Alexandria transportation officials say that a pilot program to ease evening congestion on and around Duke Street is working and they want to make the changes permanent.
City staff announced last night (Wednesday) that the first and second phases of the Duke Street Traffic Mitigation pilot have improved evening peak traffic and reduced cut-through traffic near the busy roadway. The project launched last summer with extended green traffic lights on Quaker Lane and Duke Street from 4 to 6 p.m., while green lights were shortened on West Taylor Run Parkway, Cambridge Road, Yale Drive and Fort Williams Parkway.
“We did have very positive results on cut-through traffic for most roads,” said Dan Scalese, a senior transportation manager with the city. “This has been a benefit. We’ve seen reductions in cut-through [traffic] and that Duke Street is moving.”
Traffic volumes decreased on Cambridge Road by 48%; on West Taylor Run Parkway by 54%; on Yale Drive by 76% and on Fort Williams Parkway by 47%. Cut-through traffic did increase, however, on Quaker Lane by 39%.
“We obviously saw more Quaker Lane backup,” Scalese said. “Our next step is to essentially going to a maintenance-type mode, (where) this is now considered a permanent infrastructure feature. We will be monitoring the networks, not just one area, and tweaking as necessary.”
City staff will discuss the mitigation phases in a meeting at Bishop Ireton High School on Monday, April 17. The proposal then goes to the Traffic and Parking Board at 7 p.m. at City Hall on Monday, April 24.
In the meantime, city planners are also working on ways to improve bus transit — as well as bicycle and pedestrian facilities — along Duke Street from Landmark Mall to the King Street Metro Station.
Dubbed Duke Street in Motion, the project proposes a series of congestion-relieving changes such as dedicated bus lanes along the center of the road or the curb and bus-rapid transit stations every half-mile.
City Council is expected to approve a preferred alternative for the project in July.
(Updated at 4:40 p.m.) An Alexandria man is being held without bond after allegedly carjacking a DASH bus in the West End last Thursday night.
Lorenzo Johnson, 33, was arrested after allegedly carjacking the bus near the intersection of Duke Street and Quaker Road. The incident occurred just before 10 p.m. No weapons were used and no one was injured in the incident, according to the Alexandria Police Department.
“Police immediately responded to the area to find the vehicle (the bus) stopped after hitting one vehicle in the roadway,” APD said in a release.
DASH said in a statement that the bus in question was out of service at the time of the carjacking.
“At the time of the incident, the vehicle was unoccupied and had no passengers on board,” Josh Baker, General Manager and CEO of the Alexandria Transit Company said in the statement.
Johnson was charged with grand larceny auto, drunk in public, driving while intoxicated, accident hit and run property damage, and other traffic offenses. He goes to court on March 28.
On February 9, Johnson was also arrested for allegedly trespassing and being drunk in public, and goes to court for those offenses on March 10.
Baker said in the statement:
One of our DASH employees was the victim of the theft of a DASH bus while on an authorized break. The vehicle was out of service and had no passengers on board. Our driver acted swiftly to notify authorities and was able to overpower the perpetrator, safely stopping the vehicle after a minor collision without any injuries or further property damage. We are grateful and proud of his heroic actions ensuring there were no injuries as a result of this crime.
Map via Google Maps
Notification:: There is a moderate police presence near the intersection of Duke Street and Quaker Lane. This is in response to a carjacking. No weapon(s) or injuries were reported in connection with this incident. The vehicle has been recovered and a suspect is in custody. pic.twitter.com/KuVz3vJtk7
— Alexandria Police (@AlexandriaVAPD) February 24, 2023
News Release:: APD makes arrest in a carjacking incident.
The Alexandria Police Department is investigating a carjacking of a DASH vehicle that occurred Thursday, February 23, 2023.
Read more:: https://t.co/okZ0dNMZa3 pic.twitter.com/HMuejZJWR0
— Alexandria Police (@AlexandriaVAPD) February 27, 2023
No injuries were reported or arrests made after multiple shots were fired in the 200 block of Yale Drive last night.
