Fairway to Heaven: Developer Meets with DRB, But Offers Few Changes

As a rescheduled public hearing before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors looms, JBG recently attended a Reston Design Review Board workshop about its Fairway Apartments redevelopment proposal. Reston2020's Tammi Petrine sums up the dynamic in a few short sentences:

JBG stated that they can’t afford to keep going back to the drawing board and wanted some direction from DRB as to what would be approved.

Nothing majorly new was presented by JBG except contemporary façades on the buildings. DRB member Richard Newlon wasted no time in pointing this out. He is not subtle and put JBG on notice early on that he was disappointed. Other board members followed suit.

What exactly does a "contemporary facade" look like? Below is one of the first things that came up when we did a fancy Google Image Search on "contemporary facade," though we seriously doubt this is what they're going for:

Welcome to Hannibal Lecter Condominiums! Somehow, we don't see this as being the likely facade treatment that JBG's shopping around.

The good news? Apparently with the help of Supervisor Cathy Hudgins, it sounds lkike JBG is backing away from its earlier threats of legal action if its proposal is denied by the Reston board, and is at least making a good-faith effort to talk about what it needs to do to win approval from the DRB -- which, as we know, has the final word on what gets built in Reston, even after county approval. The bad news? Aside from the "contemporary facades," they appear to still be pushing for the delicious Texas donut design:

During a two hour discussion and back/forth, some on the DRB board gave passing thought to approving Texas Donut construction. Comments were made that those cheaply constructed buildings do not age well and are miserable mass housing options not suitable for the community-focused Reston landscape. Ed Abbott was particularly opposed to the Texas Donut and pointed out that when the DRB first met with JBG many months ago, it stated categorically that Texas Donuts were unacceptable structures for Reston.

JBG also didn't sound that excited about earlier suggestions about marketing Fairway to senior citizens, as Petrine had previously suggested as a way of alleviating the traffic impact of the project.

The next official step for the Fairway proposal is the county board of supervisors public hearing -- a process which has been postponed several times, but most recently was slated for late February. In the meantime, we're glad that JBG is still talking to the DRB. Here's hoping that something constructive comes out of these talks in the end.

Flashback Monday: Reston's Earliest Days

What was Reston like during its Jurassic Age -- pre-1964, pre-homicidal nudist colony? During a recent lecture about Reston's early history sponsored by the Reston Historic Trust, historians Karen Washburn and Ted McCord gave us the shocking truth:

"There just wasn’t much to look at other than woods," McCord said.

Shocker!

Washburn told the story of the Northern Neck Proprietary Grant, which was a land grant that included Reston. The land was largely unsettled until Thomas, Fifth Lord Fairfax of Cameron inherited five-sixths of the property through his wife’s father, and they began to explore the area.

"The owners who bought the land didn’t want to move up from the Tidewater region, so Reston remained vacant."

And so began the long history of Reston being dissed by folks down in Tidewater.

But eventually, folks started venturing up to what would someday become our bucolic earth-toned community, apparently in search of something other than trees -- namely, copper.

Washburn talked about how Robert "King" Carter, who managed the land for Lord Fairfax, owned the land that later became Herndon, but didn’t seem to be interested in settling Reston.

"My conjecture is that Robert was looking for copper on his land near Herndon, and he thought there might be some in Reston, but he was wrong," she said.

So much for our copper-panning operation at Buttermilk Creek.

But what truly transformed the ur-Reston of the post-Colonial era was a railroad.

After the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Thornton purchased 8,663 acres.

"His rationale was that the land was right between Alexandria’s ports, and merchants needed to get their goods to the Shenandoah, and they would need to build a railroad on the land," Washburn said. "He thought it would go through the middle of the parcel, and he was right."

The more things change...

Citing Faulty Toll Road Projections, Reston Citizens Association Calls For Halt on Phase 2 of Silver Line Until Independent Forecast Is Completed

The newest potential stumbling block to Phase 2 of Metro's Silver Line? A fancy 81-page report from our BFFs at the Reston Citizens Association, complete with "scatter plots" and footnotes that say, in essence, that current projections for Toll Road usage and revenues are basically full of crap and that drivers may have to pay for all that false optimism with rolls of quarters on future Crate & Barrel runs to Tysons. Happy Friday, policy wonks!

