Amid its stalled move from Clarendon to Courthouse, Arlington Independent Media is being audited by the county, according to the nonprofit’s leadership.
Meantime, simmering divides among the organization’s leadership, AIM members and people currently or formerly on AIM’s Board of Directors boiled over this week.
Board chair Chris Judson announced his resignation today (Thursday) after assuming the role in December, continuing the board’s high turnover rate. More than a dozen AIM members and former board members signed an open letter released today alleging financial mismanagement and calling for a special meeting. The letter has enough signatures to require the special meeting, according to one signing member, Lynn Borton.
“There were differing visions for AIM,” Judson writes. “The more expansive version is not achievable in the current financial environment, especially considering the recently proposed County budget for the upcoming fiscal year. In light of that, I have stepped down from the board so that others can take the next steps, which include responding to the audit and refocusing the organization on community broadcast. I wish them and the organization success in that endeavor.”
The audit, initiated this month, has tamped money flowing to AIM from cable subscription-generated revenue that the county, schools and organizations like AIM can tap into for capital expenses. It has so far received about $220,000 of the $368,000 in Public, Educational and Government (PEG) funds and recent social media posts by the organization urge supporters to tell the Arlington County Board this weekend to release the remaining funds.
“The freeze in funding from the County has created a crisis within our organization,” CEO Whytni Kernodle said in a letter published this week. “Without these funds, we are unable to meet our financial obligations, including paying our dedicated staff and freelance engineers and other teammates who are instrumental in keeping our organization running smoothly.”
Arlington County says it is pulling back until it wraps up this review.
“The Arlington County Board and County staff continue to monitor requests made by Arlington Independent Media for PEG funding, and are performing due diligence in reviewing previous expenditures before determining next steps,” county spokesperson Ryan Hudson told ARLnow in a statement.
This has prevented the build-out of AIM’s TV and radio stations, station manager Alvin Jones told ARLnow, which means more days without TV programming and more continuous lo-fi beats for viewers and listeners. He adds that the audit has made it more difficult to fundraise, which the county has asked the organization to ramp up.
“The plans, desires, and hopes of our bright future [are] now in limbo,” he said. “This limbo causes the newly founded contacts and relationships to allocate their funds to other organizations.”
In a letter that we are told blindsided AIM’s board, Kernodle blames members of the board who do not support her efforts to “amplify underrepresented voices and address critical issues” such as racial equity and climate change. These members went to the County Board to voice their discontent with her financial management, she writes.
“Consequently, the County has decided to freeze payments until they conduct an audit to address the raised concerns,” she said. “I want to assure you that there has been no misuse of funds within our organization. Rather, these issues stem from a difference in opinion regarding the direction of our initiatives and programs and the County’s desire to prioritize their own initiatives with PEG funds, which evades the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC’s rules on these funds.”
The AIM members calling for a meeting, meanwhile, allege AIM is interpreting what is PEG-eligible too broadly to include operating costs it cannot afford. Citing the 2023 annual report, they say AIM reported spending $622,937 on employee compensation and $104,662 on office operations yet only netted $453,048 in funds that can go to operating costs such as salaries.
The letter notes there has not been an annual audit since October 2021 and 990s forms have not been filed “in a timely manner,” threatening its nonprofit status. Its 990 for the 2021-22 fiscal year was filed last November and its 2020-21 Form 990 filed in April 2022, per ProPublica.
“We believe AIM Members, Arlington residents, and Arlington County leaders have been misled about AIM’s financial health and well-being,” it says. “Social media messages in the last week suggest that AIM is imperiled because the County is withholding funds. In fact, AIM has been grossly mismanaged.”
To generate some savings in its new budget, Arlington County is targeting low-performing bus routes in North Arlington.
It proposes axing one route between Courthouse and Ballston, along Lorcom Lane, that saw just 2.1 passengers per hour in the 2023 fiscal year (ART 62) for a savings of $348,613. Two bus routes — ART 61 and 53, serving the Ft. Myer and Radnor Heights neighborhoods and the Ballston to East Falls Church Metro stations — saw just 3.4 and 4.3 passengers per hour, respectively could be combined for a savings of $316,940.
