FABB Blog

 

Fairfax County Parkway Trail now open

Fairfax Co Parkway Trail at Rt 50 - looking south

Thanks to SouthLakesMom who commented on our earlier post about the Parkway trail being closed. She referenced an email message that she received from Lauren Mollerup of VDOT who said the trail opened on Monday morning. Today we decided to ride down and check it out.

The trail segment that has been closed for nearly a year is now open between Route 50 and Fair Lakes Parkway. Paving has not been completed and as you can see from the photo on the right the trail surface is a mix of gravel and dirt. The photo is looking south toward Fair Lakes Pkwy from near the Route 50 overpass.

New Parkway trail - looking north toward Rt 50

There are actually two trails in this segment, the original trail that is now mostly dirt. It's located to the left of the sound barrier in the photo above. The two trails converge at the pond in the lower photo which is looking north toward Route 50. Where you see the orange fencing the trails split again, with one following the path of the original trail and the new trail.

There are no signs and where the trails converge is a little confusing. I think the geese in the lower photo seem to have taken a wrong turn.

This is far from idea but at least the trail is open. We saw some tire tracks in the dirt so others have discovered it. We hope the new trail is paved soon. We have long wanted some kind of wayfinding signage on this trail; it was a FABB goal in 2005 and despite our many attempts to work with the county and VDOT there are still no signs. Maybe this is a good time to restart that project.

Labels: fairfax county parkway trail, temporary access, vdot

posted by Bruce Wright at 2:49 PM permalink