In letters to all the key stakeholders -- Virginia Governor McDonnell, the FHWA, MWAA, and Fairfax and Loudoun counties -- the RCA argues that no decision should be made on proceeding with Phase 2 of Metro construction until "an independent traffic and revenue forecast" is undertaken.

“RCA has long been enthusiastic about Metrorail to Dulles via Reston,” said Terry Maynard, the report’s principal drafter, “but we do not want a rail line at any price, especially one that forces Dulles Toll Road users to absorb most of the financial burden and area communities to absorb added traffic on already crowded local roads. The prospects are even worse if the WSA forecasts overestimate revenues as much as our research suggests. We hope that an independent forecast, combined with ‘value engineering’ for Phase 2 and restructuring the financial arrangements will lead to a better outcome for everyone.”

Entitled "Plenty of Room for Error," the RCA study argues that "optimism bias" is the main culprit of the current Toll Road revenue projections, citing a whole slew of examples from past projects around the country and charging that current local projections used the best-case estimates of population and job growth, even before the projected decline in federal government spending reared its ugly head.

"We cannot find any recent case in which an existing toll road has absorbed an additional multi-billion dollar debt and succeeded financially," the report states, pointing to projects elsewhere currently facing default.

Without changes in the funding formula, the report argues that one-way tolls will rise to $15, $20 or more within the next 20 years.

RCA raises valid concerns, but an equally grave concern is what happens if Phase 2 doesn't get built for whatever reason -- and the folks in the particleboard Nirvana to our west are already getting cold feet. A Silver Line that ends at Wiehle Avenue is essentially a guarantee of gridlock for Reston, so let's hope some realistic projections and smart decisions come out of this, instead of the bold suggestions we've seen in recent months.

On the YouTubes: 'Strange Sounds' Over Reston

If you can't get enough of grainy YouTube videos of strange lights in the sky over Reston, maybe you'll enjoy this video of strange sounds over Reston instead. There are lots of fascinating conjectures on this fancy video's YouTube page and on Fairfax Underground, but no one seems willing to consider the fact that there's a giant honking international airport just a few miles away. To our untrained ears, it definitely sounds Not of This DRB, but who knows? Maybe it's part of the construction at The Great Hole of Reston. Or maybe the DRB has finally given up on its lighter than air conveyances and developed an unmanned drone with a cloaking device to make sure that all those party walls and courtyards aren't being painted some bizarre color, the end.

Future Shock? As Metro Approaches, Demand for Commercial Space Slows

Much of the master planning for the post-Metro Reston has been focused around mixed-use projects with lots and lots of commercial space -- giant parallelograms of office-space goodness, where government contracting firms can happily strap bombs to dolphins provide valuable taxpayer services.

But what happens when pie-in-the-sky planning meets the mauve harsh light of reality? We're already starting to see hints as officials warn that the spigot of sweet sweet gubmint dollars may slow in coming years.

Northern Virginia is projected to lead the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area in job production in 2012, but overall it will be an “anxious” economic year, according to the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.

Stephen Fuller, the center’s director, and others provided an economic forecast at its 20th annual Greater Washington Economic Conference in Tysons Corner on Jan. 12.

Fuller said during the next few of years the D.C. area’s economy is expected to continue to outpace the national economy, but cutbacks in federal spending eventually will hit the area hard.

“We have always outperformed the national economy in the D.C. area because of federal spending, but what we will have to work off of will be thinner,” he said. “Like other economies dependent on one sector — Detroit and car manufacturing, or Las Vegas and entertainment, for example —when the sector does well those economies do well; but when they don’t those economies suffer.”

Our BFFs at Reston2020 point out that commercial vacancy rates are already rising, with Reston's 2011 vacancy rate of 17.1 percent worse than both the overall county rate (14.5 percent) and Northern Virginia's (13.7 percent).

So what happens next? It's when developers pony up money to actually get the ball rolling on projects that we can see what they think the market really can bear. (Although sometimes they bet wrong.) Two big mixed-use projects with considerable commercial space -- the Macaroni Grill-killing Spectrum redevelopment and the Reston Heights project on the other side of the Toll Road -- are both now in indefinite holding patterns. Reston Station will likely be only a parking garage when the first Silver Line train rolls into the Wiehle Avenue station in 2013. The next big construction project we'll see is Boston Properties' 359-unit "luxury rental" tower, soon to rise from the last undeveloped lot in Reston Town Center. And almost all of the projects that have been approved of late -- or are desperately trying to win approval -- are residential in nature. (The one exception? The Reston Parkway mauvescraper, which goes back before the county planning commission in March.)

