Safe Routes to School (Bike/Walk 2 School)
Kiss and Ride
For the safety of all students and families walking and riding to school, please use only the designated Kiss and Ride lanes for child drop off and pick up by car.
NOT a kiss and ride zone
For everyone's safety, please do NOT park on Talisman Drive when dropping off (or picking up) students from Wolftrap. Please obey the no stopping signs and no parking cones placed by our student patrol teams in both the mornings and the afternoons. For the safety of all families using this highly trafficked area at the start and end of each day, please avoid stopping or parking on Talisman Drive next to the school. If your child is not a walker or busser, please use the designated Kiss and Ride lanes only.
Safety Improvements
There are three new improvements on Beulah Road for bike and pedestrian safety!
1. There are new bike lanes! New re-striping on Beulah Road near Wolftrap Elementary School includes improvements for pedestrian and bike safety. When part of Beulah Road was resurfaced with a slurry seal to prolong the time between paving, VDOT coordinated with FCDOT to add striping for bike lanes and turn lanes. These lane-narrowing measures should help slow traffic to make biking and walking nearby safer. Bike lane plans came from the existing Countywide Bicycle Master Plan: https://www.
2. A crosswalk was added across Beulah Road at Abbotsford Drive. There have been multiple requests in the community over the years to increase pedestrian safety at that location. This is a great start. There is not yet signage for the new crosswalk so cars approaching cannot see it from a distance. Also, drivers are not expecting it since it is new. It is not the recommended crossing when walking or biking to and from school. The speed limit is 35mph at this location, unlike 25mph at the Talisman/Beulah crosswalk in front of the school.
3. A safer crosswalk will be built across Beulah Road at Talisman Dr. Future crosswalk improvements are planned at Beulah Road and Talisman Drive, the crosswalk for Wolftrap Elementary School. This will be funded through a federal Safe Routes to School (SRTS) grant, which has been a years long effort of the Wolftrap Elementary community. The future work at the Beulah/Talisman Drive crosswalk is projected for August 2022 through July 2023. These improvements should make the crossing at Talisman Drive safer for neighborhood residents, elementary students, transit bus riders using the Beulah/Talisman stop, and middle and high school students who cross to bus stops.
Questions? Contact Alison Gramann and the Beulah Road Safety Committee at alison.gramann@gmail.com.
Beulah Road Crosswalk Update
Good news! In June 2018, our crosswalk was awarded a Transportation Alternatives Project (TAP) Grant through VDOT of $200,000. The Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) will be designing the improvements in early 2019 and will set a schedule for completion. Initial expectations are that work will be completed by 2021. The many completed parent surveys in October 2017, and letters of support from our crossing guard, Mrs. Edie Adcock, and Mrs. Khuluki all contributed to this win for our community. Thank you! We look forward to seeing what FCDOT will design to improve safety at our crosswalk. See below for updates from March 2019.
The safety issues we hope the crosswalk improvements will address include:
1) It is only safe to cross if our crossing guard is present.
2) Cars do not stop for pedestrians at the crosswalk.
3) Cars drive around cars stopped for pedestrians at the crosswalk.
4) Cars are driving over the speed limit, and the speed limit is ambiguous, either 25 or 35mph.
5) Traffic volume and speed is so great that we cannot walk home safely from after-school or evening activities when the crossing guard is not present.
In January 2019, members of the Beulah Road Safety Committee inquired with VDOT if the 35mph speed limit on Beulah Road would meet criteria to be lowered to 25mph to increase safety of pedestrians crossing. Vehicles with speeds well above 35mph approach the crosswalk from the north direction, endangering pedestrians in the crosswalk. Updates will be posted as information becomes available.
If you would like to contact the Beulah Road Safety Committee about the crosswalk or other concerns, email alison.gramann@gmail.com and peterwintermute@gmail.com .
The March 2019 Hunter Mill Highlights newsletter from Supervisor Hudgins included this update with other transportation notes:
Beulah Road Crosswalk
Pedestrian improvements are coming to Wolf Trap Elementary School in Vienna. The project will bring improvements to the school’s main crossing on Beulah Road at Talisman Drive. The improvements will provide 7-foot to 15-foot bump outs and an 8-foot median refuge for the crosswalk (which creates a possibility of a future pedestrian beacon device), and creation of a southbound right turn lane, on-road bike lanes, and transitional median striping as road diet treatments. This will help further the protection of the crosswalk while enhancing the features of the road diet and help de-ter illegal passing on the road. Peak arrival and departure hours will still be patrolled by a crossing guard.
Check out the local update on our crosswalk from the Tysons Reporter, on February 6, 2019:
