A few days after videos emerged of a mob taking over a Seminary Road intersection, Alexandria announced a new carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with traffic safety.
The carrot is a new public safety campaign. According to a release from the City of Alexandria:
The Alexandria Police Department (APD) and the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services (T&ES) join multiple law enforcement agencies across the region to raise awareness about pedestrian, bicycle, and driver safety and highlight enforcement of the laws that protect Alexandrians walking, biking, and driving on City streets. Street Smart, the region-wide public safety campaign, educates residents about the safe use of roadways. Street Smart complements Alexandria’s Vision Zero efforts to end traffic fatalities.
But the release said it won’t all be public safety education: the city will also deploy more resources to deterring aggressive driving on some of the city’s arterial roads.
“In partnership with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, APD will concentrate enforcement of traffic safety laws with focused radar and officer patrol to deter aggressive driving around the King Street metro area and will include West Braddock and Seminary Roads, Duke Street, and Commonwealth Avenue,” the release said.
The release said the changes are in line with the city’s work on Vision Zero planning — a pledge to get deaths in car crashes down to zero. Crashes have been trending downward over the last decade, though the number of deaths and serious injuries has remained fairly consistent.