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:
transportation
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.
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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.
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Five airlines have received tentative approval to run new long-haul flights out of Reagan National Airport.
The U.S. Department of Transportation yesterday (Wednesday) announced plans to approve flights to the following locations, granting each airline one extra round-trip flight per day.
The still faint light at the end of the tunnel grows stronger week by week for Columbia Pike.
But that may be cold comfort for those facing at least 12 more months before years of construction are wrapped up.
Mary Hynes admits to being a late bloomer on transportation and transit issues.
“I did not start out as a transportation person — at all,” she acknowledged.
For the second time this month, the Shirlington Circle south rotary bridge over I-395 has closed for construction.
The bridge — which connects southbound lanes from I-395 and Shirlington Road to North Quaker Lane at Exit 6 — is set to remain closed until just before midnight this coming Sunday, July 28.
Construction on the long-awaited east entrance to the Crystal City Metro station is getting underway.
Numerous local officials attended a groundbreaking ceremony today (Friday) for the $146.1 million project at the northwest corner of Crystal Drive and 18th Street S.