The Virginia Department of Transportation has completed its overhaul of the Walker Road bridge over Piney Run.
The new bridge between Walker Mill Road and Park Royal Drive in Great Falls features two lanes for traffic with a sidewalk on the south side. It has no weight limit, unlike the previous one-lane bridge, which could only support vehicles up to 10 tons.
A wider opening underneath the bridge and rocks to shore up the nearby stream banks should also stave off the flooding issues that plagued its predecessor, VDOT said when announcing the project’s completion yesterday (Tuesday).
Originally built in 1932, the Walker Road bridge was reconstructed once before in 1978. Averaging 3,900 vehicles a day, it “was prone to flooding during major storms,” and the single-lane design — which required drivers to take turns — raised safety and congestion concerns, according to VDOT.
Some Great Falls residents worried that allowing heavier traffic on the bridge and no longer requiring vehicles to queue would create additional safety issues, but VDOT maintained that a two-lane bridge would reduce the frequency of rear-end collisions, stating that the way the road curves leading up to the bridge limits speeding.
Started in December 2024, construction on the replacement finished on time and under the project’s $7.7 million budget, VDOT said.
An expansion of the bridge over Piney Run was one of several recommendations to emerge from a safety assessment that VDOT conducted for Walker Road between Colvin Run Road and Georgetown Pike in 2024. Identifying limited visibility and speeding as key issues, the study also proposed clearing overgrown vegetation, installing signs to remind drivers of the speed limit and upcoming curves, and adding reflective lane markers.
VDOT similarly redesigned Hunter Mill Road bridge over Colvin Run a couple of years ago to replace a one-lane, weight-limited span with two lanes.
