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the way for that development.
Til Hazel, the recognized leader of development interests in Fairfax County, backs a western bypass. “As a last resort, we’ll build it to the Potomac River and let it hang,” Mr. Hazel has pledged.
With John Herrity, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and Robert Tardio, chairman of Suburban Bancorp, Mr. Hazel formed a non-profit corporation in September to promote the western bypass.
Also in September, six Northern Virginia senators introduced a bill in the General Assembly to allow the State Department of Highways and Transportation to contract with nonstock, non-member corporations “to act on behalf of the Commonwealth within a designated area.” Such corporations would be empowered to work directly with landowners, local and state government agencies and elected officials to promote and develop highway projects. Their powers would include authority to conduct preliminary and final alignment studies and to receive donations of rights-of-way and cash contributions to purchase rights-Okfway.
Mr. Hazel’s Traffic Resear#i Foundation fits the parameters outlined in the proposed legislation, which has been carried over to the General Assembly session which gets underway this January.
Highway planners have said repeatedly that agreement with Maryland must precede progress on the superhighway. But Governor Baliles, again speaking at the Greater Washington Board of Trade meeting in March, said, “I will not equivocate on the intentions of Virginia. We must proceed on the planning and construction of the outer beltway.”
Projections on when the state will break ground for an outer beltway range from five to 50 years away. But the issue is not when a western Washington bypass will be built but whether it should be built at all, according to PEC’s Georgia Herbert. “By saying, ‘Don’t worry because it’s years and years away,’ we’re presupposing that people then won’t care,” Ms. Herbert maintained. “And that’s just not true.”. '
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