“This restructuring eliminates service to the least performing sections of both routes and maintains service for lower-income and minority neighborhoods that are more transit-dependent,” per the proposed 2024-2025 budget.
ART ridership is continuing to recover steadily but remains below pre-pandemic levels, given employment behavioral changes with telework. For some, these cuts are hard but make sense; for others, they are a few drops in a bucket, given low farebox recovery ratios.
“I think it’s regrettable they’re cutting those but it’s understandable, given the low ridership,” Joan McIntyre, chair of the Climate Change, Energy and Environment Commission said in a County Board budget work session Tuesday. “It’s also an indication the county should start looking to rethinking some of its transit and how it can, literally, meet people where they are. “
Former Transportation Commission member Joseph Warren, a transit budget hawk who has criticized the $1 million bus “super stop” and the Columbia Pike streetcar proposal, tells ARLnow that “it’s time to be serious about trying to control the costs.”
Projected operating costs are expected to increase from $25.3 million in the 2025 fiscal year to nearly $33 million by 2034, according to the county’s 10-year Transit Strategic Plan for ART. These projections do not include recommended service expansions projected to add another $20 million through 2034.
Warren says ART should pump the brakes on more weekend service until cost-recovery rates improve from current levels — around 11% as of the 2023 fiscal year and a projected 12% in the FY 2025 budget. That is under county goals of 20% for most routes and 35% for more popular ones — meaning less money to pay for new services, Warren says.
“This is the dilemma that people don’t understand. So when they say, ‘We want shorter routes, we want faster service with fewer stops,’ that means there’s going to be more service,” he continued. “The whole process is biased toward more service that doesn’t provide riders, or potential riders, with [financial] information to make a useful and helpful decision on that.”
The county says more weekend service responds to requests from residents for more service outside work hours.
“That’s why, with our [transit plan], we focus on increasing weekend and evening service and increasing frequencies — specifically the times of day that people are moving toward,” Transit Bureau Chief Lynn Rivers, who notes ridership recovery trends in Arlington are similar to those elsewhere in the region, said in the budget work session.
Arlington Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Claudia Pors tells ARLnow the department does not yet have a timeline for when frequency and weekend service will be expanded.
McIntyre, meanwhile, urged the county to study micro transit, arguing on-demand van service would be ideal for North Arlington, and to take on at least some of the transportation needs of middle and high school students. Rivers says DES has applied for funding for a micro transit study.
County Board members were likewise keen on micro transit as a way to serve students, observing ART’s fare-free program for students, iRide, generated a 50% increase in student ridership. This includes the low-performing North Arlington routes: for instance, ART 62, which served Washington-Liberty High School, had 817 student rides.
“How confident are we that we’re not cutting off our hand in removing service to several high schools where we were seeing increased participation?” asked Board member Susan Cunningham. “And, to C2E2’s point, [can we] imagine a better-coordinated transit system that supports all our needs, including all our school children?”
Penrose and Arlington Heights residents say a heavily trafficked road through their neighborhoods needs more speeding enforcement and traffic calming measures.
From Washington Blvd to Glebe Road, 2nd Street S. has seen several crashes over the last decade, including a 2012 crash at S. Wayne Street that sent three to the hospital to a fatal pedestrian crash near S. Old Glebe Road in 2022.
The segment has clocked about a dozen fatal or severe-injury crashes in the last decade, per county crash data. This includes pedestrian-involved crashes at S. Courthouse Road, near S. Fillmore Street and Thomas Jefferson Middle School, as well as one in which an impatient driver struck a pregnant driver, sending her to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“Speeding and unsavory practices have long been a concern on 2nd Street S. and neighboring roads,” says Arlington Heights Civic Association Co-President Brian Sigritz, noting it endangers students walking to and from Thomas Jefferson and Alice West Fleet Elementary School.
Acknowledging some recent improvements such as additional signage and lower speed limits, he said “more traffic calming measures and intersection improvements would be helpful,” especially given traffic challenges during pick-up and drop-off hours.
