As part of a transportation study spurred by a planned redevelopment of the former AT&T campus in Oakton, potential roadway changes were presented at a community meeting on Tuesday (March 10).
The Oakton Congestion and Safety Study was initiated by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors as a follow-up to its unanimous approval of a comprehensive plan amendment to allow mixed-use development on the company’s now-vacant, 33-acre Oakton office campus in 2025.
Developer EYA’s rezoning application, which would replace the office buildings at 3033 Chain Bridge Road with housing and retail, is currently under review by county staff.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Fairfax County Department of Transportation staff presented a list of potential measures to improve Oakton’s transportation network that had been narrowed down from suggestions offered by residents at a community workshop in November.
According to the county’s presentation, the suggested improvements are:
- Connect Miller Road and Jermantown Road near the Oakmont Rec Center parallel to the Cross County Trail
- Connect Hunter Mill Road to Hibbard Street via existing roundabout
- Remove median on Chain Bridge and add left turn lane
- Relocate intersection of Miller Road and Chain Bridge Road to the west (by the former PNC Bank driveway)
- Realign Palmer Street and Hunter Mill Road and connect Palmer Street between Chain Bridge Road and Blake Lane
- Install traffic signal at Blake Lane and Hibbard Street
- Extending Blake Lane through the adjacent service road by Santini’s with a new Blake Lane entrance across from the Miller Road entrance.
- Connect Hunter Mill Road to Hill Street via Remington Road and Glencoe Drive
- Connect Hunter Mill Road to Miller Road and Chain Bridge Road via roundabout on Hunter Mill Road
- Connect Hunter Mill Road to Miller Road via Lynnhaven Place
The county says the 10 options require further study and approval by the Virginia Department of Transportation. But there’s a chance the county could pursue more than just one recommendation.
“It is possible that multiple concepts mentioned could move forward and some concepts could be combined,” FCDOT spokesperson Benjamin Boxer told FFXnow. “Community feedback and comments we received at [Tuesday’s] meeting and those that will come in through the survey will help us evaluate potential ways to proceed.”
After community feedback, FCDOT will produce a study report with estimated planning costs and timelines.
Residents with differing views on the AT&T redevelopment shared a desire for traffic experts to analyze the concepts further.
“My hope would be that Fairfax County Department of Transportation engineers and their consultant, who are all professionals, would come to the community with their own suggestions about strategies that could be applied that would alleviate transportation and not just rely on ideas from the community,” Chris French, an Oakton resident and president of Fairfax Families for Safe Streets, told FFXnow.
Patty Montanino, whose group Smart Growth for Oakton has shared concerns about the development’s density and traffic impacts, agrees that the proposals need vetting by transportation experts. But she’s hesitant to support new road connections that disturb neighborhoods.
“I certainly endorse connections that could be made that would improve resident access to Chain Bridge Road, but I am not in favor of sacrificing our neighborhoods for the ease of outside commuter traffic,” Montanino told FFXnow. “When considering choices of these proposed connections, I hope residents will consider the impact of loss of property and/or quality of life for these neighborhoods.”
George Lehnigk, a resident with Options for Oakton, told FFXnow the 10 proposed options “are simply band-aids” for Oakton’s traffic woes.
“The ideas that were ‘evaluated and deemed infeasible or outside the scope of study,’ such as ‘road diets’, ‘one-way circulation,’ tunnels, etc. are where FCDOT’s investments should actually be focused,” Lehnigk said.
French says the study area lacks safe pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure and supports the redevelopment’s plan for a connection to the 66 Parallel Trail. As for the options suggested by residents, he believes only one — the traffic signal at Blake Lane and Hibbard Street — would improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Although congestion relief concepts are valuable, increased capacity for vehicles isn’t the end-all solution, French says.
“We have a great deal of traffic congestion in the study area because people have no other choices but to get in their cars,” French said. “So that’s what I would very much like to see the study focus on: ways to get people out of their cars and into modes of active transportation.”
The community presentation also showed a reconfiguration of Chain Bridge Road and Jermantown Road that EYA had proposed when seeking the county’s approval of the comprehensive plan amendment.
While the existing configuration allows Jermantown Road traffic to turn left, the reconfiguration detours drivers before they can turn at the White Granite Drive/Rose Forest Drive intersection. According to the county’s study on traffic conditions, left turn lane queues currently exceed capacity on both sides of Jermantown approaching Chain Bridge Road.
Citing a Kimley Horn study on traffic conditions, Montanino says the number of left-turning vehicles that would be redirected to Jermantown Road is high during the evening rush hour.
“We are talking about 461 vehicles during PM rush hour will have to snake around the [Oakton Fire Station] entrance in order to get out onto Chain Bridge Road,” Montanino said. “This is not only more mileage, but also slower for the Jermantown vehicle with three signal lights to contend with.”
FCDOT has opened a survey to gather more input on the community-suggested options for the Oakton Congestion and Safety Study. Survey responses are due by Friday, April 10.
