A new survey outlines areas where Fairfax pedestrians say they’ve had dangerously close encounters with cars.
The Near Miss and Dangerous Locations Survey is developed by Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets based on survey data collected between January 2024 and July 2025.
NoVa FSS has released similar surveys for other areas like Alexandria in an effort to raise awareness of streets where pedestrians face challenges. This is the second year NoVa FSS has made a report for Fairfax.
The survey analyzes near-miss incidents where reports were filed via the Near Miss survey app — which the report acknowledges skews the data. The survey also notes that reports are likely underreported in areas of greater socioeconomic vulnerability, with some pointing out the connection between wealthier neighborhoods, walkability and likelihood to report the data. But the reports do give NoVa FSS a place to start when analyzing problems at intersections.
“The purpose of this report is to identify and analyze locations on Fairfax’s roads where people report feeling unsafe while walking or bicycling,” the report said. “The analysis is broken down with increasing granularity– from a county-wide summary, to supervisory districts, and finally to specific locations of concern. Both structured (e.g. report attributes and locations) and unstructured (e.g. report descriptions and comments) survey data were considered in this analysis.”
The survey said 52% of the Near Miss reports noted that children were present and cited failure to yield as a major risk.
The Hunter Mill District filed the most reports, 51. This was followed by 48 reports from Franconia and 44 from Providence.
Heat maps from each district show intersections that see significant numbers of reports.
In the Hunter Mill, two of the biggest concentrations of reports were at Lake Newport Road and the Reston Town Center.
At Lake Newport Road, reports said speeding and running red lights are frequent issues, particularly with Armstrong Elementary School nearby.
“The road’s position between busy parkways makes it especially dangerous,” the survey said.
Meanwhile at the Reston Town Center, the survey said one of the biggest hazards are drivers making unsane turns at red lights.
“Some reports within the town, many along the parkway, where drivers are reported to make unsafe or illegal maneuvers from the right turning lanes at red lights,” the survey said.
The survey also included two near-miss hot spots in the Providence District, both in Merrifield.
The two cases were at Hilltop Drive and Merrilee Drive.
“Most reports along this road mention the lack of stop sign/signal, and failure to yield by drivers,” the survey said, pointing to the intersection of Hilltop and Willowmere in particular. “The crosswalk is not respected according to several reports, leading to a trend of near misses.”
Meanwhile, the nearby crosswalks at Merrilee Drive/Prosperity Avenue/Gallows Road are frequently reported as having drivers ignoring crosswalks.
“Most reports along this road mention the lack of stop sign/signal, and failure to yield by drivers,” the survey said. “The crosswalk is not respected according to several reports, leading to a trend of near misses.”
The survey said that 10 pedestrian/cyclist fatalities were reported around Northern Virginia in the last year, of which six were in Fairfax. The survey said the goal should be a 15% reduction in serious injuries, with measures such as more complete streets designs and speed limits lowered to less than 25 miles per hour on more residential roads.
Mike Doyle, the founder of NoVa FSS, said while the group shares data about studies of pedestrian-related crashes, the near miss survey aims to identify dangerous locations and start conversations about improvements before a deadly crash can occur.
The full survey is available online.
