The new “Premium Transit Network” on Columbia Pike is being greeted with cautious optimism by some community members after years of discussion and delays.
But some raised questions about what will mark the new bus system as “premium,” considering it will not run in dedicated lanes due to the layout of Columbia Pike and will have a fleet of standard buses, at least for now.
The projects have been advanced by a county committee via Arlington’s Neighborhood Conservation Program, which encourages neighborhoods to apply for funding for various types of local improvements.
The projects set for approval are:
(Updated at 9:25 a.m.) Firefighters from Arlington County and surrounding jurisdictions battled a house fire in the Penrose neighborhood this morning.
The two-alarm fire broke out in the basement of a home at the corner of S. Fillmore Street and 1st Road S. shortly before 8:30 a.m. The fire spread, prompting firefighting efforts in the attic as well as in the basement.
On Saturday morning, police found “numerous vehicles” in the East Falls Church area with tires slashed and body panels “keyed.”
The vandalism was centered around the 2400 block of N. Sycamore Street, near Bishop O’Connell High School.
A mother and her 7-year-old son were transported to the hospital after being struck by a car in Penrose this morning.
The crash happened around 9:30 a.m., on 2nd Street S. near the intersection with S. Fillmore Street.
Arlington County firefighters extinguished an apartment fire in the Penrose neighborhood this afternoon.
The fire was reported in a garden-style apartment on the 2700 block of 8th Street S. just after 4 p.m. Firefighters arrived to find a small fire in an upstair apartment.
The armed robbery and shooting happened around 2:22 a.m. Wednesday, on the street along the 200 block of S. Cleveland Street.
Police say the 20-year-old victim was shot in the arm by the robbery suspect and later transported to George Washington University hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Residents in Arlington’s Penrose neighborhood are claiming that recent trimming by Dominion Power contractors injured trees that line the streets.
They are especially concerned with a White Oak tree on the corner of 8th Street S. and S. Veitch Street, which dates back to before the Civil War, said Terri Armao, chair of the Penrose Neighborhood Association’s Environmental Committee.
Next Saturday, neighborhoods like Clarendon, Bluemont, Westover and Barcroft are each holding events intended to bring neighbors together and celebrate their immediate surrounding area.
In Clarendon, county officials will gather to celebrate the now-upscale neighborhood’s time in the post-Vietnam War 1970s and 1980s when it was known as “Little Saigon” for its high population of Vietnamese immigrants. At 1:30 p.m., former Little Saigon residents and historians will narrate a tour of the area, displaying historic and still-standing businesses from the era.
(Updated 2:25 p.m.) The issues with nannies, childcare workers and parents letting children urinate and defecate at Penrose Park (2200 6th Street S.) were caught on camera by FOX 5 D.C. yesterday, just minutes after the news crew arrived at the scene.
Terri Armao, the chair of the Green Committee for the Penrose Neighborhood Association, sent a letter to the civic association saying neighbors have called her to complain that “childcare workers or nannies [are] allowing toddlers to pee and poop” by the tree line on the edge of the park.
In an email to ARLnow.com, Armao said the excrement is a health and environmental hazard, adding that if it continues it might put residents at risk for cholera.
The sidewalk is being built along the north side of a five block stretch of 8th Street S., between S. Cleveland Street and S. Courthouse Road. Before the project, only two of the blocks had sidewalks, and those sidewalks were narrower than Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.
Now, the street is getting a five foot wide, ADA-compliant sidewalk, plus water main upgrades, curb and gutter improvements, new landscaping and a repaved roadway. But while the sidewalk was requested by the Penrose Civic Association, not everybody who lives in the area has been happy with the project.
