Broad Street serves as a main thoroughfare through Falls Church City, hosting traffic both from the residents who live here and those who drive through it on their commute. While the population of the city is around 14,000, tens of thousands more make their way through Falls Church everyday.

As more people head back into the office to work and begin going out more often, the amount of cars on the road has increased significantly but with staffing shortages throughout the Falls Church city government, including the police department, Broad Street is not actively being watched. However, Mary Gavin, Chief of Police in Falls Church, notes that police are monitoring the road on their way to other calls.

Although there are some measures in place, such as solar powered radar monitors, school bus stop arm monitoring and red light cameras, speed has still been an issue.

Jaclyn Robertson, a resident of Falls Church who lives in the residential area of Broad Street, was struck by a car in a hit and run while on a jog near her home. Robertson has lived on Broad Street since 2019, walking and jogging on the road daily and taking her children out on their bikes. She stated that before the pandemic, she would often see officers patrolling the street and monitoring traffic but for the past year and a half it has all but stopped.

“I’m very familiar with the traffic situation on Broad Street,” she said. “I was running, like I always do, I was running west on Broad Street— towards downtown. I was on the sidewalk and I came to the crosswalk at Fairfax, where there’s a stop sign at Fairfax but not a stop sign or light on Broad Street. There’s a crosswalk so I stopped at the corner, looked left, looked right, looked left again, didn’t see anyone and proceeded to run into the crosswalk. About halfway into the crosswalk, I saw something out of my peripheral on my left side and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of Broad Street. It took me a second to register what happened but I did not lose consciousness. Once I realized I had been hit by a car I immediately looked for the person who hit me and I did not see them.”

According to Robertson, only two people were interviewed at the scene of the incident, neither of which saw the incident occur, and she was not interviewed until a few hours later at the hospital, despite being conscious at the scene.

Gavin stated that most of the ‘witnesses’ did not actually witness the crime and statements from Robertson and the driver conflict.

Witnesses originally called the incident into 911 as a medical emergency, unsure of how Robertson ended up in the middle of the road. EMTs arrived at the scene and after finding out what had happened, police were called to investigate further.

Due to the conflicting statements from those involved and a lack of witnesses, officers attempted to obtain video from nearby shopping centers and red light cameras.

“We tried to collect evidence to support a statement which would show proof as to what actually happened,” said Gavin. Ultimately, no charges were filed in this case.

In addition to Robertson’s accident, a similar incident occurred involving a cyclist being hit by a car on Broad Street.
Gavin encourages drivers to be more cognizant of all forms of transportation that may be on the road, including those walking or jogging and cycling. Solar powered radar monitors can be found on Broad Street as well, allowing drivers to see how fast they are going and slow down to the 25 mph speed limit throughout the city.

There has also been a conversation about changing the speed limit throughout the city. However, Robertson does not think this is the solution. Instead, she has been advocating for more lights on the residential end of Broad Street and more police monitoring the street and enforcing the current speed limit.

Gavin stated that she works closely with the Department of Public Works and that those are the people who should be referred to in a conversation about a change to the speed limit.

As reported in the October 21 issue of the News-Press, the city government has lost 15 percent of its staff— including two members of the police department. There are currently 32 officers on the force for the city whose population is 450 times that size. However, Gavin does not see any correlation between the loss of staff and incidents occurring on Broad.