Arlington is planning to ask for as much as $85 million in grant funding for three traffic projects aimed at making roads safer.
The Arlington County Board is scheduled to consider whether to ask for the grants during its meeting Monday.
ARLNow first reported the county’s plan to ask for approval to pursue the funding.
Rich Roisman, Arlington’s Regional Transportation Coordinator, said the plan would include requesting $35 million for the Arlington Boulevard/Washington Boulevard interchange, $25 million for upgrades along Glebe Road between Interstate 66 and Columbia Pike, and $25 million for improvements to the Interstate 395 and Shirlington Rotary Interchange, plus a small portion of the interchange with Glebe Road.
The I-395 interchange project is being pursued jointly with the City of Alexandria, Roisman said.
“The overriding issue with all of these locations is really traffic safety,” Roisman said.
The Arlington Boulevard/Washington Boulevard interchange, he said, is the “number one crash location in Arlington County. There historically have been a lot of crashes there, some of them with injuries.”
If the county receives the money for upgrades to that area, Roisman said they would improve the geometry of the intersection. That would include changes to ramps, signals and turn lanes, according to county documents.
“There are some motorists, in particular, and cyclists that simply avoid going through there, because it’s just too dangerous to go through,” Roisman said.
The area is dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, he said, because “the Arlington Boulevard trail crosses a merge ramp there that is effectively a blind merge. It’s a really dangerous condition that we are planning to rectify, assuming we get the funding from the state.”
Arlington would be applying for the funding under the state’s Smart Scale program, which Roisman said is Virginia’s largest discretionary funding program for capital projects. Applications will be finalized by Aug. 1, and then the county will learn whether it’s getting money for the projects next spring.
If they’re granted funding, Virginia’s Department of Transportation would likely oversee the projects, Roisman said.
For the projects to be finished, it’d probably take “a minimum of five years but potentially longer. The actual schedule will be set based on the funding decision and based on the complexity of the project,” he said.
Arlington is seeking $25 million for improvements to nine intersections along Glebe Road between I-66 and Columbia Pike.
A third application, being put together with Alexandria through the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, would ask for another $25 million for improvements to the I-395 Shirlington Rotary and South Glebe Road interchange.
“Any time you can improve traffic safety, particularly with the way that crash rates have been going up since the pandemic, the community is always going to be supportive,” Roisman said. “They’re sometimes frustrated by how long it takes to deliver these projects, but the first step is getting the funding to go ahead and do so, and then we can implement.”
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