Construction crews are in the process of repaving the intersection of Arlington Ridge Road and 23rd Street S.
The work has blocked one westbound lane of 23rd Street and one southbound lane of Arlington Ridge Road.
Arlington County recently completed some curb, sidewalk and turn lane changes in the area in an effort to improve pedestrian safety. The county’s web site has additional information on the changes.
The Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee is recommending that the County Board approve five new street improvement projects when it meets this weekend.
The total cost of the projects — which are expected to improve the appearance and safety of the streetscape — is estimated at $2.8 million. Of the five projects, all but one are in North Arlington.
The Neighborhood Conservation program allows neighborhoods to compete with one another to receive funding for public improvements requested by residents. The five projects expected to receive funding over the weekend include:
The last round of Neighborhood Conservation projects included street, park and sign improvements in six different neighborhoods. This time around, the committee passed over proposed park projects in Penrose, Arlington Forest and Boulevard Manor; pedestrian safety projects in Westover Village, Waverly Hills and Claremont; and street improvement projects in Williamsburg and Maywood.
Arlington County is planning improvements designed to make three N. Glebe Road intersections safer for pedestrians. The improvements are expected to be implemented by the end of next year.
The intersections — Glebe and Carlin Springs Road, Glebe and Wilson Boulevard, and Glebe and Fairfax Drive — involve long crosswalks across numerous lanes of fast-moving traffic, as well as the occasional slip lane. The improvements are intended to make crossing the intersections safer by reducing crosswalk distances and “conflict points.”
At Glebe and Fairfax, crews will “regularize intersection geometry” — i.e. convert “suburban” slip lanes into “urban” 90-degree turns controlled by the stop light. Crews will also widen the mid-intersection pedestrian refuge.
At Glebe and Wilson, the plan is to eliminate and square up the existing slip lane at the southwest corner of the intersection, as well as to widen the median refuge, reduce crosswalk distances and to install a speed table on the northwest slip lane.
At Glebe and Carlin Springs, intersection corners will be rebuilt, median refuges will be enhanced, higher-visibility crosswalks will be installed and the driveway to and from the Ballston parking garage will be modified for safety.
The changes are being paid for primarily with federal funds, according to Arlington County Director of Transportation Dennis Leach. Even though Glebe Road is a state route, Virginia is not chipping in for the changes.
“They view this as an Arlington-requested betterment,” Leach said.
Leach expects bids for the project to come in this fall, with construction to start in the spring and to wrap up by the end of next year.
More Residents Upset With Road Work — Arlington Ridge residents aren’t the only ones who have qualms about Arlington County’s traffic calming efforts. In the Chain Bridge Forest neighborhood, residents “wanted $16,000 worth of speed humps… What they got was $200,000 worth of concrete dividers and narrowed lanes that they said increased the risk of drivers being rear-ended while turning into the neighborhood.” [Washington Examiner]
Chicken Boosters Look to 2012 — Supporters of hen-raising in Arlington are hoping for action from the county government in 2012. They hope to convince homeowners (and the County Board) that keeping outdoor chicken coops won’t cause noise and odor problems, since hens are quieter than roosters and since regular coop cleaning can abate the smell. [Sun Gazette]
MMA Champ Trains in Arlington — Did you know that there’s a mixed martial arts gym in the Courthouse area? Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight titleholder Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz trained and spoke to the media at the Team Lloyd Irvin NOVA MMA gym at 2407 Wilson Boulevard yesterday. The gym’s class offerings include Brazilian jiu jitsu, judo, Thai kickboxing, women’s fitness, children’s martial arts and mixed martial arts. [NOVA MMA, USA Today, MMA Nation]
Photo courtesy Jeannette Louise Smith
The lefthand lane on westbound Route 50 near the Courthouse Road exit has finally reopened, after more than a year of utility work.
The lane closure lasted about 10 months longer than originally anticipated. The utility work was performed in preparation for VDOT’s Courthouse interchange project, which is expected to get underway this month.
A tipster says the jersey walls separating the two righthand lanes of westbound Route 50 from the newly-paved lefthand lane were removed during the day on Friday.
VDOT will be holding a meeting two weeks from now to tell residents about their $6 million plan to replace the crumbling Glebe Road Bridge over Route 50.
The agency says construction on the new bridge will begin this summer and will wrap up in fall 2012 — a bit later than originally anticipated. The entire 100-foot-long bridge deck will be replaced with pre-cast concrete panels, and will be 27 feet wider than the existing bridge. The extra width will be used to install a 10-foot wide sidewalk, a 17-foot wide shared-use path and a new northbound turn lane. There will also be new traffic signals, “decorative wrought-iron picket fencing” and LED lighting.
