Alexandria’s Complete Streets program continues to spark debate among residents, with some praising its safety benefits while others criticize its impact on traffic flow. The issue took center stage at the Lyceum during an Agenda: Alexandria forum on Monday, March 24, where panelists representing various perspectives discussed the merits and challenges of the city’s approach to street design.
Complete Streets is a national movement adopted by over 1,500 communities across the United States, including Alexandria. The concept aims to design roadways that safely accommodate all users – pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and transit riders.
“Complete Streets is both a means and an end,” explained Alex Carroll, Program Manager for the City of Alexandria Complete Streets. “Vision Zero is the goal of eliminating fatal and severe injuries in our community. Nobody should die or be maimed on our streets. That’s a pretty straightforward principle.”
Carroll emphasized that the program is about more than just safety. “It’s also about giving people choices, it’s about giving people options for ways to get around, and it’s about minimizing our environmental impact.”
The city’s approach appears to be yielding positive results. According to Carroll, Alexandria has bucked regional trends by seeing “a steady decline in total crashes, in fatal crashes, and in severe crashes over the last 10 years.” She notes that in 2023, Alexandria recorded zero traffic fatalities for the first time.
However, Carter Flemming, Chair of the Alexandria Federation of Civic Associations, expressed concerns about the implementation of Complete Streets projects, particularly a road diet on Seminary Road that reduced vehicle lanes.
“There was no outcry from residents that we want a road diet on a major road in our city,” Flemming said, referring to the Seminary Road project. “We advocated for better crosswalks with hawk signs. We agreed and supported the speed reduction on Seminary Road. All of these things we supported. We did not support taking a lane away from car traffic.”
Flemming questioned whether some Complete Streets projects actually improve safety. “Since the road diet [on Seminary Road], residents have observed 20 crashes in that short stretch due to the medians in the middle and other obstructions,” she claimed. “There have been numerous, way more crashes than there ever were. So how is that making our city safer?”
Carroll countered that the city collects data before and after each project to measure impacts. “For every project that we do, we collect before and after data to see, ‘Hey, we did this thing. What was the impact? Did people slow down? Did the number of vehicles driving on the street decrease? Did they cut to neighborhood streets?'”
Kanti Srikanth, Executive Director of the Transportation Planning Board at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, emphasized the importance of this data-driven approach. “Do a before-after study. Anything that you do, collect data before you implemented the solution. Collect data after you implemented the solution and be prepared to give up and make fixes.”
Srikanth noted that Complete Streets is about creating fair access for all road users. “If you build a public facility, it should be available to everybody who wishes to use it. That is the hallmark of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s the same concept applied for roadways.”
Dane Lauritzen, a board member of Alexandria Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets, advocated for safer street designs from a resident’s perspective. “We are a group of residents, crash survivors, people who move about our city. We drive, we bike and we walk. And we simply want to make our streets safer.”
Lauritzen suggests that speed cameras could be an area of common ground between those who support and oppose road diets. “Alexandria Nova Families for Safe Streets has been at the legislature for the past several years trying to get broader authority for the city to be able to put those speed cameras on high crash corridors like Duke Street, like King Street, like Beauregard that are not within the area of a school.”
The city currently has speed cameras in school zones, which Carroll confirms are effective at reducing speeds. However, state law limits where these cameras can be placed.
As Alexandria continues to grow, with a population of 160,000 and rising, the challenge of balancing increased vehicle traffic with pedestrian and cyclist safety becomes more complex.
Fleming suggests the city should focus on creating “an integrated, comprehensive bike network” rather than implementing road diets on major arterial roads. “The bike lanes that are being created are not, in our view, creating safety.”
Carroll acknowledged this concern but notes that building a connected network takes time. “We can’t wave a magic wand and make that network happen overnight. It happens incrementally from project to project. We’re not just looking five years into the future, we’re looking 10 to 20 years into the future.”
For residents interested in learning more about Complete Streets projects, Carroll directs them to alexandria.gov/completestreets, which includes information about adopted plans, current projects, and annual reports.
