Fairfax proposes sidewalks, a shared-use path and new crosswalks for Route 29 inside the Beltway

By Staff Reporter

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Fairfax County transportation planners want to add about two miles of new sidewalk, a 1.5-mile shared-use path and a string of new crosswalks to Route 29 between the Capital Beltway and the Falls Church city line, and they are taking public comments on the plan through Nov. 9.

The recommendations, presented Oct. 14 at Timber Lane Elementary School, are the third and final round of the Route 29 Active Transportation Study, which began in July 2025 and covers the two-mile stretch from I-495 to Tripps Run, just east of South Maple Avenue. The Fairfax County Department of Transportation expects to finish a final report by the end of the year.

The study marks a turn for the corridor. The county’s comprehensive plan still calls for Route 29 there to be widened from four lanes to six, according to the study page. FFXnow reported that the widening idea dates to 1986 and was never built.

What the county is proposing

According to the meeting presentation, the west end of the corridor would get a shared-use path on the south side and a sidewalk on the north side. In places, the path would replace a service road or narrow it to a single one-way lane. The path would end at Graham Road, with wider sidewalks on both sides from there to the city line.

Intersection changes listed by FCDOT and reported by FFXnow include a crosswalk, pedestrian refuge island and curb extensions at Shreve Road; a possible midblock crossing near Windsor Road; a possible lane reconfiguration at Hollywood Road; removal of eastbound left-turn lanes in favor of a tree-lined median near the National Funeral Home and Memorial Park cemetery; bus stop improvements at West Street; and a landscaped median with left-turn pockets replacing the center turn lane near Greenway Boulevard.

Every recommendation is subject to approval by the Virginia Department of Transportation, which maintains the road, the presentation notes.

The county also projects an 88 percent reduction in crashes that kill or seriously injure someone and in pedestrian crashes, a 59 percent drop in bicycle crashes and a 15 percent drop in angle crashes. Those figures are estimates derived from standard crash-reduction factors published by VDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, not observed results.

Funding and timing are open questions

The plan has no construction money attached. The study page says future projects “would be implemented over time and subject to additional development, coordination and funding availability,” and the presentation lists pursuing funding, design and right-of-way acquisition as next steps after the board is notified.

Survey respondents earlier this year were nearly evenly split on whether to favor quicker, cheaper fixes like crosswalks and bus stops or bigger sidewalk and path projects that would take a decade or more, according to the presentation.

“We have very limited space that’s available, so how do we use the space in a different way that really goes about achieving the goal of making the area more walkable, more bikeable?” Mike Garcia, chief of FCDOT’s transportation planning section, told FFXnow.

Some residents at the meeting said the plan did not go far enough. One attendee told FFXnow he was disappointed that the bike facilities would cover only part of the corridor but welcomed the missing sidewalk links. “It’s really dangerous that the sidewalks aren’t connected,” he said.

Comments can be submitted through the survey linked on the study page through Nov. 9.

The Inquisitor sent requests for comment to the Fairfax County Department of Transportation and its project manager, Nanditha Paradkar, the Virginia Department of Transportation, the City of Falls Church and Fairfax County’s Office of Public Affairs on Wednesday afternoon, before publication. This story will be updated with any responses.

Photo: Route 29 at the Capital Beltway on the edge of West Falls Church (2019). Famartin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.