The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) plans to relocate its Four Mile Run customer service center from Arlington County to Barcroft Plaza, a shopping center in Falls Church, Fairfax County. This petition opposes DMV’s plan for the reasons cited.

DMV’s Four Mile Run service center is one of the five busiest in the state, handling an average of more than 540 customers a day and more than 150,000 in a year. It is currently located in a standalone 12,000 sq ft building in a light-industrial district and is served by a dedicated parking area with102 spaces. In a November 11 letter to Delegate Kaye Kory, DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb explained that customer volumes at Four Mile Run “have increased steadily and substantially” resulting in “constant vehicular congestion and a variety of safety concerns.”

Barcroft Plaza is a modest community (not regional) shopping center of commercial retail and service outlets including Bank of America, Zips Dry Cleaners, Starbucks, and a large Harris Teeter food market. The shopping center is surrounded by residential communities of single-family homes and townhouses, churches, and an elementary school. It is busy, evidence of its value to families living in the area.

Opposition to DMV’s plan is based fundamentally on the concern that the service center would overwhelm Barcroft Plaza and surrounding neighborhoods. In particular:

• Safety risks and congestion in the parking area. The DMV would bring a heavy parking and traffic load to an already busy shopping center. The constant vehicular congestion and safety concerns that Commissioner Holcomb cited at Four Mile Run would be transferred to Barcroft Plaza. DMV admitted it has not studied how many parking spaces it would need during peak service hours at Barcroft Plaza.
  
  

• Overflow parking and traffic congestion on neighborhood residential streets. At the Four Mile Run service center, traffic has overflowed onto adjacent commercial properties to the point that the properties are fortified with signs warning DMV customers that they will be towed. The parallel at Barcroft Plaza would be DMV customers crowding onto adjacent residential streets and the parking lot at Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church.
  
  

• Safety risks for DMV customers arriving in cars and by transit. The streets and vehicular entrances to Barcroft Plaza are congested today, especially along Lincolnia Road. In addition, there are no walkways or crossings to facilitate safe pedestrian access to the proposed service center from the bus stops along Columbia Pike. Mr. Paul Kraucunas, VDOT NoVA Land Development Program Manager, stated in a December 3 community meeting on the DMV issue that he believed the road network serving Barcroft Plaza could NOT be improved significantly for vehicular traffic.
  
  
• Decline in the retail services at Barcroft Plaza. The congestion and safety issues that would accrue at Barcroft Plaza could cause retail customers to move to safer, more accessible venues resulting in a decline in retail services available to the community at the shopping center.
  
  
• Driver testing in local neighborhoods. Driver road testing would jeopardize the safety of families living in the residential communities surrounding Barcroft Plaza.
  
  

• DMV did not consult the community or many of our elected officials regarding its plan to relocate to Barcroft Plaza. The community learned of the plan from an October 30 post on the Annandale Blog. On December 3rd, Delegate Kory and the Mason District Council of Community Associations convened a meeting of residents with state and county representatives to hear and discuss DMV’s plan for the relocation. More than 100 residents attended; more than 30 spoke out in opposition at microphones. No resident supported the plan. Surprisingly, it was apparent from the DMV representatives that no consideration whatsoever had been given to the compatibility of their proposed service center with the Barcroft Plaza community. The justification for their plan was simply that DMV would save money on rent, and they had no requirement to notify the public.
  
  For all of the above reasons, the community does not accept the imposition of an incompatible DMV service center at Barcroft Plaza. The undersigned residents respectfully request that you direct the DMV to terminate its effort to move the Four Mile Run service center to Barcroft Plaza.
  
  Thank you.