A new map of areas that see significant crash rates does not include intersections with 2nd Street S. The segment through Arlington Heights — from S. Oakland Street to S. Fillmore Street — is classified as a “High Injury Network,” however, and has a safety audit scheduled for next year, Arlington Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Katie O’Brien said.
Engineers also studied 2nd Street S. between Washington Blvd and S. Fillmore Street, through Penrose, in response to requests from residents.
“The result of the investigation shows that, from an engineering perspective, there is not a speeding issue on this segment of 2nd Street S, nor were there other safety or crash-related issues,” she said. “We have limited resources to implement safety interventions across our county-controlled streets, and as part of our Vision Zero Action Plan, prioritize the locations with the highest risk of severe and fatal crashes.”
Despite this news, Penrose Neighborhood Association President Alex Sakes intends to push for measures such as flashing lights at crosswalks and speed humps and better enforcement.
“These drivers clearly aren’t respecting existing speed limits, stop signs, and the like,” he said, observing many might be trying to outmaneuver road construction on Columbia Pike. “My residents deserve to not feel unsafe along any stretch of the neighborhood, especially those with small children.”
Last year, the county provided an additional crossing for children going to school at S. Garfield Street with new crosswalks, enhanced signage and additional painted markings, and it extended the curbs and narrowed the road at S. Wayne Street. Three intersections — S. Irving Street, Old Glebe Road and S. Uhle Street — have become all-way stops as part of various projects.
Separately, Sigritz says he hopes the county moves forward with traffic calming on 1st Road S. nearby, where “speeding, wrong-way driving and other illegal and unsafe practices” have been a concern for several years.
Next month, residents will have the chance to share their perceptions of traffic safety in Arlington via a feedback form, notes O’Brien.
“This is a great opportunity for people to share their experiences, feedback, and specific concerns to the County’s safety program,” she said.
As for enforcement, Sakes says he and several Penrose residents have submitted complaints to the Arlington County Police Department’s online transportation complaint reporting tool.
One source of relief could be the county’s forthcoming speed cameras, part of a shift to automated enforcement, which will move around the county as needed. Progress on the cameras recently took a step forward.
“The procurement process for photo speed enforcement has been finalized and Verra Mobility was selected as the vendor,” ACPD spokeswoman Ashley Savage told ARLnow earlier this month. “The involved County agencies continue to work with the vendor on the implementation of the program and additional details will be shared with the community as the program nears operation.”
Five arterial streets north of Route 50 could see their speed limits drop from 30 to 25 mph.
This weekend, the Arlington County Board is set to authorize public hearings to lower speed limits along these roads, which have “high volumes of pedestrian crossings and higher density land development,” a county report says.
They include:
- Military Road from Nelly Custis Drive to Langston Blvd, through the Donaldson Run and Cherrydale neighborhoods
- N. Carlin Springs Road from N. Glebe Road to N. George Mason Drive, through Arlington Forest
- N. George Mason Drive from N. Carlin Springs Road to Arlington Blvd, through Buckingham
- Fairfax Drive from N. Kirkwood Road to I-66 ramps, through Virginia Square
- 10th Street N. from Washington Blvd to N. Kirkwood Road, near Clarendon
Arlington’s Dept. of Environmental Services recommended 25 mph limits on these roads after looking at “speed statistics, collisions, traffic volumes, current and anticipated pedestrian and bicyclist activity, adjacent land uses and development patterns, future projects and roadway characteristics,” per the report.
Since adopting its Vision Zero policy in 2021, the County Board has taken steps to its goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030 in part by lowering speed limits around schools and along several road segments throughout the county.
“The Arlington County Vision Zero policy supports the reduction of drivers’ speed,” it continues. “The Vision Zero Action Plan notes that speeding contributes to about a quarter of both fatal and serious crashes.”
Most of the intersections teed up for lower speeds share two conditions: significant pedestrian and cyclist activity, particularly at uncontrolled crosswalks, and relatively high crash rates, according to the county.
Military Road from Nelly Custis Drive to Langston Blvd has relatively high pedestrian crossings at uncontrolled crossings in the school zone for Dorothy Hamm Middle School. The crash rate in this segment is higher than elsewhere on Military Road, with 14 crashes in six years.
