Mary Hynes admits to being a late bloomer on transportation and transit issues.
“I did not start out as a transportation person — at all,” she acknowledged.
But having spent the past two decades plus involved in the issue, Hynes was called on to deliver something akin a valedictory address earlier this week. In it, she pressed Northern Virginia leaders to forge closer connections with their downstate counterparts for the good of transportation throughout the region and the Old Dominion.
“Reach out. Show them how all the layers fit together. They won’t get it otherwise,” Hynes said on Oct. 3 as she was honored by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) for 30 years of community service.
Hynes in June wrapped up eight years serving on the Commonwealth Transportation Board. She also over the years saw service on the boards of NVTC, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, Virginia Transit Association and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
It was something of a mid-course correction in terms of policy focus. Hynes in 2007 was elected to the Arlington County Board, having moved up (or perhaps over) from the county’s School Board.
At the time, Chris Zimmerman was the County Board’s — and one of the region’s — dominant figures on transportation. But when Zimmerman departed for a job with a smart-growth organization, Hynes took on more of his role.
Her appointment to the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the state’s dominant transportation-planning body, came at a time when most of its members had connections to, or knowledge of, Northern Virginia’s transportation idiosyncrasies.
“They understood some of what we were up against,” Hynes said.
Today, few members outside the area have much connection to the local region, she said.
“It’s not their fault,” Hynes said. “Let’s not be angry at them for not getting it.”
Rather, she said, Northern Virginians should be welcoming, inviting downstate leaders to the region.
Perhaps the most trying transportation episode for Hynes during her County Board years was the Columbia Pike streetcar proposal. Ten years ago next month, she and fellow County Board member Jay Fisette switched sides on the issue, joining with board members John Vihstadt and Libby Garvey to kill a project that had grown in projected cost to more than $300 million and was splitting the community.
That episode was left out of the Oct. 3 discussion, but NVTC board members took time to lavish praise on Hynes.
“We already miss her as a strong voice on what we care about,” said County Board member Matt de Ferranti, who chairs the NVTC.
“We were extremely lucky” to have her, County Board and NVTC board member Takis Karantonis added.
Perhaps transportation policy was sitting latent in her civic DNA until activated years later: When Hynes, her husband Patrick and their children moved to the Clarendon neighborhood more than four decades ago, the neighborhood had just seen massive construction related to Metro’s Orange Line, and was almost ready to begin reaping the economic-development rewards of that transit access.
How is life treating Hynes now that she is not sitting on any major governing or planning bodies? “I’m so happy to not regularly be sitting on long meetings,” she chuckled.
That said, “I have had a great time — had a great run,” Hynes said.
