Thursday, January 12, 2006

Too Much Talk, Too Late, About Building Dulles Rail

The Jan. 5 Fairfax Extra is crammed (as usual) with opinions about traffic problems and what do about them. I am reminded of a poster with an interesting observation that hung from the wall of a staff meeting room where I worked: "When all is said and done, more is said than done."

Guest column author Christopher W. Walker and letter writer John F. "Jack" Herrity could have saved a lot ink by simply saying, "We don't want to pay for this because it is not in our interest."

Forget crocodile tears about "public notice" or a reference to "the backs of long-suffering motorists." The same lack of vision that has restricted the Potomac River to two major bridges is at work here. Raise the issues of cost and/or "not in my neighborhood" and hopefully the public will run in fear. Beating up on the Metro system also seems to be a local sport and maybe a sure way to build an anti-tax, anti-Dulles rail extension base.

If politicians had foresight and were less enamored with asphalt, they could have extended the Orange Line to Route 234 in Prince William County and collected commuter traffic from western Fairfax along the way, and by extension, Haymarket, Gainesville and Warrenton. Imagine what Interstate 66 might look like today. That opportunity may have come and gone.

And then there is Dulles rail. But it takes vision to see the needs of people in Herndon, Reston, Sterling, Ashburn and, yes, Leesburg. That's where people and businesses are going and will continue to go, rail or not. How many people wistfully long for a Washington & Old Dominion trail laid with tracks instead of asphalt? Too late!

Some of us old people miss streetcars and the fast interurban lines that were so hastily abandoned after World War II. But it is not too late to run rail out in the direction of Dulles. Yes, it will cost money. But then we look back 20 to 25 years and ask ourselves, why didn't we do it then? Same reasons we don't do it now and then rationalize the present. With each delay, the cost goes up.

I find it hard to believe that some of the richest counties -- in terms of tax base -- in the United States can't come up with money to alleviate what is by consensus the biggest problem we face. Nonsense.

Sam Rosenberg

Centreville

Fair Oaks' Proper Place On the Civil War Map

I am writing in response to the article "Where Local History, Poetic License Meet" [Voices of Fairfax, Fairfax Extra, Dec. 29]. Author Bob Sorensen of Herndon might live about three miles from Fair Oaks, but that is not where the Battle of Fair Oaks was fought. That 1862 battle was part of the Peninsula Campaign, which took place between Richmond and Williamsburg. It was after this battle that Robert E. Lee relieved Maj. Gen. G.W. Smith and took command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

I don't blame Mr. Sorensen for being confused. A battle was fought at what is now known as Fair Oaks, but it was the Battle of Ox Hill, as it was called by the Confederates, also known as the Battle of Chantilly, the name used by the Union. It was fought Sept. 1, 1862, just after the Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as Second Manassas, the name used by the Confederates.

At the time of the Civil War, the area was known as Ox Hill. Chantilly was a mile or so to the west, about where Stringfellow Road crosses Route 50, in the general area near the Chantilly plantation. After the Civil War, for some reason the area near Ox Hill was named Pender. When developers built the big shopping mall on what had been a dairy farm, they named it Fair Oaks. The fire station, Company 21, was built and named Fair Oaks, so everything there then became Fair Oaks instead of Pender. Only the Methodist Church and an animal hospital retain the name Pender, I believe.

I suggest that county residents read up on local history.

Take visitors to Ox Hill Battlefield Park at West Ox Road and Monument Drive. Although only about five acres was saved for the park, it has good interpretive signs telling about the battle. It also has two granite monuments commemorating the two Union generals killed there. Contrary to what some believe, they are not buried at the site. Maj. Gen. Phil Kearny is buried in Arlington Cemetery, where there is a monument of him on his horse. Maj. Gen. Isaac Stevens is buried in Newport, R.I.

Each year there is a memorial service at the park on Memorial Day, with speakers and Civil War reenactors.

There is also an excellent book, "The Battle of Chantilly (Ox Hill): A Monumental Storm," by Charles V. Mauro, who is president of the Herndon Historical Society. The book was published in 2002 by the Fairfax County History Commission.

Claudette Crouch Ward

Secretary, Historic Centreville Society

Board Member, Fairfax County Historical Society

Editor's note: Brian A. Conley, historian-archivist at the Virginia Room of the Fairfax County Public Library, said the library staff talks to many people who make the same mistake that Sorensen made. Conley said another excellent resource on the Battle of Chantilly is "Tempest at Ox Hill: The Battle of Chantilly" by David A. Welker (2001, Da Capo Press).

Sorensen said the battle he meant to refer to was Ox Hill, near where Fair Oaks Mall is now located. "Like any typical Northerner, I tend to think of battles not by location -- as in Manassas or Sharpsburg -- but by landmark, as in Bull Run and Antietam," he said.