Fairfax County is updating its Active Transportation Plan, and we need your help to ensure that the Board of Supervisors passes it with recommendations that promote trail development that does not damage our environment.
On May 5, the Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing regarding the Active Fairfax Transportation Plan Study (PA-2025-00001) and the Plan Amendment 2025-CW-T1 (see the Active Fairfax webpage for overview info).
We need you to email your supervisor before May 5 and ask them to support the March 18, 2026 recommendations from the Planning Commission.
Why Nature Forward supports these plans
- This work supports Fairfax County’s Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) to reduce Vehicle-Miles Traveled.
- Providing a safe, comfortable, and connected trail network is essential to ensuring residents and visitors have the access needed to make the switch to more sustainable active transportation options like walking and cycling. These same networks are wonderful resources for residents to use for exercise and recreational activities as well, contributing to opportunities for increased health outcomes.
- Providing a safe, comfortable, and connected trail network is essential to ensuring residents and visitors have the access needed to make the switch to more sustainable active transportation options like walking and cycling. These same networks are wonderful resources for residents to use for exercise and recreational activities as well, contributing to opportunities for increased health outcomes.
- The March 18, 2026 recommendations from the Planning Commission provide guardrails to help avoid current trail planning conflicts and prevent future damage to, and destruction of, sensitive environmental resources in open space and stream valley trails.
- The Planning Commission’s recommended text changes support evaluating environmental impacts earlier in the trail planning process (in support of the Board’s Resilient Fairfax policy).
- We want to avoid bad proposals like we are opposing on the northern segment of the Cinder Bed Road Bikeway (Cinder Bed).
- Cinder Bed is an unfortunate prime example of a flawed planning process that did not consider the environmental damage that a section of the trail would cause. The proposed bikeway will permanently damage a patch of globally rare wetlands.
- With the new guardrails in the Comprehensive Plan, the County could follow a better process with up-front environmental review of open space and stream valley trails.
- Doing so could help avoid and protect our most vulnerable environmental spaces, while reducing unnecessary conflict, cost overrides, environmental destruction, and needless delays for building safe, connected trail networks.
The Planning Commission’s recommended changes provide a framework to account for current procedural flaws in the trail development process, leading the County to continue to pursue the destructive Cinder Bed project at all costs.