On N. Carlin Springs Road from N. Glebe Road to N. George Mason Drive, there were three pedestrian-involved crashes in six years.
N. George Mason Drive from N. Carlin Springs Road to Arlington Blvd, which carries approximately 22,000 vehicles per day, passes by Barrett Elementary School, the Lubber Run Community Center and medium-density apartment buildings — resulting in a high number of pedestrian and bicycle crossings at uncontrolled crosswalks. This segment includes the crash-prone intersection with N. Park Drive set to get a traffic light later this year.
Although actual driving speeds along Fairfax Drive from N. Kirkwood Road to the I-66 ramps are below the posted 30 mph speed limit, the county still recommends lowering the limit to 25 mph. Of the 162 crashes on this road in six years, 18 involved pedestrians and six caused severe injuries.
The roadway segment of 10th Street N. from Washington Blvd to Kirkwood Road are not part of what the county calls a “High Injury Network” but saw nine pedestrian-involved crashes and three severe-injury crashes in six years. This area is set to receive transportation upgrades also intended to improve safety for road users.
The county reviewed but is not recommending speed limit reductions for the following intersections:
- Nelly Custis Drive from Lorcom Lane to Military Road
- S. Carlin Springs Road from Arlington Blvd to Columbia Pike
- Williamsburg Blvd from N. Glebe Road to 29th Street N.
- N. Roosevelt Street from 17th Street N. to the Falls Church City line
- N. Sycamore Street from Williamsburg Blvd to 17th Street N.
- N. George Mason Drive from Yorktown Blvd to Arlington Blvd
- S. George Mason Drive from Arlington Blvd to the Fairfax County line
- N. Westmoreland Street from Arlington County line to Fairfax Drive
To add new signage will cost about $700 per corridor, for a total of $3,500.
Arlington-based Axios HQ released a report today (Monday) that it says should be a reality check for company leaders.
“What we see every year — this year is no different — is there’s a lot more misalignment happening than a lot of leaders are aware of,” Chief Operating Officer Jordan Zaslav tells ARLnow.
For instance, nearly half (44%) of surveyed leaders think staff are aligned with business goals but only 14% of employees agree, per its report, which surveyed some 1,500 executives and employees. Most (85%) leaders think internal communications are helpful and relevant but only 45% of employees agree.
A majority of leaders (62%) think their communications keep everybody on the same page but Axios found the average worker loses up to 46 working days each year searching for the information they need to do their jobs.
“There’s a lot that needs to be better — like what topics you’re covering, how frequently, how clearly you communicate them, and on what channels,” Zaslav says.
The findings dovetail with the startup’s AI-driven software aimed at improving communications between leaders and employees. Clarendon-based Axios HQ (3100 Clarendon Blvd) developed the product after becoming a separate company in late 2022, when Cox Enterprises bought the media side of its parent company, Axios, for $525 million.
Leveraging a $20 million fundraise in spring 2023, the company expanded its product — which facilitates effective company communication while tracking employee engagement and analytics — from email to now include platforms such as Slack, Teams and SharePoint.
Zaslav says the company is working on upgrades that will help leaders write more “scannable and engaging” communications tailored to each organization.
Axios HQ ended 2023 on a strong financial note, reporting $10 million in annual recurring revenue. The company says only 13% of startups reach this milestone in their first 10 years, typically taking five years to do so, compared to Axios HQ’s three.
“I think Axios HQ’s success has been so fast because of how distinct it is,” Zaslav says, attributing this partly to the its patented communications methodology developed by award-winning journalists. “We built a tool more powerful than competitors’ and we were ready for the world when it was finally ready for us.”
The company knew before Covid how critical internal communications are, he continued.
“Until the last few years, internal communications was also one of the most under-resourced areas in any organization. But then the world changed and every organization, overnight, had to become a remote or hybrid organization,” he said. “It was impossible to ignore how outdated and office-centric their approach to employee communication was.”
With its success, Axios HQ is able to court big names to lead conversations about communications. This month, former White House Press Secretary and current MSNBC host Jen Psaki will discuss “how leaders can address difficult political topics with precision and empathy” and in January, a Slack co-founder discussed employee communication strategy.
