The Eisenhower Partnership is making a last-minute push to try to salvage a 15-minute bus service plan for Eisenhower Avenue ahead of tomorrow’s City Council meeting.
Currently buses cycle along Eisenhower Avenue every 30 minutes, as they do in much of the rest of the city. A new plan would increase the frequency of service in densely populated corridors, while cutting down or eliminating service to some less-densely populated residential areas.
As part of an effort to curtail truck traffic through residential streets, the City Council could add E. Taylor Run Parkway to the list of streets where truck traffic is banned.
On Saturday (Feb. 22) the City Council is scheduled (item #13) to review a potential ban on commercial truck traffic on the street, which connects Janneys Lane and Duke Street.
The deteriorating West Glebe Road Bridge, on the Arlington border near I-395, will be the topic of an open house next week.
The bridge is currently closed to large vehicles weighing more than 5 tons due to structural deficiencies. It’s set for a major rehabilitation project, likely starting later this year.
The Rosemont community is planning to meet on Thursday to discuss complete streets and traffic issues in the neighborhood.
The meeting is scheduled to include a discussion of the city’s plans for pedestrian safety and congestion problems at some busy local intersections. It’s scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Commonwealth Baptist Church (700 Commonwealth Avenue).
On Thursday morning, William Tate waited for the pedestrian signal before crossing at the intersection of Duke and S. Pickett Street. Traffic wasn’t too heavy, but Tate still waited for a few minutes and sipped his coffee until the light told him it was safe.
“The biggest problem I see on Duke Street is that people just cut across on foot wearing dark clothing, and they get clipped,” Tate told ALXnow. “Sometimes I’ll see people just running across where there aren’t crosswalks and drivers don’t pay attention. You’ve got to pay attention.”
While Alexandria’s Transportation Commission endorsed a WMATA-backed plan to overhaul the region’s bus system, that approval was accompanied by concerns that the project won’t be able to achieve its lofty goals.
On paper, the plan put forward by the Washington Area Bus Transformation Project sounds ideal to any bus rider. The plan pushes for faster, more frequent, more reliable bus service that is also more affordable.
Even while the debate still rages on over the Seminary Road diet, the City of Alexandria is looking at other locations that could be altered to be more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly.
Several streets are scheduled for repaving, which the city uses as an opportunity to look at which ones could benefit the most from being redesigned with safety in mind, to align with the city’s Vision Zero plan — though some have questioned whether the redesigns make the streets safer.
Improvements planned for the east end of Eisenhower Avenue have come back significantly over budget and city staff are working to find a new funding source.
The Eisenhower Avenue Roadway Improvement Project would add a left turn lane onto westbound Eisenhower Avenue at Mill Road — a site of frequent congestion as Mill Road leads up to the Beltway — and Mill Road would be widened. At the other end of the improvements, the traffic circle at the end of Eisenhower Avenue to the east would be replaced with a T intersection.
Alexandria officials are still working through the details, but there’s an unmistakable air of excitement from city staff and leadership when it comes to turning part of King Street into a pedestrian-only zone.
The proposal would close one block of King Street — between Lee Street and Union Street — to car traffic on weekends and turn it into a pedestrian-only zone.
Alexandria is one of more than a dozen localities in Virginia — including Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties — that will be receiving electric school buses by the end of 2020, Dominion Energy announced today.
The first phase of a project to replace diesel-powered buses entirely will start with distributing a total of 50 electric school buses to 16 school divisions spread out across the state. It’s unclear how many buses Alexandria will receive.
People in Alexandria have been setting their goals for the new year, so why shouldn’t they have goals for their city?
There are dozens of issues affecting Alexandrians. These issues are not mutually exclusive, but if you had to pick one priority for the powers that be in Alexandria to focus on, what would it be? What upcoming local topics are you most interested in?
