Cinder Bed Road Bikeway -
On the wrong path!

♫ Everything is awesome when you're part of the plan! ♫

CONTACT FAIRFAX COUNTY IN DEFENSE OF WETLANDS!

#SaveCinderBedWoods

Can't get enough pavement in our parks, floodplains and stream valleys? Then here's a "plan" for much more!

Friends of Accotink Creek recently became aware of the revival of proposals to pave the currently untouched Long Branch south stream valley, promoted as fulfillment of the county Comprehensive Plan. This plan seemed to have been buried in 2015, but it has risen to haunt us again.

This is part of an ongoing pattern of pitting two worthy goals – enhanced non-motorized transportation and habitat preservation - against each other, always choosing the path of least resistance that leads through our dwindling reserve of wooded habitat. Worse in this case is the plan for 24-hour lighting of the path, stressing and disrupting the lives of wildlife large and small.

Other county "plans" need to be fulfilled, too, such as the Cheaspeake Bay Protection Ordinance, the Accotink Creek Watershed Plan, and the Fairfax County Tree Plan. All these plans sanguinely assure the preservation of trees and streams while other County, Commonwealth, and private interests continue to clear them away. Why should the environmental preservation mandates of these other plans not take priority?

Improved opportunities for bicycle and pedestrian travel are welcome, but the proposed route of the extension means this opportunity would come at the expense of forests and streams. We have plenty of streets that need to be made people-friendly first!

The comments by Friends of Accotink Creek to Fairfax County supervisors, below, are a statement of the principles we hope to see applied whenever we are faced with the temptation to take “just one more bite”, to lay just one more burden on our irreplaceable natural heritage.

Let your supervisor know this is not the way to use our natural or financial resources:
Contact Fairfax County to send a message!


Detail from the Countywide Trails Plan showing proposed paved trails crossing the Long Branch south stream valley where today there are none.
Joint Letter to Supervisors from Audubon Naturalist Society, Sierra Club Great Falls Group, Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, Friends of Accotink Creek, Virginia Native Plant Society Potowmack Chapter, and Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions
Nature Forward blog article
Presentation to Amberleigh residents, April 19, 2023 - Slideshow - Video
Connection articles on our site visits March 2 2022 - June 24, 2022
Potomac Flier article December 2021
Friends of Accotink Creek Comments to Supervisors
Friends of Accotink Creek Additional Comments
Friends of Accotink Creek Remarks to EQAC
Audubon Society of Northern Virginia Presentation to EQAC
Audubon Society of Northern Virginia Comments to Supervisors
Catherine Ledec Comments to Supervisors
Catherine Ledec Farewell Address to Supervisors

Photo essay of observations along the current and proposed routes

Alternate on-street routes

Fairfax County Cinder Bed Road Bikeway website

A brief evaluation of the proposal from Stormwater Planning Division:
  • Would require impact to good and high quality forest, floodplain and wetland resources.
  • Would require fill and grading in the floodplain which would have significant negative impacts on floodplain access, flows and wetland hydrology.
  • The National Wetland Inventory classifies the entire floodplain in the proposed route as containing Freshwater Forested/Shrub Wetlands (PFO1C).
  • Impacts to such wetlands greater than 1/10 of an acre require mitigation at a 2:1 ratio. Alteration of the hydrology to such wetlands may result in conversion which constitutes an impact requiring mitigation. A portion of these wetlands consist of Coastal Plain/Outer Piedmont Acidic Seepage Swamp, a globally rare wetland type which cannot be mitigated.
  • In short, the proposed alignment would cause extensive, irreparable environmental damage which cannot be mitigated.
  • Slideshow Evaluation
Other reports on problematic trail paving: Lake Accotink Park - Pine Ridge Park - George Snyder Trail - Pickett Road Connector - John Mason Trail


This is the vision we should pursue, as laid out in the ActiveFairfax concept.


Video examination of the isuues

An exploration of available alternate routes
Bikeway or Waterway?
Bikeway vs. Climate Change

"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure some of them are dirt." - John Muir