Today, Axios has more than 600 customers, up 100 since its funding raise. Almost all customers (80-90%) say the software improves internal communications and helps them collect employee feedback and another half say it saves them time, per a press release.
The company has used its spring 2023 fund raise to hire staff. It added its first chief marketing officer in January after appointing Zaslav COO in November. The company tapped an AI pioneer at Mailchimp to lead Machine Learning and hired data and Machine Learning engineers and a data scientist, bringing the total number of employees to 138.
Looking to the future, Zaslav says Axios HQ is following the increasing pressure and interest within federal government to regulate AI. The COO says lawmakers are concerned about security, privacy, transparency and clarity, which are also Axios HQ’s priorities. He noted the company does not share user information with AI providers and routinely updates its terms.
“Any organization delivering AI, like we are, or using AI — which is basically everyone by now — needs to be following the conversation about regulation. That’s smart leadership,” he said. “As for how it could impact Axios HQ, that doesn’t worry us.”
Arlington County has unveiled an updated list of 34 particularly crash-prone intersections, including many on major roads between I-66 and Arlington Blvd.
These “hot spots” are areas that see relatively high crash rates, of which the county identified 60 in total, using data from 2018-2022. The total has dropped from 69 hot spots identified in a 2022 map.
Every two years, Arlington’s Vision Zero team “performs crash hot spot reviews of all reported crashes to identify individual intersections or locations that experience relatively high numbers of crashes to inform [the] implementation of quick-build crash mitigation measures.”
“The term ‘hot spot’ is relative,” per a county report, which notes intersections with severe and fatal crashes are weighted more heavily.
“Compared to larger jurisdictions with higher volume and higher speed roads, Arlington’s hot spots can have significantly fewer crashes and/or injuries,” it says. “However, we recognize the importance of identifying safety needs from our crash data and implementing safety improvements wherever possible to achieve Arlington’s Vision Zero goals.”
Several hot spots were identified along Glebe Road and Route 50 and Washington Blvd and figure into current Virginia Dept. of Transportation traffic studies, which the state agency undertook to address bottleneck traffic and other problems.
This week, VDOT held an open house on proposed changes to Glebe Road from I-66 to Columbia Pike. Through July, the agency will conduct risk assessments, develop preferred improvement plans and estimate project costs for improvements to Arlington and Washington Blvd.
Other notable additions include Arlington Blvd and N. Manchester Street — which received upgrades to reduce speeding and crashes but has continued clocking fatal crashes — and N. Glebe Road and N. Henderson, in Ballston, which saw a serious two-car crash in 2022.
Route 1 and 23d Street S. also made the list. This intersection sees significant pedestrian traffic and could see more once Route 1 is brought at grade. This intersection — where some have observed safety issues — used to have a pedestrian tunnel, but it was closed after maintenance was deemed too onerous.
Meanwhile, the Vision Zero team is working on a way to track the efficacy of “quick build” projects intended to improve safety at these hot spots. The county report says the team is building a map, expected to launch this year, that will calculate crash rates before and after these projects to “gauge whether additional interventions are needed to reduce crashes.”
In a separate analysis published this month, the county says it is actively working on improvements to previously identified crash-prone areas.
In total, 27 have existing or ongoing projects, 24 have had safety improvements implemented and, at 18 locations, staff are working on implementing or assessing new safety features.
Locals can look forward to a red-light camera at 10th Street. N. and N. Barton Street, where a bus driver once careened into a community garden after another driver ran a red light. The installation has been held up, however, by long procurement times for a new vendor that will handle Arlington’s forthcoming speeding cameras as well as its existing red-light cameras.
Along Little Falls Road, at the intersection with Yorktown Blvd, the county plans to make crosswalk updates on N. Greenbrier Street and add a “keep right” sign on the Yorktown Blvd median.
The county has lowered speed limits on Little Falls Road, which in this area, has seen some high-profile fatal crashes, including a fatal pedestrian crash at Little Falls and Old Dominion Drive, a previously identified hot spot.
