When a pedestrian walk signal comes on at a T-intersection, the light for turning vehicles comes on at the same time: meaning every vehicle is turning into a crosswalk that has an active walk signal.
A memo from Adriana Castaneda, director of Transportation and Environmental Services, concurred with the broader planning community: T-intersections are uniquely dangerous. Now, the City of Alexandria wants to make enhancements across the city’s 80 T-intersections to make them safer.
Saturday morning rain wasn’t enough to dampen this year’s Art On The Avenue in Del Ray.
As expected, thousands of visitors descended on Mount Vernon Avenue for the annual festival. The Visit Del Ray event featured more than 300 artist booths, live music on three stages, a pie baking contest, as well as a kids corner to create art at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square. City leaders and local business owners also cut a ribbon recognizing new Del Ray businesses.
(Updated at 2:55 p.m.) A School Board work session on restructuring the makeup of the Board stopped short late last night after one member, Willie Bailey, walked out of the meeting.
Board Members were hammering out whether to expand terms from three to four years, stagger elections and switch from districts to at-large elections. The work session was held after a two-hour Board meeting and ended after 11 p.m. because the Board no longer had an in-person quorum after Bailey left.
Asking for spare change could soon no longer be a crime in Alexandria.
City staff contend that restrictions against panhandling are unconstitutional, violating the freedom of expression of those begging for money or help.
With Alexandria’s consumption tax revenues hitting an all-time high in fiscal year 2023, Mayor Justin Wilson says that the city has emerged from the economic spiral created by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
The city’s consumption tax revenues (sales, meals and transient lodging) peaked at $81 million in fiscal year 2023, a 7% increase over the $76 million collected in FY 2022 and 23% more than the $66 million in FY 2019, according to figures presented at Visit Alexandria‘s annual meeting on Tuesday night.
Is the Alexandria School Board too big? Should their elections be staggered and three-year terms increased?
The entire structure of the Alexandria School Board could soon be upended, as these and a number of other big questions are up for discussion Thursday night.
At a town hall meeting last Sunday, most City Council members said — in no uncertain terms — that they are opposed to a ward system in Alexandra.
Currently, all City Council leaders are elected in an at-large system. Each Council member represents the city as a whole. D.C., on the other hand, had a City Council that’s a mix of at-large members and ward members — representatives of specific areas of the city.
At a meeting with the City Council yesterday, city leaders joked that the last time the Alexandria Police Department revisited the ‘sectors’ map that helps shape policing, the current Commonwealth Attorney and Sheriff were still in high school and the Potomac Yard neighborhood didn’t exist yet.
But behind that joke about the outdated map were real frustrations that the Alexandria Police Department (APD) follows a sector map that’s decades out of date.
The redevelopment of the Montgomery Center has pushed some businesses out of Alexandria or out of business, but a clever re-use of an old funding authority may help The Art League survive.
The Art League is scheduled to get City Council authorization tonight (Tuesday) for a funding mechanism that should help the nonprofit set up a new headquarters at 800 Slaters Lane. The Slaters Lane location will be one of three Art League facilities, with another coming into the Muse development and the other being the Torpedo Factory.
Hundreds solemnly gathered outside Police Headquarters this morning to dedicate the Alexandria Police Department Suicide Memorial.
The names of officers Jason Kline, who died in 2004, and his best friend, Steven Pagach IV, who died in 2011, are etched in the memorial.
(Updated 4:15 p.m.) A conversation around a hair salon’s paint job forced Alexandria leaders to confront the question: should Old Town stay a red brick town?
At a meeting on Saturday, the City Council voted to overturn an earlier Board of Architectural Review (BAR) decision and will allow Glynn Jones Salon (720 King Street) to keep its painted yellow exterior.
