NOVA Parks and the Town of Vienna are partnering for an initiative that could transform a pair of offices into a visitor center for the Washington and Old Dominion Trail.
Fresh off its 50th anniversary last year, the 45-mile trail runs from Shirlington out to Purcellville, with Vienna as its “geographic center,” NOVA Parks Executive Director Paul Gilbert said when announcing the project during an Arbor Day event at the Vienna Town Green last Friday (April 25).
Multiple new thoroughfares line the course for next month’s Tour de Hunter Mill bicycle ride.
Registration is now open for May 4’s event, which will be the fifth annual bike ride through Fairfax County’s Hunter Mill District.
After weeks of negotiations and public complaints, Dominion Energy has agreed to reassess plans to clear nearly all trees near its power lines in the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Railroad Regional Park.
However, the pause won’t bring relief to Vienna and Dunn Loring, where the utility will finish clearing trees and brush along a 4-mile section of trail in conjunction with a transmission line replacement between its Clark and Idylwood substations, Dominion Senior Vice President of Electric Transmission Joseph Woomer said yesterday in a letter to the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority (NOVA Parks).
The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NOVA Parks) is turning up the pressure on Dominion Energy to end widespread tree clearings along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail.
At the regional agency’s request, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 9-0 to approve a resolution on Tuesday (March 18) urging Dominion to halt reported plans to cut down any tree along the 45-mile-long trail that might someday interfere with its overhead power lines.
Some tree trimmings and removals were expected when Dominion Energy initated a project last year to replace electrical lines in the Vienna section of the Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail, but the extent of the clearings has taken local residents, elected officials and even the agency that owns the trail by surprise.
Starting in November, the utility began cutting down trees and vegetation along a 4-mile stretch of the trail from Vienna to Dunn Loring at a much more “aggressive” scale than it has in the past, according to Paul Gilbert, executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority (NOVA Parks).
The man charged with raping a woman in Herndon on Monday (Nov. 18) had been sentenced to jail less than a week earlier, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office says.
Denis Humberto Navarette Romero, 31, was previously arrested by Herndon Police for a separate incident and brought to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on Oct. 20, according to the sheriff’s office.
Herndon police have arrested a man in connection with a reported sexual assault that occurred on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail yesterday (Monday).
Denis Humberto Navarette Romero, 31, has been charged with rape and abduction with the intent to defile after allegedly attacking a woman on the trail between Ferndale Avenue and Grace Street last night, the Herndon Police Department announced.
A nearly 3-mile stretch of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail has been out of commission this week, but pedestrians and bicyclists should be able to return soon.
Dominion Energy closed the trail from Mill Street NE in Vienna to Sandburg Street in Dunn Loring on Monday, Nov. 11 as part of its ongoing project to replace electric power lines between the Clark and Idylwood substations.
A new route is now available to help pedestrians and bicyclists travel between Reston Town Center and its paired Metro station.
The newly completed pedestrian bridge over the Washington & Old Dominion Trail near the Reston Town Center Transit Station (12051 Bluemont Way) drew “lots of people” when it opened over the last weekend (Nov. 2-3), one reader told FFXnow.
The Washington & Old Dominion Trail’s history as a rail line was on full display yesterday (Monday) during the latest 50th anniversary celebration organized by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NOVA Parks).
After listening to local elected leaders, park officials and advocates reflect on the trail’s importance to the region, ceremony attendees could pore over old photographs of train stations and touch a rusted railroad spike, just steps from where the W&OD tracks once ran through the heart of the Town of Vienna.
