(Updated at 10:40 a.m. on 12/5/2022) Even with one month left, 2022 is the deadliest year for Fairfax County pedestrians in more than a decade.
Through October, vehicle crashes have killed 22 people on streets and highways in the county — the most since at least 2010, the earliest year in Virginia’s Traffic Records Electronic Data System (TREDS). The previous high came in 2018 and 2019, when there were 17 fatalities each.
If you’re driving along the highways in Northern Virginia, do you usually hop into an express lane or do you prefer to tough it out in the normal lanes with the rest of the proletariat?
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) announced last week that the new I-66 Express Lanes running from the Beltway down to Centreville are set to fully open today (Tuesday).
I-66 Express Lanes Fully Open Today — “The eastbound direction of the new 66 Express Lanes from Route 28 in Centreville to I-495 (Capital Beltway) is on track to open on Tuesday, Nov. 22…When this final section opens, the entire 22.5-mile 66 Express Lanes corridor from Route 29 in Gainesville to I-495 will be open with tolling and HOV-2+ rules in effect.” [VDOT]
Mini Satellite Built by TJ Students Going to Space — “On Tuesday, November 22, at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, NASA is scheduled to launch the TJ REVERB CubeSat as part of the SpaceX-26 Commercial Resupply Service Mission en route to the International Space Station…Led by Robotics lab director Kristen Kucko, many students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology have had a hand in this historic launch.” [FCPS]
Fairfax County’s teacher unions expressed relief after new state-proposed history standards were rejected by a governor-appointed board late last week.
On Thursday evening (Nov. 17), Virginia’s Board of Education voted unanimously to again delay approving new history standards drafted by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE).
Firefighters, medics and other Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department employees will have a union represent them in the county’s first collective bargaining negotiations for public workers in over 40 years.
Over 800 FCFRD workers participated in a 13-day election last month to determine whether to have union representation for contract talks with the county government, which will establish pay, benefits and other working conditions.
If you plan on driving the newly extended I-66 Express Lanes next month, make sure there are at least two other people in the car to avoid paying a toll.
The entire length of the I-66 toll lanes will shift from HOV2 to HOV3 in early December, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) recently announced.
County Chair Reacts to Club Q Mass Shooting — “I want to be unequivocal: I stand with our LGBTQIA+ community. The repugnant violence we saw in Colorado Springs has no place in society. We will never give in to the forces of hate or oppression. My heart breaks for the victims and their families.” [Jeff McKay/Twitter]
Developer Hopes to Obtain Land for Housing at Innovation Station — “While the details haven’t been hammered out, Peterson hopes the county would sell or ground lease its parcel for some nominal price, Taylor Chess, Peterson’s president of development, said in an interview. Such a deal would help to make the project economically viable over the long haul” [Washington Business Journal]
The weekend is almost here. Before you hop on (or lament) the latest addition to the I-66 toll lanes or head to bed for some much-needed sleep, let’s revisit the past week of news in Fairfax County.
Here are the 10 most-read stories on FFXnow this week:
Fairfax County’s new online platform for permitting, zoning and other land use activities has hit a speed bump.
A backlog of applications has emerged since the county finished rolling out its Planning and Land Use System (PLUS) on Oct. 31 due to issues with the technology, Fairfax County Land Development Services confirmed.
Tysons ID Verification Company Under Investigation — ID.me may have misled the public and Congress with “baseless claims” that the U.S. lost $400 billion to fraudulent pandemic unemployment claims. A House subcommittee says new evidence suggests the company used claims of “rampant” fraud “to increase demand” for its services, making it harder for those who needed aid to receive it. [Gizmodo]
Mixed Bag for Metro — “New Silver Line riders, an increase in train availability, shorter wait times and an apparent decrease in fare evasion provided tempered optimism to Metro leaders in the face of a new financial snapshot Thursday that showed rail ridership continuing to struggle…Metro said it recorded about 7,000 trips Tuesday at the new Silver Line stations.” [The Washington Post]
