Fairfax Officials: ‘Town’ Flyer Circulating is Erroneous

A flyer left in several Fairfax mailboxes announcing the rerouting of Bolinas Road is misleading and erroneous, a Fairfax town official said Wednesday afternoon. 

The flyer, which is photographed at the right, focuses on the Fairfax general plan and incorrectly says town officials have “started implementing plans” to build a town center pedestrian mall on the first two blocks of Bolinas Road, which will involve permanently rerouting traffic from Bolinas Road to Elsie and Broadway.

“The town would purchase the contaminated gas station on Sir Francis Drake in order to connect Bank Street to Sir Francis Drake Blvd,” the flyer says. “Is this what the majority of Fairfax citizens want?”

The flyer doesn’t include any information about who produced or distributed it, but it does list contact information for Fairfax council members and Jim Moore, Fairfax’s director of planning and building services. With writing that resembles an election season hit piece, it encourages community members to look at the town's general plan and send feedback to council members.

Moore released a statement Wednesday afternoon explaining that the leaflet is spreading misinformation.   

“Please be advised that this is not a Town of Fairfax flyer and the permanent rerouting of Bolinas Road has not been approved, nor is it being implemented,” Moore said.

Moore said there has been discussion about exploring the idea of closing part of Bolinas Road down the road, but it’s far from happening. “ … we do look forward to a lively discussion in the future on this very topic,” he wrote. 

PDFs (attached at the right) from the Town of Fairfax 2010-2030 General Plan include details about the conceptual idea of closing the street. 

The general plan says “Bolinas Road could eventually become a pedestrian-only area from Broadway to Elsie Lane. Traffic would be routed along the approximate route of present Bank Street to Elsie Lane. This idea would actually result in more parking through a re-engineering of the Pavilion lot, and would immediately make the Pavilion more central to the flow of traffic through the town.”

The general plan also includes information about the steps the town would have to take to even pursue the concept:

“Such a change would be accomplished in stages, starting intermittently with community events such as farmers markets and festivals … Temporary road closure for both lanes or one lane could be used to test the pedestrian concept.”

Last year, the Fairfax Town Council unanimously approved the temporary closure of Bolinas Road on a Sunday afternoon in August for the Streets for People half-day event. 

While many were concerned Streets for People would cause a traffic headache, there were no traffic issues, Fairfax Police Chief Chris Morin told Patch last year, and the event appeared a success after it drew hundreds of people downtown.  

Local officials have acknowledged that closing Bolinas Road between Broadway and Elsie Lane is a contentious idea, but they have said closing the road would be an experiment to see if the town could realistically move toward the general plan vision of making that stretch of road a permanent vehicle-free greenway.

Streets for People organizers had been gathering feedback from local community members to determine if another event would be held this year. 

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