Steve Burns
WMAL.com
FAIRFAX – (WMAL) On a day forecast to be in the 60s, Fairfax County is turning back the clock to late January, with nearly three feet of snow on the ground, to review how County agencies and the Virginia Department of Transportation responded to the storm.
County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova said their previous snow summit after Snowmageddon in 2010 proved fruitful.
“A lot of what we learned and a lot of the experiences we had, we were able to actually adopt and incorporate into our response or into VDOT’s response this time,” Bulova told WMAL. “(VDOT) has learned a lot about what kind of equipment was needed to be able to address some of the neighborhood streets.”
Complaints still flowed into her office at a good clip, Bulova said, mostly regarding unplowed or incompletely plowed streets. Sidewalks also came to the forefront after schools remained closed for a week. Bulova said it may be time to revisit Fairfax’s lack of a sidewalk-shoveling law.
“It was an issue how long schools remained closed,” Bulova said. “Part of that is making sure the schools are cleared, making sure the buses aren’t buried in snow for too long a period of time, for school buses to be able to get into the neighborhoods, and for kids to be able to safely walk to school or walk to the bus stop.”
An emerging challenge, Bulova said, was dealing with more newly-urbanized areas like Reston, the Mosaic District, and Tysons.
“If people are encouraged to use transit, they need to be able to get to it,” Bulova said. “Making sure we’re clearing sidewalks and trails so people are abler to get to Metro or so people are able to get to their bus stop is becoming more critical. That is what we’re seeing today that we hadn’t seen as much in 2010 or in years before.”
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