The Connection

Great Falls — The Great Falls Citizens Association’s Transportation Committee and the Fairfax County Department of Transportation presented a vision for the future of Walker Road just south of Georgetown Pike.

Walker Road splits the Great Falls commercial center, with the Village Center to the west, and the Safeway center to the east. With lanes of traffic going both directions and no crosswalk except the one at Georgetown Pike, the goal is to make the street easier to cross for pedestrians.

A crosswalk would be put in going across Walker Road, located near the Bank of America. Eric Knudsen, co-chair of the GFCA’s Transportation committee, said the crosswalk was the primary goal of the plan.

"The impetus for this whole design was the crosswalk, because everybody in the community wanted it to be safer to cross the street. We’ve talked about being a pedestrian-friendly community, in our 2020 survey, 60-70 percent of the people wanted us to be more pedestrian friendly," he said. "When we talk about this crosswalk, the fact that it’s almost five lanes wide made it impossible to come up with a design, so they started talking about these bump-outs."

THE PLAN calls for the build outs to feature several on-street parking spots on both sides of Walker Road, landscaping, reconstructed sidewalks and reduced speed limit, from the current 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour.

"Right now there’s a lot of wide pavement out there, it’s only striped for two lanes, so drivers can go almost anywhere," said Todd Minnix, chief of transportation design for the Fairfax County Department of Transportation. "We’re narrowing the road, getting rid of pavement."

Knudsen said that the wideness of the road allowed cars to maneuver around stopped cars that might be turning left or waiting for pedestrians to cross.

"The danger of this whole area is people passing on the right when cars are slowing down for someone trying to walk across the road," Knudsen said. "There have been accidents and people hit over the years."

Since there is no traffic signal at the crosswalk, it is what’s called a "mid-block crosswalk" there cannot be a walk-don’t walk sign.

Eleanor Anderson, who was involved in a traffic calming study in 1999, which eventually evolved into part of the current plan, says some problems have increased since the study she was a part of.

"Since 1999, there’s a great deal more traffic cutting through from Route 7 to Georgetown Pike using this route," she said. "As far as I’m concerned, one of the intents here is, by calming the traffic and making it go slower, to make it somewhat less attractive as an alternative."

Minnix said the main sticking point would be getting permanent and temporary easements from property owners on both sides of the street, which would make maintaining the sidewalks the responsibility of the Virginia Department of Transportation.

"We’re waiting for final comments from VDOT, once we address those and get input from the community and make changes they’d like to see, we’ll move into the acquisition phase," Minnix said.

The plan is already funded, and once the easements were obtained, Knudsen estimated the project could begin in late summer or early fall.