Long Branch trail paving project delayed to provide time for public input

Flooding on the Long Branch trail. [FCPA photos]

Construction of a trail paving project in Long Branch Stream Valley has been delayed for a couple of weeks so park users with concerns about the project can discuss the plans at a community meeting. 

The meeting will be held via Zoom Sept. 10, 7 p.m. To access the meeting, use the password LBSVTP!910 or call 602-333-0032 and enter access code 719976.

The project was all set to start earlier this month, but was delayed to provide time for a community meeting, after the Park Authority received emails objecting to the project. 

“We hope we can clarify everything at the September meeting. We’re waiting to make sure everyone gets to hear what’s going on,” says Tom McFarland, trails program manager at the Fairfax County Park Authority.

The Park Authority plans to resurface approximately 7,200 linear feet of trail between Woodland Way in Annandale and Olley Lane in Fairfax, McFarland says. The new asphalt trail will be eight feet wide. Eight or nine culverts will be replaced to improve drainage. The project also includes invasive species mitigation.  

The work will be done in three phases: Olley Lane to Rutherford Park, inside Rutherford Park, and Guinea Road to Woodland Way. That way only a section of the trail would be closed at any one time. 

Lack of transparency

The Friends of Long Branch Stream Valley “neither supports nor opposes the project,” but is concerned about “the lack of transparency, communication, and overall community involvement,” the group’s president, Bryan Campbell, states in a July 31 email to Park Authority officials.  

Nearby residents have been “blindsided by an announcement that a place that many of the community have used as an outlet from their current stay-at-home lifestyles was abruptly being taken from them and being disturbed during a time when they most need it,” Campbell says. 

He notes that a 2015 survey found 56 percent of respondents opposed paving the trail. At two subsequent community meetings, in 2015 and 2016, park staff did not indicate they had imminent plans to pave the trail and told the community there were no funds for such a project. 

The Friends of Long Branch urged the park authority to coordinate with the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services to ensure the trail project will not conflict with a watershed project in the stream valley to start this fall. 

According to Friends of Accotink Creek (FAC), “It was also our clear understanding after public meetings back in 2015/2016 that public opposition had put this proposed paving on ice.” 

Paving unnecessary

“Fairfax County is spending tens of millions to defend all our streams against the ill effects of too much pavement,” says Philip Latasa of FAC. “Why are we adding more pavement in the very wooded buffers that are intended to protect streams?”

“Climate change is real – it is happening now,” Latasa says. “Why unnecessarily add more heat sink asphalt? Must we really pave over nature for citizens to enjoy nature?”  

The existing trail is covered with gravel, and McFarland says, “gravel is much worse than asphalt” because it washes into the creek, especially during big storms. 

“True enough, but perhaps the Park Authority should take that as a hint from nature that trails of this type don’t belong in floodplains where they will be constantly battered,” Latasa says. “Some spot design adjustments might better address the issue than paving everything. In any case, by far the largest source of sediment in streams is excessive erosion of the streambanks caused by uncontrolled runoff from pavement. More pavement can hardly be advanced as the solution.”

The Long Branch trail project costs $674,000. Funding comes from park bonds approved by voters in 2012 and 2016. The Park Authority Board approved the project in February 2019.