Darkness closely correlates with fatal crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists along Leesburg Pike (Route 7), with walkers bearing the brunt of such incidents regardless of the time of day, according to a new study that analyzed nearly a decade’s worth of data.
Using police-reported records from Virginia’s crash database from 2017 to 2026, the nonprofit Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets (NoVA FSS) found that 10 out of 11 fatal crashes that occurred along the Route 7 corridor from the Fairfax/Loudoun county line to the west end of Alexandria happened at night.
The data from Virginia’s Traffic Records Electronic Data System (TREDS) also showed that 51 out of 59 serious or fatal crashes involved walkers, and the remaining eight involved bicyclists.
NoVA FSS is now calling on Fairfax County, Alexandria and Virginia Department of Transportation officials to prioritize field reviews in the Bailey’s Crossroads/Skyline and Beauregard/King Street/Glen Forest areas.
“These aren’t random tragedies. They happen in the same places, after dark, where people are trying to reach a bus stop or a store across a busy highway,” Mike Doyle, the group’s executive director, said in a press release. “With bus rapid transit coming to Route 7, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to build safe crossings and lighting in from the start. Field reviews at the worst locations should begin now.”
The all-volunteer organization recommends that local and state transportation officials audit lighting along crossing paths and bus stops, add or improve crossing signals near high-risk stops, and consider moving bus stops to safer crossing areas.
It also expressed support for a planned VDOT and Fairfax County project to add a sidewalk on the north side of Route 7 from Magnolia Avenue to just east of the Liberty gas station at 5930 Leesburg Pike in Culmore. A 68-year-old woman from Falls Church, Nguyet Ly, was killed by a driver while walking in that area on Dec. 13, 2021.
Design work on the sidewalk is underway, but VDOT doesn’t anticipate starting construction until early 2029, according to its project page.
The single greatest “hot spot” for lighting issues was the Bailey’s Crossroads and Skyline area, where 13 fatalities or serious injuries were logged; eight of those occurred in darkness.
However, the study, prepared by Nicole Brager, also notes that total fatal or serious injury crashes are split almost evenly between daytime and nighttime incidents.
Overall, the crashes tended to be clustered in areas where people walk to transit and shop, but at the same time, many were in areas where safe crossing options were far apart: 33 of the 59 fatal and serious-injury crashes were more than 1,000 feet away from a marked crossing.
“Most crash points sit close to pedestrian destinations, especially bus stops and retail activity; Route 7 should be considered as a corridor with significant walking activity,” the study says. “These relationships support reviewing pedestrian access, crossing connections and nighttime visibility.”
The study covered the entire Route 7 corridor in Fairfax County, but it focused particularly on the stretch from Seven Corners to Beauregard Street in Alexandria, where 44 near-miss incidents have been flagged by community members since NoVA FSS launched its reporting tool in June 2021.
The group’s findings appear to back up a 2022 study by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the immigrant advocacy organization CASA that also identified pedestrian safety issues, including limited lighting and crossings, in the Bailey’s Crossroads section of Route 7.
Earlier this fall, NoVA FSS released an analysis of 129 near-misses reported by community members in Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church from January 2025 through June 2026. The analysis found that dangerous conditions are often concentrated in a small number of known locations and driven by risky driver behaviors.
The new Route 7 study builds on that idea, noting that connected-vehicle data shows heavy speeding, hard braking, and phone use around Bailey’s Crossroads and Skyline.
The newly released data comes in the same week that the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments will launch a fall “Street Smart” campaign in Silver Spring, Maryland. The educational campaign will promote safe roadway practices given that the return of earlier sunsets tends to bring a regional spike in pedestrian and cyclist crashes, regional officials say.