Critics of the fancy Reston Master Plan have long argued that a larger proportion of residential properties in future development will strike a better balance, helping mitigate traffic problems and other negative effects of development. While the Master Plan is still being revised, the market may wind up making some of those decisions for it. Right, Mr. Fuller?

Virginia recently surpassed California as the top state in the country for federal procurement dollars, he said.

“About 903,000 jobs in Virginia were dependent on federal spending in 2008, and Northern Virginia accounted for about 75 percent of that figure.”

It is because of this that Fuller says Virginians — Northern Virginians in particular — will feel the greatest effects of government cutbacks.

“Most of us haven’t ever experienced a time when federal spending did not aid the local economy,” he said. “You have to go back to the Vietnam War era to find a time that the D.C. area had flat federal spending.”

Funny, but that's also the era when Reston was built. It'll be interesting to see if its next great wave of post-Metro construction is shaped by similar circumstances.

Flashback Monday: 'Reston Today," Ca. 1975

In a discovery that will shock fans of Reston's fancy video news segments, it turns out that the title "Reston Today" was coined well before the advent of Betamax. This 1975 fact sheet provides a treasure trove of information about our beloved earth-toned community in the midst of the oil crisis, platform shoes, and [insert generic 70s reference here]. So what can we learn about yesterday's today?

The Reston of 1975 was only about one-third of its way to its present size. It had just under 5,000 jobs for a population of 26,000, meaning that the ongoing debate over commercial-residential balance is hardly a new one.

Speaking of neighborhoods, here's a list of the ones on the books back in 1975:

We like the term "Council of Clusters." Sounds a bit like the League of Justice, only with Pantone swatches.

Fortunately, there was already lots to do in Reston. Among the listed "recreational facilities," the horse stables appear to have still been standing. And these strange companies kept appearing under "utilities" -- outfits like "Virginia Electric and Power Co." "Washington Gas Light Co." and "C&P Telephone Co. of Virginia." Where are the listings for Internet providers? Guess we'd have to check the mail for a CD-ROM 3.5" 5.25" floppy disk from CompuServe or something.

And finally, as we wait for funky parallelograms to rise from the ground, please to be checking out the new architectural hawtness ca. 1975, along with a slogan almost as catchy as Live, Work, Play and Get Involved(tm):

The russet brown water stains probably weren't on the original document back in 1975, but they're certainly appreciated.

Police Charge 3 in December Crescent Apartments Shooting; All Believed to Have Fled the Country

Fairfax County police have charged three men in the December murder of Colvin Morris at Crescent Apartments near Lake Anne.

Investigation has led police to charge three individuals in this case. Jose Santos Ponce Zuniga, 31, has been charged with murder. Amilcar Noel Urbina Zelaya, 29, and Saul Pacheco Mejia, 45 were both charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. All three are believed to have fled the country.

Seems to fit the earlier assertions by police that this was a "drug deal gone bad." And if they've fled the country, there's always hope that like the butt slasher, they too will eventually be brought to justice.

Genius Alert: Official Suggests Eliminating Dulles From Dulles Rail

After a "compromise" that ensured that the Dulles Airport Metro station will be only vaguely near the airport, one of the airport authority's geniuses board members has come up with a cunning plan to save even more money: eliminate the airport station altogether!

Our favorite part? The idea that you could run a "people mover" from the station on Rt. 28 to the airport terminal. After all, who wouldn't want to be stuck in traffic on 28 and see this in your rear view mirror?

Board member Robert Clarke Brown made the suggestion during a MWAA meeting Wednesday, suggesting that the nearby Route 28 station should instead become the Airport station, and the Route 28 station should be outfitted with a "people mover" system that would ferry riders to and from the airport.

"In my view, this would actually be superior transportation service for our passengers [compared to what is currently planned], because the people mover would take them to the terminal," says Brown.

When asked how much could be saved, the head of the Dulles Rail project, Pat Nowakowski, told the board this option could save around $70 million.

Board members, however, were immediately skeptical of the plan.

