Letter: $1 Million 'Sidewalk to Nowhere' a Threat to Justice Park

Not again! Justice Park Threatened by $1 Million Sidewalk to Nowhere. Fiscal Irresponsibility and a Threat to Green Space

How is it possible that just five years after residents of Ravenwood, Ravenwood Park and Lake Barcroft successfully blocked a top-down proposal by the Fairfax County Park Authority and Fairfax County Public Schools to pave over public parkland in Justice Park for a high school parking lot in a park-poor community, the Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) is back with a project to construct a concrete sidewalk to nowhere on the same park land?

After that 2021 parking lot battle, community insistence for meaningful engagement about any future paving projects was assured by County officials, or so we thought. 

Yet, on Saturday morning November 8, volunteers working on invasive management activities arrive at Justice Park to find white tape, survey markers and an indication that County planners are staking out plans, and for what? A road widening? Days later, a large blue County sign appears in Justice Park announcing another sidewalk project – on the opposite side of the high school – to be completed by the spring of 2026.

Again, without reaching out to the originally-requesting community for a check-in, FCDOT is going forward. Had FCDOT checked in, it would have found a sidewalk had already been paved on the opposite side of Peace Valley Lane in 2023, in front of Justice High School financed by FCPS funds, which fulfilled the community’s request for a paved walkway between neighborhoods on either side of the school in the Seven Corners area. 

After several stories on the local news website Annandale Today, the County’s sign promoting the construction of this sidewalk disappears. 

Inquiries with FCDOT staff in the Transportation Design Division originally claimed the project was “pursuant” to Ravenwood Park’s request for the sidewalk; yet weeks later, staff claimed, “it was not acting on the community’s request.” It appears the design team may not have been aware of the prior construction of a sidewalk on Justice High School’s side of Peace Valley Lane until their survey staff finally visited the site.

This is governmental incompetence at its worst. Why, when Justice Park’s severely eroded tributary of Holmes Run will be undergoing much-needed stream restoration by the Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) to improve water quality, as well as the urban forest’s water connectivity to the floodplain – at an initial design cost of $540,000 – will a further impervious cement surface be placed on the very top of this stream? 

Justice Park is a vital 17-acre green space established in 1961 to serve communities in the Seven Corners area of Northern Virginia in Fairfax County, including Ravenwood, Ravenwood Park, Lake Barcroft, and surrounding communities. As one of the few significant parks in a densely populated area, it has required constant community advocacy to survive.

Today, Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) will be spending $540,000 to design a critical stream restoration project in Justice Park to protect the ecology of the park and ultimately, Lake Barcroft and the Chesapeake Bay. But in a classic example of government departments working at cross purposes, FCDOT intends to go forward with TPP (Transportation Priority Project) 161 – A concrete sidewalk that leads to a dead end, to be constructed in Justice Park, along Peace Valley Lane, across from an existing parallel sidewalk along Justice High School property, built in 2023.

Before anyone says “who would be against sidewalks for more safety for school kids and pedestrians?,” as did Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Jim McKay, who stated the same recently on Kojo Nnamdi's “The Politics Hour,” in response to my call-in question about the redundant sidewalk project before I was cut off, let it be said that I and advocates for protecting Justice Park absolutely do not oppose pedestrian and student safety whatsoever. What we do oppose is spending $1 million on a redundant sidewalk to nowhere during a $131 million county budget deficit.

And, before anyone argues back that this $1 million is not coming from the county’s operating budget, but from “transportation funds,” and would have no impact on that deficit if the project were cancelled, it’s all taxpayers' money. That million dollars could easily be redirected to a more critical sidewalk connectivity need in Mason District. FCDOT has plenty of those and they are much more worthy projects. (For example, try walking safely from Sleepy Hollow Road to Mason District Park along Columbia Pike. Can’t be done.) There are numerous sidewalk gaps around Mason District that are completely worthy of funding, as opposed to this project. To see them, click on the Mason District tab at this link: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/transportation/bike-walk/100-million-funding/prioritization.)

FCDOT claims its missions are to foster “connectivity” between our streets and neighborhoods and to foster “sidewalks on both sides.” Yet, they are pushing a $1 million sidewalk on the south side of Peace Valley Lane along Justice Park, across from Justice High School and an existing fully connected sidewalk, that is the very definition of a “sidewalk to nowhere":

• A Literal Dead End: The proposed sidewalk stops abruptly at a service road in Justice Park because private property blocks its path to Mansfield Road, thus making “connectivity” an impossibility.
• A Safety Hazard: Because this sidewalk cannot reach Mansfield Road, anyone using it — including students — will be forced to step directly into the street on Peace Valley Lane to finish their journey.
• Total Redundancy: A perfectly functional, connective sidewalk was already built on the north side of the street in 2023 for students and pedestrians.

We are not against sidewalks. We are against fiscal irresponsibility and county agencies working at cross purposes. The County is literally planning to plow through its own work plans. The meaningful and much less costly fix to enhance further student and pedestrian safety on Peace Valley Lane would be to just paint a crosswalk directly from the high school’s sidewalk across Peace Valley Lane to the park, and add appropriate signage. 

Consider this contradiction: FCDOT’s proposal is to construct a five-foot wide 825 foot long sidewalk along the south side of Peace Vallely Lane in Justice Park, including taking a 20 foot swath of parkland during construction, on the same land as DPWES’s $540,000 plan for the design of a stream restoration and water quality project in this park. During construction of this sidewalk in the planned environmental restoration zone, FCDOT’s construction will require cutting down existing mature and smaller trees as well as recently planted native plants and will introduce invasive seeds during the heavy equipment construction.

