Takoma Junction Task Force Outreach Efforts Now Targeting Businesses

The Takoma Junction Task Force will continue to conduct outreach efforts, but it will change its focus and tactics, outreach team members said at the Task Force’s meeting May 11.

The outreach effort is now going to focus on junction area businesses, and the team is going to ask business owners and managers to participate in one-on-one discussions rather than hold large meetings, which the outreach team has done with junction area residents.

The team plans to circulate letters to the junction business owners and managers prior to meeting with them, but the letters have been amended to address business concerns.

In a draft of the letter, sections of it say, “As a business owner in the junction, you have ideas, perspectives, preferences and concerns that the Task Force needs to know about as early as possible in the process of exploring possible recommendations for the City Council. You could be the catalyst for the development of a recommendation that really makes a positive difference for Takoma Junction, its neighbors and our city as a whole.

“We have a vision of a junction that blends harmoniously with adjacent residential neighborhoods; encourages motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists to slow down, park, relax and shop; encourages sustainable commercial opportunities and provides convenience to local consumers; serves as a cultural meeting-point for old and young in a diverse community; and functions adequately as a link within the local road and transit networks."

There are 21 businesses on Carroll Avenue in the junction area, and the outreach team members have divided them into seven businesses each, and the members plan to begin the commercial outreach effort the week of May 15.

“We’re not going to hold a meeting, we’re going to go and visit them,” said outreach team member Megan Gallagher.

In addition to the business owners and managers, the team plans to stop pedestrians on the street—a tactic called an “intercept survey”—and ask them to complete a survey, said outreach team member Kay Daniels-Cohen.