Fairfax County has been saying they want to make the roads in Fairfax safer for all users for a few years now. They have, to be fair, initiated new bike facilities, masterplans, better crosswalk management systems, and in general reduced their prioritization of higher vehicles speeds in populated corridors. However yesterday’s two incidents, spaced only hours apart, leaving one person injured on Gallows Road and one person tragically killed on Chain Bridge Road in McLean show that the changes are perhaps too slow and too ambiguous.
Both incidents occurred at crosswalks where the pedestrian had the legal right of way to cross, and in both cases the drivers who struck the pedestrian also did nothing wrong. That is the problem. Too often in the war of words between pedestrian safety advocates and car commuters the battle begins with “That driver should have been” or “What was that person doing in the street” and other such meaningless debates. Accidents are called accidents for a reason, there was no malicious intent, it is circumstance and environment meeting together to cause a terrible outcome.
Fairfax needs to understand that the environment is what needs to be fixed, and quickly. A perfect example of a decision that Fairfax (and VDOT) simply refuse to make is to time signals in a manner to provide additional pedestrian safety. Currently signals basically ignore pedestrians, even in densely populated corridors like Chain Bridge Road in McLean, and instead provide priority to moving vehicles at the highest rate possible. The addition of a 10-second all red for pedestrian crossings may not have saved a person’s life, but it would have increased the likelihood that all drivers at the intersection were at a complete stop, recognizing the objects and people in the intersection, and therefore giving a higher probability that they would not have missed seeing 84-year old Elvira Slijepcevic.
Yes, providing this 10-second all red (or longer) would bring hisses from the peanut gallery, perhaps putting at risk a few political careers, but it is the right thing to do in areas where pedestrians make high frequency trips as is the case at this heavily traveled intersection next to a highly used bus stop. Providing better crosswalk delineation, raised crosswalks, color definition, and signage might not have been a factor in this case, but the cumulative grouping of all of these elements alerts drivers that this isn’t a suburban/rural arterial road and that they should be at a heightened observation level.
I know that the County staff really do want these changes to begin happening and to help the lives of residents in established towns and neighborhoods, but unfortunately the reality of politics and constituent complaints about commuter inconvenience can often distract from the real needs of the community.
What is a delay of less than a minute to one person’s commute often boils down to costing another person’s safety and life.