FABB Blog

I am very pleased to give two special awards of recognition today to Randy Dittberner and Charlie Strunk for their work on behalf of bicyclists. Randy, who you will hear from later in the program, is a VDOT traffic engineer. He is primarily responsible for the first ever road diet projects in Fairfax County and possibly in the Commonwealth of Virginia, on Lawyers Road and Soapstone Drive in Reston. Those projects have greatly benefitted cyclists and have made those roads safer for everyone. Randy conducted numerous public meetings on the projects, patiently explaining the many benefits of road diets to all road users. Randy, thanks for your great work.

 Back when FABB was formed in 2005 Fairfax did not have a bike coordinator. At that time Charlie Strunk, who was head of capital projects in the county, was our de-facto coordinator. One of FABB's first goals was to obtain funding for a bike coordinator position. In 2006 we met with then-Chairman, now Congressman Gerry Connolly. He agreed to try to find funding for the coordinator position, for a county bike route map, one of our other major goals, and a pilot on-road bike route program. Later that year the Board approved funding for the comprehensive bicycle initiative and formation of the bike program. Without Charlie and the bike program we wouldn't have the bike map, bike racks on all Fairfax Connector buses, and most importantly, the recently completed Tysons and Fairfax County Bicycle Master Plans. Charlie, thanks for everything you've done to help bicyclists in Fairfax.