Roads & Rage
Proposed Road Diet for Annandale and Gallows Road

The entire Gallows Road upgrade is expected to take 15 to 20 years to complete, although some short and middle-term improvements could be done sooner.

The preferred option for the southern segment of Gallows Road includes these configurations.

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) has been proposing for some time to reconfigure Annandale Road during the summer/fall 2025.  The proposed road diet will repurpose two of the four lanes of vehicle traffic between Little River Turnpike and Gallows Road by adding a center turn lane and bike lanes.  The benefits of road diets include safety improvements, traffic calming, and better mobility access for all users.  Each lane will be shrunk from 14 to 11 feet in width.

By removing or repurposing lanes devoted to vehicle traffic, the overall impact is typically fewer cars on that road and reduced travel speeds, often for the relatively low cost of restriping, according to the transportation department.  Ideally this configuration would also reduce rear-end collisions since turns will take place from the center lane  traffic study showed that a road diet would add slight traffic delays at key intersections.

Road diets have been successful in reducing the number of cars on the road but often that means those cars are diverting to neighborhood side streets. In recent years FCDOT reports traffic actually declined on Annandale Road – from an average of 16,000 cars per day in 2019 to 13,850 in 2022. Of course this was during the height of the pandemic when road traffic declined on all roads.

Pedestrians crossing  are supposed to be safer since pedestrians are able to stop in the center of the street (providing no cars are turning and traveling in the middle lane) rather than having to wait for a gap in traffic. Pedestrian refuge islands and additional crosswalks could be added in the future but are not part of the road diet proposal.  Pedestrian refuge islands are MOST unlikely since they would need to be built in the middle turn lane.  Pedestrian crossings will continue to be hazardous under this road diet plan without signalized crosswalks.

What is not taken into account is that the many residential neighborhoods whose drivers utilize Annandale Road are too distant to walk or bike to shops and services let alone bring back the shopping. Annandale was built as a commuter community with all commercial property built in the center and residential built in the surround.  It was built for vehicular shopping and that will not change despite road diets and bike lanes.

Disadvantages of a Road Diet:

• Emergency vehicles do not have space to pass,  leading to longer response times endangering people and homes.
• Added congestion during commute periods.
• Road Rage can be a problem.
• Drivers divert to side streets through side streets making neighborhoods less safe when faced with long lines of traffic waiting to cycle through lights.
• City buses can cause long lines of traffic when picking up or dropping off passengers. 

Currently the Dept of Transportation is running an online survey for comments from the public.  Be assured, this is simply a PR exercise and will NOT change thee plan.  Once VDOT decides their preferred course of action, they will not be moved by public sentiment.

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