 Look for Bikes: Before you turn right, look for bikes. And before you open your door, look for bikes. Arlington is a bike-friendly community—look for and expect bikes as you drive and exit vehicles to help make our streets safer for everyone.
Learn more about why bike safety matters.
Since the adoption of Vision Zero, Arlington has implemented several initiatives to reduce speeds and improve safety on arterial roads throughout the County. Speed is important to our Vision Zero goals because the higher the speed, the higher the potential for injury or death.
After gathering data from before and after implementations, we’ve reviewed how effective these initiatives have been at reducing driver speeds.
In summary, findings showed that neither the addition of signs nor speed limit reductions alone were effective in significantly lowering driver speeds. What was effective were projects that physically changed the roadway such as:
- Roadway narrowing
- Addition of bike lanes
- Curb modifications
- New crosswalks
- All-way stop controls
Speed remains a major contributor to severe and fatal crashes in Arlington, factoring into over one third of these critical crashes in the County. As we learned in the before/after studies above, changing the features on the roadway is the most effective way to reduce driver speeds.
Changes like roadway reconfigurations hinge on the repaving cycle or capital investment. Other improvements (such as curb modifications, crosswalks, or traffic control changes) may not be applicable along every road. Therefore, Arlington’s transportation team is launching a countywide Speed Management Pilot Safety Project to test new, context-appropriate ways of encouraging safer motor vehicle speeds on our arterial streets.
Beginning this summer, you’ll see new kinds of signage and roadway markings along several higher-volume, higher-speed roads across the County. See images below for the six new-to-Arlington safety tools that will be applied during the pilot. We will collect data to measure their effectiveness and develop a proven set of tools for managing vehicle speeds and reducing the risks of severe and fatal crashes in our community.
 You can do your part to keep yourself and others on the road safe: Observe the posted speed limit and slow down when you see other road users, especially people walking and biking.
For more information on the tools we’ll test during the pilot, project locations and other information about this effort, see the VZ Pilot Project Info sheet here.
Downhill Bike Lane Safety Pilot
Earlier this month, our crews installed Downhill Bike Lane & Right Turn Safety devices at three of the four pilot locations:
- Clarendon Blvd & 17th St N
- Clarendon Blvd & N Scott St
- Clarendon Blvd & Driveway Across from N Troy St
The pilot will test the use of tactical materials to slow drivers down before turning across the bike lane and increase awareness of oncoming bicyclists. Staff will actively monitor the pilot locations and will make recommendations or adjustments as needed.
The fourth pilot location, Wilson Blvd & N Manchester St, will be installed this summer along with additional improvements on Wilson Blvd.
Route 50/Highland St Safety Pilot
Last week, the County launched the Route 50/Highland Median Closure Pilot to restrict left turn and through movements at the intersection. The pilot aims to reduce crash risks caused by uncontrolled movements over multiple lanes of high-speed traffic on Route 50.
Next steps include:
- Monitor the intersection and collect data to assess impacts of the pilot (summer 2025),
- Collect community feedback on the changes (fall 2025),
- Share next steps for the pilot based on findings from the data and community feedback (winter 2025).
- Based on the results of the pilot, Arlington and VDOT may consider implementing this treatment at other intersections on Route 50 before construction begins on the permanent safety project in 2030.
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Round 3 Tactical Speed Hump Pilot Update
The County is expanding the Tactical Speed Humps Pilot to seven additional sites in summer 2025 due to the safety benefits expressed by community members and significant reductions in speeding recorded along corridors found in Round 1 and Round 2 of the pilot. Crews will start to install tactical speed humps at the end of May, and it will take several weeks to complete all locations.
Pilot Locations: Round 3 Pilot Locations (Anticipated Installation: Spring/Summer 2025)
- Campbell Elementary: 7th Rd S
- Tuckahoe Elementary: N Trinidad St
- Washington-Liberty High: 15th St N
- Nottingham ES: N Ohio St
- Randolph Elementary: 16th St S
- Discovery Elementary/Williamsburg Middle: N Kensington St
- Arlington Science Focus Elementary: N Lincoln St
Thank you to everyone who participated in our 4th Annual Safety Feedback Form!
Our team received 661 online responses, 14 mailed responses, and had 1,007 in-person interactions. We are thankful for your valuable feedback on transportation safety in Arlington. We will publish the engagement summary in late summer 2025 and look forward to incorporating what we learned into our Vision Zero planning and programming.
In case you missed it, this past April we published the Annual (2024) Vision Zero Progress Report and the Virtual Open House Story Map. Both are great resources to lean about Vision Zero safety initiatives and progress throughout the county.
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The Vision Zero team hosted a table at Arlington Palooza, the County’s annual recreation and music festival earlier this month. The team handed out Vision Zero t-shirts, car magnets, and brochures outlining tips when installing a car seat. Thank you everyone who stopped by for a visit!
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 You may have noticed some changes with the Vision Zero website recently! We’ve done a bit of spring cleaning to improve the layout and navigation for users. Be patient with us as there may be some things out of place while we finish up these updates.
If you are having trouble finding a page, please use the County’s search bar.
As part of the Columbia Pike Bike Boulevards project, the Transportation Engineering and Operations team has completed all way stop analysis for intersections across the Columbia Pike Bicycle Boulevard Corridor and determined the following intersections meet the requirements for an All Way Stop:
- S Dinwiddie and 8th Street S
- S Dinwiddie and 9th Street S
- 9th Street S and S Buchanan St
- 9th Street S and S Highland
- 12th Street S and S Monroe
Additional evaluations to enhance safety for all users are also underway and include:
 Learn more about this project on the project page.
The Youth of Virginia Speak Out About Traffic Safety (YOVASO) is excited to invite students to the Summer Leadership Retreat at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA on July 17-20. The Retreat is a lot of fun with a new 2025 beach theme, "Tides, Vibes, and Safe Rides." Student participants will learn how to be safer and more responsible drivers through interactive, hands-on experiences and gain valuable leadership skills to work as youth traffic safety advocates in their schools and communities! Daily action-planning workshops will help students prepare projects and activities to address teen driver safety issues for the 2025-26 school year.
Go to www.yovaso.org/summer-retreat/ website to fill out the online Registration form or print the form and mail to YOVASO, Va State Police Division 6, 3775 West Main St, Salem, VA 24153. The deadline to register is June 22.
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Visit the Vision Zero Safety Projects page to learn more about safety-driven quick build projects, capital projects, pilot projects, High-Injury Network safety audits, and more.
Also, check out our Crash Data Dashboard that shows crash data over the last 10 years, how and where we implement safety tools from the multimodal safety toolbox, our various safety initiatives, speed reduction corridors, and where we are doing outreach/engagement.
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