Newington Exit off I-95 gets congestion regularly.
Most local drivers know the traffic congestion problems surrounding the intersection at Loisdale Road and the Fairfax County Parkway in Newington. Traffic on the northbound exit from I-95 meets southbound traffic from Springfield and Fort Belvoir trying to get on the highway. There’s a busy gas station, a hotel, office park and an oil storage facility on the fringes, and all this traffic feeds through one traffic signal, causing congestion and accidents. Stay clear if you are a bicyclist or pedestrian; there are absolutely no paths or sidewalks in place to get through this intersection.
“It can be hectic, mostly at rush hour,” said the cashier at the nearby gas station. “Some people do a U-turn when they’re not supposed to, and drivers from out of town ask about getting back on 95,” she added.
This troubled intersection, known as Exit 166, is on the VDOT radar and is listed on their "I-95 Proposed Improvements," project outline. Potential improvement for this interchange includes interchange configuration, and a flyover ramp to the northbound lanes of the Fairfax County Parkway, but the timeline for any changes is sometime down the road.
According to VDOT, “that location of I-95 was identified as an area with numerous performance issues in the top 25% for the entire corridor for crash frequency, severity, delay and incident delay when we evaluated the corridor in 2019,” VDOT said. The study team identified the Exit 166 location as a project that required further detailed study, specifically to look at the original northbound flyover concept, as well as improvements to the southbound flow. A flyover from I-95 would require much in the way of lane closures, detours and temporary side streets to facilitate construction so mapping that out in this small area without taking a lane out on I-95 would be an engineering feat of its own.
The spot was also on VDOT's "Fairfax County Parkway & Franconia-Springfield Parkway Corridor Study," and it identified the area for future improvements. Interstate 95 takes on much of the east coast traffic in the country so there are other spots that are targets for improvements in the corridor, and these may have priority. The department is in the process of wrapping up studies at two other locations - the Exit 160 interchange, which was the top location for delay issues on the I-95 corridor and Exits 76 and 74C in Richmond which had some of the highest crash issues on the corridor. Exit 160 is at Occoquan, just south of the troubled Newington exit.
The Commonwealth Transportation Board’s plan for Exit 166 is described as “improve interchange configuration at Route 286 (Fairfax County Parkway) by improving the southbound I-95 off-ramp to southbound Route 286,” which involves the traffic light at Loisdale Road. “Further Study Required,” is the resolution for now.