Fairfax named deadliest county for pedestrians
By Monty Tayloe
Fairfax County is the “most unsafe locality for walkers in the region,” according to a study released last week.
“Washington Area's Mean Streets,” a study by the Coalition For Smarter Growth, said Fairfax County has the highest “Pedestrian Death Index” of metropolitan Washington. The index is calculated as a function of population relative to number of pedestrian deaths.
The study listed Richmond Highway (Route 1) as the area's most deadly road, with 22 pedestrian fatalities occurring there between 1995 and 2005.
According to the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, the county's most deadly single intersection for pedestrians is in the Seven Corners area, where Route 50 meets Patrick Henry Highway.
According to Fairfax County Pedestrian Programming Manager Chris Wells, Fairfax's high pedestrian death and injury rate is partly a factor of location.
Wells says that among transportation experts, 33 miles per hour represents a kind of line of pedestrian survival. Walkers hit by cars traveling slower than 33 mph are likely to survive, while walkers hit by faster cars are more likely to die of their injuries. Therefore, Fairfax's miles of sprawling highways are more dangerous than slower urban streets.
“If you get hit by a car on our 45-mile-an-hour roads, you're more likely to be killed,” explained Wells. The pedestrian expert also says that the increase in Fairfax's immigrant population has been a factor.
“Many of these people don't own cars, and that means they have to use pedestrian and transit facilities,” Wells said.
Being designated the deadliest locality for pedestrians is a considerable slap in the face for Fairfax politicians who have made “walkability” and pedestrian-friendly design county policy.
“There's no acknowledgment of the way we do land use in Fairfax, we always dwell on the negative,” said Supervisor Jeff McKay (Lee).
Cheryl Cort, policy director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth and author of the study, agrees with McKay.
“Fairfax has taken the first step and paid a lot of attention to pedestrian safety,” Cort said. “VDOT is the culprit,” she added.
Cort, Wells and McKay all blame VDOT's strict regulations regarding the use of crosswalks and other pedestrian safety aids for Fairfax's problem with pedestrian safety.
“Arlington and Alexandria control their own roads, but we're under VDOT jurisdiction. You can't compare apples to oranges,” McKay said.
“VDOT continues to build roadways with the viewpoint of how to speed more motorists down the highway,” Cort said.
According to VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris, VDOT already considers pedestrian safety a priority.
“I don't agree with that characterization at all. For one thing, we're upgrading pedestrian signals all over Northern Virgina to countdown signals,” Morris said.
McKay also acknowledges that VDOT has become more open to pedestrian-friendly engineering, citing the walker-friendly facilities on the recent Wilson Bridge renovation as an example.
“Look at the Mixing Bowl – there's no pedestrian or bike facilities. You only have to go three exits down [to the Wilson Bridge] to see that they've made great strides,” McKay said.
“But VDOT's not there yet,” he added. Email the reporter at mtayloe@timespapers.com