Columbia Pike leaders hosted a formal ribbon cutting yesterday (Wednesday) on street and sidewalk improvements that had snarled the busy corridor for years.
Local business leaders, numerous staff from the Department of Environmental Services (DES) and all five members of the Arlington County Board attended the event, which marked “substantial completion” of a project intended to improve the experience of bus riders, pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists alike.
Lane closures are coming to the George Washington Memorial Parkway starting next week, for a resurfacing project.
Crews will remove the top layer of worn asphalt in both directions and repave the road in two sections: between Spout Run Parkway and I-395, and between Reagan National Airport and First Street in Alexandria, according to NPS. The work is expected to continue through mid-June, weather permitting.
While a major portion of GW Parkway construction work is wrapping up in Arlington, another is scheduled to get underway next year.
From Spout Run Parkway up to the Beltway in McLean, paving is done and mainline construction is on track to conclude by the end of the month as a major rehab project announced in 2021 draws toward a close.
The worst of the roadwork on Columbia Pike is finally coming to an end.
Residents and business owners alike are breathing a sigh of relief as the extensive Columbia Pike Multimodal Improvements project approaches “substantial completion” — meaning reopened lanes and sidewalks.
Years of construction on Columbia Pike are finally nearing a conclusion, with county staff targeting “substantial completion” by the end of this year.
Crews have finished construction on five segments of the busy corridor, and only two segments remain in “heavy construction,” county spokesperson Claudia Pors said in a recent project update. These stretches of the Pike run between S. Garfield Street and S. Quinn Street.
Some projects are behind schedule in the Falls Church capital-improvement program (CIP), but they aren’t facing any major funding challenges.
Of the 37 active projects in the CIP, which range from roadway improvements to sports-field upgrades, 20 are listed as “on target,” six are “at risk” and 11 are “behind target,” according to a quarterly summary.
An 82% increase in estimated costs has led Falls Church officials to rethink plans to improve a key city byway.
As a result, it appears likely that transportation and stormwater improvements along Lincoln Avenue will be phased in over time.
The Theodore (Teddy, to his friends) Roosevelt Bridge’s two-year rehabilitation project started this week with new roadway changes that will be in place at least through 2027.
The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) started work Monday on a series of changes to the bridge described by DDOT as “structurally deficient and functionally obsolete.”
The City of Falls Church plans to spend more on paving roads in the coming year, but it will still have unfunded needs.
The proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget includes $1.4 million for road-paving initiatives, up from $870,000 in the coming fiscal year.
A stretch of 12th Street S. in Pentagon City will be off-limits to drivers for about a year as the county extends a bus rapid transit corridor.
Closing the street during the expansion will be safer and allow the work to be completed more quickly, county staff said during a March 11 briefing of the county’s Transit Advisory Committee.
Despite leaders’ hopes for a brighter future on Columbia Pike, both new and established businesses continue to face difficulties as roadwork drags on.
At this month’s “State of the Pike” forum, speakers highlighted a “light at the end of the tunnel” for establishments that have endured years of nearby utility work and road and sidewalk reconstruction.
An update to the Falls Church Bicycle Master Plan has the potential to remake some city streets.
But only if there is more effort put into turning aspirations to reality than has been the case with the existing plan, adopted in 2015, according to some members of a key advisory panel.