At the same time, this proposed sidewalk will eliminate 450+ hours of annual local volunteer efforts to restore the park's forest, remove invasive plants and plant native plants as part of  Fairfax County’s own Invasive Management Area (IMA) Volunteer Program. This sidewalk project replaces native habitat with concrete.  

“The sidewalk is a wasteful and destructive piece of construction, pursued in an absurd way”, says Peter Jones, volunteer IMA (Invasive Management Area) lead in Justice Park at a meeting in the park on March 5. Sonia Shahnaj, a lead Engineer for FCDOT admitted no less than four times at this meeting, “We’ve already spent the money on design and land acquisition, so it would be a waste not to finish it.” 

“The utter lack of logical thinking, covering up poor coordination over three different project managers and six years of non-action is just utterly inexcusable,” argues Peter Jones. “It’s like they looked around for an old project to spend extra money on, found this, did no due diligence, cut and paste a new date on the old 2018 project plans, and then now go full steam ahead claiming any questions or push back from the community is in bad faith. There are many people who care about this park, and FCDOT did not even bother to do any meaningful community outreach before starting this project, beyond one meeting in 2019."

The County is facing a $131 million operating deficit for 2026. When a group of concerned residents challenged this proposed sidewalk-to-nowhere boondoggle, officials claimed these projects use "different buckets of money.” But here is the truth:

• The Bureaucratic Line: Officials say this $1 million for the sidewalk comes from a "different bucket" (Transportation funds) and can't be used for schools or county services anyway. The $540,000 for the stream restoration comes from the Fairfax County operating budget, while the $1 million for the sidewalk is financed by the County’s capital transportation funds. Chairman McKay said if the sidewalk wasn’t built, it would have no impact on the county’s current $131 million operating budget deficit. To the taxpayer, this distinction is meaningless — it is all our tax money.
• The "Advertised Budget" Argument: They also argue that projects like this often sit in the "Advertised Budget" for a decade (this one dates back to roughly 2014-2018). By the time they reach construction, the original "rationale" may have changed, but because the money was already "locked" into that capital bucket years ago, the bureaucracy often keeps moving forward. But, this project is planned to go forward because no one apparently has seen that the original rationale for a sidewalk has changed: there was already a sidewalk for students and pedestrians built after that 2014-2018 plan in 2023.
• The Taxpayer Reality: Even if the money is "locked" for transportation, it is still taxpayer money. Spending $1 million on a redundant "sidewalk to nowhere" is a dollar taken away from a genuinely needed sidewalk project in Mason District and/or Fairfax County.  
• It is NOT a "Done Deal": Do not let anyone tell you the $1 million is already spent. These transportation funds are flexible and could be redirected to legitimate sidewalk gaps in Fairfax County that are sorely needed, rather than being wasted on a project that destroys parkland and leads to nowhere. Yes, FCDOT has already invested many dollars in engineering, environmental studies, and land rights for this sidewalk and their current stance is that canceling the project now would "waste" that initial investment. However, this is another example of the “sunk cost fallacy” — spending another $500,000 to finish an unnecessary and "redundant" project just because you already spent $400,000 on the plans doesn’t make sense.

We call for the county to stop the sidewalk project, redirect the Funds and save Justice Park again.

Fairfax County operates with a massive $11 billion budget (operating, capital, dedicated funds for utilities (wastewater/stormwater), debt service, and specialized regional programs) — larger than many state budgets — yet we have no Independent Inspector General to hold departments accountable for this kind of waste. Montgomery County Maryland, the City of Richmond, and numerous states have Inspectors General. When local residents saw the survey tape and signs in Justice Park and met with FCDOT and DPWES at Justice Park to point out these conflicts, their concerns were ignored. Since then, we were told by officials that “money has already been spent on the sidewalk project. We can’t stop now.” Even worse, our requests to meet with Chairman Jeff McKay and Mason Supervisor Andres Jimenez to discuss what is happening here have been denied.

One wonders how does paving Justice Park on top of a planned stream restoration project meet Supervisor Andres’ stated interests in environmental protection as Vice-Chair of the Board’s Environmental Committee?

As of now, instead of an independent Inspector General, there’s something called an Internal Audit Office in Fairfax County which reports directly to the County Executive, rather than an independent authority, yet their investigation will not stop the clock on this project. There is also the Office of Financial Program Audit, again not really an independent authority, that reports directly to the Board of Supervisors (and its Audit Committee) and acts as the "Auditor of the Board." That office can only conduct reviews and investigations authorized by the Board. These are two examples of the fox guarding the chicken coop. We need a true Inspector General here.

Again, Chairman Jeff McKay and Supervisor Andres Jimenez’s offices have brushed aside pleas for meetings. We cannot allow our leaders to hide from a $1 million boondoggle that fails the very mission it claims to serve (connectivity between streets) and encroaches at cross purposes on an existing $540,000 environmental design project because two county departments are seemingly working against each other. Let’s expect more accountability for our hard-earned taxpayer dollars and see that this sidewalk sideshow in Justice Park forces our County, with a $11 billion dollar budget, to disallow projects, a decade in the pipeline, from suddenly reappearing without reevaluation and meaningful community engagement to ascertain its need and worthiness. 

If this kind of fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement happens here, twice on this small parcel in the Seven Corners area, it’s surely happening elsewhere in our County. Let’s call out our leaders to listen to local residents for once.

Larry Golfer, resident of Lake Barcroft, advocate for Justice Park and community activist

Kathleen Brown, IMA volunteer in Justice Park and Ravenwood Citizen Association, VP

Mason Environmental Allies, an informal group of concerned residents

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