Traffic and pedestrian safety concerns represent one of the highest priority issues for Williamsburg residents. In the Williamsburg neighborhood survey (conducted as part of our Neighborhood Conservation Plan), three-quarters of Williamsburg residents reported speeding as a serious problem on their neighborhood streets. In response to the open-ended questions, many residents identified specific problems on specific streets. Their comments generated no less than 24 of the 54 total recommendations in our Conservation Plan. List of Traffic Calming Recommendations in the Williamsburg Conservation Plan

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No Easy Solution: Many of the traffic problems in our community stem from developments beyond our direct control. The heavy volume of commuter cut-through traffic comes in part from motorists fleeing the congestion on Interstate-66. Many of these motorists are trying to get to jobs at Tysons Corner or in the Dulles high-tech corridor; the increase in jobs in these areas has fueled many of our traffic woes here in North Arlington. Without a viable mass transit option, this problem is only going to get worse. Constructing a third lane on Interstate-66 inside the Beltway might divert some of the commuter traffic, but only temporarily. The long term solution – constructing a subway line with good shuttle service to nearby East Falls Church Station – is many years away.

What can we do in the meantime?

The short answer is: we can attack the problem one street at a time. We can get the County to take measures to improve pedestrian safety on selected streets, but we will need a lot of citizen input and hundreds of volunteer hours. And the results will be a long time coming: it usually takes several years between the time the County approves a project and the time said project is carried out.

Soon after our Neighborhood Conservation Plan was approved in the summer of 2000, we translated each of the 24 traffic-related recommendations into requests to County officials. What we quickly discovered is that County resources to handle these problems are very limited. Moreover, County practices restrict what options and programs are available, depending on the category of the street in question. Arlington County categorizes streets according to a plan developed some years back, apparently without citizen participation. Streets fall into one of five categories:

Controlled Access/Principal Arterial Streets: Access to and from these streets is provided by ramps. There are no traffic signals to interrupt the flow of traffic along the facility. Interstate-66 is an example.

Other principle arterial streets: These combine with controlled access facilities to carry the major movements of traffic to, from, and through Arlington County. Other principle arterial streets are distinguished from controlled access facilities by having at-grade intersections, with traffic signals at many of the major intersections. Other principle arterials are distinguished from minor arterials in that greater priority is given to efficient vehicular travel movement along the street. Examples: Sycamore Street; Williamsburg Boulevard from the Williamsburg Circle to Old Dominion; Lee Highway; Washington Boulevard.

Minor arterial streets serve travel as a result of the land use nearby and connect neighborhood streets to principle arterial streets. They carry a mix of traffic which is both local and through in nature. Minor arterial streets are distinguished from principle arterial streets in that greater emphasis is placed on serving the needs of the local community and fronting properties. Unlike neighborhood principal streets, minor arterial streets are to accommodate some through traffic. Examples: Little Falls Between the Williamsburg Traffic Circle and No. Lexington; North John Marshall Drive; Harrison Street.

Neighborhood principal streets are neighborhood streets providing direct access to abutting land use, and the number of lanes should be directly related to the size of, and intensity of land use in the area they serve. Unlike minor arterial streets, the use of neighborhood principal streets as links between streets in the arterial network should not be accommodated where it is disruptive to the neighborhood. Neighborhood principal streets serve a broader area than neighborhood minor streets; generally the entire area bounded by the arterial network. Examples: Powhatan Street from the Williamsburg Traffic Circle to the Fairfax County line; 26th Street North near Tuckahoe School.

Neighborhood minor streets serve the abutting land use in the immediate area. Neighborhood minor streets do not provide as high a degree of consolidation of access within the neighborhood or between a neighborhood and the arterial network, as neighborhood principal streets. Examples: North Ohio; North Nottingham; Somerset. Most streets in our Civic Association are classified as neighborhood minor streets.

