‘Time is money’: Fairfax supervisors slam road project delays
Several Fairfax County leaders are speaking out about delays in finishing road safety projects that have already been funded More Virginia stories Virginia voter guide Early voting begins Friday for November voting process for governor delegates more Loudoun Co charter school worries proposed framework change will prevent funds to upgrade facilities Bowie man tackled a mountain called cancer Now he s going after Kilimanjaro During a Board of Supervisors budget conversation this week supervisors pushed back against the fact that million for infrastructure improvements had been allocated but only about million has been spent The board previously set a million goal for new sidewalks and road upgrades for pedestrian and cyclist safety As part of a discussion about fiscal carryover funding the county did not propose allocating any additional money toward that goal Local news website FFX Now first stated details of Tuesday s meeting I m like a broken record on it because I have had it up to here with hearing over and over again Delays delays delays because also time is money Supervisor Jimmy Bierman disclosed Time is money It s costing us more money on these projects because things are taking too long now Bierman called the spending numbers unacceptable adding that not setting aside additional funding for the projects so that we can meet the obligations that we as a board decided to put in place makes perfect sense because we have not done nearly a good enough job of moving these projects forward Chairman Jeffrey McKay questioned whether builders and others involved facing challenges with Virginia s Department of Transportation could be contributing to the delays That s a lot of money still sitting there and I would like to get a better explanation of why McKay stated When we know that there are bike and pedestrian improvements all over this county that are desperately needed how we can speed up the process on that is something that we should all be focused on here Staff with the county s transportation department weren t in attendance at Tuesday s meeting supervisors revealed Bryan Hill the county executive commented construction costs invariably come at the end of a project and vowed to provide supervisors with a list of projects in process and what the cost is I get that the cost at the very end is when the money gets spent but we still have a speed dilemma McKay announced Supervisor Dalia Palchik meanwhile mentioned it can sometimes take years to build a sidewalk and that s just been the reality I don t know how much of that we can change Separately Fairfax County s Department of Transportation is hosting a series of meetings to discuss proposals for adding bike lanes and marked crosswalks to certain neighborhoods including near Forestdale Elementary Source