As they should be. To be fair, the airport's probably got a bunch of the metal people mover monstrosities lying around since they opened their own fancy below-ground subway, so maybe they're just trying to figure out a way to put them to use. And Brown probably didn't intend for them to be driven on actual roadways when he proposed his plan. So we have a modest suggestion of our own: Why not run the people movers along the W&OD trail, where people could disembark right in the midst of Reston Town Center or Herndon's downtown? Just imagine -- people could shop for frozen yogurt and firearms, all without having to get in their car! And we're sure the people movers' distinctive "sails" will give spandex-clad cyclists and joggers plenty of warning to get out of the way before they lumber by on the path.

You're welcome.

Update: Our brilliant commenters have come up with a few suggestions of their own:

Heck, IAD is an airport, so why not FLY people there from National? They've got a "convenient" Metro stop.

I think they should just move the airport closer to the Weihle Ave station. They could turn the airport access road into a runway, since it won't be needed past Reston anymore.

It's that kind of "outside the box" thinking that will get you a seat on the MWAA board.

Surprise: Arrival of Infrastructure Giant May Actually Mean New Infrastructure for Reston

When infrastructure behemoth Bechtel announced it was moving 625 jobs from Maryland to Reston late last year, we "joked" that this could mean some serious infrastructure improvements around Reston -- stuff like 60-story dams and 14-lane motorways and whatnot. But it turns out we actually will get some goodies, in the form of a state grant used to help lure Bechtel to our beige community.

Fairfax County will get an $1.5 million grant from the commonwealth to be used towards transportation upgrades as Metro's Wiehle Avenue station prepares to open in Reston in 2013.

The Governor's Opportunity Fund (GOF) is offering the grant to the county as part of the incentives to get Bechtel Corporation to move from Frederick, MD to Reston.

Most significantly, the grant will help fund the initial study for the much-needed Soapstone Drive bridge across the Toll Road. The $1.5 million grant also includes $150,000 for a Reston Transit Center trail and a sizable chunk of change to finish the engineering marvel of 2012, the Wiehle Avenue sidewalk extension. So start telling your children that some day soon, they will be able to fulfill the age-old Reston dream of walking from Baron Cameron Avenue to Hunters Woods Plaza without their bootheels ever touching dirt, the end.

Outrage, Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth After Reston Called Soulless 'Ant Colony'

If you violated the emergency curfew this weekend and dared to venture outside to see the overturned cars, burning grocery stores and general rioting, then you know that Restonians didn't take too kindly to having our beloved beige community being called a "bland ant colony" by some "news paper" columnist. Haha, who are we kidding, they mostly just made snarky comments on the Internets, though the South Lakes Safeway did briefly catch on fire. Coincidence?

Washington Post reporter Tom Jackman first unearthed this shocking insult, which was perpetrated by a columnist for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk who dared to mock the ongoing efforts to get the Reston! license plate approved, writing:

“You have to wonder who will want to zip around with this on his car: ’Reston! Live Work Play.’ Be honest, is there a more soulless spot in the commonwealth than that bland ant colony near Dulles?”

Frankly, we're more concerned about the real threats to Reston's mantle as the place to Live, Work, Play, and Get Involved (tm)... places like Manassas Park. But if you're into such things, Jackman did get a bit of good ole' Norfolk-bashing in:

Honestly? I can think of one. How about...Norfolk? For one thing, they average 37.5 homicides per year down there since 2000. That’s a lot less souls, after all the shooting stops. Reston, with a population of 58,404, is about one-fourth the size of Norfolk. It had one homicide last year, zero the year before. Norfolk had 28 last year, 34 the year before. So 62 to 1 is not really the ratio you’re looking for when you’re only four times bigger than bland Reston. At least we’re alive.

Have you ever walked around downtown Norfolk at night? Of course not, you’re still alive. It is dull and, uh, dead. Ever been to the Reston Town Center at night, or sat in the outdoor cafes around Lake Anne, or rocked out at 1 a.m. in the Lakeside Inn? None of them really remind you of Norfolk. Ever.

Let the lively Internets debate begin!

As an Ant, I can assure you that Reston has a great deal of soul. For that matter, most insects love Reston – it has that certain quality that all of us creepy crawlies find irresistible. For example, Lake Anne is considered the Mediterranean of the insect world.

