Julia Bovey's Blog
Tysons Corner, USA
July 19, 2007
Posted by Julia Bovey in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
On June 1st my husband was riding his bike home from work when he was hit by a car. Of course he was. He works in a place called Tysons Corner, Virginia.
He's going to be fine, though he's still pretty banged up and his mouth is crocked from the way they sewed him back up. But he could have been killed, so I'm not complaining about the crocked mouth thing too much.
Even if you've never been to Tysons Corner, you know exactly what it's like, because if you live in the United State of America, you likely have a Tysons Corner of your very own. Two major and two minor highways meet there, so in about 1980, someone decided to build a mall there. Then a movie theater. Then an office building. Then more office buildings. Then another mall. Then fill in the parts in-between with strip malls. Then more office buildings and a couple of hotels.
What didn't they build in Tysons Corner? Sidewalks. Bike paths. Public transportation. So if you want to get to Tysons Corner, you drive. And if you want to get from, say, Tysons Corner Center, which has dozens of shops, four department stores, and a 16-screen movie theater, to Tysons Galleria, which has 120 stores and six restaurants, then you have exactly one way to cross the road that runs in-between them. You drive your car. It was biking across this road that my husband was hit.
The Major Corporation for which my husband works was very proud when it built its headquarters in Tysons Corner about six years ago. Back then, we lived in Boston and when he traveled to the headquarters everyone said to him "Isn't this great! We have a Starbucks in the building!"
What cracks me up is that the Major Corporation paid an architect a zillion dollars to design this really nice-looking building, but when you drive up to it guess what you see? A massive, poured-cement parking garage.
And, as you know from visiting your town's own version of Tysons Corner, the traffic is outrageous. In the evening it takes my husband one hour to drive the 13 miles home to DC from Tysons Corner. Most of that time is just getting out of Tysons Corner. By biking he was saving time.
But not anymore, because a) his bike is in a million pieces, b) he's scared, and c) bikes really have no business being in Tysons Corner. Neither do pedestrians.
When people at Major Corporation ask why we live in DC, my husband says "so my wife can take the Metro to work and we can walk to shops and restaurants." People look at him like he's mentally ill. They point out that if he lived near Tysons Corner he could have a bigger house. But not a shorter commute – because people who live mere miles from Tysons Corner also have an hour commute because they are in absolute gridlock the entire way home.
Here's the disconnect for me. People say they like communities. They say they like biking and walking. They say they hate traffic and concrete. They say they want to save money on gas. So why are we getting more and more, bigger and bigger Tysons Corners? How on earth can we move America beyond oil if we need to work or shop in a place that's only accessible by car?
And here, gentle readers, is the punch line. A mere 25 years since building the first mall at Tysons Corner, a train is now planned to bring commuters there and on to Dulles Airport. But, after much pleading to do otherwise, local authorities have decided to build the train ABOVE ground, rather than putting it in a much-recommended tunnel under the malls and office buildings. So, while most trains are heralded for getting people out of their cars – this train will in fact make the traffic at Tysons Corner WORSE.
Hmmm, maybe that means no cars will be going fast enough to make a dent in my husband.
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