VIRGINIA BRIEFING

-- Tom Jackman

Statistics for 2005 Show Drop Overall

As 2006 draws to a close, Fairfax County yesterday released its crime statistics for 2005, showing a nearly 4 percent drop in serious crime from the previous year, although violent crime stayed about the same. Statistics compiled by Fairfax show the county has the lowest crime rate, or crimes per 100,000 population, in the Washington area.

The FBI defines the seven most serious crimes as murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft. Combined, those crimes have dropped nearly 23 percent since 2001, statistics show. Larceny, which makes up the majority of the combined crimes, has dropped in Fairfax from more than 20,000 a year in the early 1990s to fewer than 15,000 in the past two years.

Fairfax continued its unusual practice of counting murders by case, rather than by number of victims, counting a multiple homicide as one case. The number of victims rose from 10 to 24 in 2005. The number of rape cases also rose dramatically, from 47 to 94. But robberies, burglaries and auto thefts all declined by 11 percent or more. The release of the statistics was delayed until December because of problems obtaining statistics from other jurisdictions for purposes of comparison, police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings said.

-- Tom Jackman

SPRINGFIELD INTERCHANGE

Cold Prevents Painting, Delaying Ramp Opening

The opening of a ramp at the Springfield interchange was postponed until next week because it's too cold to paint lane markings, Virginia Department of Transportation officials said yesterday. Temperatures must be at least 45 degrees for the markings to stick to the pavement.

The setback was the third construction-related delay for the ramp, which was originally scheduled to open Nov. 22.

The ramp, which will connect the outer loop of the Capital Beltway to the southbound lanes of Interstate 95, is expected to alleviate problems at one of the worst merges in the Mixing Bowl. The existing ramp forces outer loop drivers to move to the left at the end of the ramp to get onto I-95 at the same spot that drivers coming south on Interstate 395 must move to the right to exit in Springfield.