Columbia Pike Pedestrian Dangers Remain Years After Student’s Death

Pleas from schools, parents and frustrated residents to implement proven, low-cost infrastructure improvements have gone unanswered

By Rossy Soto, Jasmin Dinh and Jeff Plungis 

April 16, 2026

Youthcast Media Group®

In 2022, Justice High School junior Lesly Diaz-Bonilla was struck and killed as she was leaving Barcroft View Apartments, on her way to school. Just four years prior in the same Fairfax County location, a mother and daughter were injured by a hit-and-run driver.

People often leave flowers at the intersection where Lesly Diaz-Bonilla was killed (Credit: Rossy Soto, Youthcast Media Group).

Diaz-Bonilla’s death is a tragic example of a safety problem on a four-mile stretch of Columbia Pike between Bailey’s Crossroads and Annandale. With poorly designed streets and inattentive drivers, pedestrians are often at risk. There are proven, low-cost countermeasures that could improve safety, but they haven’t been implemented despite growing pressure from neighbors who live around the roadway.

Columbia Pike spans the central part of Fairfax County, from Arlington National Cemetery to Annandale, just inside the Capital Beltway. Known as an arterial road, traffic engineers designed Columbia Pike to move high volumes of traffic as quickly as possible. As the county population has grown, more residents are living along a busy road that wasn’t made for walking.

“It is the wild wild west, that corner,” said Victoria Sneed, a Justice High parent who served on a working group looking to improve the safety of teens walking to school after Diaz-Bonilla’s death. “In my opinion it is incredibly poorly designed and not respected by traffic.”

Sneed’s working group delivered a comprehensive report to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the Fairfax County School Board in January 2025, after more than two years of study. They spoke to parts of the community not normally consulted about transportation planning. One of the main recommendations was improved safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. Sixty-three percent of families were concerned about their students’ dangerous walking routes, and 52% were concerned about bike safety. 

Multiple major intersections were identified lacking crosswalks or four-way stops. Students walked in traffic lanes because there were no sidewalks. Other areas had low visibility. Even with the support of local school leaders and the area’s representative on the Board of Supervisors, the county hasn’t acted, Sneed said. 

Lesly Diaz-Bonilla lived at Barcroft View Apartments at the intersection where she was killed when a car hit her (Credit: Rossy Soto, Youthcast Media Group).

Where Diaz-Bonilla was struck outside the entrance to Barcroft View apartments, there’s a crosswalk to get across five lanes of fast-moving traffic to Tyler Street on the other side of Columbia Pike. But it’s a mid-block crossing with no traffic signal. Residents have requested flashing lights to make drivers aware when someone is crossing the street, but none have been installed. 

Many residents and community activists wonder if the demographics of Annandale and Bailey’s Crossroads, which have high large Black, Latino and immigrant populations, has something to do with the county’s lack of response. 

“We have hundreds of young students, families, and other community members using the crosswalks, the metro bus stops, the service roads, and the school bus stop in this area. The current crosswalks and signage do not work with the volume of traffic present,” said Katie Wilson, a community board member at Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets (NoVAFSS)  who started a petition on Change.org with the goal of installing a traffic light at the intersection where Diaz-Bonilla was struck and killed. The intersection remains the same today.

The challenge of getting improvements to road design along Columbia Pike isn’t surprising to Mike Doyle, who founded the NoVAFSS to advocate for improved traffic safety in Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax County. 

Doyle himself was nearly killed in 2016 at an Old Town Alexandria intersection. As he was crossing a four-way stop sign intersection, a black SUV struck him with such force that his forehead dented the hood of the car. After the crash, Doyle needed physical therapy to learn to walk again. But Doyle’s incident changed his life in another way. He began to use his story to speak and advocate for improved pedestrian safety. 

NoVAFSS has more than 1,500 members working to protect pedestrians and cyclists. The group knows that policy makers and traffic planners act on data, so they have created a Near Miss and Dangerous Location Dashboard. There have been 20 such reports on Columbia Pike between Belvedere Elementary and Little River Turnpike in Annandale alone. 