In Pentagon City, meanwhile, pedestrians will soon see some additional signage at the mid-block crossing south of S. Hayes Street and 12th Street S., next to the mall. That part of S. Hayes has been previously dinged by advocates for pedestrian safety issues. The nearby intersection at 15th Street S. is already a hotspot.
Arlington County aims to begin construction on a new traffic light at a crash-prone intersection near Barrett Elementary School this summer.
The county expects to complete the installation of the 4-way traffic signal — at N. Park Drive and N. George Mason Drive, in front of the Lubber Run Community Center — by the end of 2024. The intersection in the Arlington Forest neighborhood will also get curb extensions on all corners, increased street lighting and marked crosswalks, according to the county.
To get started, however, the county is requesting that the Arlington School Board approve an easement at the intersection’s southwest corner, where Barrett is. The School Board is set to review the request tonight (Thursday), teeing it up for a vote at a later meeting.
Although a 2017 traffic study — done concurrently with plans to replace the aging former community center — recommended a traffic signal, the county opted for a Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon and pedestrian refuge. Since the completion of the new community center, the troubled intersection has seen an uptick in crashes, primarily when drivers have to traverse four lanes of traffic on N. George Mason Drive to try to turn left or go straight on N. Park Drive.
Arlington was working to get a signal installed within the next three years. To address “recurring patterns of dangerous vehicle crashes at the intersection,” however, the county committed to complete work in 2024.
Meanwhile, DES installed an interim solution to calm traffic in December and removed and trimmed overgrown trees and shrubs in the median to improve sight distances.
The county temporarily closed the left turn and through movements from N. Park Drive using signage, flexible posts and wheel stops, per a brief explainer. Left turns will continue to be permitted from N. George Mason Drive to access northbound or southbound N. Park Drive.
As for the traffic signal, the county expects to finalize detailed designs by late this spring and begin construction this summer. The barriers will be removed when the traffic signals go in at the end of next year.
JBG Smith may be bowing out of a deal with the county to build a public library in Crystal City within one of its existing office buildings.
Instead of building the facility, JBG Smith now proposes paying a total of $5.8 million across seven years of annual payments, per a minor site plan amendment filed late last month.
The proposed change comes after a few years of stymied negotiations with county government.
“Since the approval of the Library Conditions, the Applicant has engaged in lease negotiations with the County diligently and in good faith,” writes land use attorney Kedrick Whitmore in a letter to the county, filed late last month. “In lieu of providing the Community Facility, the County has agreed to a monetary contribution.”
Such minor site plan amendments require an Arlington County Board hearing, according to the county.
JBG Smith agreed to financially support a new 7,200-square-foot library branch located in an existing building at 1901 S. Bell Street as a condition of redeveloping an old office building called Crystal Plaza One (2050 and 2051 S. Bell Street).
The developer is replacing the office building with two multifamily towers, an “East” and “West” tower, and shift S. Clark Street to the east to create a new S. Clark-Bell Street. About a year of construction remains for the project, which had its final steel beam put in place at the start of this year.
As part of the agreement, JBG Smith agreed to provide a rent-free space for a public library for up to 20 years, parking spaces for county staff and library patrons and $250,000 per year for five years for operational support, per the February filing.
Another condition required the lease for the library to be executed when a specific building permit was issued as construction progressed at the Crystal Plaza One site. Negotiations were already starting to stall when that deadline loomed in October 2022, however.
At the time, JBG Smith and the county had been “diligently working to complete the lease agreement” but would not finalize negotiations before construction reached the milestone, per a county report. The developer has since filed periodic requests to extend negotiations through 2023, permit records show.
This spring, drivers may notice the county testing out a new road treatment to reduce speeding through left turns.
In the next month or two, the county will start installing small raised bumps called hardened centerlines along the yellow centerline at five local intersections. That’s according to Christine Baker, who coordinates Arlington’s Vision Zero efforts, which aim to eliminate road deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
Hardened centerlines are designed to make intersections safer for pedestrians by encouraging drivers to make wider, “safer and more predictable” left turns at slower speeds, without reducing traffic capacity, per an explainer for the pilot. Another goal is to increase the visibility of pedestrians in crosswalks.
