The City of Alexandria has been picked for a Safe Streets grant that will help the city take another look at seven high-crash intersections around Alexandria’s West End.
The grant approval comes as Alexandria is going through a sweep of safety audits looking at some of the city’s most crash-prone intersections. The projects involve examining the causes of the crashes at the intersection and providing analysis, as well as a community engagement and design process.
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 long and tangled history of the Appomattox statue that once stood at the intersection of S. Washington Street and Prince Street took another turn this week as ALXnow learned the base had been installed in a Carlyle-area cemetery.
The statue had been removed in 2020 after years of debate over its presence. While some neighbors have expressed misgivings at the base’s new home above Confederate graves in the Bethel Cemetery not far from historic Black cemeteries, the new location is on private property and the cemetery’s owner said he’d like to see the statue reinstalled there.
A few intersections along Patrick and Henry streets could turn into “no turn on red” intersections as part of an effort to clamp down on crashes in Old Town and Parker-Gray.
Both streets were identified as high crash corridors in the city’s Vizion Zero Action Plan. The city said over a dozen people have been struck and injured walking on Patrick and Henry streets in Old Town since 2016.
About 58% of Alexandria City Public Schools students feel safe in school, with bullying, gang activity and selling/using drugs topping a new list of concerns.
Consequently, ACPS is considering enhancing the role of its school resource officers to not only serve as law enforcement but as teachers and informal counselors.
Alexandria has started identifying pedestrian safety improvements around Alexandria City High School and a number of other school campuses.
Staff with the city’s Department of Transportation & Environmental Services are creating “walk audits” with available for public review in a final report by next June.
Alexandria City Public Schools officials say that their strategies to make school safer are working, although it will take time to tell if they’re right.
Flanked by city, school and police officials, interim Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt said at a student safety forum on Wednesday night that crime incidents are down this school year.
Alexandria City Public Schools leaders will be on-hand tonight (October 26) to discuss school safety.
The conversation starts at 6:30 p.m. at George Washington Middle School (1005 Mount Vernon Avenue), and speakers on the panel include interim Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt, ACPS Director of Safety and Security Services John Contreras, and Director of School Social Work Faiza Jackson.
Updated at 5:55 p.m. The Alexandria School Board on Friday (October 20) received a recommendation to extend its agreement with the Alexandria Police Department to provide school resource officers at the city’s high school and middle schools until the end of the 2022-2023 school year.
The School Board will vote on the matter at its upcoming meeting on Thursday, November 10.
As has become a tradition at every major holiday where drinking is involved, Washington Regional Alcohol Program (WRAP) is offering free Lyft rides during the Halloween weekend.
the 2022 Halloween SoberRide program will be in effect from 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29, until 4 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 30.
In an update (page 7) prepared for a Transportation Commission meeting tomorrow night, staff outlined some of the progress made in the Complete Streets program along with a look at what’s ahead for some of the city’s most popular trails.
One of the biggest items is progress on the long-awaited Holmes Run Trail Repairs. Portions of the trail have been closed since flooding in 2019 destroyed much of the creek-adjacent infrastructure. The report for the Transportation Commission outlined what’s ahead for those repairs. Parts of that trail, the report said, could be completed by next spring.
