A proposal to add a 10-foot-wide path for bicyclists along Haycock Road has won informal support from the Falls Church Planning Commission.

“It will be exciting if it happens,” commission chair Andrea Caumont said during a June 4 briefing on the plan.

Fairfax County officials are seeking to remove a median and narrow travel lanes slightly to accommodate the shared-use, asphalt lane on one side of the roadway.

The project would run from Route 7 to just north of Mustang Alley. Neither existing travel lanes nor the sidewalks on either side of them will be removed.

The proposal would cause more construction headaches for an interim period, officials acknowledge, but upon completion it would help bicyclists heading to the new West Falls development as well as Meridian High School and Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School.

The project’s design work has been funded. Construction work “should be very quick,” said Henry Zhang, a principal planner for the city government.

While city officials suggested that the shared-use path might someday expand northward to meet up with the W&OD Regional Trail, although Fairfax County has not finalized plans for any future extension.

Caumont said that while the City is not in charge of the project, she hopes Fairfax County will collaborate on it with Falls Church.

“We want to get it right,” she said of the project.

The effort is being conducted in coordination with transportation-safety improvements along Shreve Road just to the south, also under the direction of Fairfax County officials.

West End redevelopment proposal takes step forward

Eventual redevelopment of the Beyer Automotive property and adjacent sites on W. Broad Street in Falls Church took a procedural step forward on Tuesday.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors agreed that a staff work plan to study potential redevelopment will place the 2.4-acre portion of the site within Fairfax County.

The Fairfax-Falls Church line bisects the parcels involved in the proposal.

The land in the West End area of Falls Church is currently home to a restaurant, retail and the Falls Church Animal Hospital in addition to Beyer Auto properties.

An initial plan calls for ground-floor retail under multiple stories of residential units, spread across three buildings.

That mixed-use concept is in line with recent redevelopment in the W. Broad Street corridor, and aligns with the city’s long-term vision for the area.

The June 10 vote in Fairfax is an early step in a process that could amend the county’s Comprehensive Plan to permit alternate uses on the site. That, in turn, could lead to the rezoning necessary to make the project viable.

Falls Church officials would need to take similar steps for the portion of the parcel on their side of the boundary line.

As part of the proposal, the two jurisdictions could be asked to slightly amend the boundary so that it does not run through one of the proposed buildings.