Update at 5:15 p.m. — All lanes have now been reopened
The Alexandria Police Department (APD) warned drivers to avoid the Duke Street and Quaker Lane intersection after a crash involving anywhere between nine to eleven vehicles.
|
heavy traffic
Alexandria just experienced a brief rush of snowfall.
A Snow Squall Warning was in effect until 4:15 p.m. Friday (Jan. 3), and a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect until 7 p.m.
|
A proposal to add express lanes to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge is getting some pushback from the Coalition for Smarter Growth, which argued VDOT’s toll lane could take Metrorail’s right of way.
The Coalition says that, if enacted, the Virginia Department of Transportation’s 495 Southside Study will create traffic bottlenecks. They’re asking locals to voice their displeasure by emailing public officials, and say that the express lanes will not improve general traffic on the bridge and that more cars will avoid the bridge and spill onto local roadways.
The Virginia Dept. of Transportation is mulling expanding the Express Lanes system to a section of I-495 from Fairfax County across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and into Maryland.
The city of Alexandria, however, is skeptical of the current plans, as many of the alternatives come down to adding traffic lanes. Staff say these changes could hamper attempts to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation, including future transit across the bridge.
After years of struggling with terrible traffic and frequent crashes, recent changes to West Taylor Run Parkway have had a substantial impact on the trouble street’s residents.
Alexandria city staff are recommending that a Duke Street Traffic Mitigation pilot — which redirects traffic flow onto Duke Street and off of “cut-through” streets winding through nearby neighborhoods — be made permanent.
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.
There are major traffic delays leading up to Interstates 495 and 395 in Alexandria, as a trucker convoy protesting COVID-19 mandates has entered D.C. and created miles of backups.
Traffic snaked all the way down to Jefferson Manor, just south of Huntington, which is about a half-mile from the interstate.
After more than 10 years in development, the high-capacity Duke Street Transitway is getting the show on the road.
The Alexandria City Council, at its meeting March 8, will vote on authorizing the city manager to appoint an Ad Hoc Duke Street Transitway Advisory Group. The nine-person body will spend the next year providing recommendations for corridor design alternatives, and will endorse a preferred alternative by spring 2023.
|
Seminary Road has experienced some delays since the city implemented the contentious “road diet” last fall, Alexandria officials acknowledged at a Tuesday night city council meeting.
After months of pressure from an extremely vocal group of city residents on Facebook, council members peppered staff with questions about the road diet — a reduction of a 0.9 mile stretch of Seminary Road between N. Quaker Lane and Howard Street from four to two lanes, plus the addition of bike lanes on both sides, a center turn lane, crosswalks and medians.
|
Nicole Radshaw is all in favor of the much-maligned Seminary Road diet.
Three years ago on Halloween, the Seminary Valley resident was hit by a driver as she biked to work at a preschool on Seminary Road. Radshaw didn’t break any bones, but her bike was totaled, she spent a year in physical therapy, and saw a counselor to help deal with the trauma and anxiety of being hit by a car.
Lead in Soil Near Oronoco Bay Park — “Research for the Combined Sewer Overflow remediation project uncovered a mysterious cache of lead along the waterfront… It was during exploration at CSO-001, the outfall near Oronoco Bay Park, that RiverRenew came across the lead… RiverRenew is taking extra precautions to remove the impacted soil.” [Alexandria Times]
T.C. Teacher Goes Extra Mile — T.C. Williams 11th grade English teacher Corrina Reamer, who teaches immigrant and international students with limited English proficiency, has raised money for a library of 1,000 books “so her students would learn to love reading.” [Washington Post]