The Alexandria Police Department was dispatched to a residential area directly behind the Alexandria Commons Shopping Center at around 8:30 p.m. There were between six-to-eight shots reported by multiple callers, and police found shell casings and multiple vehicles struck.
The suspects, described as three young males in dark clothing, fled the scene on foot. No ambulances responded to the scene.
Anyone with information on this incident can call the Alexandria Police Department non-emergency number at 703-746-4444. Callers can remain anonymous.
Map via Google Maps
Alexandria’s Duke Street transitway could have dedicated bus lanes, but it’s unlikely they’ll run the full length of the corridor.
At a presentation to the City Council on Monday, city staff offered a look at how plans for the Duke Street transitway plans are coming together.
The idea of the transitway is to redesign the streetscape to better facilitate public transit. The project looks at Duke Street between the Landmark area and the King Street Metro.
Hillary Orr, deputy director of Transportation & Environmental Services, and project manager Jen Monaco said an advisory group suggested dedicated bus lanes at either end of the project area, but possibly keeping buses mixed into the regular flow of traffic towards the center of that corridor — between Jordan Street and Roth Street.
“At either end, [we’re looking at] at design options that do the most for transit: center and curb running,” said Monaco. “In the middle of the corridor, where taking more space means greater impacts on property, they chose to look at mixed traffic and a bidirectional option. We’re combining these options for each segment into two end-to-end corridor alternatives to allow for a more complete analysis.”
Where the city could install dedicated bus lanes, that could take a travel lane away from cars.
“Right now there are three travel lanes plus alternatives and even more at some intersections,” Orr said. “We are looking at taking one of those lanes in each direction and converting them into bus lanes.”
Monaco said the goal is to bring a recommendation to the City Council this summer.
The transitway is part of a broader suite of improvements for Duke Street. Orr noted that Duke Street is the highest crash corridor in the city.
“There are a lot of real issues with this corridor,” Orr said. “It’s a central connection for our community to reach homes, businesses, jobs, parks and libraries, but there is a lot of traffic congestion that leads to cut-through traffic in neighborhoods.”
Mayor Justin Wilson said one of his hopes for the project is to fix some of the crash-prone and all-around terrible intersections where Duke Street crosses Jordan Street and Quaker Lane.
“At both of those intersections could end up with solutions that become the focal points of the project… Jordan especially because of the service roads and the complexity of that,” said Wilson. “It’s a mess for pedestrians and a mess for drivers. It’s a horrible intersection for drivers. Anything we can do to improve the flow through there is a real opportunity for us. While this is a transit project, it’s a project that could have some significant ancillary benefits to pedestrians and drivers throughout this corridor.”
As the city works through some of the most high-crash intersections, it’s setting its sights on twin troublesome intersections in southern Old Town: the intersections of Duke Street with Route 1 (South Henry and South Patrick streets).
The Duke Street intersections with Route 1 are among the most crash-prone in the city, with over 70 crashes at the intersection since 2014, the city said in a release. Of those, four resulted in severe injuries and more than 20 resulted in non-life-threatening injuries.
The intersections are just north of where the two streets converge, crossing with the aterial Duke Street. Contributing to the chaos is a right turn lane off Duke Street onto South Henry Street.
The City of Alexandria has launched a the “Duke Street & Route 1 High Crash Intersection Audits Project” with the goal of evaluating safety issues and developing designs for improvements.
The City is collecting feedback on mobility, safety and access issues at the intersections. Feedback can be submitted online anytime before Tuesday, Feb. 28.
The project is supported by a grant from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) Regional Roadway Safety Program.
Alexandria Police are investigating a person of interest after Sunday night’s shooting near Holmes Run put a man in the hospital with multiple injuries.
The incident occurred at around 6 p.m. near an apartment complex in the 4600 block of Duke Street, according to police. A 22-year-old man was shot and suffered “multiple injuries” and is expected to recover.