Drivers will find the centerlines at five intersections that were chosen through crash hot spot reviews and other crash analyses showing these locations experience noticeable left-turn crash patterns, the county says.
The intersections — and the number of serious and fatal crashes they have seen between 2013-2023 — are:
- Clarendon Blvd at N. Rhodes Street, between Courthouse and Rosslyn (three four severe-injury crashes, including three involving pedestrians)
- Fairfax Drive at N. Randolph Street, in Ballston (six severe-injury crashes, equally split among pedestrian and angle crashes)
- Columbia Pike at S. Dinwiddie Street, near Arlington Mill (26 severe-injury crashes and one fatal crash, including 10 pedestrian crashes and nine angle crashes)
- Columbia Pike at S. Four Mile Run Drive, near Barcroft (a fatal pedestrian crash in 2019)
- S. Kenmore Street at 24th Street S., in Green Valley (no data on critical and fatal crashes in the last decade)
“We are excited to be piloting new in-street centerline hardening devices in Arlington later this spring,” said a February Vision Zero newsletter announcing the pilot. “Hardened centerlines are a proven safety tool used to reduce turning speeds and increase visibility of pedestrians for turning motorists at intersections.”
Arlington’s Dept. of Environmental Services will install the devices and collect data over the course of spring. This summer, the county will monitor how road users take to the new devices and collect feedback from the community before evaluating next steps in the fall.
Similar devices have been installed at numerous intersections in D.C.
A new report on crash “hot spots” in Arlington, published this month, says centerline hardening is also coming to Langston Blvd and Fort Myer Drive, in Rosslyn.
(Updated at 11:05 a.m.) Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Durán has proposed a 2024-2025 budget that he says avoids new expenses in a lean fiscal year compounded by state funding uncertainty.
He presented an $824.7 million budget — which increases the current budget by $12.2 million, or 1.5% — to the Arlington School Board last week.
The superintendent said his budget includes a $29.5 million gap, in part because APS could lose some $5.7 million in state funding. These come from cuts Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed in his budget for preschool, tutoring and compensation supplements.
“Here’s the bottom line: with everything I’ve shared, with the revenues that I have provided, the cuts that we have done, the expenditures that I’ve outlined [excepting staffing changes tied to enrollment, a part-time custodian and $100,000 for a new student safety software] are not new expenditures,” Durán said during his presentation on Thursday night. “Everything else is currently things that we’re maintaining and sustaining.”
In the best-case scenario, the nearly $30 million gap would drop to $5 million with a 2.5 cent tax rate increase and a competing state budget proposed in the Virginia senate that would send $11 million to APS. The Arlington County Board authorized hearings on a 2.5 cent tax rate increase in large part to address funding gaps if Youngkin’s budget is approved.
“This is not the budget that any of us want to be presenting,” said Board Vice-Chair David Priddy, who read comments from Chair Cristina Diaz-Torres, who could not attend the meeting. “At best, this maintains the status quo of APS, but we know the status quo is not sufficient for our students, for our staff or for our community.”
Youngkin’s conservative budget comes despite a recent report from the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, which found Virginia gives less funding to schools than the national average, using outdated models from the Great Recession, Durán noted.
On top of this statewide deficiency, APS receives less funding from the state, says School Board member Mary Kadera. State funding accounts for 29% and 27%, respectively, of the budgets for the public school systems in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, compared to 15% for APS, she said.
To mitigate the gap, the budget includes some $21 million in cuts. Durán axed $15.7 million in Central Office expenses and reduced staffing by 38 full-time equivalent positions: 19 in the Central Office, of which four are vacant ($2.7 million) and 19.8 school-based art, music and PE positions ($2.15 million).
This change corrects outdated planning calculations without increasing class sizes or impacting classroom instruction, per Durán’s presentation.
“There may be ways in which we can do better with this year’s budget, even with the challenging numbers just presented,” School Board member Miranda Turner said. “I very much appreciate that you focus cuts on… Central Office and not within the schools, but we need to compare the proposed position cuts… We have essentially the same number of positions being cut in Central Office, several of which are vacant anyway.”
