Drivers now must stop at crosswalks
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on May 7 approved a measure to improve pedestrian safety.
The board updated the county code to match the state code requiring drivers to stop – not just yield – for pedestrians at unsignalized intersections. It also prohibits drivers from overtaking vehicles stopped for pedestrians. Violators can be charged up to $500.
New signs that say “stop for pedestrians” would replace existing signs that say “yield to pedestrians.” The BoS already approved $95,000 in December for the new signs.
During a public hearing, three residents urged the board to approve the new ordinance.
“This can really make a difference. It can slow drivers and stop them from running stop signs, passing another car, and killing somebody,” said Mike Doyle, founder of Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets and the survivor of a crash involving a driver who ran over him in a crosswalk.
A visually impaired resident who lives near Mosaic in Merrifield, said every day, there are cars that do not stop at the marked crosswalk on Eskridge Drive.
“And when a driver does stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, frequently, there’s a driver behind them that blows through the crosswalk at a high rate of speed,” she said. “That is terrifying. It’s incredibly dangerous.”
“Pedestrian safety is an issue of equity, as well as a public health concern,” said Chris French, president of Fairfax Families for Safe Streets. He cited a recent study by the Fairfax County Health Department that found Black and Brown pedestrians are killed or seriously injured at rates two to three times the rate of Whites.
Of the 425 most recent reports submitted to the Northern Virginia Near Miss and Dangerous Location Dashboard, 282 involved incidents at crosswalks.
The new ordinance will be helpful, French said, but the county should also conduct driver education and enforcement campaigns.
So who will enforce this new ordinance? I’ve talked to the Fairfax Co. PD on numerous occasions related to “an increase in crimes committed in my area” and they usually respond that their hands are tied…that they really don’t enforce any other than felonies. My tax dollars at work. The BOS can go pound sand.
Exactly. I watch people fly through the 25 mph zone in Annandale, run red lights, etc. No enforcement. So waste more dollars putting up signs that no one notices or pays attention to. If you do obey traffic laws it is increased risk to you as angry drivers fly around you, cut you off, or ride the rear bumper. How many people still drive while holding and talking on their cell phones. If people here cared perhaps more should have voted for the independent instead of another tax and waste Penny Gross.2.
We do have a traffic law enforcement problem all over the County. We need more patrol officers and we need to pay them more.
Fairfax residents will soon be paying them more. How? Recent police union contract, like for the Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department, which will cost you a sizable amount of more property taxes next year and onward. Alexandria city residents are already realizing the whopping tax increase bills thanks to their brand new police, then fire, union contracts. And now in Alexandria police and fire overtime is strictly limited and requires prior approval of City Manager staff. For Fairfax, overtime cutbacks could mean fewer “Operation Road Shark” and other crime control details, unless those overtime details get grant funded by the US Government, Virginia state government, or other sources.
BOS has to raise taxes to pay for their special programs and other projects. The BOS refuses to consider focusing funds on core services, and make the hard choices & cuts real leaders must make. The BOS is like an amateur version on Congress. We get the government officials we elect, especially when voting turn out is low.
JTR, that is why the BoS is sometimes referred to as the Board of Stupids!
‘Thank you’ to the Board of Supervisors for a common sense action that will save lives.
They need to add the button to make lights flash. Most of these cross walks were poorly placed and I don’t even see the pedestrians half the time until it’s too late. Especially over 4 lane traffic. If you want to catch drivers attention and really make this safer those are needed.
I agree! This would be even safer and should be done—especially in areas by a lot of commerce where people may already be distracted looking for a turn.
I love the optimism that this will make a difference. My observations are that those who obey traffic laws will stop, and those who don’t obey the laws will not (just like now). As a pedestrian, I don’t start walking across a crosswalk until I make sure that the cars are stopped. Many people do not do that. I am not sure that we can legislate pedestrian safety with little or no enforcement.
Blame the police for arresting criminals. Blame drivers for people jaywalking. Ought to work out great.
Everyone wants to blame lack of enforcement, we need more officer patrols, etc. The truth is that we have created this extremely unsustainable transportation landscape for ourselves. We put ourselves in an increasing impossible situation. We are all desperately looking for solutions to keep our unsafe, crumbling infrastructure afloat.
More officers is an extremely expensive and inefficient solution to traffic safety. What are we suggesting here? That we implement an NYPD size police force to roam the streets and highways of Fairfax County? That is not feasible financially, sustainably, and by any means real.
We all know that this measure, along with the other platitudes to be approved by the Board of Supervisors, will not do anything about transportation safety in Northern VA. Even the Board of Supervisors must know this…they cannot be so naive. Their hands are tied, our hands are tied, the cops hands are tied. Everyone’s hands are tied.
Why? Because we have constantly refused to implement any type of feasible means of alternative transportation since the death of the streetcar in the DC suburbs. We have plodded along with an unsustainable transportation paradigm, expanding lanes for bigger and bigger highways. Now we are a region with millions of people that is built for a region with 10s of thousands of people. We should have implemented mass transit and transit-oriented development when we had the chance. Honestly, I hate to spread doom and gloom about this issue, but the reality is we are f**ked from a transportation perspective. I can’t see any way we will be able to dig ourselves out of this hole.
The cops’ hands aren’t tied because of lack of public transportation, silly goose. Try again!
It seems you don’t understand my point at all, so I’ll put it bluntly this time. We wouldn’t need heavy police enforcement of our traffic safety if we had adequate public transportation in the first place. Our transportation landscape would be intrinsically safer.
Interesting theory, except people jaywalk 20 yards away from crosswalks all the time, people drive recklessly when traffic is light, use of existing public transportation is decreasing and becoming more expensive, crime is increasing while enforcement is decreasing, and taxes are increasing with little to show for it due to government malaise and ineptitude.
In this environment, increasing taxes to pay for infrastructure makes little sense, with the exception of serious debacles like Seven Corners intersection.
I’m not suggesting we increase taxes to pay for infrastructure. We can agree that government ineptitude will squander increases in revenue. I am simply stating that the costs of our poor choices over the years are catching up with us in increasingly dire ways. Had we properly planned a cost-efficient transportation landscape we wouldn’t have this conversation to begin with.
It is my hope that we can learn a lesson from our failures, but looking at the fiasco behind the silver line and the soon-to-be fiasco surrounding the county’s BRT initiatives, there is little room for optimism. It’s all too little, too late.
Cops hands aren’t tied by anything but their own laziness. They don’t want to get off their lazy butts and enforce the law.
100% incorrect, you must not know any cops!! 😂