A new analysis of incidents where people were nearly hit with a vehicle finds that “failure to yield” is the No. 1 risk factor in Arlington.
The study by Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets, a pedestrian safety advocacy group, found that roughly 70% of responses listed this issue as the top cause of “near misses,” followed by speeding and obstructed bike lanes.
Despite a recent investigation unearthing broad failures in a decade-long D.C. program to eliminate traffic deaths, Arlington is holding fast to its Vision Zero goals.
Both Arlington and D.C. have set goals of eradicating all vehicle crashes resulting in fatalities and severe injuries. D.C. adopted its Vision Zero Action Plan in 2014 with the aim of achieving this by 2024, and Arlington adopted its own action plan in 2021 with a 2030 goalpost.
Construction on an elevated bus stop island, meant to improve safety at an intersection in Rosslyn, is scheduled to begin soon.
The quick-build safety project between the intersections of Clarendon Blvd with N. Pierce and N. Queen streets will impact Metrobus routes 4B and 38B as well as ART Route 45. In addition to elevating the bus stop, it will raise an existing protected bike lane on Clarendon Blvd.
Red light enforcement cameras are scheduled to begin operating at four Arlington intersections starting Sept. 1.
Installation of the cameras has already begun, the county said in a press release, and they will operate at the following intersections:
A single Pentagon City intersection has been the site of dozens of crashes in recent years.
Videos of vehicles colliding at the intersection of Army Navy Drive and S. Hayes Street proliferate on the social media account of local public safety watcher Dave Statter. In several, drivers exiting I-395 can be seen hurtling into slower-moving vehicles on Hayes.
Five arterial streets north of Route 50 could see their speed limits drop from 30 to 25 mph.
This weekend, the Arlington County Board is set to authorize public hearings to lower speed limits along these roads, which have “high volumes of pedestrian crossings and higher density land development,” a county report says.
Arlington County has unveiled an updated list of 34 particularly crash-prone intersections, including many on major roads between I-66 and Arlington Blvd.
These “hot spots” are areas that see relatively high crash rates, of which the county identified 60 in total, using data from 2018-2022. The total has dropped from 69 hot spots identified in a 2022 map.
Arlington County aims to begin construction on a new traffic light at a crash-prone intersection near Barrett Elementary School this summer.
The county expects to complete the installation of the 4-way traffic signal — at N. Park Drive and N. George Mason Drive, in front of the Lubber Run Community Center — by the end of 2024. The intersection in the Arlington Forest neighborhood will also get curb extensions on all corners, increased street lighting and marked crosswalks, according to the county.
This spring, drivers may notice the county testing out a new road treatment to reduce speeding through left turns.
In the next month or two, the county will start installing small raised bumps called hardened centerlines along the yellow centerline at five local intersections. That’s according to Christine Baker, who coordinates Arlington’s Vision Zero efforts, which aim to eliminate road deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
The man who struck and killed a woman near the Thomas Jefferson Community Center in the fall of 2022 will spend four years in prison.
Julio David Villazon received his 10-year sentence, of which six years were suspended, on Friday, according to Arlington County Circuit Court records. After his release, he will have five years of supervised probation. The court also suspended his driver’s license indefinitely.
Arlington County residents are some of the safest in the country, by at least one measure.
Just 3.8 out of every 100,000 Arlington County residents died either by homicide or in a land transport collision between 2018 and 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a lower death rate than any other county in the nation with a population of at least 100,000 people.
Sometime next year, three residential streets in Arlington without sidewalks could get upgrades to allow for safer pedestrian and cyclist use.
To help address demonstrated safety and access issues on S. Lynn Street, N. Wakefield Street and 12th Street S., Arlington County’s Neighborhood Complete Streets Program is considering piloting “shared streets.”