“APD is currently investigating a person(s) of interest in relations to this incident,” Alexandria Police spokesman Marcel Bassett said.
No other information was released. Shortly after the incident, APD tweeted that it believed there was “no current threat to the public.”
The incident is still under investigation and APD asks anyone who with information to contact Detective John Bratelli via phone at 703-746-6699, email at [email protected], or to call the APD non-emergency line at 703-746-4444. Callers can remain anonymous.
Notification:: There is a moderate police presence in the 4600 block of Duke Street. This is in response to a shots fired incident resulting in one person injured. The victim’s condition is unknown at this time. APD believes there is no current threat to the public. pic.twitter.com/LNTNKxVTIt
— Alexandria Police (@AlexandriaVAPD) January 15, 2023
Map via Google Maps
(Updated 11:30 a.m.) As Alexandria sizes up Duke Street for dedicated bus lanes, a regional grant aimed at reducing congestion and improving air quality could be a vital piece of funding the transit line’s operation.
The bus lanes, part of a bus rapid transit (BRT) refit, is part of the Duke Street in Motion project, which aims to boost transit accessibility along Duke Street.
Nothing is set in stone, but a few of the several options being considered for sections of Duke Street include blocking off sections of the roadway for dedicated bus lanes.
“The City anticipates enhanced transit operations on Duke Street beginning around FY27,” Yon Lambert, the director of the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services (T&ES), said in a memo to City Council. “The City began an engagement process in early 2021 followed by the Duke Street in Motion initiative in 2022. Transit improvements are being coordinated with other City projects along the corridor, including the intersection of Duke Street at West Taylor Run Parkway.”
At a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 13, the City Council is set to review requests for $4.5 million in Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) grants from the FY 2029 Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program and Regional Surface Transportation Program.
The request includes a $750,000 ask for the Alexandria Mobility Plan, but the lion’s share of the grant request is $3.75 million to the Duke Street Transitway.
The $4.5 million request is in line with around how much the city has been granted over the last five years. To date, a report said the city has already received a total of $87 million in NVTA funding for design, right-of-way, construction and buses for the Duke Street Transitway project.
The grant proposal could be critical to supporting the Duke Street Transitway as the city heads into a lean budget season. Transitway programs can be expensive — a lack of funding killed dedicated bus lanes in a planned West End Transitway.
A presentation planned for the City Council says the grant would fund operations for transit service for the first 3-5 years of the BRT’s life.
Alexandria is planning for a transit-oriented overhaul of Duke Street, and city staff connected to the project told an advisory group earlier this month that rumors about eminent domain being used for the project are inaccurate.
Yon Lambert, the director of the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services (T&ES), told the Duke Street in Motion Advisory Group that public concerns about eminent domain being invoked to acquire right of way for the Duke Street changes is at least premature if not unfounded.
Concerns about the city using eminent domain to acquire land along Duke Street became so prevalent members of the City Council asked staff about it at meetings this month. Lambert said right-of-way acquisition does not always involve eminent domain.
“There’s been some discussion and disinformation about what right of way is and use of it,” Lambert said. “The city regularly acquires the right of way when it is building capital projects like sewers or fire facilities… The right-of-way process is a normal component of all of our capital projects. There’s nothing unusual in us having a right-of-way element on a project.
Lambert said with the plans still in the early stages, it’s not clear that the city will have make any right-of-way acquisition.
“What I specifically want to address, with this project in particular: any right-of-way that we think we will have to acquire, and it’s not clear that we will have to acquire right-of-way… if we think we have to acquire any right-of-way, we see that as being a voluntary negotiation with adjacent property owners,” Lambert said. “We do not see any intent in this stage of the project to use eminent domain.”
Lambert said eminent domain is still a tool in the city’s toolbox for making improvements that are necessary to the public interest, but with this project, the city “wants to make sure right of way set aside for this project is voluntary.”
