Back in March, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology student Daniil Prokofev went for an 8-mile run from the Lincolnia school to his home. That run led to the development of a web-based app that will someday be able to help all Fairfax County Public Schools students find safe routes to school.
The route Prokofev took on his run in March, suggested by Google Maps, wasn’t particularly safe, as several sections had no sidewalks and there were busy intersections to cross.
The Fairfax County Department of Transportation is recommending a number of improvements that it hopes will make the West Falls Church segment of Route 29 safer for all travelers, especially pedestrians and bicyclists.
Community members attending a public meeting at Timber Lane Elementary School last Wednesday (Oct. 14) generally seemed to embrace the proposed changes, which include new sidewalks, a shared-use path, and crosswalks, but some lamented the project’s limited scope and undefined timeline.
Since it began collecting near-miss data for local roads in 2021, Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets has accumulated more evidence that such close calls between drivers and other travelers reflect patterns of behavior, rather than random or one-time slip-ups.
More than 70% or 94 of the 129 near-misses reported by community members in Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church between January 2025 and June of this year were marked as recurring incidents, according to an analysis released by the volunteer-led safety advocacy organization on Sept. 10.
Fairfax City is moving ahead with a plan to add bicycle lanes on University Drive, north of Old Town.
The Fairfax City Council unanimously approved awarding a $725,551 contract to Arthur Construction Company Inc. to construct the bike lanes during a meeting last Tuesday (Sept. 8). The project calls for parts of the roadway to be reduced to make room for the proposed changes.
The “kiss and ride” pick-up and drop-off sections at many Fairfax County Public Schools are overextended to the point of becoming the school system’s “most significant operational concern districtwide,” a new staff report found.
The results of a Safe Routes to Schools assessment conducted over the past year and a half were presented to the Fairfax County School Board yesterday (Sept. 8) as part of a discussion of pedestrian and traffic safety around schools, just one week after a student was hit by a car while walking to South Lakes High School in Reston.
Pedestrians in Tysons still have to contend with heavy traffic on routes 123 and 7, but a few changes recently implemented by the Tysons Community Alliance (TCA) will hopefully make parts of the urban center easier to navigate.
Last week, the community improvement organization announced that it has completed a redesign of the Westwood Center Drive and Cornerside Blvd intersection near the Tysons West shopping center, adding a crosswalk, sidewalk, painted road median and other improvements.
Pedestrians can breathe a little easier after some new protections were installed at a key South County intersection earlier this month.
Work wrapped up on Aug. 4 on a pedestrian refuge island, additional crosswalks and curb ramp upgrades around Silverbrook Road and Crosspointe Drive, according to the Fairfax County Department of Transportation.
A 10-year-old boy riding a bicycle near Reston Parkway and Baron Cameron Avenue in Reston was hit by a driver who fled the scene this morning (Aug. 7), according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
The crash occurred around 8:49 a.m., police told FFXnow. The child was subsequently taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Fairfax County has installed new wayfinding signs on the 66 Parallel Trail to make it easier for cyclists and pedestrians to navigate, but county officials say more improvement is coming on key gaps to improve overall trail connectivity.
The Fairfax County Department of Transportation recently installed directional signs at locations throughout Centreville, Fair Lakes, Fair Oaks and Oakton.
Fairfax County is finally making progress on filling in sidewalk gaps along Sunrise Valley Drive in Reston, though the project has created some temporary obstacles for pedestrians.
Construction on the Sunrise Valley Drive Walkway began on April 30 and is now on track to finish by the end of next week (July 13-19) for one segment near Soapstone Drive, according to the Fairfax County Department of Transportation.
