Public comment sought on transportation projects
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| The Seven Corners intersection. |
Two projects in the Annandale/Mason District area – a ring road in Seven Corners and intersection improvements along Braddock Road – are among the 60 transportation improvements listed by the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority for possible funding over the next six years.
The NVTA is seeking public comment on which projects residents believe should have priority. Residents can submit comments online by May 20 or attend an upcoming meeting.
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| Traffic on Braddock Road. |
Fairfax County is having a public meeting May 17, 7 p.m., at the Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax.
The Seven Corners project would relieve congestion around the intersection of Arlington Boulevard, Leesburg Pike, Wilson Boulevard, and Sleepy Hollow Road. It calls for construction of a new road between Arlington Boulevard and Castle Place as the first phase of a ring road proposed in an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan outlining a framework for redevelopment.
The total cost of the project is $75 million; Fairfax County is requesting $5.5 million from NVTA.
The $69.8 million Braddock Road project calls for access management, intersection improvements, signalization improvements, shared-use pedestrian bicycle paths on both sides of the road, and completion of trail connections in the corridor. A HAWK (pedestrian-controlled, high-intensity, activated crosswalk signal) would be considered for Grantham Street and Burke Lake Road.
The Braddock Road improvements would extend from Guinea Road to Ravensworth Road and would incorporate the recommendations of a multimodal study by the Fairfax County Department of Transportation with input from a citizen task force.
The 60 projects submitted to NVTA by various jurisdictions in Northern Virginia request a total of $2.5 billion. Fairfax County is requesting funding for 15 projects.
NVTA will have about $1.5 billion on its six-year plan, says spokesperson Sarah Camille Hipp. That’s about $75 million less than it had projected, since the General Assembly diverted some of the agency’s funds to Metro.
NVTA expects to announce a decision this summer on which projects to fund or partially fund.
In selecting projects, Hipp says, the agency will consider whether a project fits into NVTA’s long-term transportation plan, ratings based on qualitative and quantitative measures, the potential for reducing congestion relative to cost ratios, and public comments.