In the same vein of corrections about misconceptions surrounding the Duke Street projects, Lambert said the Transitway proposal won’t necessarily have a one-size-fits-all application along the corridor. There are multiple options, from transit separated from traffic to buses mixed in with traffic, with multiple segments along the corridor.
“I think it’s natural and reasonable to think about it as doing something from end to end,” Lambert said. “Multiple [City] Councils have told us and the staff… that Council wants to see ensuring transit on Duke Street. But part of the reason it’s broken out into segments… [we] want to make sure it’s clear that there may be different solutions for different segments.”
Lambert said while some segments may see substantial improvements, others may only see more incremental improvements.
The advisory group is scheduled to meet again on Thursday, Dec. 15.
The intersection of Duke Street and West Taylor Run Parkway has been a hot spot for car crashes and at a meeting tonight, city staff are scheduled to present plans to give the intersection a makeover.
The meeting, held at nearby Bishop Ireton High School (201 Cambridge Road) from 7-8:30 p.m. tonight (Tuesday) will include an overview of the current intersection and a look at potential design changes.
“During the meeting, City staff will cover both the West Taylor Run intersection on Duke Street and the proposed access onto Telegraph Road east of West Taylor Run,” a release said. “There will be an open house section, a presentation and an opportunity for participants to ask questions and/or provide feedback about the project.”
The city’s website said the intersection has seen frequent crashes in recent years.
“The Duke and West Taylor Run Parkway intersection has been the topic of discussion for a number of years and was identified as a high crash location through the City’s Vision Zero Program,” the site said. “The Duke Street and West Taylor Run Parkway Project aims to improve safety while reducing neighborhood cut-through traffic. The project will redesign the intersection in conjunction with the addition of a new ramp to access Telegraph Road.”
The intersection was also included in earlier changes to keep more cut-through traffic on Duke Street and out of nearby residential neighborhoods.
The city’s website said plans include eliminating direct access to the Telegraph Road ramp from West Taylor Run Parkway, which would help disincentivize commuters using the residential street to get around Duke Street congestion.
“By eliminating direct access onto the Telegraph Road ramp from West Taylor Run Parkway, congestion on Duke Street can be improved and less people will likely use neighborhood streets to access this ramp,” the city’s website said. “As well, the signal timing adjustments will also encourage drivers to use Quaker Lane and Duke Street. While there will ultimately be an additional ramp onto Telegraph Road, the goal is to make it faster for cut-through traffic to stay on Quaker Lane and Duke Street.”
The intersection was also included in earlier changes to keep more cut-through traffic on Duke Street and out of nearby residential neighborhoods.
Final concepts for the new intersection are expected to be finished in spring 2023, with construction starting in 2025 or 2026 with a year of construction.
Via Google Maps
It’s been a busy week of meetings in Alexandria.
First, parents met with Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) leadership in a forum addressing safety in schools, a major talking point in schools after the murder of a student this summer and issues involving violent “crews” in ACPS.
In an Agenda Alexandria meeting, City Manager James Parajon said adding density to the city is vital to meeting affordable housing needs, though some in the audience expressed concerns that added density could harm the “historic nature” of Alexandria.
Lastly, the Chamber ALX held its Best in Business awards last night. Land use attorney Cathy Puskar was named the 2022 Business Leader of the Year and restaurant Chadwicks (203 Strand Street) was named Overall Business of the Year.
Top stories
- New Duke Street development replacing car dealership with affordable housing
- Tenant arrested for allegedly pointing handgun at landlord in West End apartment
- City Manager: Trading height for affordable housing means ‘unlikely’ impact on historic districts
- Alexandria mayor to present multi-year plan to rename streets named after Confederate soldiers
- Potomac Yard Metro station hits major milestone after earlier plans derailed by delays
- Alexandria lowers speed limits on major West End streets
- Falafel Inc. opening on Halloween on King Street in Old Town
- Nine more COVID deaths in Alexandria within the last month
- Public comment period closing on three Duke Street Transitway options
- Alexandria City Council hires auditor to review allegations of police misconduct
