The Richmond Highway corridor through Fairfax County is becoming more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, according to a group trying to improve safety.
Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets released an analysis this week showing 62 pedestrians and cyclists were killed or seriously injured along the Richmond Highway — also known as Route 1 — over the past nine years. Of those people who were struck, 22 died.
The group said the most dangerous stretch runs about 6.6 miles between Belvoir Road and South Kings Highway — accounting for 58% of all crashes, the report said.
If you’ve driven Route 1 at night, the lighting situation may not surprise you. The report found 77% of all serious crashes and 95% of fatalities happened in the dark. More than half of those nighttime crashes happened on segments that were lit — which the group said suggests the existing streetlights are ineffective.
The report found roughly 65% of serious crashes and 82% of fatalities happened outside a marked crosswalk or intersection. And 58% of crashes happened within 200 feet of a bus stop, where people often cross midblock rather than walk to a distant controlled crossing.
The report found alcohol was involved in 47% of all serious crashes along the corridor, a rate that has climbed above 51% since COVID, Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets said. The intersection at Richmond Highway and Huntington Avenue had an 80% alcohol involvement rate in serious crashes, with the group pointing to nearby motels, a Virginia ABC store and a homeless shelter as contributing factors.
The number of deadly crashes has also jumped sharply. The group said the number of crashes where someone was killed or seriously injured grew from 3 in 2018 to 11 in 2024, roughly a fourfold increase.
With Bus Rapid Transit stops planned for the corridor, Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets is urging local and state officials to carry out a dedicated pedestrian and cyclist safety study before construction begins. Bus Rapid Transit is a public transportation system that moves riders across the D.C. area, according to the transportation authority’s website.
According to the analysis, two proposed stops sit next to existing crash clusters, and current designs use landscaped medians without physical pedestrian barriers.
The group is calling on the Virginia Department of Transportation, Fairfax County and WMATA to upgrade lighting at the five highest-priority crash sites, redesign four bus stop intersections to allow single-crossing pedestrian access, and install pedestrian refuge islands and HAWK signals at high-volume midblock crossing locations.