Groundbreaking Ceremony Held For Army Navy Drive Project In Arlington

ARLINGTON, VA — Arlington officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday morning for the Army Navy Drive Complete Street Project, a project designed to improve pedestrian, bicycle and vehicle safety along a 1.2-mile stretch of the street.

The ceremony, hosted by Arlington County, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and the National Landing Business Improvement District, took place at the site of a future park at the corner of Army Navy Drive and South Eads Street.

The project, with a summer 2025 anticipated completion date, will involve improvements to Army Navy Drive from South Joyce Street to 12th Street South, including the area along the entrance to the parking garage at Fashion Centre at Pentagon City. Despite many apartments and condominiums, along with businesses, in the area, the segment of Army Navy Drive is currently one of the least pedestrian-friendly parts of Arlington.

When completed, there will be a physically separated two-way protected bicycle lane along the south side of Army Navy Drive, in addition to shorter and safer pedestrian crossings.

"The National Landing Business Improvement District is thrilled to officially break ground on the Army Navy Drive Complete Street project, which reflects another significant step towards our shared, ambitious vision of making National Landing the most connected downtown in the country," Tracy Sayegh Gabriel, president and executive director of the National Landing BID, said in a statement Monday.

The project, along with similar construction in the area, "will enable current and future residents, workers and visitors to our district the opportunity to enjoy next-generation, multimodal mobility," she said.

The street improvements on Army Navy Drive will serve Amazon’s HQ2 at PenPlace and MetPark, enhance connections to Metrobus and Metrorail, and improve connections to the Pentagon. The project will also expand transportation options to support existing and proposed residential and office development in Pentagon City and Crystal City.

The existing raised medians in Army Navy Drive will be removed and re-built as a planted median. The traffic signal equipment at five intersections along the project route will be replaced with all new equipment.

The project will link to the future two-way bicycle lane facility planned for South Clark Street between 12th Street South and 15th Street South and the future South Eads Street protected bike lanes.

One of the goals of the project is to reduce traffic accidents. The area of Army Navy Drive at South Hayes Street and the I-395 off-ramp is known for having one of the highest number of crashes of any intersection in Arlington.