On Thursday, June 2, at 7:00 p.m., VDOT will hold a ‘pardon our dust’ meeting for community members at Thomas Jefferson Middle School (125 S. Old Glebe Road).
The agency says traffic impacts for Glebe Road drivers should be minimal, with virtually no impacts during the day and lane closures at night. There will, however, be “intermittent detours” on Route 50 beginning in August. Traffic will be diverted to George Mason Drive and Washington Boulevard during the detours, which will be announced in advanced.
The Glebe Road bridge over Route 50 carries about 35,000 vehicles a day, according to VDOT. There have been several reported incidents of concrete chunks falling from the bridge over the past two years.
A bumpy stretch of Wilson Boulevard is being repaved this week.
The Rosslyn stretch of Wilson Boulevard from N. Arlington Ridge Road to N. Oak Street is in the process of being repaved. Part of the repaving east of N. Lynn Street has already been completed. Much of the rest of the road has been milled, awaiting repaving.
The milled surface will make for rough driving until it can be covered with blacktop. The repaving is being done as part of Arlington’s summer street repair program, which seeks to repair “old, substandard streets.” N. Arlington Ridge Road is also being repaved as part of the program.
Construction on the new Route 50 / Courthouse Road interchange is set to begin this month.
The project, which is expected to wrap up in 2013, will result in major improvements to what is now a rather confusing and even dangerous series of on and off-ramps. In the meantime, however, drivers will have to put up with some minor headaches as the project forces the closure of some busy routes and ramps, starting later this year.
Among the closures, according to VDOT:
For each closure, there will be a signed detour. Some local residents have expressed concern that the detours would siphon highway traffic onto residential streets, but we’re told that transportation planners expect the impact on residential streets to be minimal.
See maps of each detour, after the jump.
Changes are coming to the steep stretch of Walter Reed Drive where a bicyclist was killed over the weekend.
Arlington County plans to begin work this summer to add a number of safety improvements to Walter Reed between S. Pollard Street and Four Mile Run Drive. The changes, which were in the works before the accident, include:
The 45-60 day construction project will also eliminate the right turn lane from southbound Walter Reed Drive to the Four Mile Run Drive access road. (The bicyclist, who had been heading downhill on Walter Reed Drive, struck a car heading east on the access road just after the turn lane, according to police.)
Arlington Traffic Engineering and Operations Chief Wayne Wentz says that eliminating the turn lane and replacing it with landscaping will help slow down cars — which will now have to make a 90 degree right run at the intersection — and will make it easier for pedestrians to cross.
“People treat [such lanes] very much like ramps rather than just intersections,” Wentz said. “It just reinforces that you’re turning onto a neighborhood street, not on to some major arterial.”
Wentz said the overall goal of the project — which he says will cost about $180,000 — is to reduce the number of potential “conflict points” between pedestrians and vehicles. The project, he said, will not explicitly attempt to reduce the speed of cars or bicycles heading downhill on Walter Reed Drive.
The travel lanes on Walter Reed Drive will not be narrowed, Wentz said. The county also has no plans to add a speed limit sign to the downhill lane, even though the nearest speed limit sign for southbound drivers is at 19th Street, well before the hill.
If you’re used to seeing the ugly, dangerous Route 50/Courthouse Road interchange, get ready for a big change. VDOT has released some sketches of what the interchange will look like by 2014.
Next month VDOT will begin work on a $39 million project to revamp the aging, confusing mess of on-ramps and off-ramps. The interchange’s bridges will be rebuilt and dedicated acceleration/deceleration lanes will be added.
For the next two an a half years, motorists can expect nightly closures of 2-3 lanes of Route 50 in both directions, as well as occasional closures of side streets and on/off ramps. VDOT says it will announce the closures in advance and provide signed detours.
VDOT will be holding a public meeting on Tuesday, May 3, to answer neighborhood questions about the project. The meeting will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the Arlington County Boardroom (2100 Clarendon Blvd).
See the full VDOT press release after the jump.
The construction cone slalom on Columbia Pike has converged into one relatively narrow, pock-marked chute of two-way traffic.
On one side of the Pike, two lanes are blocked by much-needed repaving work. On the other side, next to the still under-construction Penrose Square development, one lane is blocked by Dominion trucks that are preparing to replace an underground transformer that apparently blew this morning (a tipster reports hearing a large bang and seeing a flash in the area around 9:30 a.m.).
In the middle of the mess is the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. Barton Street, where traffic lights are dark thanks to the aforementioned power problems.
Traffic and construction vehicles on the Pike are treating the intersection as if there was no stop light at all and simply driving through it. As of 1:45 p.m., no one was there trying to instruct them otherwise.