Durán says APS began the budget process with a much larger, $73.4 million gap, largely due to the use of $53.7 million in one-time funding in the current budget. Most of this sum was used to make salaries more competitive with surrounding jurisdictions.
For the 2024-2025 budget, Durán proposes $17 million in step increases and a cost-of-living adjustment, which could be augmented by the 3% compensation increase included in the state Senate’s proposed budget. (Youngkin’s plan includes a 2% salary increase for teachers, per the Virginia Mercury.)
The APS proposal disheartened June Prakash, the leader of the local teachers union, the Arlington Education Association.
A mini-baby boom could deliver Arlington Public Schools a slight enrollment bump through 2033, according to the latest 10-year projections.
The report says live births are predicted to increase by 13%, or about 300 babies, through 2028. This modest increase contrasts with a report last year predicting short-term increases followed by declines in the outer years due to declining births.
Now, APS projects incremental growth through 2033 that nudges enrollment just past peak levels last seen in 2019.
“Last year, the births forecast declined over time, whereas the latest birth forecast increases in its outer years,” the enrollment report says. “These changes in birth forecast over time are important since they are used to project incoming kindergarten students five years later.”
The projection is conservative but still has some risk, as not all babies will become students, APS planner Robert Ruiz said in a Joint Facilities Advisory Committee meeting this week. In addition, actual enrollment numbers in recent years have been difficult to interpret.
“Importantly, enrollment trends are not yet telling a consistent narrative,” Ruiz said. “Enrollment trends have been mixed with declines, growth and then, flattening.”
Enrollment has cooled since a baby boom between 2006-12 drove “unprecedented” growth and precipitated a hiring spree, new elementary and middle schools and expanded schools and even a discussion of a fourth comprehensive high school. Now, APS predicts maintaining peak enrollment levels, attained in 2019 and last seen in the 1960s, for the next decade.
Given short- and long-term fiscal constraints and excess capacity at several buildings, the school system likely will not turn to new construction for enrollment management. The status quo, however, is not working, according to some School Board candidates and School Board watchdog Arlington Parents for Education, who call attention to large class sizes at some buildings from third grade through high school.
“APS’ enrollment is leveling off,” Arlington Parents for Education said in a statement to ARLnow. “However, lower enrollment does not lead to lower class sizes. We must focus on planning factors if we want to manage class sizes within this new normal of flattening enrollment, budget constraints, and students who are still struggling with learning loss and widening achievement gaps, as confirmed by the midyear data out of APS this week.”
Class sizes
At the high school level, enrollment has surpassed 2019 levels, which may be the result of children born in the 2006-12 “baby boom” matriculating into high school.
At this level, School Board candidate Larry Fishtahler, who recently wrapped up a substitute physics gig at Wakefield High School, says class sizes can be unwieldy.
“I had 30 and 31 students in that class, with seating capacity of 28,” he said. “It is really hard to explain how hard that is. Even with a lot of hard work, you can not give each and every student the one-to-one attention that they need. This makes teachers’ stress and workload greater, but more importantly it has a significant negative impact on students’ engagement.”
“There are excessive and intolerable rates of overcrowded classrooms in our middle and high schools… especially at Wakefield and W-L,” parent Camille Galdes told the School Board in a letter shared with ARLnow.
There are also signs of overcrowding at some elementary schools.
The most recent class size report indicates Arlington Science Focus and Glebe elementary schools have kindergarten and first-grade classes with 25 students in them compared to class sizes of 18-22 at other schools.
Third grade classrooms at Claremont exceed recommendations, with 27 students, compared to other schools where third grade hovers around 21-24 students. These schools, per APS capacity charts, are either nearly full or above 100% capacity.
For School Board candidate Chen Ling, APS has to show parents how projections like this inform decisions like when to hire a new teacher, or add or remove a class or trailer — the kinds of practical questions parents have if enrollment rises or falls at their child’s school.
“The demographers obviously worked very hard on this, but it’s not enough to have data,” he said. “You need to have a plan to use that data effectively.”
ARLnow did not hear back from the other two candidates before deadline.