“One of the most effective ways to advocate is to show people that it's not just a bunch of statistics, but there are human lives behind this data, and their families, their stories behind that,” Doyle said. “That’s why I do this.”

Last year, Derica Dang was nearly hit while walking between two stopped cars at an Annandale intersection. There was no crosswalk, and the car behind her continued to inch forward. The driver was clearly distracted, Dang said.

Two people, one with a cane, walk in the crosswalk towards Barcroft View Apartments (Credit: Jasmin Dinh, Youthcast Media Group).

The Annandale High School senior, who walks this mile-long route every day, has had several close calls. Most days, she says, drivers of all ages behave recklessly — speeding, tailgating, blowing through stop signs, often while looking at their cell phones. Dang wishes she had a safer route. 

“I’ve never reported any of these incidents because I didn’t get physically hurt,” Dang said. 

Arterial highways like Columbia Pike pose a particular problem for transportation planners, because they were laid out in an era where there were many fewer residents living near them, said Wen Hu, senior research transportation engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a national research group headquartered in Arlington. 

“When transportation engineers designed these arterials, they didn’t have pedestrians in mind,” Hu said. “There weren’t many apartment buildings, like there are now. But when there’s a change in the environment, and there’s a change in the road user population, the roads need to be changed, too.”

Proven pedestrian-safety measures include flashing lights for crosswalks midblock, between intersections; islands in the middle of multi-lane roadways so pedestrians can cross one direction of traffic at a time; lower speed limits; and speed cameras. Those improvements often aren’t popular with drivers who don’t want a longer daily commute, Hu said. 

Across Virginia, there were 62 pedestrian fatalities in the first half of 2025 – a 6.9% increase over the previous year, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. In Fairfax County, an average of 16 pedestrians died each year from 2015 through 2023, according to the county health department. 

In response to questions about Columbia Pike, Fairfax County Department of Transportation spokesman Benjamin Boxer said roadway safety is a significant concern for the county, and it has identified priority locations for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements as part of an action plan since 2018. 

Columbia Pike is a long and complex roadway with different challenges along different segments, Boxer said. Individual solutions can be delayed by lack of funding, time to consult with the community, and studies to identify specific countermeasures.

“Unfortunately, it is difficult to prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution for each area of concern along Columbia Pike,” Boxer said. “We take each request seriously and seek to understand the nature of each issue to identify what solutions are needed.”

The area’s representative on the Fairfax County Council, Mason District Supervisor Andres Jimenez, said in an emailed response to questions that pedestrian safety has been one of his top priorities, and there have been some improvements in recent years. There was a single death in the district in each of the past two years, compared with 10 in 2022, he said.

Recent safety projects include a new sidewalk near Justice High School, in development since 2019. There is also improved communication between the Board of Supervisors, the county Department of Transportation, and the Virginia DOT, Jimenez said.

“We are committed to continuing this work, and we are excited to see the improvements ahead as these projects move forward and new safety measures are implemented across Mason District and the county,” Jimenez said.

Jihad AL Jariri lives at the intersection where the Justice High School student was killed (Credit: Rossy Soto, Youthcast Media Group).

One trouble spot is the intersection of Columbia Pike and Tyler Street in Bailey’s Crossroads. Jihad AL Jariri, who has been living near the intersection for 28 years, has witnessed numerous crashes. AL Jariri has even personally stopped traffic to allow vulnerable seniors to make it across the intersection safely. 

Despite some of the improvements, many who live along Columbia Pike feel the Fairfax County government should be doing more. The perceived lack of response is deeply frustrating and saddens residents, AL Jariri said. They believe the county’s inaction has more to do with demographics, rather than funding, he said.

“We talked with them, but we haven't seen any results,” said AL Jariri. “No one listens to us. Is it because of the community here, that we don't have a majority?” 

Jasmin Dinh and Rossy Soto are seniors at Annandale High School in Annandale, Va., one of Youthcast Media Group’s classroom partners. Jeff Plungis, a YMG journalist-mentor, is a former automotive reporter for Consumer Reports, Bloomberg News and The Detroit News.