Tysons Residents Say They Like Living Amid Offices, Stores and Cars By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 28, 2005; B01
From their tiny balconies, the residents of Lillian Court look out over eight lanes of traffic whooshing down International Drive before it merges with three highways. Office buildings with giant corporate logos tower across the street: KPMG, International Launch Services, Bearing Point. One of the region's most luxurious malls is steps away -- if you can sprint through the traffic.
Lillian Court at Tysons II in Fairfax County is smack in the middle of the Washington area's biggest office park. And that's just how the people who live there like it.
"It's a lot more peaceful than many places," said Tiwi Martinez, 27, an auditor who moved to Lillian Court two years ago with her husband, Ben. 26. The neighborhood is safe, she says. And when she needs retail therapy, Martinez negotiates a path across Tysons Boulevard to the Tysons Galleria. "I love the mall," she said. "For ladies, it's great."
You can't buy a quart of milk at the corner store in Tysons Corner or throw a Frisbee in the park or even ride a bike -- safely. You can't walk far. But you can eat gratin of lump crab with garlic cream at Colvin Run Tavern, order takeout from China Wok and sip merlot at the Sport and Health Club. You can get to the office in minutes or be driving down the Capital Beltway or Dulles Toll Road in the time it takes most people to park in a downtown office garage.
"Everything revolves around traffic here," said Ringo Lanzetti, 35, an entrepreneur who leaves the gated comfort of the Rotunda, a complex of condominium towers on Greensboro Drive, and gets on the Beltway for his daily commute to Alexandria.
And they drive just about everywhere, even two blocks to the video store on Route 7. Their car dependence concerns those who note that more condominiums will arrive way before Metro does, and even then, there's no guarantee that people will get out of their cars.
For now, the roads are too wide, the sidewalks too disconnected, their car habits too ingrained.
"I could walk," said Michael Lewis, a new resident of Avalon Crescent down the street from Lillian Court. "I've never done it." "It's ugly, but at the same time, we live close to the chaos but we are not there," said Galdames, 60, who retired this year from the Organization of American States. "To tell you the truth, it doesn't bother me."
Before she goes out to run errands, she looks out her bedroom window and assesses the traffic flow on Route 7, then walks down Gosnell Drive to the highway, where there are no sidewalks. "I don't go out until the traffic is clear," she said. "Then I run between the stores."