Arlington County has devised a program called Neighborhood Traffic Calming. This program works primarily for neighborhood streets. Some of the traffic problems identified in our neighborhood survey are eligible for this program:

• Several years ago, our neighbors in the Arlington-East Falls Church Civic Association initiated the East Falls Church Traffic Project, which includes several streets in our boundary lines. If approved, several of the neighborhood streets identified in our neighborhood survey as problem streets (i.e., near O'Connell High School) will get traffic calming.
• Another street in our Civic Association – Powhatan Street from the Williamsburg Traffic Circle to the Fairfax County line – has been accepted as an NTC project. A working group from the project area came up with a series of proposed measures. The group circulated a petition endorsing these measures; 90% of the residents in the project area signed.
• Nearby residents on Somerset, 36th Street, and 35th Road have requested assistance, but has not yet convinced the County there is a problem. However, several of the measures proposed in the Powhatan Street project are designed to discourage cut-through traffic on these streets. In addition, the County has promised to perform a study of cut-through traffic and will resurvey after the Powhatan measures have been implemented.

• Residents of Little Falls Road between North Harrison and North Lexington requested traffic calming in 2001. On August 6th, 2003, the County's Neighborhood Traffic Calming Committee (NTCC), selected Little Falls Road from North Harrison Street to North Lexington Street to be eligible to receive traffic calming. More Information

• Residents of three other streets have requested traffic calming; and County studies have shown that each of these streets meets County guidelines. However, the County has not yet accepted these streets, because other streets "score" higher according to County measures. The streets are:
  • North Kensington Street between Yorktown Boulevard and Williamsburg Boulevard
  • 28th Street from Sycamore to Powhatan
  • 27th Street between Ohio and John Marshall

Arterial Streets: Unfortunately, arterial streets – which pose the greatest danger to pedestrians due to a combination of speed, hills and curves (which limit visibility), and width (which increases crossing time) – are the all-but-abandoned orphans of Arlington County's traffic calming programs. The County is only now "starting to develop approaches for addressing traffic calming (speed reduction and pedestrian safety) on arterial roads."

In the meantime, our options for arterial streets are limited.

• Request that the County Transportation Commission address these issues through funding in the Capital Improvement Program. On 10 October 2001, WCA sent a letter with requesting traffic calming on our arterial streets. WCA testified at a Transportation Commission meeting in December 2001. The County has now begun a long-delayed study on measures to calm traffic and improve pedestrian safety on arterial streets. More Information
• Ask for better police enforcement of speed limits and stop signs on problem streets. Complaints and requests for police surveillance are an important avenue for convincing County officials of taxpayer concerns. If you are concerned about cut-through traffic and speeders on your streets or on streets you cross going to work or walking, call for police surveillance. More Information
• Streets in close proximity to Nottingham Elementary are eligible for funding through the Safe Routes to School program. This program is funding a stretch of missing sidewalk on the Little Falls block near the school.
• In some cases, we may be able to join forces with the bicycle lobby, which is much better organized and more influential than Arlington pedestrians. One goal of the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee is a network of bicycle lanes, which (if strictly enforced) would greatly reduce street width.
• The other possibility is funding through the Neighborhood Conservation program. We have targeted several problem streets as Neighborhood Conservation programs:
  • Little Falls Road between the Williamsburg Traffic Circle and North Kensington
  • Williamsburg Boulevard from the Williamsburg Traffic Circle to North Trinidad Street
  • Sycamore Street from 26th Street to Williamsburg Circle

We have also asked County traffic officials how to go about getting an integrated program for our community, analogous to the Lyon Village Traffic Calming program or the Pedestrian Initiative in the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor. The Lyon Village program, which was approved by the County Board on 11 July 1998, included:

• Eight gateway treatments (narrowing of roadway to 22 feet, landscaping, and wide stretches of textured pavement to alert drivers that they are entering a residential neighborhood)
• Two raised crosswalks
• Five flat top speed humps
• 18 textured crosswalks
• Three landscaped traffic circles
• One narrowed intersection
• Three other intersection reconstructions.

Many Williamsburg residents believe that the only way to resolve traffic issues in our neighborhood is through an integrated program such as the one enjoyed by Lyon Village residents – a program that looks at the entire neighborhood, instead of concentrating on street-by-street "remedies" that merely push the problem from one street to the next.

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