I lived in Reston for years. It is a pre-packaged pre-chewed community run by the "Association", collection of Polit Bureau types that will come paint your house for you (sending you the bill of course) if they don't like the color you chose.

Reston is a manufactured community for people who don't want to think much.

How can one be so obtuse as to compare Reston to Norfolk? Sure, it might be nice to live in a McMansion in some new soulless surburban development in Reston. But if Reston were to disappear from the face of the Earth, I'm sure the rest of us would barely blink. Our commonwealth would not be losing much.

I love Reston, but as a kid we always said, "We're not dead, we're just Reston

Rocked out at the Lakeside Inn? Somebody needs to get a life.

Ever notice how all ants are alike? Study the Reston ants in action sometime. Same clothes same body language same activities at the same times. Somewhat like 1984 without big brother watching.

Reston's "soullessness" was pretty much built in when the community was first designed as a controlled environment by Gulf Oil. The rigidness and comprehensiveness of homeowners association restrictions on any kind of individuality in architecture and landscaping persist to this day.

Haterz. Someone also tried to make the case that Reston was the inspiration for the film Donnie Darko, but by that point, we were just ready to call it a day, the end.

Frankie Goes to Reston: RELAC Cooling Tower Proposal Before DRB Includes Actual Cooling Technology

Everyone's favorite jet-age cooling system, which uses the crystalline waters of Lake Anne to provide cold cool air to more than 2,000 Reston customers, is planning to upgrade its technology for the 21st 20th century. For the first time, the system would use "cooling towers" and "evaporators" to cool air "to allow the system to operate more efficiently and when the lake level is too low for the intake pumps," RELAC states in an application to the Design Review Board. But that never happens!

We've let our HVAC certification from one of the Azores' finest correspondence schools lapse, but it sounds like someone's discovered this new-fangled technology called "air conditioning." Let's just hope it's not some crazy fad.

The DRB will review the proposal during a meeting next Tuesday. At issue is a sound wall that would be installed around the cooling tower units that will peek over the existing retaining wall at the RELAC facility near a corner of Lake Anne. The wall is expected to keep the noise from the cooling towers well below the county noise ordinance limits of 60 decibels. Check it:

We've got to think this proposed upgrade will make many folks who live along Lake Anne happy. Now if we can just get the local cable co-op to start carrying that "color teevee" we keep hearing about!

On The YouTubes: We Watch The Reston Association Videos So You Don't Have To

What better way to shake off the post-holiday blues than turning on the YouTube machine and seeing calming footage of two ducks foraging for bottomfeeders? January's edition of Reston Today is here bright and early, Andy Sigle throwing caution and cold weather to the wind by wearing a nappy suit sans jacket.

(Actually, we strongly suspect that some of the segments were filmed earlier in the year, but that discovery isn't quite on the same level as seeing an extra wearing a wristwatch in Ben-Hur.)

But we digress. RA Board Vice President Paul Thomas stands before the Great Hole of Reston to update us on the Master Plan. Phase 1 scenarios "are being tested by county staff" and after drafts are presented to the task force early this year, the "task force will have more time to work on phase 1." As for Phase 2, which gets into the nitty gritty of village centers and the rest of Reston, "this next phase will be very important to our community," Thomas says, as the screen flashes lots of graphics of sinews and whatnot.

Next up, the RA apparently tries to create a viral YouTube sensation with some video of cute kitties, except they ruin it right away by using the very non-viral term "best practices." The message? Don't let your cat roam outside.

Then Andy's back out on a continuity-error-prone warm day to talk about the (seriously great) RA Camps. Apparently if you send your kids to the camps, one day they could become "an RA executive vice president." Way to dream! But fast-forward to 4:05 in the video, and you'll see the strangest thing ever in the background of one of these RA videos. Check out our grainy Zapruder footage:

Spontaneous twirling!

And with that, another 5 minutes and 43 seconds of our lives are irrevocably gone, much like the short days and long nights of January serving as yet another reminder of our fleeting mortality. Happy Thursday!

As the Silver Line Approaches, Some Things We Have To Look Forward To

With tunnel work through the urban oasis of Tysons Corner now complete and track beginning to be laid, we're now well past the halfway mark on construction of the fancy Silver Line. Plus, the "first escalators are in place" at the Wiehle Avenue Metro station, which means that their first scheduled breakdown will occur right on schedule, shortly after the station opens in late 2013, or more likely early 2014.

