On Mar 7, 2011, at 2:53 PM, Elisabeth Waugaman wrote:
Dear MCSB members and other interested parties,
I am very unhappy about the possibility of ball fields with the increased traffic and pollution they will bring to a narrow, residential county road with no sidewalks which had to have 11 speed humps and 3 traffic circles installed to cut down on traffic. Because of the large neighborhoods on either side of Brickyard, the road serves a large number of vehicles everyday. Not only is Brickyard not suitable for this additional traffic, the fields are bordered by housing on three sides with no buffer.
I would also like to point out that there are many soccer playing fields in the Potomac area: in River Falls, at Avenel, on MacArthur, at Holbrook, Bullis, Connelly School, Our Lady of Mercy, Carderock Springs Elementary, McLean school, Robert C. McDonnell Campground on Tuckerman, St Andrews Day School, the Heights School, Churchill High School, the Muslim School, Cold Spring elementary, Fourth Presbyterian School, and Potomac School. That's 17 playing fields that I know of. It seems to me that Potomac has a great number of soccer fields already and that it would be better to place some of them closer to neighborhoods without as many soccer fields instead of bringing in outside traffic to an already area already struggling with traffic congestion. When our children played soccer, we drove to soccer fields when necessary. There is an enormous new soccer complex not that far from us.
I would also like to point out that we need to support local grown produce and putting our local green farmer out of business does not help support our local green economy efforts.
Putting paying fields on Brickyard is not a good idea. Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Elisabeth Waugaman
P.S. Based the the Potomac Almanac article, several new points need to be considered:
1) The Almanac now reveals that there are 200 parking spaces for the three fields, which means we will have an additional 600 or more cars a day on weekdays—coinciding with rush hour traffic— and well over a thousand a day on weekends. This is just not sustainable for Brickyard road.
2) There is a new soccer field being put in at Glenn Road and another at the Potomac Community Center — so that's 19 or 20 fields (many of which accommodate more than 2 teams) in 20854 area already.
3) Our organic farmer, Mr. Maravell, notes that this is the only acreage he has where he can grow food without risk of contamination from genetically altered crops in neighboring fields. This is a huge problem for organic farmers. Because of its location, this field is much more important than simply a field a farmer tills. It offers a genetic sanctuary for crops that is increasingly difficult for American farmers to find.
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