Seven Corners project not fully funded
The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) has approved more than $330 million for six transportation projects in Fairfax County.
While five of the projects are fully funded, the NVTA is only allocating $4.2 million for the $94.8 million Seven Corners ring road project.
That project would improve traffic flow and pedestrian and bicycle safety around the intersection of Arlington Boulevard, Leesburg Pike, and Wilson Boulevard while reconfiguring traffic on some side streets. Seven Corners is one of the most congested areas in Fairfax County.
The ring road concept was included in a Comprehensive Plan amendment for Seven Corners adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2015. The Fairfax County Department of Transportation is working on a Seven Corners Phasing Study to determine the order in which elements of the plan should be constructed.
Related story: Seven Corners Phasing Study prepares for ring road around congested intersection
At a community meeting last fall, FCDOT officials said construction would start in 2030 and the project wouldn’t be completed until 2045. But that was before NVTA approved just over $4 million for the massive project.
The list of projects funded by NVTA are in the agency’s updated six-year program for 2022-27.
The Fairfax County projects fully funded by NVTA include widening Fairfax County Parkway ($108 million), providing eight new electric buses for the Fairfax Connector ($10 million), widening Richmond Highway ($60.2 million), supporting the Richmond Highway Bus Rapid Transit system known as “The One” ($80 million), and extending Soapstone Drive over the Dulles Toll Road in Reston ($73.8 million).
Is there a reason someone can point to as to why a critical infrastructure improvement in Mason district is not worthy of full funding? Surely the long standing traffic issues and driver confusion there are equally worthy as a bridge over the Dulles Access Road.
I think the problem is that Mason has poor representation, that is why people here call it the Dump!
there a reason someone can point to as to why a critical infrastructure improvement in Mason district is not worthy of full funding? Surely the long standing traffic issues and driver confusion there are equally worthy as a bridge over the Dulles Access Road.
This has to be the most confusing a dangerous heavily travelled intersection in the entire state of Virginia. I don’t understand why it is taking so long to do something about it.
Because of systemic road racism. Secretary Buttigieg laid it out nicely. No infrastructure equity, no peace.
Except Richmond Highway is in a heavily Hispanic part of Fairfax County. Try poor representation and advocacy for Mason District.
Build Back… Nevermind.
Apparently we don’t pay enough taxes
I don’t drive the Parkway or Richmond Highway often but do these roads really need to be widened? More roads just encourage more cars. They could find the entire Seven Corners project with the money from those two widening projects.
What is even worse is that studies have shown that widening roads have a marginal effect on congestion in the long run. Basically it’s a waste of money:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
We should be funding more BRT projects rather than pissing away money expanding roads and their implied increase in maintenance costs. Not to mention wasting money on electric Connector buses that will be severely underutilized.
That was a really cool article, thanks!
I agree with you catboy. Howeve, that would require for someone on the BoS to actually have to think. That is hard to do when you brains are rusty and all you care about is the next election.
Whenever I go by a bus it usually only has two or three people on it. I don’t understand the crazy allocation system. We certainly don’t need more buses and we don’t need to widen the Fairfax county parkway as much as we need help with seven corners! Good old Penny Gross strikes again!
What about the nightmare that is the intersection of Annandale Road and Arlington Blvd?
Haha that intersection is such a mess, along with 50 and Graham Road, 236 and John Marr Drive, 236 and Hummer Road..so on.
The service road design for major roads is just a horrible design overall, exacerbated by far greater usage than it is designed for. It creates multiple points of conflict that just asks for collisions to happen.
Personally I believe that these highways (236, 50) are best suited to be redesigned for BRT lines, given that they already occupy enough space for retrofitting without widening the road. Get rid of the service roads and reshape the road itself.