So what do we have to look forward to? Well, for starters, fare hikes!

The actual amount of the increases would vary by trip, with base rail fares rising from $1.60 to $1.70 and bus fares going from $1.50 to $1.60. Rail riders who use paper Farecards would pay one-way flat fares: $6 during rush hour, $4 in off-peak times. Day passes would be eliminated.

The fare increases are intended to help fill a $116 million shortfall in the $1.6 billion budget. Increases would hit almost all areas, including bus and rail fares, parking rates and Metro­Access, the transit authority’s service for the disabled. Metro would eliminate the peak-of-the­peak surcharge for traveling during the rail system’s busiest times.

So getting to Tysons could cost as much as $12 round trip during rush hour? Those Toll Road rate hikes are starting to sound like a comparative bargain.

But it's not all bad news. Just imagine a blustery winter's day in early 2014 when you can shuffle aboard a shiny new Silver Line train and witness this:


There are no words. Actually, there probably are.

Tippecanoe and Tyler Too: The Obligatory Post

Perennial Reston candidate Rod Koozmin, most recently known for attempting to bring a canoe to a debate of candidates for the Reston Community Center Board, has allegedly gotten himself in a spot of trouble involving emails and... well, we don't have the heart to go further. Clicky clicky above for all the details from our BFFs at Patch.

Email hacking? An Andy Kaufmanesque bit of windmill tilting that got out of hand? An issue best addressed somewhere a bit more nurturing than the Internets? Maybe, except that Koozmin has run for public office at least twice and has said he intends to do so again. Koozmin commented on the Patch site no fewer than six times yesterday without addressing the allegations, though the comments have since been deleted. He did, however, say that he intends to run again for the RA Board.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Traffic Circle Threatens to Turn Herndon into France, or Maybe New Jersey

It's been a while since we've checked in with our tolerant neighbor to the west. What's been doing? Apparently, along with their fear of the other Metro, folks in Herndon are now up in arms over another invader from faraway lands: traffic circles.

In July, the town informed residents near the intersection of Dranesville Road and Park Avenue, which is really more of a curve in the road than an intersection, that it was looking at some traffic calming measures there, just south of Herndon Parkway and Herndon High School. And then, in a work session in October, the council made its decision for a roundabout without any further public input. The move is legal — it’s technically only a road improvement and doesn’t require anyone’s land or a new ordinance — but shocking to those who live nearby.

Maybe they're worried about Herndon looking like some exotic place, like England, France, or New Jersey. Actually, the folks who live near the intersection have valid concerns about the appropriateness of building a roundabout at this particular intersection, plus in a very Reston-like way, the potential loss of trees. So there's a public hearing tonight, which ought to go well.

If they decide not to build the roundabout in the middle of what's really a residential neighborhood, we think they should just turn Elden Street into a series of concentric traffic circles, each funneling into the Big Lots parking lot, and call it a day.

Update: So much for the traffic circle.

Flashback Monday: To Be Fair, $0, or $50,000, Went A Lot Further in 1963

Set the Earth-Toned Wayback Machine back to November 1963 and do some snooping in Gulf Reston's filing cabinets, and you just might find a "photostatic copy" of this crown jewel of personnel information: The master list of Reston employees and their annual salaries.

It's nice to know that even in Reston's earliest days, back when Lake Anne was still emerging from the primordial ooze, there was a full-time "forester" on staff, who got paid a whopping $9,600 annual salary plus living accommodations for his efforts. Of course, that was before Ron Paul and the Gold Standard and Reganomics and malaise and Whip Inflation Now and the meteoric rise of Pets.com stock, so that translates to nearly $70k today. Sweet! Likewise, the manager of the "construction division" got paid $30,000 a year, which comes out somewhere north of $210,000 in today's dollars. Which seems almost fair, if you consider how hard it must have been to source imitation stucco, countless cinder blocks, tankers full of "russet brown" lead paint and jet-age aluminum for the electric wiring.

But it wasn't all champagne wishes and caviar dreams on the Reston staff back then. "Week-end Salesmen" (and yes, they were all men) got $20 a day for pointing at various clumps of trees and exhorting clients to envision a row of mauve townhouses. We're guessing $40 over a weekend would help pay the monthly coupon on a Dart Swinger, but it probably wasn't enough to live on. And golf course laborers got paid between $1.50 and $1.75 an hour, which was probably about as crappy then as getting paid slightly more than minimum wage is today.

