Last week, Alexandria’s City Council voted to move forward with a plan to convert the four-lane S. Pickett Street near Cameron Station to one lane in each direction for much of the road, adding bike lanes and on-street parking.
The plan created considerable consternation among neighbors who expressed concerns that the changes would create cut-through traffic in the Cameron Station neighborhood. The outrage was reminiscent of the response to Seminary Road bike lane changes.
Residents filed an appeal of a 5-1 ruling from the Traffic and Parking Board in support of the road diet changes.
City staff said that the evaluations after road diet changes for the three streets Alexandria has dieted have not shown a significant increase in cut-through traffic onto residential side streets.
“Total annual average crashes decreased by 41%,” staff said of the Seminary Road. “Volume decreased on neighborhood streets. We’ve had zero fatal crashes and extreme speeding declined by 4%.”
Some on the City Council said data from past road diets doesn’t mitigate concerns from current nearby residents. City Council member and Mayor-elect Alyia Gaskins lives in Cameron Station and said
I know how bad it is to try and be there with a big wagon with two kids trying to get through the bumpy sidewalk and maneuver, I hear that and that’s something that goes through my head as I hear about this…
I’m still trying to put it all together for me, but trying to lift that up because how we talk about these issues… is really, really important. It’s important that we’re all from the same set, that there are still challenges that exist even with this design, and I’m not sure we have a proposal that reconciles all of those challenges.
Vice Mayor Amy Jackson, who ran against Gaskins in the primary for the Mayor, said she concurred with Gaskins on this.
“There is extensive research that has been given to us,” Jackson said. “I just don’t think it coincides with everyday life over in that area.”
On the other hand, other City Council members said much of the community outrage was driven by misinformation about the project rather than facts.
“What’s difficult and frustrating for me is the continued amount of misinformation and fear mongering that occurs,” said City Council member Canek Aguirre. “It’s difficult because there’s so much of it out there, and it’s frustrating because it’s a continued narrative that, in my opinion, is simply false. I also don’t appreciate when I have meetings and receive thinly veiled threats of ‘having a thousand people show up to this meeting’ or ‘they have no problem telling people how we vote’ because frankly, how we vote is public.”
Mayor Justin Wilson said that while he listens to community, the data didn’t reflect those concerns.
“It’s important to emphasize: data shows us this will improve traffic flow,” Wilson said. “Cars will move faster through this corridor. We look at examples elsewhere where we have done this successfully and it has improved traffic flow. I have to rely not only on input received from the public, but input received from experts who look at this stuff every day and have analyzed this proposal.”
Council member John Chapman joined Jackson and Gaskins in voting in favor of a petition to halt the S. Pickett changes, but ultimately the Council voted 4-3 for those changes to proceed.
