Fairfax County Parkway Now Open

On Monday morning the last link in the 35-mile Fairfax County Parkway was opened to motorists traveling in both north and southbound lanes. It marks the end of a project that was 23 years in the making. The final portion of the project was a 1.8-mile section located near Fullerton and Barta Roads in Springfield. It connects the Parkway from Route 7 in Dranesville to Route 1 in Lorton.

A number of local officials were on hand to mark the occasion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week including Congressman Gerry Connolly, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Sharon Bulova and Supervisor of the Mount Vernon District Gerry Hyland.

Hyland said that the completion of the project marks "another step forward for Fairfax County residents. It has certainly been a long time coming and will improve the commute of our residents, especially those working at Fort Belvoir. "

Though initial proposals and studies date back much longer, final plans for the Fairfax County Parkway as an "outer beltway" were approved by the Commonwealth Transportation Board on July 16, 1987.

The section that completed the parkway is named in honor of Virginia State Police Trooper Charles Mark Cosslett, a motorcycle officer who was killed in the line of duty during the period in 2002 when sniper shootings were plaguing the area. Cosslett was responding to a sniper-related call when he was involved in a fatal car accident.

The project was the result of many partnerships between several groups, both public and private, including the Army, VDOT, Fairfax County, the Federal Highway Administration and Cherry Hill Construction.

According to Mike Salmon, a spokesperson for Virginia Megaprojects, the groups made a special effort to keep citizens informed. "There were a lot of citizen information meetings and we met with a lot of HOAs. We gave out a lot of maps," he said.

The various groups involved contributed to the funding and a portion of the project was paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The project was finished ahead of schedule and comes in time to accommodate 8,500 employees who will be relocating to the area to work with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's Campus East as part of Base Realignment and Closing (BRAC).

In addition to alleviate traffic issues for those employees specifically, the completion of the project benefits Fairfax County as a whole and those affected by the other BRAC-related traffic congestion.

"It really helps everyone in the area," Salmon said. "People will notice an improvement in traffic right away."

The opening of both lanes of Fairfax County Parkway concludes Phase II of a Four-Phase Project.

For more information, including maps and timelines, on traffic projects resulting from BRAC visit: http://www.vamegaprojects.com/about-megaprojects/fairfax-county-parkwaybrac/