As for Bob Simon? According to the document, he was paid a handsome $0 for his efforts.

Update: Turns out Simon was paid $50,000 annually, according to an alert Confidential Restonian Operative who can actually read a smudgy photostatic copy. Good on him!

Things That Make You Go Hmmm... Police Activity Closes Glade, While the True Tragedy is at RTC (Updated)

Nice of them to let us know when whatever's going on is going to be over.

More information:

Turns out it was just some traffic light changy thing... we think. But our BFFs at Patch have sussed out the real tragedy/outrage of the day, across town at the Gritty Urban Core:


There are no words. A Fake Downtown with only four places to get frozen yogurt is hardly a Fake Downtown at all.

Bummer: Construction on Wiehle NOT a Great Wall of Reston

For a while, we were hoping these elaborate fortifications that have cropped up on Wiehle near Baron Cameron Avenue over the last month were the beginnings of some sort of protective barricade against the 1 Percent in "Great" Falls or something. But no, turns out all the grading and digging and ripping out of trees and moving utilities and whatnot is just for some sidewalk that's literally been in the works for a decade. Though seeing how much work is involved in just putting down a narrow slab of concrete, we understand why it was just easier to put Soapstone on a diet than building sidewalks there, the end.

So It Begins: Flurrymapocalypse 2012 (tm) Deposits Unexpected Liquid in Crystalline Form on Unsuspecting Vehicles

Courtesy of the YouTubes, this random Restonian shares the scene of utter mayhem and hysteria when random snow flurries unexpectedly struck the Hunters Woods Village Center on Tuesday afternoon. The carnage! The panic! The unexpected dusting on car windshields! Fortunately, our intrepid videographer was within walking distance of the Safeway seen in the background, meaning he likely was able to grab a jug of milk or twenty before they were all gone, the end.

A New Year's Gift from MWAA: Higher Tolls

Happy new year from the airport authority, which on Sunday increased the tolls at the main plaza on the Dulles Toll Road to $1.50. Fortunately, the tolls at the on/off ramps remain unchanged, so we can pretend we're escaping Reston at no added cost.

With a round trip to the big city sprawling wasteland of Tysons now topping out at $4.50, we've got a ways to go before we hit the $17 one-way tolls people fear are coming to help pay for the Silver Line. In the meantime, we can relax knowing our added quarters will go not only to fund Metro construction, but also help pay for "more overhead lighting, new guardrails and repaired toll booths." Which is great, until the road becomes so expensive that only people who are willing to pay the equivalent of a Macaroni Grill entree to drive to the mall can enjoy the fancy new streetlamps.

Jack Boese, a retired lawyer who lives in Reston, said he is concerned that as toll rates rise, fewer people will take the road and more will clog other roads such as routes 50 and 7.

“They’re going to end up raising the toll rates to the point where the well-off business commuter whose time is really money will be the only one using the toll road and anyone with an option won’t,” Boese said. “Route 7 and Route 50 are going to become parking lots.”

Become?

Ringing In The New: A Very Special Reston New Years Baby, Or Maybe Six Dozen of Them

Professional journalists hate working on January 1, because they're invariably sent to the hospital to track down the first baby to be born in the new year. Fortunately for us, Confidential Restonian Operative "Alexis" shared the news of her new arrivals -- with a Very Special Reston Transit-Oriented Development(tm) twist:

By the time you read this my Metro Monkeys may have already hatched. The water is being purified as I speak.

This new strain of Sea Monkeys (yes, really) is guaranteed to live two years. I'll sprinkle them in the water before heading out to the new year's eve party so they will be born in the ashes of 2011.

Metro is slated to open in 2013. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. My dream is to take one of these babies for a ride on the Silver Line in the Aqua Leash.

Will it happen? Will the Sea Monkeys live up to advertising claims? Will the metro open on time?

Only time will tell.

We're not sure whether to be more skeptical of the guarantee on the box or the Silver Line construction schedule, but we hope Metro's transit police won't mistake the "Aqua Leash" for a half-finished latte and dispose of the monkeys on the spot, the end.