for local artisans and producers of goods to bring their wares to market, strive to reflect the diversity of the community, and improve the quality of life for Arlandria residents and visitors. With the grant, 4MRMarket increases affordable access to fresh fruits and vegetables for SNAP consumers in Arlandria, while also supporting local agriculture.


“The Four Mile Run Farmers & Artisans Market was the first farmers market in Northern Virginia to enable SNAP beneficiaries to Buy Fresh, Buy Local and we are proud to have been able to assist others with technical assistance and to see the program grow throughout the region. We are more than excited to grow this program and provide these additional incentives!,” says Kevin Beekman, Co-Market Manager at 4MRMarket.


4MRMarket received this award as a subgrantee on a larger $3.77 million grant, which nonprofit, Wholesome Wave, obtained from the USDA to support their national network of nutrition incentive partners. 4MRMarket is one of 32 community-based organizations that will join Wholesome Wave in this Large-Scale FINI Project. Wholesome Wave’s network is a robust community of innovation and learning, linking incentive programs through uniform data collection and evaluation to support the expansion and adoption of incentives through policy. Wholesome Wave’s project is one of many that received support as part of the total $31.5 million granted by USDA in this cycle.


With the award from Wholesome Wave, 4MRMarket continues its groundbreaking incentive programs at its Sunday market in Arlandria. 4MRMarket will match the first $10 of SNAP customers purchases with an additional $10 of tokens to be used exclusively for the purchases of fruits and vegetables. Additionally, 4MRMarket will continue to provide “Double Dollars”, an additional $10 of tokens to match SNAP customers next $10 of purchases, good for use with any SNAP-eligible product. In total, up to $20 in additional funds are available each Sunday to enable more folks to stretch the benefits and still “Buy Fresh, Buy Local”


“We are thrilled to be working with such a diverse and competent group of incentive operators across the nation. This network brings together organizations ranging from a flourishing farmers market group to a large scale nonprofit, capitalizing on the grassroots expertise of community leaders, while also building regional and national impact that allows us to enact the kind of large-scale policy change we see in legislation like FINI,” says Wholesome Wave founder and CEO, Michel Nischan.

Friday, July 10, 2015

The Four Mile Summer Movie Festival continues TONIGHT!!

The Four Mile Summer Movie Festival continues TONIGHT!! 

National Community Church – Potomac Yard is co-sponsoring a summer movie series with the City of Alexandria. The outdoor movies will take place at the Four Mile Run Park Plaza along Mount Vernon Avenue (adjacent to the Four Mile Run Conservatory Center). 

Screening this evening: THE LEGO MOVIE


The schedule of movies continues later this summer:
  • Friday August 7: Mcfarland USA
  • Friday September 11: Cool Runnings
Look for the film to begin at dusk.