- Join our partners in Speaking Up! for safer biking and walking options around Bailey’s Crossroads.
- Spending just a few minutes to send an email today will help urge government and transportation officials to deploy short-term solutions that can save lives now while longer-term plans are developed
FABB notes that a recent Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) and CASA walkability survey showed that, overwhelmingly, residents living in the Culmore neighborhood of Bailey’s Crossroads feel unsafe walking and biking along Route 7. Unsurprisingly, the survey identified poor lighting, dangerous driving, and the lack of connected sidewalks, bike infrastructure, and safe crossing options as key problems.
You can read the results and recommended solutions summarized in Bailey’s Crossroads Community Walkability Survey & Audit Report.
FABB is joining CSG and CASA in calling on the Virginia Department of Transportation and Fairfax County to act with greater urgency to make Route 7 safer for Culmore residents and everyone who travels the road. Since 2015, in the one-mile stretch of Route 7 through Culmore, motorists have struck 18 pedestrians, killing 4 and seriously injuring 14.
The survey identified several quick fixes critical for making the area safer now:
- Lowering the speed limit and adding driver speed feedback signs to help reduce speeding in this area.
- Installing a temporary, in-street sidewalk connection until a permanent one can be built in front of the gas station where a woman was struck and killed in December.
- Creating temporary midblock crossings while permanent solutions are developed.
- Reprograming the traffic signals to give pedestrians a head start and more time to cross Route 7.
- Striping additional high visibility crosswalks across Route 7 and all side streets and driveways in the corridor.
- Providing brighter pedestrian-scale lighting.
Ultimately, Route 7 should be redesigned as a complete street that is walkable, bike-friendly, and provides safe and easy access to transit while also providing safe movement for drivers.
Please act today using this link to demand a quicker response to make this section of Route 7 safer before any more lives are lost.
