Virginia is reported to have some of the safest drivers in the country. However, if you’re a Madison student, this can be hard to believe. Watching classmates race against other cars at the crack of dawn to make it to school on time becomes just as competitive as a Friday night football game.
With over 30,000 vehicles passing through Maple Avenue each day, the whole street has its dangers. But the Maple-Nutley intersection is one of the most hazardous in Vienna. With confusing turn lanes, no legal U-turns, multiple parking lots with exits onto Maple Avenue, drive throughs letting out directly onto the road and dozens of students at each crosswalk once 3pm hits, the dangers really stack up.
“Especially right around the high school where not everybody is the best driver, it’s really difficult to have hard-to-navigate intersections because people don’t understand the right-of-way rules, they don’t always look and check their surroundings before they drive, and often there are parents who are in a hurry and also not paying attention to the rules of the road,” Sierra Rossman (‘24) said. “It’s quite dangerous to drive there and there have been times where, like, I’ve almost been hit by other cars.”
The Town of Vienna is beginning to recognize this long-standing issue. The Vienna Town Council met in August to announce plans to enhance the technology used to recognize and manage traffic patterns throughout the day within the Maple and Nutley intersection. The budget for this project is $2.1 million and is scheduled to be completed in 2024. It is intended to provide relief for morning and evening rush hour traffic along the intersecting roads.
Maple Avenue is where the action is. This intersection, despite being just a fraction of the whole road, is constantly congested with pedestrians and vehicles leaving and entering Madison, as well as walking to popular hangout spots like Chick-fil-A, Wawa and Coco’s every day. This project is designed to relieve both pedestrians and vehicles of anxiety about the area we spend so much daily time in.
According to the Town of Vienna website, “The Town is turning to enhanced signal technology to ensure that the wheels on vehicles along Maple Avenue and Nutley Street keep going round and round.”