Protected bike lanes, a new stop light and improved bus stops along S. Walter Reed Drive are included in a proposed $7 million county contract.
The transportation improvement contract, slated for County Board consideration on Saturday, is for part of the “Complete Streets” project on Walter Reed between 5th Street S. and Columbia Pike.
A new long-term “blueprint” to dramatically expand Northern Virginia’s bus rapid transit lines calls for significant investment along core Arlington routes.
A draft Bus Rapid Transit Action Plan, unveiled yesterday (Wednesday) is meant to guide agencies throughout the region as they consider future transit investments. A proposed map of possible BRT lines envisions two routes connecting Columbia Pike to Crystal City and D.C., and another route running east from Falls Church into Rosslyn, across the Potomac River and into Georgetown.
Falls Church residents are less satisfied with their roads than they used to be, a new survey suggests.
Still, they continue to have a generally positive view of city services and their community’s overall quality of life.
The spring real-estate market is about to bloom, and some of the most sought-after homes in Arlington are located along Little Falls Road and in the neighborhoods that flank them.
Whether Rock Spring, Yorktown, Williamsburg or East Falls Church, the neighborhoods Little Falls Road traverses are interesting and eclectic. Along the way, you will pass a number of religious buildings and schools (public and private).
County Board members have promised more follow-up with residents who lived with the contentious placement of Arlington Transit buses on a N. Quincy Street government parcel.
“We need to do an after-action evaluation,” Board Chair Takis Karantonis said on Saturday after the matter was brought up during the Board’s public comment period.
Ranked-choice voting, a climate resolution, the contentious Melwood development proposal and the draft Fiscal Year 2026 county budget are all on the agenda for a County Board meeting slated for Saturday (Feb. 22).
Among the highlights:
With three years of a sometimes harrowing transportation-improvement effort coming to a close by the end of the year, the Columbia Pike corridor is primed a new chapter of growth.
“We are, together, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel” on road, transit and pedestrian/bicyclist upgrades up and down the 5-mile corridor, said Hui Wang of the Arlington Department of Environmental Services.
Construction contracts for new pickleball facilities and improvements to Central Library are on the agenda as Arlington County Board members meet on Saturday, Jan. 25.
It will be the Board’s first working meeting of the year, and follows a Jan. 7 organizational meeting at which Takis Karantonis was elected chair for 2025.
Some pedestrian and bicycle advocates are urging Arlington leaders to swing for the fences when crafting the county’s new Transportation Master Plan.
“We need to be transformative,” said Cynthia Palmer, chair of the county’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, which met on Jan. 6 and discussed priorities members believe should be in the transportation plan.
Northern Virginia leaders, including those from Arlington, are in wait-and-see mode on what Republican victories at the national level could mean for local transit and transportation funding.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” said Kate Mattice, executive director of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC). “It’s just sort of watching the space and seeing what lands.”
At the recent Falls Church Chamber of Commerce candidate forum, the two aspirants running in the special election for City Council were posed this hypothetical situation.
“If you had $50 million handed to you,” they were asked, “how would you use it to make transportation better in the city?”
The Arlington government’s updated “bike-comfort map” will rely more on available data to help bicyclists get where they want to go.
With five levels of color coding, numerical scores for each stretch of road and more prominent notices of hills, the new design builds on previous evaluations of all major roads in Arlington.
