Article Text

After years of complaints about speeding, crashes and the lack of sidewalks, residents along Newington Road in southern Fairfax County have secured new traffic-calming measures.

Crews installed four speed humps and one speed table in late 2025, along with illuminated signs. Average speeds have since fallen on the narrow connector road, where residents say multiple vehicles have overturned into drainage ditches over the years.

The Fairfax County Department of Transportation proposed the measures during an April 10, 2025, community meeting. Ryan O’Carroll of the department said the plan reflected the available options identified during a site visit. Diego Rodriguez Cabrera, representing Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck, also attended.

The work followed a neighborhood campaign that included a website and a petition signed by about 100 residents. Organizers called for a safer, healthier and more accessible community and said they planned to maintain the site until Fairfax County builds a sidewalk along Newington Road.

Residents welcomed the humps and speed table as a compromise, but many still consider sidewalks the needed long-term solution.

Concerns about the road are not new. An Oct. 22, 2015, county staff report identified poor sight distances, narrow lanes and a lack of pedestrian facilities between Cinder Bed Road and Telegraph Road. Staff recommended keeping proposed improvements on county transportation planning maps, although no firm project or funding was available at the time.

Another upgrade is underway nearby at Cinder Bed and Newington roads. That intersection project includes a traffic signal that transportation planners expect to become operational in the coming weeks.